Things always change. It’s always been that way. The 1st telegraph was likely more shocking to people than anything Elon says today. Today’s environment seems to be more conceptual in ways. How does today’s news impact your brand, hiring and selling your products? Here are a few top issues I found from reviewing many different surveys, whitepapers and thought leaders.
From the early 80s to recent years, our economy has been rewards based and efficiency focused. Just look at PE ratios. Going forward you need leadership that can think at a higher level. Holistic and systems thinkers can solve complex problems better than efficiency and diplomatic mindsets. I have been researching organizations that perform well and invest in their futures, while maintaining good to great financial metrics. The mindset of leading organizations look very different from efficient based organizations.
Sustainable and regenerative operations.
People who are adaptable can change. Adaptable people are not the right match for efficiency and diplomatic roles. Finding, promoting and placing the right people in the right seats has always been a major topic. In the age of conscious consumption and conscious organizations, adapting products and services will be a requirement. Leaders who are not conscious and empathetic to the customer and employee will not be able to make the change rapid enough. That means finding, promoting and hiring in different ways. The old functional methods don’t work for the companies with high PE ratios of tomorrow.
It’s odd that we collectively call it ‘conscious’ consumption and ‘conscious’ organizations. All organizations have unconscious and subconscious mindsets that ultimately define their futures. I have found a number of organizations selling virtually the same product in the same industry. After auditing hundreds of these organizations, the leadership mindset differences are pronounced. Some are conscious and highly likely to have higher financial performance metrics. There are many who are very efficient with their investments and rigorous by design. I would like to say organizations with a higher number of systems thinkers and holistic thinkers are able to solve many of the problems that keep showing up in the 2022 reports that I have been reading.
Here’s one example of a topic that keeps coming up. Intelligent machines are more sophisticated today. Outsourcing to this new world requires leaders who understand conceptual systems that can’t be well defined. Some questions I ran across: Is AI working? Do you have people who can tell the difference? What roles should machines take? Automation is a great answer for many roles but not all of them. Which ones? Do you have leadership in place that can plan for the difference, the change over time?
It all comes back to people. After examining hundreds of leadership teams, the companies that are doing well and will do well in the future have the mindsets that can change. Those same organizations adapt as needed, when needed.
I have a ton of data to share and will start doing so soon.