Winning in Turbulence

Manage Complexity to Drive Performance Improvement

Downturns reveal a company’s weaknesses. An organization that seemed nimble and focused during a period of expansion may be sluggish and ineffectual when faced with declining demand. Its very survival may depend on determining which products are making money, what customers really value, and which organizational bottlenecks are getting in the way of effective action.

One major cause for this sluggishness, in our experience, is complexity—product complexity, organizational complexity, and process complexity. In good times, all three are likely to increase. The costs of complexity are usually hidden, so executives are often unaware of the magnitude of the problem. When the downturn hits, they ...