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By Lindsay Collier
Wayne Gretsky once said, "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it is." In my experience, most organizations are so busy reacting to the short term problems of today (chasing the puck around) that they have little time left for creating their future. The more successful a company is, the higher the possibility that it will be circling its wagons and protecting its past instead of creating its future. Organizations create their futures by achieving excellence, innovating, or anticipating. These days, achieving excellence only creates parity and keeps you in the game. The real future comes through innovation and anticipating the future. So where's the rub? Most companies focus on excellence, only a few are highly innovative, and hardly any ever scout the future!
CK Prahalad says, "On the road to the future there are drivers, passengers and road kill." There are a surprising number of companies in the process of becoming road kill. In the early 1990s as Kodak's main voice for creativity and innovation, I was involved with helping them plan their strategy to become the world leader in imaging. This was difficult until we could shift the thinking patterns from those designed to protect the past to those that could create the future. The past success of the company literally got in the way! After years of becoming a giant in chemical imaging it was hard to even think of digital imaging.
Breakthroughs do not come from the comfort zone.
Why do so many organizations have difficulty creating a breakthrough future? The patterns of thinking, reactive vs. creative orientation, and organizational dynamics are the major blocks. Most energy goes into perpetual problem solving leaving precious little for creating the future. And the accepted behavior in most organizations keeps most everyone in the comfort zone. And no breakthrough ever comes from the comfort zone! How might you assure that your organization is a driver on the road to the future? A model I call the Journey of Discovery is useful in helping me and my clients think this through:
- Create *Viper* vision.
- Break current thinking patterns.
- Create a culture for breakthroughs.
- Enhance creative thinking skills.
- Scout the future
*Viper* vision creates a compelling future pull. Think about the Dodge Viper, a car that has no particular economic reason for being. But this car creates a vision for Dodge of what they are capable of doing and that makes it worth its weight in gold. Does the vision of a Plymouth Prowler create a stronger future pull for those in that car division? Of course it does. If there is no compelling force to move people forward you might as well get ready for the road kill cafe.
The need to break current patterns of thinking brings about a challenging task of asking difficult questions about the rules and assumptions that got you to where you are. My experience is that most groups that engage in these paradigm shifting exercises end up merely enhancing the existing patterns rather than really changing them. Third party help is almost always necessary here because those who are inside the system can rarely mount a significant challenge to the rules.
Enhancing the culture for breakthrough involves the creation of an environment that allows people to risk venturing well outside their comfort zones. Behaviors that are acceptable include taking risk, failing, having fun, letting go, wondering, accepting and building on others' thinking, and being outrageous. Organizations that will be drivers in the future will exhibit all of these behaviors. They will also invest in building the creative thinking skills of their associates which, in many cases, has been ignored for years. Releasing the creative capacity of people in the workplace has incredible potential, but only if the environment is supportive to this new thinking.
And finally, the drivers need to scout and anticipate the future. The potential of future scouting is incredible although few organizations take advantage of its power. As a futurist, I spend a lot of time tracking trends, innovations, shifts, and technologies and the processes for assessing their implications to today's actions. I keep an ongoing list of those trends and will be happy to share it with you if you contact me.
Lindsay Collier is the author of "Organizational Mental Floss" (due out in late 1996), "The Whack-A-Mole Theory" and "Get Out of Your Thinking Box." He was previously a creativity expert and futurist with Eastman Kodak Company and can be reached at 716-334-4779 (phone and fax); or E-mail: LindsayCollier@msn.com.