About Travelling in the Unknown in the Nineteenth Century and Today: A Pattern for Leadership and Management in a 3-P-Model Context

Peter Wollmann and Reto Püringer explain some basic concepts for travelling organizations, meaning which different types of “travelling” exist, the specifics for journeys into unknown and dangerous areas (which is the most demanding category), which kind of leadership and management travelling organizations need, which mindset and capabilities are required in a team, how teams should be composed, which measurements in blurring situations are still helpful, and which are superfluous as well as how to cope with the lack of control in these situations. It turns out that the expeditions to explore—the mostly unknown—Africa in the nineteenth century deliver perfect analogies and examples for journeys into unknown and dangerous areas, very different to safe movements in the simple, certain, and easily predictable world before VUCA and before the new realities with which we are confronted today. To design an upcoming journey, it is therefore very helpful to understand which type of travelling a team does and which demands are connected with it. This allows one to prepare the journey based on learnings using analogies and examples which help to describe what the journey will mean in detail and enable the necessary decisions to be made in terms of travel approach, composition of the team, etc.