FUTURE SKILLS FUTURE THINKING

The Challenge for Business Leaders

It is no longer enough to simply react when problems surface, as many organisations did with the COVID-19 pandemic. As we have discussed, operating purely in survival mode drains energy, resulting in increased stress levels, and can result in a diversion of invaluable energy, withdrawing, or freezing. This modus operandum prohibits leaders from being able to identify opportunities, being able to innovate and take adaptive or corrective action. Instead, leaders must seek to understand and pay attention to what is being forecasted for the future, and start preparing a response strategy, so that their organisations can thrive in the future world. Bob Sternfels, McKinsey : ‘If I think about some of the potential pitfalls that I’m seeing senior executives [fall into], it’s thinking about this next phase as “a return to what I had before” as opposed to taking the opportunity to say, “Can I reset or reimagine my organization?” I think some of the most inspiring conversations I’ve had with CEOs are about, “How do I rewire my organization for this speed that’s based on design versus based on adrenaline?”’ Matthew Grainger, CEO, Grainger & Worrall : “It has to be part of the day job, you can’t just be managing what is happening today – you have to set time aside in the senior management team, in the board, that is looking in a 10 year window, not the 5 to 10 week window; and that is a challenge. We christen the term the “grip and vision”, the grip of today with the vision of the future. Finding the balance between those two things is very important... it is a priority.”

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Only 25% of companies put the development of strategic plans for the business over the next five years at the top of their agendas (Natwest, 2020). In other words, they are too busy working in the business to be working on the business – but what will this mean for their futures?

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