Technical jargon: What does "North Star" actually mean?

When everyday life doesn't offer anything, strategies are usually in high demand. Workshops are then held to reach for the stars - unfortunately often to distract from the essential problems. And together with the strategy developments, a rare word is once again attracting unexpected attention: the North Star. It is the brightest star in the constellation of the Little Dipper and provided orientation centuries before Google Maps and GPS. At that time, when one still evaluated the own location with sextants. (Sextants, by the way, were not old ladies gone wild, but tools that measured the angular distance between two points, usually the horizon and the sun or even the North Star. The obtained angular number was then used to determine the position). But just: Today there are Google Maps and GPS for this purpose. But unfortunately not yet for executives.

Knowing the way

The North Star - as global speakers in the industry like to call it - or, more profanely, the North Star or Polar Star, is finding its way into boardrooms and conference calls. There it now shines from the charts of strategy workshops and radiates the charm of seafaring and cosmopolitan practice.

But instead of first asking where exactly the North Star is to be found, as in astronomical navigation, the still mostly male members of the board of directors and business and division managers puzzle over what their North Star actually is. Standing at the window of the boardroom or staring spellbound at the screen in front of them, they feel like Jules Vernes' Captain Nemo, watching the sea monsters out in the market from his Nautilus.

Instead of steering the company in the right direction, astronomical visions are then formulated that are so far removed from reality that those who would have to execute them lose their bearings and are even groping in the dark by day.