The Future Ready Hub

In a few weeks, we will launch our new Future Ready Hub “keeping leaders and future leaders fully up-to-date with the latest research and best-practice thinking on building future ready organisations.”

The key elements of the new platform are shown below.

Figure 1: The Future Ready Hub

Why Future Readiness?

As we prepare for launch, it may be useful to clarify what we mean by future readiness and the key pillars for ‘getting there’.

Over the last decade or so we have become fixated on the term “digital transformation”, mainly due to the marketing hype generated by consultants, IT vendors and self-proclaimed digital leaders. But the main challenge facing leaders today is NOT technology adoption. It is ensuring the future readiness of their organisations for a VUCAD world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous and Digital). Nothing else comes close!

The concept of future readiness transcends the myopic focus on digital. It emphasises the urgent need to build modern, forward-thinking organisations that are resilient, intelligent, adaptable, innovative and fit-for-purpose in an increasingly volatile world – a world characterised by geopolitical tensions, supply chain problems, environmental challenges, people well-being, inclusion and technological revolutions such as AI.

Our extensive review of the relevant literature in this area has identified two prerequisites and six key pillars of future readiness.

The Prerequisites

Two critical prerequisites set the foundation:

Be Radical

Tinkering and incremental improvements are no longer sufficient in an era of pervasive uncertainty. More radical, scorched earth approaches are required. Even “out-of-the-box’ thinking has had its day. We need to throw out the box itself; challenge the status quo ('the way we do things around here); undertake an honest self-evaluation of our organisation's future readiness across all value chain activities; re-energise and re-launch for the future.

Avoid Digital Myopia

As mentioned briefly above, and drawing from Theodore Levitt's concept of marketing myopia, there is an urgent need to stop using the term “digital” transformation*. Digital on its own solves nothing! Indeed, the main reason for the very high failure rate of so-called digital transformation programmes is the overemphasis on technology at the expense of addressing organisational, cultural, people and leadership barriers to change.

Becoming future ready requires the integration and coordination of strategy, people, organisation, culture, orchestration and leadership, as well as technology.?Your organisation’s future ready strategy and roadmap should provide equal attention to these non-technology success factors.

*Please see our previous post where we list ten main reasons why we should stop using the term digital transformation – Goodbye Digital Transformation.

The Six Pillars of Future Readiness

Based on the above, the future readiness of your organisation depends on the coordination and integration of six key pillars as shown below:

Figure 2: The Six Key Pillars of Future Readiness

Know your Starting Point

The starting point in building a future ready organisation is ‘to know your starting point’. This requires action in four main areas:

• Sensemaking - recognise that stability is no longer the norm, and embrace continuous change by establishing an effective sensemaking system that monitors and makes sense of the disruptive trends impacting your industry; the potential impact of these trends on your organisation.
• Digital Landscape Analysis - identify and monitor the main disruptive technologies impacting your industry; the opportunities and threats presented especially in three main areas - how you engage with customers; how you operate internally; and your underlying business model - now and in the future.
• Future Readiness Assessment – undertake an honest self-evaluation of the future readiness of your organisation covering strategy, structure, people, culture, digital, orchestration, and leadership as discussed in more detail below.
• Radical Scenario Planning – prepare forward-looking radical scenarios for your industry, and your organisation. Gen AI tools are useful in this respect.

Strategic Readiness

Once you have made sense of a VUCAD world, and the opportunities and threats presented, the next step in building a future ready organisation is to undertake a blue-ocean, forward-thinking, future-looking reassessment of your core strategy and underlying business model.

In an era of pervasive uncertainty, the assumption of stability built into traditional approaches to strategy development and strategic management no longer applies. With the threat of disruption coming from many different directions, the essence of strategy now is how to transform, expect the unexpected, adapt, and rebound quickly to unanticipated shocks, taking advantage of unforeseen opportunities.

Key questions to address include:

• Is your current strategy and underlying business model future-proof?
• Can you withstand the tests of a rapidly evolving marketplace?
• What aspects of strategy need to be eliminated or reduced?
• What aspects need to be raised or created?
• How would your organisation respond to a well-funded new market entrant disrupting your industry?

An honest self-evaluation of the future strategic readiness of your organisation provides a strong foundation for developing a forward-thinking and forward-looking strategic blueprint for thriving in an era of pervasive uncertainty.

Organisation, People & Culture (OPC)

Future ready strategies and business models require future ready organisational structures, future ready people and future ready cultures. Especially in a world of pervasive change, traditional top-down power structures, rule-choked people and cultures have become a liability — see?Gary Hamel’s work on Humanocracy.

The third key pillar in ensuring future readiness is to undertake an OPC Dexterity Audit - an honest self-evaluation of your organisation’s structure, people and cultural readiness for the new future of work. This will provide a solid foundation for excising the legacy structures, management thinking and cultures that stifle innovation, agility and flexibility; replacing them with something better - an agile, modern, intelligent, human-focused, purpose-driven, future ready organisation.

Digital Mastery

Although digital on its own is not enough, as argued above, leveraging the full potential of existing and emerging technologies remains critical to achieving future readiness.

The fourth key pillar is to undertake a Digital Mastery Assessment - an honest self-evaluation of your organisation’s digital readiness benchmarked against the rapid pace of technology change taking place. This will provide a strong foundation for developing a forward-thinking and forward-looking digital blueprint for thriving in an era of digital and AI disruption.

Your Digital Mastery Assessment should cover three main areas:

• Internal Digital - the use of digital technologies internally to improve operating efficiency, reduce costs, building an agile, fast-moving, responsive, collaborative, intelligent workplace fit for purpose in an era of turbulent change.
• External Digital - the use of digital technology and social media for external customer engagement; enhancing the customer experience; for sales and marketing; and supporting more rapid business growth, including internationalisation.
• Business Model - the impact of digital disruption on your organisation’s core strategy and underlying business model as explained previously.

Orchestrating the Transformation

With failure rates of 70 percent or more, does your organisation have the orchestration capabilities to implement successful transformation programmes, overcoming the many barriers and obstacles to becoming future ready?

These could include legacy management thinking and legacy technology; organisational inertia; resistance to change; fear; lack of awareness and understanding; bureaucracy; hierarchy; people; culture; time; resources; leadership; and change fatigue.

An honest self-evaluation of your organisation’s ability to orchestrate a successful transformation, the main barriers and obstacles to be overcome, will help you to develop a roadmap and action plan for ‘getting there’.

Leadership

Future ready organisations require future ready leaders. The final building block is to ensure that your organisation has the leadership dexterity to survive and prosper in an era of pervasive uncertainty.

What leadership improvements, at all levels, are required to build a future ready organisation? Is a new breed of leader urgently required? What leadership traits and approaches in your organisation are eroding, enduring or emerging in the new future of work? Is it time to reimagine the whole concept of leadership itself for a VUCAD world?

A Leadership Dexterity Audit - an honest self-evaluation of the gap that exists in your organisation’s current leadership will provide a strong foundation for developing a forward-thinking and forward-looking approach to future ready leadership development.

Successful transformation requires effective leadership capable of orchestrating complex change initiatives. This involves overcoming entrenched management practices and cultural barriers that impede progress.

PLEASE NOTE: A very broad definition of the term ‘leadership’ is being used here not just the most senior people in your organisation. In an era of pervasive uncertainty everyone, at every level, has a leadership role to play.

Conclusion

In an era of pervasive uncertainty, the concept of future readiness has never been more critical. Organisations need to radically rethink their core strategy and underlying business model; avoid the pitfalls of digital myopia; and build on the six pillars that underpin future readiness. By doing so, they can re-energise and re-launch their operations for a VUCAD world.

The journey to becoming future ready is ongoing and multifaceted. It demands a departure from conventional wisdom and an embrace of new paradigms that will define success in the years to come.

The mission of our new Future Ready Hub & Community Platform is to keep leaders fully informed of the latest news, research and best-practice thinking in this area.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like access to a free 14-day trial.

As always, comments and feedback are very welcome.

Take care.

Jim H