Seeing around corners: How are you leading your company into the future?

The “digital transformation” conversation has matured over the last decade. As the go-to solution for what ails every company, Google search results alone list over 2 billion generic references to this ubiquitous topic. In most businesses today this is now an organizational priority. Leaders accept that they must somehow mobilize digital technologies to reimagine or update business processes and commercial models to meet the needs dictated by the current state of our world. But digital transformation is broad and nuanced, and there are many questions that businesses should be asking as part of this ongoing conversation.

The Ongoing Process of Business Transition

In the classic adventure story of Indiana Jones, one scene finds our hero trapped inside a cave that is rapidly closing in on itself with deadly spikes threatening him from all converging surfaces. The heroine stands outside with the simple task of pulling a lever to stop the situation and save Indi. But the lever is covered in large bugs, and there’s no guarantee that it’s the right lever to pull or if it will even save the situation. So while they plead with her, she wavers, only just saving the situation in time.?

A similar scene is playing itself out in corporate boardrooms everywhere.

As much as we buy into the concept of the transition to digital, most companies seem to pull the levers of transformation in a crunch. They wait far too long before acting. They fail to read the very writing on the wall they’re pointing to. While businesses advocate for change, they can also be complacent, slow to act, and protective of their current organization's legacy.

It’s a very human conundrum. We see, we know, but we don’t know which action to take and so we procrastinate, form committees, study the market, and ultimately follow a strategy of hope that all will be OK until we are well past our expiration date. Sound familiar? As you manage the realities of today in your company, who is looking around the corner to steer you toward tomorrow??

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. ―?Wis?awa Szymborska

Businesses need to straddle the present, the near future and the future beyond that.?The way I like to think about it, we need to have one foot in today (the next two years), one foot in tomorrow (two years plus), and one foot in the day after tomorrow. Horizons will vary depending on the industry and current political, economic, social, and technological situation. As you shift to being a digital business and explore technology that may now include the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, AI, or blockchain you have to also have your eye on the next step in digital, whether the metaverse, bitcoin currencies, and/or what’s coming next over the horizon.

Business leaders need to ask the right questions to direct the evolution of their organization:

• As a leader, how much capital and time should you invest in each planning horizon (today, next 2 years, and beyond)?
• What “future thinking” team/approach should be used to determine where to place the next bets?
• How do you make “future thinking/planning and implementation” part of the company management operating mindset?

Future thinking and planning.?

The concept of future thinking is often romanticized, elevated as an amorphous unclear yet aspirational skill. It can be far easier to live in a possible future than a functional present. It is also equally underplayed and undervalued by many for that exact reason. Yet it can be the key difference between success and failure. Future thinking must be embraced as an organizational core capability. It is a strategic lever for embracing future possibilities and probabilities that must be part of the digital transformation conversation.

Those that fail to make the necessary jumps will be leapfrogged by those who are smaller and more agile, and ready to make these changes. When leaders push ahead, they move organizations to the head of the pack. ?One universal behavior that can shift a company forward, according to the IMD Centre for Future Readiness, is worrying less about the competitor and more about what’s on the horizon (What Makes a Company “Future Ready”? HBR 2022) and this is one of the reasons companies like Nike, Visa and Mastercard are successfully shifting forward.

Similarly, to embrace future thinking, your organization needs to actively build it as a priority:

1. Build the right culture: Build a culture that is future-focused. Build a culture that tracks signals indicating relevant shifts that can impact the company’s strategy and direction. Build a culture that embraces and rewards learning, questioning, scenario exploration, and risk-taking. The right culture shapes the right behaviors of its people and cultivates creativity and courage. It explores possibilities with openness and transparency. And it embraces social business with smart collaborative endeavors such as NASA Solve's crowdsourcing.
2. Build the right teams: As your organization restructures to support a Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) focus, it’s critical to also prioritize diversity of thinking, including future thinking skills and aptitudes. Strive for balance — to grow teams that include those who look ahead, as well as those who stay rooted in the present, and with leaders who can orchestrate this synergy.?
3. Build the right partnerships: Tap into partnerships with companies already entrenched in future thinking to accelerate your learning. From Faith Popcorn’s Brain Reserve and Trend Bank, and Lisa Bodell’s Future Think, to Accenture's three annual reports for a complete view of the future: Tech Trends, Fjord Trends, and Business Futures — there is available expertise that can help your organization to shift to the future with a competitive advantage.

The pressure on businesses to adapt and transform will not abate. Human innovativeness and digital technologies provide the foundation to build a “future thinking” organization.?The conversation will keep shifting. If your organization hasn’t already progressed on the digital transformation journey, then it’s likely you’ll be on a speedy journey to rapidly transition in the short term. Is your organization ready to align and keep aligning to the future at pace to stay relevant, or are you falling behind?