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The Big Picture of Business – The Future Has Moved… and Left No Forwarding Address.

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Futurism is one of the most misunderstood concepts. It is not about gazing into crystal balls or reading tea leaves. It is not about vendor ‘solutions’ that quickly apply band-aid surgery toward organizational symptoms. Futurism is not an academic exercise that borders on the esoteric or gets stuck in the realm of hypothesis.

Futurism is an all-encompassing concept that must look at all aspects of the organization… first at the Big Picture and then at the pieces as they relate to the whole. One plans for business success through careful strategy.

Futurism is a connected series of strategies, methodologies and actions which will poise any organization to weather the forces of change. It is an ongoing process of evaluation, planning, tactical actions and benchmarking accomplishments. Futurism is a continuum of thinking and reasoning skills, judicious activities, shared leadership and an accent upon ethics and quality.

Quotes on The Future

  • “The future ain’t what it used to be.” Yogi Berra
  • “The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.” Robert F. Kennedy
  • “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Albert Einstein
  • “Tomorrow is another day.” Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
  • “The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.” W. Somerset Maugham
  • “You ain’t heard nothing yet, folks.” Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927)
  • “I like the dreams of the future better that the history of the past.” Thomas Jefferson
  • “The fellow who can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.” Will Rogers
  • “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke, Technology and the Future
  • “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Alan Kay
  • “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” Abraham Lincoln
  • “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” Graham Greene
  • “Upper classes are a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.” Ayn Rand
  • “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” Winston Churchill
  • “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” Malcolm X””
  • “All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.” Benjamin Franklin
  • “It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.” Bertrand Russell
  • “Many people think that if they were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don’t put off being happy until some future date.” Dale Carnegie
  • “Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. In is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and a manly heart.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Futurism, The Future

I offer nine of my own definitions for the process of capturing and building a shared Vision for organizations to chart their next 10+ years. Each one gets progressively more sophisticated:

  1. Futurism: what you will do and become… rather than what it is to be. What you can and are committed to accomplishing…rather than what mysteriously lies ahead.
  2. Futurism: leaders and organizations taking personal responsibility and accountability for what happens. Abdicating to someone or something else does not constitute Futurism and, in fact, sets the organization backward.
  3. Futurism: learns from and benefits from the past… a powerful teaching tool. Yesterdayism means giving new definitions to old ideas…giving new meanings to familiar premises. One must understand events, cycles, trends and subtle nuances because they will recur.
  4. Futurism: seeing clearly your perspectives and those of others. Capitalizing upon change, rather than becoming a by-product of it. Recognizing what change is and what it can do for your organization.
  5. Futurism: an ongoing quest toward wisdom. Commitments to learning, which creates knowledge, which inspire insights, which culminate in wisdom. It is more than just being taught or informed.
  6. Futurism: ideas that inspire, manage and benchmark change. The ingredients may include such sophisticated business concepts as change management, crisis management and preparedness, streamlining operations, empowerment of people, marketplace development, organizational evolution and vision.
  7. Futurism: developing thinking and reasoning skills, rather than dwelling just upon techniques and processes. The following concepts do not constitute Futurism by themselves: sales, technology, re-engineering, marketing, research, training, operations, administration. They are pieces of a much larger mosaic and should be seen as such. Futurism embodies thought processes that create and energize the mosaic.
  8. Futurism: watching other people changing and capitalizing upon it. Understanding from where we came, in order to posture where we are headed. Creating organizational vision, which sets the stage for all activities, processes, accomplishments and goals. Efforts must be realistic, and all must be held accountable.
  9. Futurism: the foresight to develop hindsight that creates insight into the future.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

Trait-centred Leadership vs. Servant Leadership

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I’m a dancer. When I studied the Argentine Tango there was a foundational rule that I believe is true for all leaders: The leader opens the door for the follower to pass through, and the leader then follows. If anyone notices the leader, he’s not doing his job. The goal is to showcase the follower.

Much of what is written about leadership falls into the category I call ‘trait-centered leadership’: someone deemed ‘at the top’ who uses his/her personality, influence, and charisma to inspire and give followers – possibly not ready for change – a convincing reason to follow an agenda set by the leader or the leader’s boss. Sounds to me like a mixture of Jack Welch, Moses, and Justin Bieber.

What if the leader’s goal overrides the mental models, beliefs or historic experiences of the followers, or the change is pushed against the follower’s values, and resistance ensues? What if the leader uses his/her personality as the reason a follower should change? Or has a great message and incongruent skills? Or charisma and no integrity? Adolf Hitler, after all, was the most charismatic leader in modern history.

If You Can’t Follow, You Can’t Lead

Whether it’s for a group that needs to perform a new task, or someone seeking heightened outcomes, the role of leadership is to:

  1. facilitate congruent change and choice,
  2. in accordance with the values, skills, and ability of the follower,
  3. enabling them to shift their own unique (unconscious) patterns,
  4. to discover and attain new behaviors congruently and without resistance,
  5. within the parameters of the required change.

It demands humility and authenticity. It’s other-centered and devoid of ego, similar to a simple flashlight that merely lights the existent path, enabling followers to discover their own excellence within the context of the change sought. It’s an inside job.

Being inspirational, or a good influencer with presence and empathy, merely enlists those whose beliefs and unconscious mental models are already predisposed to the change, and omits, or gets resistance from, those who should be part of the change but whose mental models don’t align.

This form of leadership has pluses and minuses.

Minuses: the final outcome may look different than originally envisaged because the followers set the route according to their values and mental models.

Pluses: everyone will be enthusiastically, creatively involved in designing what will show up as their own mission, with a far superior proficiency. It will more than meet the vision of the leaders (although it might look different), and the followers will own it with no resistance.

Do you want to lead through influence, presence, charisma, or rationality? Or facilitate the unique path to congruent change? Do you want people to see you as a guide? Or teach them how to congruently move beyond their status quo and discover their own route to excellence – with you as a GPS system? Do you want to lead? Or enable real change? They are opposite constructs.

Power vs. Force

Here are some differences in beliefs between trait-centered leadership and more facilitative leadership:

Trait-centered: Top down; behavior change and goal-driven; dependent on power, charisma, and persuasion skills of a leader and may not be congruent with foundational values of followers.

Facilitation-centered: Inclusive (everyone buys-in and agrees to goals, direction, change); core belief-change and excellence-driven; dependent on facilitating route between current state and excellence, leading to congruent systemic buy-in and adoption of new behaviors.

Real change happens at the belief level. Attempting to change behaviors without helping people change their beliefs first meets with resistance: the proposed change pushes against the status quo regardless of the efficacy of the change.

New skills are necessary for facilitation-centered leadership:

  1. Listen for systems. This enables leaders to hear the elements that created and maintain the status quo and would need to transform from the inside before any lasting change occurs. Typical listening is biased and restricts possibility.
  2. Facilitative Questions. Conventional questions are biased by the beliefs and needs of the Questioner, and restrict answers and possibility. Facilitative Questions enlist the unconscious systems and show them how to adopt change congruently.
  3. Code the route to systemic change. When asking folks to buy-in, build consensus, and collaborate, they don’t know how to make the necessary changes without facing internal resistance, regardless of the efficacy of the requested changes. By helping people move from their conscious to their unconscious back to their conscious, and facilitating buy-in down the line, it’s very possible to avoid resistance.

If you seek to enable congruent change that captures the passion and creativity of followers, avoids resistance, and enables buy-in, open the door and follow your followers.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

Follow the Green Lights – Small Business Success is a Mixture of Strategy and Intuition

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Work is life and life is work for small business owners. The lines are blurred between work and everything else — family, friends, faith and self. It is not always easy to balance the demands of business ownership and living a powerful purpose driven life. To have the best of both we have to rely on our resources, our experience, our talents, skills, and take advantage of all our opportunities. Yes, it’s that simple. To succeed as a small business, simply engage a few basic strategies and follow the ‘green lights’.

Of the approximately 543,000 new small businesses that start each month, only 50% will survive 5 or more years. Small business ownership is a life and a lifestyle that the owner chooses. It offers everything they want in a career, and it is an opportunity to create income and security for today and tomorrow. So, why do they fail? The most common reason is the owner does not have the business knowledge and experience they need to run the business. They know what they have to offer but not how to do so fast enough, efficiently enough, or as profitably as is necessary to maintain a healthy business. As the business struggles, so does the owner. Personal satisfaction is almost always tied to business success for the brave individual that risks it all to have the work life they want most.

So, what does it take? It can be challenging, but any business owner can deploy the strategic and practical aspects of small business ownership. Simply:

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About the Author

Sherry B. JordanSmall business consultant and expert Sherry B. Jordan has spent the past 15 years working to develop ways to help small business owners move from making a choice to own a small business to living a lifestyle they love while making a living. Her new book, Plan It! Do It! Love It!: Be Outrageously Successful in the Small Business Lifestyle, captures and shares an arsenal of strategic advice on how to plan and execute a successful business strategy. The advice that may be most valuable is that which she offers on how to engage the tools you are born with to get what you expect and deserve without sacrificing joy and fulfillment of a rich personal life.

Organizational Accountability Warning Flag 4 – Taking Care of Employees

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StrategyDriven Organizational Accountability Warning Flag ArticleAt first glance, warning against taking care of one’s employees appears contradictory to what most would believe is an important function of every manager. Context is important here. Too often, managers ‘take care of their employees’ during the performance review process.

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Leading from the Inside Out

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How do you know if you are leading from the inside out, from the depths of your soul and your humanity?

Take Your Soul To WorkYou’ll know in your work when you can…

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About the Author

Erica BrownDr. Erica Brown, author of Take Your Soul to Work, is an educator who consults for the Jewish Agency and other Jewish non-profits and currently serves as the community scholar for The Jewish Center in Manhattan. She is the author of ten books and recipient of numerous awards and accolades for her work and scholarship. Erica lectures and writes widely on subjects of Jewish interest and leadership and lives with her husband and four children in Silver Spring, Maryland.