You Either Build the Future or Sink in the Past
Raise your hand if you believe we live in turbulent times.
If you keep doing the same thing in turbulent times, you’re irrelevant.
The meaning of big change efforts:
Every organization that needs a “major change effort” has leaders who waited too long to make change.
Radical change means you’ve been out of touch with reality too long. You’ve been hoping the past will return to validate obsolete strategies and methods. It won’t.
In a turbulent present, old strategies sink the ship.
Self-justification, explanations, and excuses are attempts at justifying past behaviors, systems, and processes that lost effectiveness long ago.
Someone needs to shout, “It’s not working,” before the ship sinks.
Character:
Confirmation bias makes you believe you’re on the right course when you’re sinking.
Change is first about the character of leaders. Arrogant leaders don’t change.
#1. Profound humility.
Humble leaders care about building the future. Arrogant leaders protect the past.
Arrogant leaders hope past strategies will start working again. But trying harder – at the same thing – when you’re stuck – makes you more stuck.
- Honor the past, then read it’s obituary. Flawless execution of irrelevant processes won’t help.
- Humility enables brutal honesty. Worry more about change than protecting your reputation.
- Humility allows leaders to evaluate organizations based on purpose, not financials.
- Why are we here?
- How are we fulfilling our purpose?
- What are we doing that distracts from the reason for our existence?
#2. Forward-facing curiosity.
“Denial puts the work of renewal on hold.” Gary Hamel
- What new strategy or technique might we test and assess?
- How many alternatives can we design to replace current strategies?
- Where might we run a pilot program?
- How might we invest in the future?
- What is the future calling us to do? To become?
In the words of Tom Peters, “Try stuff.”
What might leaders do to build agile teams and adaptive organizations?
How might you adopt new ways to build the future this week? (In small ways.)
Most organisations don’t have any defined purpose except for a financial one though. They might have a “Do XYZ for ABC by RST but make money doing it” statement, but like they say in NLP circles, “everything before the ‘but’ is bull…”
Thanks Mitch. Financials matter, of course. But wouldn’t it be great is we were driven by purpose?
It would certainly feel more personally fulfilling, but companies are not in business to help people be personally fulfilled working for them. Business’ sole purpose is to deliver a product or service and make money doing it. Individually, we want to feel we spend our day with purpose, but would you really work if you did not financially have to? Even individually, work is about making money so we can live and provide for ourselves and our families.
This article was really great. Really resonated.
It is easy to live in the past, it takes courage to live in the future since the future requires change and growth. People tend to avoid growing pains therefore, the future suffers, growth is stanted and the ship eventually sink’s.
True. It can be powerful to create learning experiences for everyone. I read in Michael Fullan’s recent book, “The Principal,” that a leader’s need to be constant learners and model it. Show it. Be vulnerable with your process. We need humility to develop ourselves, not humility to folks who want to conserve the past (unless it was working!) An organization needs to be moving forward. There are some treasures in the past but only if it can be made relevant to the present and much more if we are planning for the future.
Very well said.
In his book Mans Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl talks about having freedom of choice even in such appalling living conditions and severe suffering. That freedom is your spiritual self having hope in the future. It’s your WHY. It’s what keeps you going and keeps you motivated even in the most appalling conditions. When you lose hope you are doomed. It is the same with leadership, being able to inspire a workforce where people see hope in change.
GREAT Blog, Dan.
I can remember years ago working for a major company and we were just bought out. Of course they let all the top level executives go immediately, then started their pounding on us in middle management. One day in a very big meeting, the new President was condemning everything ever done by the old company (even though they were very profitable), and then he turned to me and asked me how should we proceed. I merely told everyone that, “if you ignore the past, you are doomed to repeat it”. “You have to realize what was good about the past, and what was bad, then modify the bad in order to improve”. The new President stated “meeting over”.
Now many years later, I find myself coaching my team, and I always tell them “if it’s not working, try something new”! They seem to understand but old habits are hard to break.
Thanks for your continued efforts in the leadership blogs.
Great read! You make the information digestible by any person that wants to implement positive change.
I’ve currently spent 6 years in the military, Infantry Corp, and the lessons have been many on leadership.
I think the biggest is to do with EFFECTIVE leadership. I’m transposing those lessons to the corporate sector and I see only principles that carry across that result in success.
We conduct months of training exercises each year in arduous conditions and even though we won’t fire live rounds where lives may be lost, it is simulated to the highest level.
When you’re put under such high stress environments and it’s not an amount of finance or growth on the line but a number of lives, those who don’t adapt the principles don’t lead effectively and get left behind.
I think one of the best programs I’ve implemented is after every major activity, we bring as many people of the organisation in and get every leader to talk about their decision process. It forces accountability and develops humility. It also negates that negative culture by displaying what circumstances that person made the decision was facing.
Keep your great content going, fantastic to read
Thanks Dan
Even organizations build on purpose must continuously evolve, including the purpose. This is particularly difficult in institutions, with the educational institutions as an example. Very few educational leaders believe that their goal is anything other than to preserve and protect the institutions. But even in education, change is happening, and creative destruction will take care of the laggards.
Dear Dan,
Liked the post and its contents!
The arrogant leaders just don’t accept that things are not working with the change in times. They are over-confident on their past success strategies and wouldn’t like to try out anything new. They simply ignore the signals and backfire the whistle blower despite the convincing facts!
The final result of course is painful for both the whistle blower first and the leader with a gap of 1-2 years when results fai to come in.
A very dangerous style of Leadership of not listening to your own team members just to satisfy the so called ego.
Playing out all around us. You may now drop the mic, Dan. (But please pick it back up again and write some more for us tomorrow)