Effectuation − A new way of thinking and acting

The VUCA* world, especially due to the corona crisis, demands more drastically than ever to deal with the unpredictable and to adapt to new circumstances. Effectuation responds to this challenge and offers various possibilities to meet uncertainties. The term "Effectuation" originated during research into patterns of conduct and thought of successful entrepreneurs and stands for an independent way of thinking and acting. Hauser ONE would like to demonstrate you this new approach and support you in implementing it step by step in your everyday life. In times of great uncertainty, Effectuation demonstrates various principles and approaches to help you act quickly − both for your corporate culture and for your own personal development.

The four basic principles give a first deeper insight into Effectuation:

• The Bird in Hand Principle - Who am I? What am I capable of? Who do I know? Instead of setting goals and provide the required resources, an Effectuator reflects on the available resources and considers what could possibly be achieved with them.
• Affordable loss − Failure is seen as part of the path if the resulting loss is beforehand considered as affordable.
• Lemonade ("When life gives you lemons, make lemonade") − Future events are not considered as a risk, we should rather try to incorporate these coincidences and see them as an opportunity to adapt or redirect our path.
• Crazy Quilt − Effectuation means establishing partnerships without thinking about the potential benefits of this relationship. Rather, it is about putting all resources into one pot and see what might come out of it.

Hauser ONE accompanies you in embedding Effectuation in a sustainable way:

• Understanding Effectuation as a new approach in addition to classical management and reflecting this approach together overlooking your own situation
• Reflecting upon your patterns of conduct and thought and questioning with focus on the Effectuation principles
• Analyse and determine fields of action for embedding Effectuation within the company or within the personal context
• Development and continuous readjustment of concrete first action steps for the implementation of Effectuation
• Promotion of self-efficacy and self-organisation during the application of Effectuation within your company or personal context and accompanying the process until its independent realization

* VUCA = Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous

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Dr. Regina Hauser is Effectuation Expert for entrepreneurial handling of uncertainty