Absolutely, I am not suggesting that everything is open slather. There are many things that do need tight control for a variety of reasons.

However there are many things that do not. So yes the ‘ambidextrous’ capabilities are what is required – being good at control where it is warranted, and allowing value to emerge in other cases.

It is indeed almost impossible to deny that control of businesses over their external environment is rapidly declining (if there is anything form of control left at this point at all), as the external environment is changing ever faster, becoming more complex and more diverse – in other words more uncertain. Social media naturally further accelerates this process and embracing this lack of control is the only way forward.

The question then is whether this change in external control should be reflected in a change in internal control – in other words, should managers let go?.

However, lack of internal control is something very different from the lack of external control – no one wants a factory or chemical plant to run out of control, right?! And (big) businesses face more and more stringent legal requirements about being in control internally (SOX!) – with the CEO even having to sign for being in control at the end of the year.

Therefore, in light of the changing and uncertain external world I think that the debate on internal control should not be about trying to stay in control or not, but about being able to learn about, reflect on and adapt to the more and more uncertain external environment – in other words to be agile/flexible and open/ambidextrous. This will allow the organization to stay in control (operationally) but also allow reacting fast and in time when needed.

The above of course implies giving (some?) more ‘freedom’ to people to decide themselves on what to focus their attention on to best bring the business forward, which raises the question how far this internal balance (between ‘control’ & ‘freedom’) should be shifted in light of the changing and uncertain external world – can we all be self-managing entrepreneurs or do we still need a boss?

As a side note, in a way it is the old debate between putting your business resources into exploitation of what you have vs. into exploration of the new.