Seeing the future . . .
SEE the future squarely because you will be living there for some time to come. The future is already here and it does not understand the petty complaints, gains, pride and blindness of the past and present. Seeing the future is not easy, yet not taking any steps towards it is not a wise or strategic move.
Thinking like an ostrich is banking pain into the future. No matter how much the future is ignored it will not go away. Thinking like a bat, is positioning oneself for accidents.
Flying blind, not looking at the talking signals is not a way of dating destiny. Eagle thinking makes a difference and could be an important plan for rescuing the future. Eagles fly high, see far and stalk their prey. When it is time for action they move with speed and focus.
Do not waste time playing with turkeys when you are an eagle; you will likely not learn much.
It is when things are hazy that you need to rise above the pedestrian complaints of the crowd. Vision will elevate your action and define your path.
Ostrich thinking
The ostrich is a majestic bird. It can run fast and yet it has a strange and uncanny habit of burying its head in the sand. Perhaps out of habit it does not wish to see or hear any evil.
Being in denial keeps you locked in the past.
Reality does not change because it has been ignored. Greatness requires you to look at the brutal realities and yet not lose the hope of the future.
Change does not bear pretence with kindness and false clemency complaining is not strategy execution.
Negativity at an industrial scale is not a helpful strategic move. Silent complaining about change does not change anything or improve much.
Being in denial leaves you frozen in time. Quit thinking like and behaving like an ostrich.
Get your head up, smell the coffee and see the disruptions and inflexions happening in your space.
Disruptions are happening all the time and they are big sudden changes that affect how things operate.
Disruptions can arise from a change in legislation, environmental changes, technological shifts, changes in demographics or other important factors. Some of the changes happen without fanfare and yet with far reaching consequences.
Keep watching out for turbulence and change that could affect you.
Keep looking at the signals that are talking. Some of the disruption starts as little blips on the map and then suddenly overwhelm everything.
Change does not fellowship with the unprepared. Inflexions are grand episodes that dramatically shift elements of your activities and challenge your beliefs and assumptions about the way things work. Inflexions are rule-breaking changes, they are 10-times shifts. The technology space is littered with series of inflexion points. Seeing them coming allows you to make the necessary changes and shifts.
See around corners
It is not enough, bemused to look to remain frozen in time. The most important thing is to see. Looking around corners helps you adjust your strategy, change your model and rethink what you are doing. In 2019, Ms. Rita McGrath wrote a book entitled: “Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen”.
In her book she advises that organisations must avoid blind-spots by taking some pre-emptive initiatives. Seeing around corners takes work and effort.
It takes looking at some early warnings, looking out for weak signals and thinking through them. It takes realising that clients are not hostages and that the past is not a seal of the future. It takes creating a plan to learn fast and adopting agile leader-ship.
Get the building out
Most people work in some building or facility.
The building is an inspiring place to work in. After some time it gets familiar. The temptation is that at times its walls become a prison and a limitation. Inside one’s building and environment you stop seeing even the obvious changes.
Insides one’s castle you cannot see the dangers that are riding in your way to take your castle.
Get the building out of your thinking by getting out of the building to really see reality.
Reality as reported does not usually look like reality on the ground.
Stop locking yourself in the forever familiar and thinking that the world looks like your village.
Operate in the clouds but challenge yourself to be grounded in the soil of reality. Fearing reality leaves you vulnerable to change. It is important to engage in honest and open-minded dialogue.
It is not enough to talk to those who sing our victories and repeat our eulogies. These see the past and their part in the theatre. It is important to talk to the future that is happening now.
Take a good glance at reality and what is happening in the now.
Fire only double engines
One engine is not safe enough to drive precision equipment like planes. For them, the other support engine has to be on standby and ready to take over in the case of failure of the running engine. Life is a constant mobile.
There is no time to stop and change tyres. You have to change the tyres while in motion.
In seeing the future and navigating towards it, consider working with the metaphor of Engine 1 and Engine 2 as a mental model.
This type of thinking allows you to reposition today’s business while creating the future.
Engine 1 is about winning in the current battlefield and repositioning the current work to maximise resilience.
Simply because someone is talking about grand technology disruptions that does not mean that you drop everything you are doing and running into the dark and uncertain future.
The future is ruthless with the impatient and unthinking.
Resilience is learnt, strengthened and built through deliberation action. It is the ability to demonstrate toughness, bounce, grow despite challenge, connect despite friction, and flow despite opposing pressure.
Building resilience in the Engine 1 (shortterm) horizon is critical and important. A resilience strategy is as important as any other important initiative. Resilience aims at building the capacity to adapt to change and stress.
Engine 2 is the long term thinking work of playing in the new and different normal. This re-quires different platforms, mindsets and rules.
Engine 2 is about playing in a totally transformed environment and shifted context.
Funding and resourcing huge change is a challenging task. It requires identifying clear and impactful journeys to undertake. The future comes gradually but not in a day.
Moving from Engine 1 to Engine 2 will require developing new capabilities that you never had.
Disruptive change will never accept resources as an excuse for doing nothing. This issue goes beyond resources. Some resourced organisations have placed wrong bets and found themselves in unpleasant places.
What we do, how we do it
Seeing the future challenges you in two important dimensions. What you do and how you do it.
When change comes you cannot keep doing what you were doing and expect different results. How you do what you do must speak to the future and change.
Playing a new game by old rules leaves you stuck and frustrated. Review your methods and your models.
R. Buckminster Fuller was asked about how hard it was to implement change. How one has to deal with the opposing forces that are untamed and cannot see the importance of the change.
His view was: “You never make any progress by fighting the existing models. Instead you build a new model that is so superior to the current, so much that you make the old obsolete.” That was great insight.
Try returning to the days of no mobile phones, black and white TV and ledger books. Change is not always an energy, it is failing to change that is.
Committed to your greatness.
◆ Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, au-thor, and growth mentor. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: mkamwendo@gmail.com and His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com