The Future is Now

“When you grow up, what would you like to be?” That’s a question parents, relatives and even complete strangers ask children in India. As a result, their journey through life begins with the desire to be somebody tomorrow: an engineer, a doctor, a pilot. Kids start working their way to a point B that lies in the future.

This fixation with point B often continues over time. When children are in kindergarten, their parents are obsessed with getting them into school; when they’re in school, the focus is on getting them admitted to university; on graduation, the priority is to land a good job.

If these children become managers, they become obsessed with the business targets and personal goals they must attain in order to be deemed successful. Life becomes all about arriving at some hypothetical future.

Instead, why not begin with point A – where you are today? Only then can you chart a path to where you want to go.

In business, executives strive to take organizations from point A to point B. We often focus on what point B should look like. But we must be clear about where our companies are now before trying to create something that will be relevant tomorrow. Executives must ask: What are their organisation’s strengths? What are its weaknesses? What do they need to do to overcome the challenges they face?

It isn’t always easy to identify point A. Managers must spot the changes that matter, evaluate how they interact with one another and internalise their relevance. That means understanding what technologies to phase out, identifying the shortcomings in business models and discovering the skills that have to be bridged. Executives must take ownership for the relevance (or irrelevance) of their current strategies if they want to be successful in the future.

After all, tomorrow’s winners may not be companies that offer solutions for the future. They’re more likely to be organisations that understand the challenges companies face today (point A) and develop solutions that get organisations to where they want to go.

Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate