One of the core beliefs of the Idea Hive is that we are experiencing what my friends at the International Futures Forum call a conceptual emergency
These are powerful times, in which the world we have created has outstripped our capacity to understand it. The scale of interconnectivity and interdependence has resulted in a step change where complex human systems now operate within other complex systems, often with modes of thinking and practice developed in simpler days.
How do we respond to this new world? How do we become future compatible, in a world where the unexpected is the only thing that can be expected? Because if we are not expecting the unexpected, if we are still operating from the paradigms of the past, then the future will not be too kind to us.
How do we create and run enterprises when the future is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Dave Snowden‘s work on complexity, and his Cynefin framework in particular, offer some great insights. And the main insight, for me, is that the key to success is agility. To survive, you have to be responsive to reality. Be prepared to change what you do and how you do it radically. Embrace the entrepreneurial spirit.
This lesson was particularly brought home to me at one of the start-ups where I worked. We started off writing software to enable peer to peer file sharing. Two years later we had become an online platform to enable the sharing of user generated video. The original business idea hadn’t gained sufficient traction, so we let go of what we had been doing and reinvented ourselves to ride a different wave.
I think these words from Eric Hoffer fit this situation nicely:
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
For an organization to become future compatible at its core, it needs to be deeply oriented towards learning and transformation. It needs to hold everything lightly, because it has to be prepared to reexamine everything that it currently holds to be true, and more than that it has to always be scanning the edges for new information that challenges it’s current thinking.
Be prepared to change direction radically. Imagine possibilities. Search for emerging opportunity. Act like a swarm.
(thanks to my friend David Mojdehi for coining the term future compatible)
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