Die Strategiemanufaktur – The Strategy Architects and Cat Tully are currently conducting a UK-German comparison on international strategy and the future of diplomatic services in the 21st century.

Therefore the DSM-Interview today is with Cat Tully, an independent consultant working on foreign and development policy issues (e.g. UK Houses of Parliaments). She was formerly Strategy Project Director at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until August 2010. She has worked on strategy development across the private, government and civil society sectors, including for HMG Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Procter and Gamble, Christian Aid, World Bank and the UN.

DSM: Cat, you have worked in the strategy Units in the Cabinet office as well as in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. What would you consider as the strategic challenges of the diplomatic services today and tomorrow?

C.I.Tully: The three Ds of international policy – diplomacy, development and defence – are tools that governments of all nations use to promote their national interest, namely security, prosperity and wellbeing, in the international sphere. These international objectives have remained pretty constant over time. However, the challenges faced by governments in promoting these objectives have not remained constant. The nature of the world is different in 2011 than in 1911 or 1961 – more interdependent, more populous, more developed, more multipolar, more environmentally stressed. Threats and opportunities have changed, are more diffuse, complex, and they require different responses working with different non-state as well as sta-te actors. At the same time, internally within government, there is an greater need for coherence and joining-up as increasing numbers of departmental and non-government actors become involved in the international sphere.

The capacity of governments to promote their national interest at an international level has become constrained in a world of increasing multipolarity and interconnected complex global systems. Governments face an ever more challenging strategic context and a greater task to coordinate action given the increasingly blurred line between domestic and foreign policy. Moreover, the financial crisis adds further pressure to the need to prioritise national interests and invest efficiently in the right capabilities.

The key strategic challenge facing diplomatic services is therefore ensuring it remains a lead player in a very different context. The diplomatic service needs to be at the forefront of government thinking on how to respond to these challenges. Although foreign ministries are no longer the gatekeepers of international communications across governments, they could play a critical role in leading the strategic overview of their government’s international enga-gement. This is one of the key messages in the US 2011 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review: ‘21st Century Statescraft‘. The traditional purpose and objective of diplomatic services – that of influencing – stays the same. But the Why, the What, the Who and the How are now all very different.

On a more normative level, Carne Ross from Independent Diplomat, has identified a ‘diplomatic deficit’ in the current international system, whereby groups are excluded or unable to represent their interests in international institutions. The international system makes decisions that impact the lives of people who effectively have no say (including stateless people, nations-states without the diplomatic capacity/infrastructure to promote their interests in complex international negotiations, etc). In an increasingly connected world, this deficit will become increasingly evident and need to be addressed.

DSM: Do you think traditional national diplomatic services, as they were, are facing severe threats e.g. within government from other departments and outside government from the new European External Action Service (EEAS)?

C.I.Tully: I would not term it as a ‘threat’, per se. It is certainly a change in the strategic context which requires a corresponding shift from the traditional national diplomatic services. The mission of diplomatic services is to influence others. What this means in the 21st centu-ry has to be different to what it meant even ten years ago, given the new means (social net-working, 24/7 communication) and actors (types of interest groups, public diplomacy) and issues (cyber security, rare minerals, climate change, human security) involved. What I do see as a direct threat, however, is the increasing costs of maintaining a comprehensive net-work of embassies abroad: especially the cost of security and staff.

In relation to your question about the challenge posed by the involvement of domestic de-partments and EEAS. A greater international role for domestic departments (e.g. energy, climate change, justice) has resulted in what Anne-Marie Slaughter calls ‘technocratic government networks’. Their presence makes the business of influence more complex, but their expertise is key to addressing many of the world’s complex challenges. Similarly, in a world of constrained budgets, it makes sense for the EU member-states to project their collective power through a joint diplomatic service (if the interface is managed well).

These are opportunities. The diplomatic service therefore needs to change to remain relevant to the changing ways in which countries promote their national interest – and put in place flexible capabilities, structures and people to do so. To manage this change in practice is a real challenge and may require fundamental reform. The biggest threat to traditional diplomatic services is that their leaders won’t be able to promote internal change sufficiently quickly and flexibly to fit these new realities.

The UK’s FCO has done an excellent job in changing the service in various ways:

first, integrating public diplomacy into their work, including a strong campaigning approach.

Second, flexing the network of embassies, to ensure that staff are placed according to the UK’s strategic interest. Third, increasing the number of locally employed staff and integrating a growing number of domestic department employees into their embassies. Fourth, professionalising consular service delivery and backoffice operations. Fifth, exploring innovative approaches to providing laptop diplomats, regional offices, etc and in the end communicating the purpose of the FCO to domestic departments. These are some of the ways that the UK diplomatic service has been modernised over the past few years.

There are areas where more change is needed, however: for example continual progress and innovation is needed in delivering diplomatic services effectively and efficiently, along the lines described above. Also necessary is a more strategic thinking about UK’s national interests, the nature of the world and the diffuse network of actors, including how to engage on social media, doing effective horizon-scanning and risk management and then working across government to lead ‘multidisciplinary’ strategic responses to these different internatio-nal challenges and opportunities.

DSM: The former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said as early as in the 1970ies that the subscription of the New York Times newspaper would replace his complete foreign office. What you think there is still an essence of the diplomatic services – capabilities and capacities – nobody else can provide?

C.I.Tully: Foreign Ministries are sui generis in that they provide a package of services that collectively is unique. However, when you break them down into different functions (and functional anal-ysis is an analytical tool significantly underused in both foreign and defence policy), then you can get deeper into the question of who should/could provide the services. For example, you could say that Foreign Ministries provide the following functions to a greater or lesser degree:

1. Collecting and reporting information from foreign countries back to the centre, including risk assessment, and economic and political developments.

2. Acting as their government’s representative abroad, both in communicating and delivering the cross-government policy in-country (across the full range of interests, including development, migration, counter-terrorism, consular, and public service delivery to diaspora), as well as receiving messages from and building ongoing relationships with the host country.

3. Lead their countries’ international negotiations, both bilaterally and in multilateral organisations.

4. Holding the strategic overview of the government’s interests in a particular country, region, theme and their relative importance, trade-offs and use of different government levers.

Newspaper services could only ever begin to deliver the first function, and that arguably less effectively than a Foreign Ministry due to confidentiality and access issues. There are other groups, like political risk/advisory consultancies and public affairs companies, that provide some of the second function. Independent Diplomat is a private diplomatic organisation that provides the third function for would-be or small states that need greater negotiating capability at international fora.

My perspective is that the resources that Foreign Ministries have, namely a network of embassies and a pool of experts in international negotiations and relationship management, mean that they remain valuable institutions. However, it is important not to see Foreign Ministries from an exceptionalist perspective but instead compare current performance to other providers who can deliver similar functions (including EEAS). This in turn may provide ideas on how to prioritise, outsource where appropriate, cut costs, and innovate. As way of a foot-note to this point, see the CNAS’ report on ‘Managing 21st-Century Diplomacy: Lessons from Global Corporations‘.

DSM: Do you think the traditional structures and career-patterns will guarantee these “diplomatic USP” any longer? Could you describe some areas which should be improved?

C.I.Tully: The traditional structures and career patterns to a certain extent suit the first three functions outlined, that I group together as being the international implementation arm of government. The fourth function is around setting the strategic vision for government’s international policy. Arguably, it is in this area that most change is needed.

Overall, the diplomatic service needs more secondments across government and into/from the private and not-for-profit sector. Also needed are stronger professional skills around comunication, project management, corporate services, strategy-making, analysis and engaging with new actors. Bringing these skills into the diplomatic service will make it more permeable, less exclusive and more integrated into the rest of society.

DSM: In the current debates one can find all sorts of headlines describing the purpose, ways and means on the future of diplomacy like public diplomacy, soft power, smart power, etc. Do you have favourite model and how would you describe it?

C.I.Tully: All these concepts are useful, in particular smart power, ‘how to combine hard and soft power into the same strategy’ as Joseph Nye defines it. Concepts like national security or human security also have their place in broadening our understanding of the complex and interlocking nature of the problems we are dealing with. The problem is that these terms then get used differently by different people, leading to confusion (e.g. economic incentives are commonly incorrectly defined as soft power). Any particular lens also tends to focus on one set of solutions rather than the full range (e.g. the term ‘national security’ can mean that non-security international policy tools, like education policy or support for civil society, are over-looked). I find that it is often easier to get back to a clear statement in plain language of what the challenges are and proposed responses.A model that I do think is important is the systems approach, namely to see the nation-state as only one of a network or landscape of actors.

DSM: How important is leadership?

C.I.Tully: Very important on three levels. First, as discussed, the leaders of the diplomatic services will need to show strong leadership in setting a reform agenda and defining the USP of the foreign ministry in a 21st century world. Second, the work of diplomacy is about influence, which is about thought leadership, with a strong bias to soft power in being able to set the agenda. This is about having the reputation, understanding and expertise, being perceived to be an honest broker. Third, Ambassadors and policy leaders in the centre show leadership in holding the strategic overview of cross-governmental interests in their area.

DSM: Strategic and sustainable architectures are based generally on strategy, innovation and networking, I would like to finish our short interview with the following questions to you. Which three elements would make diplomats and foreign offices more strategic?

C.I.Tully: To recap on my earlier answers, the following changes would make Foreign Ministries more strategic:

First, being more permeable to outsiders from other government departments, the private/not-for-profit sectors and academic/thinktankers.

Second, embedding strategic thinking throughout the organisation, ensuring that units have the time to use strategic thinking in their policy development, whilst ensuring that there is a unit at the centre that can challenge groupthink, can identify trade-offs between policy areas, and can identify issues coming up on the horizon.

Third, enhancing analytical capability on historical analysis, systems-thinking, and horizon-scanning/futures work, and ensuring that it informs thinking on international issues across all departments, not just the Foreign Ministry (e.g. FCO Research Analysts’s work)

But the answer to the question is not just about the diplomatic service and Foreign Ministries, it is also about the wider government machinery. Many governments have responsed with internal machinery of government changes to address the new global challenges and to address internal coordination and information problems. These responses include developing written national security documents, rearranging internal structures and creating new units (like horizon-scanning or strategy units). For example, France established various new committees and clarified inter-ministerial relationships in the 2008 French White Paper on Defence and National Security, and the UK established a National Security Council under the 2010 Conservative-Liberal coalition government. This year’s US QDDR looks at the capabilities needed by 21st century diplo-matic and development services. The German government has conducted various conferences on what a 21st century foreign policy should look like. These experi-ences make for a valuable source of knowledge and learning about good practice.

Up until now, however, there has been a shortage of policy-focused research on this issue using a structured cross-country comparative approach. The analysis that we are conducting will mine different countries’ experiences to date by mapping their responses and comparing them to gain insights into good practice and innovation. As well as understanding the range of different policy responses, we aim to understand what works in terms of political leadership of effective and long-lasting institutional change in how governments develop and implement international policy.

DSM: What are the conditions of an open and innovative diplomatic service culture? For example, do you think one could establish a sort of open innovation process with stakeholders on equal and collaborative terms?

C.I. Tully: I’m glad that you raise this question, because I haven’t yet talked directly about the impact of technology, web 2.0 and 24/7 media on foreign policy. It has sharply accelerated the trend of democratisation of foreign policy, which in the UK goes back to the early twentieth century domestic public reaction to tactics in the Boer war. Diplomatic engagement, previously an elite-to-elite activity, is increasingly and unavoidably a more open activity. Here are some interesting implications to this phenomenon:

First, polling indicates that foreign policy issues are increasingly higher on the priority list of national citizens, requiring political leaders to discuss and explain policy decisions to a domes-tic audience.

Second,  in constrained financial circumstances and in a multipolar world, it is important to have a public dialogue on what the national interest is, what the national strategy(ies) should be, and where resources should be allocated. An excellent example of this is the process the French used in developing their 2008 Defence and Security White papers. A consultative approach with a wider audience outside government resulted in a major strategic shift (joining NATO).

Third, the permeability of e-communication systems means that private diplomatic conversations will be more difficult (epitomised by Wikileaks, although the general assessment was that there was little that couldn’t be picked up from open source material). Together with the ac-tivity of social networks, sharing of information and citizen-generated content, it means that foreign policy is increasingly held to account by citizens here and abroad. Inconsistencies, differences between private and public conversations, and put-of-date heuristics will be in-creasingly exposed. It will be difficult to say one thing and act in another way. What we do in Libya does have a knock on effect on discussions about our policy vis a vis Bahrain.

Although there are risks to this general trend, I believe that the drive to greater transparency accountability, and participation is a positive development on the whole. Yes, some delicate conversations need to be private; yes, sometimes pragmatic negotiations require cover; yes, effective decision-making sometimes demands subject expertise that we don’t all possess. However, my sense is that wider participation will result in more coherent, innovative and strategic foreign policy precisely because it opens up the decision-making process to a negotiated outcome made up of different perspectives. (Canada’s forward thinking foreign policy, including its position on WWII, South Africa, public diplomacy, natural resources, etc) is ar-guably due to its open discussions given a fragmented political elite.) In addition, greater participation has the advantage of potentially unlocking citizen capacity and resources (for example diaspora links, expertise, business links, etc).

One of the key roles of the diplomatic service is therfore about setting the framework for enabling other actors in society to contribute and shape decisions and implementation, rather than a command and control approach. This is a collorary of the trend in domestic policy of seeing the state as an enabler rather than an implementer.

One interesting question is then how to promote meaningful citizen engagement on international policy without it descending into a superficial voting process (see discussions in the UK about the Conservative MyAid proposal which proposes that citizens vote for their preferred development projects). What does real participation look like? There are organisations like Involve in the UK that are experts in the field of ctizen engagement, but who tend to look at domestic policy issues since there is limited demand from government to examine what public engagement on foreign policy could look like. I would like to see diplomatic services work with these organisations to explore these issues further. See Canada25′s work for one example of what this looks like.

DSM: What would characterize a target-orientated diplomatic networking within a department and concerning external partners?

C.I.Tully: At a macro-level, an agreed regular foreign-ministry-led process for setting the national inter-national strategic vision should occur, similar to the US’ new QDDR process. This could be arranged to coincide with a new government term and any Defence Reviews. On a more operational level, the Foreign Ministry and other Departments should develop a clearly de-fined process and methodology for developing thematic and country strategies and coordinating Departmental business planning processes. Organisational innovations (like bringing together the Strategy Units or Policy Units across the different Departments) could also be explored. Joint training and secondments would also be valuable as would a forum for different Departments’ senior leaders/policy Director Generals to meet and discuss common is-sues and align strategic vision.

If you are interested in finding out more about the project, please contact Cat Tully (cat@fromoverhere.co.uk) and Oliver Will (will@strategiemanufaktur.de)

Oliver Chr. Will, Geschäftsführer der Strategiemanufaktur, ist in die Konzeptgruppe zum CSSA-Handlungsfeld Demografie berufen worden. Die Chemie-Stiftung – Sozialpartner-Akademie (CSSA) ist eine sozialpartnerschaftlich begründete Stiftung. Sie entwickelt und forciert innovative Prozesse der betrieblichen Fort- und Weiterbildung und unterstützt deren Umsetzung in die betriebliche Praxis.

Das Ziel der Arbeitsgruppe, der auch Christian Stamov Roßnagel, Professor am Jacobs Centre on Lifelong Learning, Dr. Hans-Peter Klös, Geschäftsführer des Instituts der deutschen Wirtschaft, Dr. Ute Schlegel (Qualifizierungsförderwerk Chemie) und Birgit Imelli (Hessen Agentur) angehören, ist es unter anderem ein Leitbild zu entwickeln, wie Arbeit altersgemäß gestaltet werden kann.

Zentrale Themen der Arbeit sind Fragen wie überholte Altersbilder und Vorurteile abgebaut werden und zeitgemäße Formen der Kooperation zwischen den verschiedenen Generationen im Unternehmen aufgebaut werden können, wie das Wissen der älteren Mitarbeit genutzt werden kann und die zukunftsfähige Organisation im Unternehmen aussehen.

Die Strategiemanufaktur verfügt seit Jahren über Erfahrung bei Aufbau und der Gestaltung von „demografie-robusten“ regionalen Organisationen und entsprechenden Vernetzungsarchitekturen. Sie hat eine der ersten Demographie-Scorecards entwickelt und diese mit einem Steuerungs-Cockpit ausgestattet.

Neben Fragen des demografischen Wandels ist die Beschäftigung mit den strategischen Herausforderungen eines intelligenten Diversity-Managements ein Schwerpunkt der Arbeit der Strategiemanufaktur. Sie verfolgt mit dem Instrument der „Vernetzten Diversity-Architektur“ – hierbei einen integrierten Ansatz, der Personen, Organisation, Prozesse mit einer neuen Perspektive auf die regional-räumliche Dimension verknüpft.

Für Rückfragen und weitere Auskünfte stehen wir Ihnen unter info@strategiemanufaktur.de oder 0721-831 61 71 gerne zur Verfügung.

Die Strategiemanufaktur ist umgezogen. Eine Maxime des preußischen Generalfeldmarschalls Helmuth von Moltke lautet: Erst wägen, dann wagen. Das haben wir getan und sind , nach sorgfältiger Begutachtung der verschiedenen Möglichkeiten, kürzlich in die Moltkestrasse 75 a in den Karlsruher Westen umgezogen. Wir freuen uns über die hellen Räume in einem schönen Altbau, gelegen in mitten eines Gründerzeitviertels. Sie bieten uns mehr Platz für den Blick auf die strategischen Herausforderungen der Welt.

Wir freuen uns auf Ihren Besuch!

Die Strategiemanufaktur

Moltkestrasse 75a
76133 Karlsruhe

Tel: 0721 83 16 171

info@strategiemanufaktur.de
www.strategiemanufaktur.de

Die Strategiemanufaktur versteht sich als eine Unternehmensberatung, die mit ihren Kunden Strategische Architekturen entwickelt und aufbaut, um ihre Strategie- und Zukunftsfähigkeit zu erhöhen. Dies kommt auch im englischen Namen der Firma zum Ausdruck: The Strategy Architects. Was liegt daher näher als die Frage der Architektur mit einem Experten, einem Architekten im klassischen Sinn des Wortes, zu diskutieren.

DSM: Herr Schupp, Ihr Unternehmen Wilford Schupp Architekten in Stuttgart ist bekannt für sehr individuelle und wegweisende Architektur, die ihre Umgebung prägt. Beispiele sind u.a. die Britische Botschaft in Berlin, Staatsgalerie und Musikhochschule Stuttgart oder Braun Melsungen. Was ist Ihre Definition von Architektur?

Manuel Schupp: Architektur ist im besten Sinne Baukunst. Es ist das, was beim Planen und Bauen über die Soll-Erfüllung von Raumprogramm und funktionale Baurealisierung hinaus geht. So wie bei Werther’s Echten Bonbons, „der Löffel Butter mehr“. Durch Architektur wird ein Gebäude kulturell und künstlerisch wirksam.

DSM: Wie würden Sie den Unterschied zwischen guter und schlechter Architektur beschreiben? Was zeichnet gute Architektur aus?

Manuel Schupp: Der Unterschied zwischen guter und schlechter Architektur ist wie der Unterschied zwischen Espresso und Instantkaffee. Das eine ist irgendwie, das andere ist speziell und aussagekräftig. Das ist wie mit einem Maßanzug, er passt wie angegossen, unterstützt und kleidet den ihn Tragenden. Gute Architektur zeichnet sich durch Zeitlosigkeit, Langlebigkeit, Angemessenheit und Bezug zum Ort und zur lokalen Kultur aus.

DSM: Wie ist das Verhältnis von Architekt und Architektur?

Manuel Schupp: Um einen Vergleich aus der Welt der Musik zu nehmen: Der Architekt ist gleichzeitig Komponist und Dirigent, der einerseits das Werk denkt und andererseits, durch eine Vielzahl an Beteiligten von Seiten des Bauherren, der Behörden und der Fachingenieure, alles zu einem Gesamtwerk zusammenfasst.

DSM: Was bedeutet die Aussage Churchills “First we shape the buildings than the buildings shape us.” für die Arbeit eines Architekten, seine Planungen und Perspektiven?

Manuel Schupp: Churchills Zitat verdeutlicht, wie relevant und wirksam Architektur für Menschen ist. Sie hat einen großen Einfluss auf unser Wohlbefinden, auf unsere Leistung und viele weitere Befindlichkeiten. So kann schlechte Architektur Menschen ebenso krank machen.

DSM: Welche Rolle spielen die Menschen in der Architektur? Gibt es eine “humane Architektur”? Und was zeichnet sie aus?

Manuel Schupp: Architektur ist dafür da: ”to maximise unfolding of human life“. Architektur und Städtebau schaffen Räume für Menschen. Es ist nicht die Rolle eines Gebäudes, Zweck menschlicher Tätigkeit zu sein, sondern menschliches Leben und Wirken ist Bedingung und in diesem Sinne Anfang.

DSM: Was macht Architekturen zukunftsfähig oder nachhaltig?

Manuel Schupp: Architektur ist dann zukunftsfähig, wenn sie effekthascherische Moden igno-riert und versucht, ein Gebäude mit zeitlosen Komponenten herzustellen. Dies hat mit dauerhaften Materialien, mit Komposition, Wegeführung, mit Licht und Beleuchtung zu tun, generell mit der technischen Ausstattung und einem vernünftigen Preis.

DSM: Ich erinnere mich, dass wir uns vor längerer Zeit einmal über die Wechselwirkung von Organisationsentwicklung und Architektur unterhielten, damals im Zusammenhang von Be-hördenfusionen und der damit verbundenen Neuordnung von Arbeitsabläufen. Kann Ihrer Meinung nach Architektur als Katalysator für Veränderungsprozesse in Organisationen sein?

Manuel Schupp: Architektur wird durchaus von Bauherren instrumentalisiert, so dass sie im Veränderungsprozess ihres Unternehmens einen Neu- oder Umbau gerade zu inszenieren. Ich erinnere mich zum Beispiel an unseren Bauherren, die STO AG, die bei der Planung des Gebäudes K sagte: „Planen Sie uns ein Gebäude, welches zeigt, dass wir internationalisieren“. Also ja, Gebäude katalysieren Veränderungsprozesse.

DSM: Wenn Sie die Begriffe Strategie, Innovation und Vernetzung hören und mit Blick auf Ihre Arbeit betrachten, was fällt Ihnen dann dazu ein? Können Sie jeweils ein Beispiel und eine kleine Geschichte erzählen?

Manuel Schupp:

Strategie: Hier kommt mir folgende Geschichte in den Sinn: Ein Freund erzählte, dass er vor Jahren von einer geplanten Änderung der Richtlinien in der Lebensmittelproduktion erfuhr. Er eignete sich die planerischen Neuerungen an und ging auf eine Fachmesse, die hauptsächlich von Metzgern besucht wurde, um diese kennenzulernen. Wenige Wochen nach der Gesetzesänderung, fragten eben diese Metzger bei ihm an und baten, er möge ihnen ihren Betrieb umbauen.

Innovation: Bei der Diskussion über die Lüftungsanlage für den Vortragssaal in der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, kamen die Fachingenieure zu dem Entschluss, dass es unmöglich sei, die vom Architekten gewünschten Weitwurfdüsen einzusetzen. Daraufhin gingen wir Architekten selbst auf die Suche und wurden in der Automobilindustrie bei UNIMOG fündig. Diese Düse sehen Sie heute in der Staatsgalerie. Innovation ist in der Automobilindustrie oft viel weiter als in der Bauindustrie und lebt auch von interdisziplinärem Austausch.

Vernetzung: Planung und Bauen sind in Deutschland vor allem mittelständig, teilweise sogar kleinteilig strukturiert. Es gibt allein in Baden-Württemberg 12.000 Architekten. Viele der kleinen Architekturbüros können nur teilweise professionell arbeiten, weil sie nicht die Möglichkeit haben, sich in zum Beispiel Pressearbeit oder Rechts- und Normenwesen genügend fortzubilden. Mit ena -European Network Architecture haben wir ein Netzwerk gegründet, das sich unter anderem mit dieser Thematik beschäftigt. Mitglieder sind neben Architekten, auch Fachingenieure und Hersteller von hochwertigen Bauprodukten. Gemeinsam suchen wir nach den Bauherren, die bereit sind für hohe Qualität auch etwas mehr zu bezahlen.

DSM: Der Schriftsteller Martin Mosebach schrieb in der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung unter dem Titel “Und wir nennen diesen Schrott auch noch schön” ein flammendes Plädoyer für die Stadt der Gründerzeit – großzügig und großbürgerlich. Aber eben eine “Welt von Gestern” um Stefan Zweig zu zitieren, denn die Mosebach’sche Stadt kehrt in dieser Form wohl nicht wieder. Aber was kommt? Haben wir heute eine Vorstellung, was eine gelungene Stadt auszeichnet und welchen Beitrag Architektur, der Architekten hierzu leisten können und muss? Können Sie Ihre Vorstellung bitte kurz beschreiben?

Manuel Schupp: In meiner Vorstellung ist die Stadt ein Ort der Kultur. In ihrer Ausbildung ist sie stark von der europäischen Stadt beeinflusst. Von der Stadt, die von einem zentralen Ort geprägt ist, beispielsweise von einem Marktplatz, bildlich gesprochen. Sie gibt uns das Gefühl, angekommen zu sein. Wenn wir im Urlaub nach Italien fahren, gehen wir zuerst zur Spanischen Treppe oder in Siena auf die Piazza Del Campo. Hier halten wir uns mit Vergnügen stundenlang auf, hieran erinnern wir uns noch nach Jahren gerne.

Die gelungene Stadt ist für mich eine Stadt, die Leben und Arbeiten verbindet. Durch die städ-tische Vermischung lassen sich beide Lebensbereiche miteinander vereinbaren, was mehr Lebensqualität zulässt. Als eines der zukunftsweisenden Beispiele sehe ich Kopenhagen. Eine Stadt, die es geschafft hat, sich aus einer Krise in den 90er Jahren heute mit hohem Bevölkerungswachstum und mit verschiedenartigsten Bausteinen zukunftsorientiert aufzustellen. Ich denke da an die Realisierung des großen Infrastrukturprojektes Brücke über den Öresund, an ein alternatives Verkehrssystem mit Fahrradwegen und die Realisierung eines Bildungszentrums. Die skandinavische Region hat einen enormen Zuwachs an jungen Menschen und Studenten und hat es geschafft ganz gezielt und gefördert Zukunftstechnologien wie zum Beispiel “Green Technologies“ anzusiedeln. Könnte es nicht auch in unseren deutschen Städten gelingen, für alle Gesellschaftsschichten klare Ziele zu formulieren und dann gemeinsam zu erkämpfen, mit gemeinsamem Engagement für eine lebenswerte Zukunft in einer lebenswerten Stadt? Hamburg kommt derzeit meiner Vorstellung von Stadt nahe.

DSM: Das Thema der letzten Architektur Biennale war People meet in Architecture. Welche Herausforderung birgt dies Ihrer Meinung nach für die Gestaltungen von Architektur(en)?

Manuel Schupp: Architektur kann tatsächlich zu Kommunikation anregen und Räume können Dialog fördern, aber auch Kommunikation behindern.

Das Projekt Karrierewege der Zukunft der Strategiemanufaktur (DSM), das durch die drei namhaften Stiftungen unterstützt wird, ist ein transsektorales Personalentwicklungsprogramm. Es hat das Ziel, der Silomentalität von Organisationen durch den systematischen Austausch von Personal zwischen Organisationen verschiedener Sektoren (Public Sector, Private Sector und Non-Profit-Sector) entgegenzuwirken.

Das Programm stärkt die Kooperationskompetenz der Teilnehmer und der beteiligten Organisationen, einer entscheidenden Fähigkeit für die erfolgreiche Arbeit in einer immer vernetzteren Welt. Es hilft so, gegenseitige Vorurteile zwischen den Sektoren abzubauen und ergänzt die Fachkompetenz der Teilnehmer um die Fähigkeit grenzüberschreitend zusammen arbeiten zu können – working across silos.

Die BMW Stiftung, die Jacobs Stiftung, die Vodafone Stiftung und Die Strategiemanufaktur bilden durch ihre Zusammenarbeit ein Konsortium für zukunftsfähigere Organisationen. Sie prägen mit dem Programm neue Denk- und Handlungsmuster der Führungskräfte von morgen.

Der Kongress Moderner Staat, der Ende Oktober 2010 in Berlin stattfand, versteht sich als Ideengeber für die öffentliche Verwaltung. Ein zentraler Teil des Programms beschäftigte sich mit der Transformation der Verwaltung. Die Strategiemanufaktur war eingeladen, ihr Konzept der Trans-Kompetenzen vorzustellen.

Welche Kompetenzen braucht die Verwaltung?

Stuttgart 21 – Castor-Transporte – Integrationspolitik und Diversity – Stuxnet-Attacken – Klimaschutz – Globalisierung …

Was kennzeichnet die Herausforderungen der Verwaltungen und welche Kompetenzen brauchen sie oder andere Organisationen in der Zukunft, um diese Herausforderungen zu bewältigen? Welche Kompetenzen sind für die Arbeit in gegenseitiger Abhängigkeiten und Netzwerken notwendig und wie sehen hierin zukunftsfähige Organisationen aus?

Dies waren  Ausgangsfragen des Panels. Die Antwort hierauf liegt nur bedingt in einer weiteren routinemäßigen Ausdifferenzierung der Fachkompetenzen. Woran es jedoch mangelt ist der Auf- bzw. Ausbau von Kooperations- und Zwischenkompetenz. Denn auffallend ist die Diskrepanz zwischen der langjährigen Analyse einer permanenten Zunahme der Vernetzung (z.B. durch das Internet, die Globalisierung oder den Klimawandel) einerseits und dem faktisch weiterhin weitgehend unverbundenen Denken und Arbeiten innerhalb der jeweiligen Silos und Systeme. Es herrscht nach wie vor der Modus der Trennung nicht der Integration.

Die Strategiemanufaktur erläuterte auf dem Kongress Moderner Staat ihr Konzept der Trans-Kompetenzen als eine Antwort auf die Anforderung von mehr Kooperation und das Arbeiten in Netzwerken. Es bietet eine Möglichkeit Kooperationskompetenz systematisch zu auf- und auszubauen. Es konzentriert sich dabei auf Kompetenzen mit Brückenfunktionen – Trans-Kompetenzen – als den Kern einer strategie- und zukunftsfähigen Organisationskultur.

Die Transkompetenzen befähigen zur flexiblen Gestaltung von Schnittstellen und einem aktiven Grenzmanagement. Grenzmanagement in Kooperationen und Netzwerken meint im ersten Schritt das Erkennen von Grenzen und im zweiten Schritt deren konstruktive Nutzung bzw. Gestaltung mit Blick auf das jeweilige Ziel.

Baupläne zukunftsfähiger Organisationen

Der Weg zu mehr Kooperationsfähigkeit von Personen und Organisationen führt über die Öffnung der bisherigen Silovernunft zur Nutzung des Ansatzes der transversalen Vernunft. Er schafft neue Gestaltungsoptionen für Übergänge zwischen Organisationen und deren Kooperationen (working across silos and systems).

Mit dem Konzept der Trans-Kompetenzen der Strategiemanufaktur bietet sich für Entscheider und Führungskräfte ein neuen Blick auf ihre eigene Organisation sowie deren Positionierung zu externen Kooperationspartnern und dem Umfeld. Diese transversale Betrachtungsweise bietet eine neue mentale Grundlage für die Steuerung hybrider (gemischter) Organisationsstrukturen wie z.B. Public Private Partnerships oder die effektive Gestaltung der Ko-Produktion öffentlicher Güter zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft.

Das Konzept der Trans-Kompetenzen ist somit ein Analyse-Instrument für die Bewertung des Grads der Strategiefähigkeit und der Zukunftsorientierung der Organisation. Die Analyse berücksichtigt fünf Dimensionen.

Die Transversalität, diese Dimension ermittelt, welche Haltung die Entscheider, Führungskräfte und Mitarbeiter der Organisation steuert. Welche mentalen Grundannahmen liegen den Entscheidungen zu Grunde (z.B. Selbstverständnis von Juristen, Ingenieuren oder Betriebswirten von anderen Berufsgruppen).

Die Transkulturalität, diese Dimension ermittelt den Grad der Kompetenz verschiedene Kulturen miteinander zu verbinden und integrative Lösungen zu organisieren.

Die Transtemporalität, diese Dimension ermittelt den Grad der Einbeziehung des Faktors Zeit in die strategische Steuerung der Organisation, in die Gestaltung von Förderprogrammen oder die Entwicklung von Produkten

Die Transsektoralität, diese Dimension ermittelt den Grad der Steuerungskompetenz der Verwaltung bzw. Organisation in Kooperationen mit anderen Sektoren wie Unternehmen (private-sector) NGO’s (non-profit-sector) und der Gesellschaft.

Die Transterritorialität, diese Dimension ermittelt die Kompetenz die Dimension des Raums in verschiedener Ausprägung zu berücksichtigen (z.B. Standortwettbewerb von Verwaltungen, Datenschutz im Internet)

Für weitere Auskünfte stehen wir Ihnen jederzeit gerne zur Verfügung.

Lesen Sie heute in der DSM-Interviewserie den zweiten Teil unseres Gesprächs mit Sean Lusk, Head of Strategy / Programmes, von der National School of Government in London. In diesem Teil des Gesprächs ging es um Maßnahmen zur Stärkung der Strategiefähigkeit in Organisation sowie die Möglichkeiten zum Aufbau einer zukunftsfähigen Verwaltung.

DSM: If you were a newly appointed head of a department, e.g. a permanent secretary, what would be your first steps to make the organization working more strategically?

Sean Lusk: I would ensure that it was an organization that was clear about what it existed to achieve in the world. I would want it to be able to express this in no more than one or two short sentences. I would also want it to have ‘line of sight’ from that clear mission through its activities and resources to the work of individuals. If that mission was not clear I would undertake a process that engaged everyone in the organisation in shaping the mission, so that everyone understood it and felt motivated by it. I would put budgets against desired outcomes.

There are also three simple things I would do to encourage strategic behaviour: First, I would ensure that every member of staff spent at least one day a month ‘in the field’ – whatever the relevant field was, and afterwards wrote a letter of thanks to the people he or she had spent the day with; second, I would ensure that the performance reporting cycle reported on real achievements, however small, rather than exclusively on process. For instance, annual reports would give examples of three families who had better quality of life because of some action the official had taken – not necessarily in that year, but in previous years, too; third, I would ensure that challenge was encouraged and rewarded throughout the organization – for instance by setting up a ‘shadow board’ to seriously question me and my senior colleagues.

DSM: Winston Churchill once said, ‘first we shape the architecture then the architecture shapes us’. What would this mean for the creation of a more strategic and forward thinking (organizational) architectures of government administrations?

Sean Lusk: One would need to build an organization with a ‘bias towards the future’, in contrast to many parts of the Civil Service, which has a bias to the present. (Note – present, not past – this is a common misapprehension – that the Civil Service is ‘old fashioned’, but it is often reluctant to learn from the past – it tends to be very stuck in the ‘lens of now’.). An or-ganization that is biased towards the future would have the following characteristics:

• A strong sense of its mission and purpose
• Clearly identified desired outcomes
• Good metrics to determine whether those outcomes were being achieved
• High levels of transparency
• Genuine staff engagement – reward for results, not for conformity
• ‘Institutionalised challenge’ – people who disagree with the chosen line would be lis-tened to and given opportunities to test their theories out
• Outward looking – with citizen engagement
• Politically aware and politically engaged

DSM: In spring John Kay published a little book on Obliquity. Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly. Everybody concerned with public administration will immediately think of Charles Lindblom’s famous article on “Muddling Through”. And indeed, there is a whole chapter on this in Kay’s book. Kay emphasizes the re-emergence of muddling through in contrast to the ever more evidence-based government trend one can observe and which seems the only appropriate reaction to the Measuring the World point of view. Does this lead strategy in the public sector into a dilemma? Or should rather be a the strategic ap-proach making these paradoxes work in the interest of public value or the public interest? What does this mean for the future profile of public sector leaders in a connected world?

Sean Lusk: Kay’s book is very interesting. But I think he overlooks the vital distinction between private and public sector organizations. He is right to argue for obliquity in both sectors. In the public sector, one of the common mistakes made is to define the organisation’s purpose and its social mission as the same. For instance ‘ We will provide the best education (or health, or police etc) service in the world’. But the point of public organisations is not the services they provide, but in the change they are able to help bring about, of which services is only one element. In health, for instance, the way people eat, drink and take exercise will have far more significant impacts on public health than anything the NHS does. So I would argue for obliquity, but for slightly different reasons than Kay.

Lindblom’s Muddling Through is also very important, and a recognition of the reality of how and why policy is made in the way it is. I would also argue that Germany has – on the whole very successfully – adopted a Lindblomiam approach to strategy and policy by choice. But I am not convinced that descriptions of ‘how things are’ are quite the same as arguments for ‘how things must be’, still less for ‘how things might be’. Lindblom is insightful and interesting. But governments do not always behave in a Linblomiam way. Roosevelt didn’t in 1933-5, the Marshall plan was strategic, the Beveridge plan in the UK was strategic. These were great achievements. They took imagination – and that is something that can be sacrificed in the narrow ‘evidence based view’ of the world. Ian McGilchrist argues that the left brain has come to dominate the right brain in the western world over the last 250 years. This has brought us many advantages, as we apply reason to solving problems. But the balance, McGilchrist argues, needs to be redressed, because we must also be open to uncertainty, to embrace doubt, for through doubt lies imagination and the creation of new and better futures.

DSM: In the end of the interviews we always ask the three following questions: What comes into your mind when you think of the word strategy? What comes into your mind when you think of the word innovation? And, what comes into your mind when you think of the word networking?

Sean Lusk: All three of these words are heavily overused and misused.

Strategy is the process that helps us to understand what we want to achieve and why we want to achieve it. It is also the activity that enables us to achieve those goals and, because the future is uncertain, all strategies are dynamic – they change as they work.

Innovation is doing familiar things in different ways, doing new things in familiar ways and doing new things in new ways. Government agonizes about why it is not innovative, but the answer rests mainly in the nature of bureaucracy – which tends to concern itself more with process than with results. If we were able to create a government system that was concerned above all else with results then we would have more innovation. But we would also have more failure, more unfairness and more scandal in achieving those results. It would be a relief to have a more honest and adult discussion about innovation than is usual.

Networking is what humans do – or should do. We are social beings. But effective net-working requires curiosity – a desire to learn from others and a willingness to share one’s own learning. The context of government, with its formality of role, its processes and its tendency to reward those who hoard information and therefore power, can be a constraint on networking. Nevertheless, the most effective people are almost always the ones with the most effective networks!

Strategie und Strategic Leadership in der britischen Verwaltung waren die Themen unseres Gesprächs mit Sean Lusk, Head of Strategy / Programmes, von der National School of Government in London. In Aufbau, Anlage und Ausprägung ihrer Strategiefähigkeit gilt die britische Verwaltung im Bereich des Senior Civil Service als international führend. Der zweite Teil des Gesprächs mit dem Titel “Building organizations with a bias towards the future…” erscheint am 17. August 2010.

DSM: Sean, you are Head of Strategy / Programmes at the National School of Government in the UK. Strategic leadership is playing a major role in the Senior Civil Service training schemes and the founding of the Centre for Strategic Leadership made this even more prom-inent. Why is this the case? Has there been a lack of strategic thinking before?

Sean Lusk: The initial prompt for running training programmes in strategic thinking was the introduction by the Head of the Civil Service of the ‘Professional Skills for Government’ competence framework in 2003. However, when we began to run these programmes our students told us two things: First, you must link strategic thinking approaches to policy-making and to strategies to ensure that delivery takes place. We therefore re-designed our programmes to ensure that they offered this ‘line of sight’. Second, please give us good examples and case studies of strategies that have worked, and explain to us why they were successful. When we turned to the many thousands of strategy publications we found that very few carried examples from the public sector; this resulted in our programme of research and the ‘strategy exchange’ website (www.nationalschool.gov.uk/strategyexchange) .

The ‘Centre for Strategic Leadership’ ran primarily programmes in leadership development, but these programmes tended to focus too much on the development of leaders as individuals and not enough on the development of leaders as people who are able to achieve desired outcomes (or ‘results’) in the context of the public service system. Strategy is always about the identification and achievement of those desired outcomes.

The UK tends to talk quite a lot about strategy, but it is questionable how strategic most officials or politicians really are compared to those in some European countries. We have found that the question of appetite to work strategically is crucial. However, we tend to recruit into the civil service for ‘problem solving’ skills; these skills are important for any government, but they tend, by definition, to be reactive skills. Strategic skills are what help us to understand the dilemmas facing society, to anticipate and prepare for change and to set goals and create a vision of a desired future. Our system of government does not recognize or reward these kinds of skills on the whole, and this makes it a struggle to increase strategic capability.

DSM: You currently writing a book on Strategy in Government, what are from your point of view the differences between strategy in the public and the private sector?

Sean Lusk: There are some important differences, and these are, on the whole, poorly understood. Governments can learn much from the best private sector practice, for instance in building organizational resilience, in understanding future operating conditions, in tracking developing futures through leading indicators. But there are three significant differences that are rarely if ever written about:

Profit: What is the public sector equivalent of profit? One of the great difficulties in the public sphere is that it often far from obvious what we are working to achieve. This is one of the reasons that strategy is so important. In the private sector it is always clear – profit is the overriding objective, for without profit nothing else can happen. This is, of course, too crude a description. Considerations like shareholder value, long term sustainability, innovation and the development of new markets, products and services are all important to private businesses. But ultimately there is a very good test of whether a strategy is working or not in the private sector: has it added to the bottom line? In the public sector, what is the equivalent test? Value for money is important, but it is hardly what government exists to achieve – some of the least effective administrations are among the most efficient (Oklahoma and West Virginia in the US, for instance). The nearest equivalent is probably Mark Moore’s work on public value, but public value is still quite a complex definition of the ‘public bottom line’.

Competition: Most work on private sector strategy – most notably Michael Porter’s – focuses on gaining competitive advantage over other businesses. This is on the whole an unhelpful way of viewing strategy in the public sphere. There is an argument to suggest that nations are in competition with one another, and it is true that nations compete for trade, for resources, for land and for people. At its most extreme this behaviour manifests itself as war – rules-based systems help to prevent such conflict. However, the notion of competition does not help us to tackle major strategic challenges like food shortages, water shortages or climate change. Competition does not necessarily help us to achieve security or the preservation of rules-based systems, either. This suggests that governments have a role that is quite distinctive from private businesses. We have introduced the principles of competition and choice into the provision of many public services, based on the notion that in a competitive market the quality of goods will tend to increase and the price will tend to fall, driven by the urge of providers to gain competitive advantage. However the evidence for the success of this approach is quite mixed. Indeed, those health systems with the greatest level of choice also appear to be those that have the greatest cost. This is not to suggest that multiplicity of provision is unwise, but it is to suggest that simple mimickry of the private market in the provision of civic goods like education, health, transport, social housing and so on may also be unwise. The duty of governments is to create the conditions that are most likely to achieve desired outcomes.

Creating a different future: This is the most important difference of all between the private and public worlds of strategy. It is not the role of a private sector business to change the future (though many do, obliquely, like Apple, or Google, or the railway companies of the 1830s). It is, however, the job of governments to change the future for the better for their citizens. The nature of that future, and the extent of the role governments themselves will play in securing that change is a matter of political debate. But people do expect their governments to work to make life better, not only for them as individuals, but for their fellow citizens, too. This is why clarity of strategic vision is so important for governments, and why it matters so much when this is lacking. It is also why organizational strategy for a department or agency is relatively unimportant. The continued existence of the organization is, or may be, irrelevant to achievement of the desired outcomes. This is a major difference between public and private strategy, for private strategy is fundamentally about the continuation of the business itself (including through mergers and acquisitions).

DSM: What is, if there is one single one, the best example of a strategic working government you know and why? What are the key factors of success?

Sean Lusk: There isn’t a single example. Finland, Estonia, Singapore and the US States of Oregon and Virginia have all achieved impressive results using strategic approaches. While the Scottish Government has not achieved such strong results – perhaps because of the difficulties of working during a severe economic downturn – they have adopted a strongly strategic approach. The key has been a good understanding of potential futures, a willingness to change, clarity of outcomes above all else, a willingness to engage the system as a whole (not simply to deliver services), and transparency and constant evaluation of results.

DSM: Strategic thinking and planning in German public sector debates is very often dis-cussed in very tool-orientated way which means as soon as technocratic way of looking at it – who has the best tool is able to steer particularly good. Would you agree? Or should there be more to it, e.g. guidance by some “strategy-orientated mind set”?

Sean Lusk: Tools can be very useful – but they can also be very dangerous (think of a rifle). Too often people want the tools to use as a substitute for the thinking, whereas the tools exist to help people think through complex issues in a strategic way. So while I believe that the most commonly used tools – for instance scenario-building – are powerful and valuable, I am always worried that people will use the tools in ways that are ultimately of little value or even quite damaging. One difficulty is the extent to which even intelligent people seem to want to ‘switch off’ their thinking and ‘tick a few boxes’. This is the wrong approach to any methodology, but it is all too common. Another difficulty is the degree to which organiza-tions bring in consultants to apply the tools, to write their strategies. But an organization can no more buy in someone else to do its thinking than we can pay someone to decide when we are hungry: this consultancy dependency can infantilise. Yet another difficulty is the failure to apply the work that the tools have created. It is so common to find a beautifully produced set of scenarios that have not been used to test organizational policies or to build resilience to thrive in different futures. They have simply been left on a shelf.

There are many good tools and toolkits available – mostly free to use and available on the web. But I still find plenty of officials and consultants who are busily writing new toolkits or methodolgies. This is because the rewards are for process and production, not for use and result.

Strategy in the public domain can never be a purely technocratic exercise, because the act of government is not a technocratic exercise, and certainly not in a democracy. Strategy-making must involve citizens and it must involve politicians.

Professor Dr. Michael Nüchtern, Oberkirchenrat der Evangelischen Landeskirche in Baden, ist nach schwerer Krankheit verstorben. Er wird uns mit seiner Klugheit und seiner intellektuellen Brillanz fehlen.

Michael Nüchtern war der Strategiemanufaktur seit ihrer Gründung eng verbunden und begleitete deren Arbeit in freundschaftlichster Weise. Dem Beirat der Strategiemanufaktur gehörte er seit dessen Gründung 2009 an.

Wir geben nachfolgend Teile des Nachrufs der Evangelischen Landeskirche in Baden wieder:

„Die Evangelische Landeskirche in Baden sowie die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland sind dankbar für das Wirken Michael Nüchterns, wir haben ihm viele Anregungen und wesentliche Impulse zu verdanken“, sagte Fischer. Michael Nüchtern hätten besonders die Schnittstellen zwischen Kirche und Welt am Herzen gelegen. Sein Buch „Kirche bei Gelegenheit“ habe mit Thesen zur kirchlichen Arbeit in einer zunehmend säkularisierten Welt eine ganze Theologengeneration geprägt, so Fischer. Nüchtern gehörte auch zu den Autoren des EKD-Reformpapiers „Kirche der Freiheit“. Er war einer der Motoren des Reformprozesses der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland. Im Bereich des Gottesdienstes und der Liturgie habe Nüchtern zeitgemäße Anregungen gegeben und die derzeitige Gottesdienstkultur in der badischen Kirche geprägt.

Nüchtern wurde 1949 in Gelnhausen als Sohn eines Pfarrers und späteren Oberkirchenrates geboren. In Frankfurt und Darmstadt besuchte er das altsprachliche Gymnasium. Sein Theologiestudium schloss er 1976 mit der Promotion ab. Er heiratete die Ärztin Elisabeth Nüchtern. Das Ehepaar Nüchtern hat zwei erwachsene Kinder. Nach dem Lehrvikariat in Hockenheim war Nüchtern als Pfarrvikar in Villingen und Bad Dürrheim tätig. Dort übernahm er auch bis 1979 eine Pfarrstelle. Anschließend wechselte er als Studienleiter an die Evangelische Akademie Baden, deren Leitung er später übernahm. 1995 berief ihn die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland zum Leiter der Evangelischen Zentralstelle für Weltanschauungsfragen in Berlin.

1998 war er einer der Kandidaten für das Bischofsamt in der Evangelischen Landeskirche in Baden. Der Landeskirchenrat berief ihn im selben Jahr zum Leiter des Referates Theologie, Gemeinde und Verkündigung. 2005 habilitierte sich Nüchtern und wurde im April 2009 zum außerplanmäßigen Professor an der Theologischen Fakultät an der Universität Heidelberg berufen. Im September 2009 gab Nüchtern die Leitung seines Referates aus gesundheitlichen Gründen ab und arbeitete seither als Referent für Theologische Grundsatzfragen im Büro des Landesbischofs.

Der Geschäftsführer der Strategiemanufaktur, Oliver Chr. Will, wurde durch den Rat der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) in den neu geschaffenen Beirat für Leitungshandeln der Evangelischen Kirche berufen.

Dieses neue Gremium soll den Rat der EKD im Handlungsfeld Führen und Leiten beraten. Der Beirat soll Vorschläge für ein theologisch begründetes und strategisch orientiertes Verständnis von Leiten und Führen in der Evangelischen Kirche in die Diskussion einbringen.

Der Beirat führt die Arbeit der im Rahmen des Reformprozesses der EKD, Kirche der Freiheit, gegründeten “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Führen und Leiten” in der Evangelischen Kirche fort.