Thinking Ahead Insights: Managing the present from the future

Managing the present from the future Assemble a critical mass of key stakeholders. Many more than just the top 8 to 10 leaders. Should include key technologists and leading process engineers. Group should be sufficiently diverse to ensure conflict, which will get issues on the table so they can be resolved. Have to decide how it's going to happen. Do an organizational audit to generate a complete picture of how the organization really works. Understand the competitive situation. Reveal barriers to moving from "as is" to the future. Core values. Key systems. Strategic assumptions. Core competencies, etc. Create urgency. A threat that everyone perceives, but no one is willing to talk about, is most debilitating to an organization Book of Five Rings � Japanese guide for samurai warriors. Written four centuries ago, directs the samurai to visualize his own death in the most graphic detail before going into battle. Idea being, once you have experienced death, there is not a lot left to fear: one can then fight with abandon. This helps explain the value of discussion about not changing and the dire consequences to a company in a difficult business situation. Harnessing contention. Conflict jump-starts the creative process. Most companies suppress contention. Control kills invention, learning and commitment. Emotions often accompany creative tension, and they are often unpleasant. Intel plays rugby; your ability at Intel to take direct, hard-hitting disagreement is a sign of fitness. Many excellent companies build conflict into their designs. Induce organizational breakdowns that foster out-of-the-box thinking and solutions. Breakdowns should happen by design, not accident. In trying to manage back from the future, concrete tasks will have to be undertaken; continuing on the current path will not get you there. Often you don't know how to make these tasks occur. This will generate breakdowns, which can generate out-of-the-box thinking and solutions, if the situation is managed/lead correctly. Continuous open dialogue is key to working through breakdowns. Setting impossible deadlines is another way to encourage breakdowns and out-of-the-box thinking   Insights from: "The Reinvention Roller Coaster: Risking the Present for a Powerful Future." By Tracy Goss, Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos.