When I started out in business, almost fifty years ago, experience was the thing. That made sense when the next year would look quite a bit like today. Markets were relatively stable. Planning five or ten years out was common. Those days are gone.
Leadership development for a changing world
When the business world was stable, memory was important. Case studies could offer up solutions because today’s challenges looked a lot like yesterday’s. But today’s leadership development challenge is summed up by this quote from Dee Hock.
“The past is ever less predictive, the future ever less predictable.”
In other worlds we have to prepare leaders to be surprised and then figure things out. We’re challenged to develop agile leaders.
Leadership development when agility matters most
An agile leader will be aware of the environment, including the competition, and sensitive to any shifts. He or she will have to make a quick assessment of whether things need to change. That may require rapid learning and assessment, identifying and debriefing experts and determining what to try. The course the leader chooses shouldn’t be thought of as a plan to be followed. It should be considered a prototype to be tested and adjusted.
Our challenge is to develop leaders for a future who are comfortable in a world where they have to figure it out anew almost every day. We shouldn’t be preparing our future leaders for detailed planning and disciplined execution. Instead they should learn to be comfortable in a world where they’re figuring it out as they go along.
