The Concept of a Comprehensive Management Approach

All organisations regardless of size or type must tackle rapidly changing conditions in their economic, technological, political, social, natural, or legal environment and go through deep transformations. The profound transformations of developing digitalised, ecologically sustainable, and globalised organisations call for progressive direction and leadership processes as they touch complex structures of interest that need to be rearranged or newly negotiated. Organisations need to build and enhance their capacity of managing sustainable organisation development. This chapter introduces an integrated learning and practice approach of leadership, organisation development and learning, providing sustainable responses to the complex requirements in the quality of management. We point out that in the perception of the people affected by and participating in such processes, it is never the simple functioning of individual proceedings and performances that is at stake. Instead, at all times, it is the quality of the whole organisation and its overall inward and outward performance that is challenging those who bear responsibility. We are not talking about the management of quality but about the quality of management. In this chapter and in the book as a whole, we present a comprehensive management approach coalescing the fundamentals of Excellence—as they are incorporated by the Excellence model of EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) or by CAF (Common Assessment Framework), its congenial model for public administrations, and interpreting it as a learning organisation. In a framework of continual learning and (self) improvement of the whole organisation, the Excellence model asks for regular self-assessment. It aims for the organisation to understand and reshape itself as a co-operation body capable of effective learning. Individuals and groups of individuals in the organisation are allowed and encouraged to learn to enable the entire organisation to overcome known and unknown challenges in a constantly and rapidly changing social, technological, and economic environment.