Verwandte Artikel zu Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the...

Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present - Hardcover

Johansen, Bob

 
9781576754405: Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1576754405 ISBN 13: 9781576754405
Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

It’s the ultimate paradox for leaders: you can’t predict the future, but you must make sense of it in order to thrive. To be successful, leaders need to sort out what’s important, devise strategies based on their own point of view, and get there ahead of the crowd. But most leaders today are just concerned about getting there in time. Many are even willing to settle for getting there fashionably late. They focus on quick-fix problems, avoiding the kinds long-term of dilemmas that will characterize the future. But as Institute for the Future’s ten-year forecast—which is included in the book—makes clear, today’s leaders face more and more dilemmas: recurring, complex, messy, and puzzling.

Bob Johansen shares techniques refined over nearly forty years by the Institute of the Future to help you navigate your own organization’s road to the future. He details real-world examples of how organizations like Procter & Gamble, Disney, Reuters, UPS, and the Centers for Disease Control have put these approaches into practice. Through fascinating and illustrative examples—including the Toyota Prius, the iPod, Crest Toothpaste, and many more—he shows that getting there early means finding new markets, new customers, and new products ahead of your competitors. It means anticipating the needs of your stakeholders. It means you’ll be able to establish a position before your late-arriving competitors even have a chance to organize. It helps you think through what might happen and what should happen. It gives you time to consider alternative strategies. Ultimately, getting there early helps you see beyond the problems of the present and recognize possible futures before others do.

Get There Early lays out the Institute’s three-step Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle that allows you to sense, make sense of, and win when faced with dilemmas. Johansen offers hope for leaders facing the constant tension—a dilemma in itself—between judging too soon and deciding too late.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Bob Johansen was president and CEO of the Institute for the Future from 1996 to 2004 and is now the IFTF Distinguished Fellow, as well as serving on its board. He is the author of six books, including GlobalWork: Bridging Distance, Culture, and Time.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Introduction
Foresight to Insight to Action

As the son of a milkman in the small midwestern town of Geneva, Illinois, I was taught to get there early from the start. In the days before refrigeration, my dad got up at midnight to deliver his milk. My first job was getting up with him to help on the milk route, but by that time we had a refrigerated truck and were able to sleep in until 4 a.m. My dad started early, but he got to finish early as well, and he saw things that others did not see. I still remember the freshness of the predawn summer mornings in Illinois when we were up and active before anyone else. Once I was up and out of bed—as long as I was not out late the night before—getting there early had lots of dividends. Getting there early helps you see beyond the problems of the present.

Most organizational cultures today, and most leaders, want to get there just in time, not get there early. Many are willing to settle for getting there “fashionably” late. They focus on quick-fix problems, and they love people who solve those problems rapidly. They hate dealing with the long-term kinds of dilemmas that will characterize the future.


THE VUCA WORLD OF DANGER AND OPPORTUNITY

VUCA is an unpleasant acronym, but I have found it surprisingly useful as a way to open conversations about the future. It stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. It originates from the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania—the U.S. Army’s graduate school for generals-to-be—which is now informally calling itself “VUCA University.”

2

Sometimes perceived as the most conservative, the most hierarchical, and the slowest moving of the military branches, the army is transforming itself. Assumptions about logical human behavior are being challenged in the face of extremes—like indiscriminate killing of civilians and children, or suicide bombings. In this kind of world, an increasing number of leadership challenges will be embedded in dilemmas—some of which look like problems.

Many people are so fearful and uncomfortable with uncertainty that they have a desperate need for answers. Some will accept only a simple moral equation as an answer, even if there is no simple moral equation. Many people feel an urgent longing for a sense of control.

As an example, consider how often words like absolutely are used in your daily conversations. The word absolutely gives the speaker a sense of momentary control and comfort in a world where absolutes are hard to find. It is a satisfying word to say, with two opportunities for emphasis: AB-so-LUTE-ly! Listen for this word in your conversations and consider how it is being used and for what purpose. In my experience, the popularity of the word absolutely and other strong declarations (words like exactly, precisely, of course, no doubt, undoubtedly, clearly, utterly) has increased significantly in recent years. Absolute language is comforting, and demand for certainty will grow in the future.

We all need some comfort and security in life. In order to thrive, beyond just surviving, people must take on dangers and turn around the uncomfortable VUCA acronym by developing the skills and state of mind that I describe as having Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility, all of which will be explored in this book. We need to call attention to the challenges, but we also need provocative ways to generate believable hope.

How can leaders develop their own abilities to get there early, to understand what’s going on, and to succeed in a world of dilemmas—without resorting to a false sense of certainty?


3

GET THERE EARLY

Get there early has a very specific meaning for me, and it is not just about speed. Get is an action word, and there implies direction and intent: an outcome, a vision, or a goal. Get there suggests strategy to me, a direction and a place where you are going, with at least some idea how to proceed and what you might do when you get there. Early means at the right time or at least with good timing. Usually, getting there early means getting there before the masses, in time to gain some advantage. If you get there late, you stand in line, and you might not get in at all. If you get there early, you don’t have to rush, and you have time to make a good decision.

For corporations, get there early means finding new markets, new customers, and new products ahead of your competitors. Toyota got to the hybrid car market with the Prius at a very good time, with a conscious focus on consumers who wanted to change the world with a purchase decision that evolved into a public statement. The iPod was not the first digital music player, but Apple was the first maker to do it right, with great design, ease of use, and functionality. The iPod demonstrates that it is important to get there early but not necessarily to get there first. Success is more about timing than it is about time. Sony got there early with the Walkman for cassette tapes and CDs, but it got there late for digital music players. Success is transient.

For nonprofits, get there early means anticipating the needs of your stakeholders and sensing emerging issues before they become overwhelming or before others who don’t agree with your issues have taken a commanding position. In the United States, people with great foresight saw that—by getting there early—they could create massive public national parks that never could have been established once commercial land development took over. California’s Coastal Commission, established in the early 1970s, was created much later than most national parks, but it still got there early enough to establish public-oriented coastal guidelines that have resisted commercial real estate forces.

Get there early means seeing a possible future before others see it. Crest toothpaste, for example, was the first toothpaste to be approved by the American Dental Association. Before the ADA endorsement was granted, Procter & Gamble supported large public research efforts on the effects of fluoride, a key ingredient in Crest. Get there early also means being able to act before others have figured out what to do. Based on the positive results from the fluoride research, P&G came up with a novel plan for ADA endorsement of Crest. It doesn’t do any good to get there early if you don’t do anything.

4

Within UPS, there is an informal cultural understanding that if you get to a meeting fifteen minutes early, you are on time, so that you show respect for others by not having them wait and also increase the productivity of the meeting. UPS is still a get-there-early company, with a culture that requires on-time behavior. Not surprisingly, UPS is one of the most sophisticated corporations in using foresight to draw out insight as input to strategy. Management uses ten-year scenarios to test their strategies on a regular basis, and they have a corporate strategy group that keeps the get-there-early discipline alive. At UPS, getting there early is not an option; it is built into the company’s strategy.

I get to airports two hours before flight time, and I bring my work with me. I find that takes a lot of the stress out of travel, and if something does go wrong, I’ve got time to recover. Some years ago, my wife and I were going to Australia, where I was to give a talk for an Australian government celebration. I dragged my wife to the airport three hours early, only to discover as we checked in that we did not have proper visas for the trip. In those three hours before flight time, we were able to contact the embassy, get special visa photos, rush in a cab to the nearby home of a local Australian official, get an emergency visa, and...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1576754405
ISBN 13 
9781576754405
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
288
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Berrett-Koehler
https://www.dc.com/tv

1333 Broadway Suite P-100
Oakland
CA
94612
USA
Verantwortliche Person
eucomply OÜ
hello@eucompliancepartner.com

Pärnu mnt 139b-14
Tallinn
11317
Estland