12. Centralized or Decentralized? (Step IV)

Diagnostic Step IV builds on the raw material we developed in Step III (Chap. 11). We now allocate the mission-critical tasks to the individual levels of recursion. In doing so, we follow neither fads nor beliefs but a tailored logic starting from the principle of subsidiarity. In particular, tasks directly impacting what matters to the customer or service recipient must be assigned to the operational units. After all, we designed these units in Chap. 8 to focus on what customers pay for. Now these units must also be given the necessary competencies to achieve this goal, because this is how we anchor genuine responsibility for the customer. By combining tasks, competencies, and responsibilities that are crucial to success in one and the same place, we also design self-control and thus the ability to deal with complexity.