How can you and your organization deal with hyper competition? Should you and your organization be concerned about digital disruption? Do you see these as threats to the future or as a catalyst and accelerator for organizational change and leadership excellence?
Organizations surviving disruption and thriving in the future need to build management and leadership capability and capacity. Expanded capability for managers and leaders will increase the capacity of the organization for the future. Strategic agility is more important than strategic planning. Individual learning agility coupled with an organizational learning culture are more important than training, certifications and even degrees. Einstein was quoted as saying, “education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think”.
Learning is being redefined as the ability for individuals, teams and organizations to learn, unlearn and then relearn.
Mahatma Gandhi was quoted as saying “live as if you will die tomorrow and learn as if you were to live forever”.
Simply put, effective leaders are effective learners. Dramatic changes to the macro environment have made much of what leaders learned about business irrelevant or somewhat obsolete. Managers and leaders will need to unlearn certain beliefs, skills and knowledge that is no longer helpful. They will also need to re-learn based on new information, emerging trends, personal experiences and from the experiences of others. Big data doesn’t necessarily automatically translate to big wisdom. Relearning will require these leaders to demonstrate a willingness to take risks (fail fast and smart) and move out of existing comfort zones and habituated behaviour. Confidence alone will not be enough. In fact, individual hubris can be a derailer, for, an executive and organizational hubris can lead organization disruption and ultimate failure. Confidence coupled with capability and resilience will help
Leaders navigate the future. These same traits combined with a strategically agile organization increases the probability of success.
Certain skills and capabilities (both existing and new) will not only increase the odds of survival but drive innovation as well. We have choices as individual leaders and organizations to either disrupt or be disrupted. It is clear that we live in a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA). Is this a curse or a blessing? Often times this depends on your skills, knowledge, ability, expertise, experiences and attitude. Attitude or mindset is a significant variable in how you view and navigate the world. As one of the business Leader recently said, “I think there will be a complete change in whatever learning I have just gone through in the next 10 years, so I will have to unlearn and relearn again.”
Asia leaders (those from Asia or working in Asia for extended periods of time) have an advantage over many non-Asia leaders as they have experienced VUCA-ness during their lifetime. In other words leaders from India, South Asia, and APAC should be more friendly and comfortable with chaotic environments. Managers and leaders in India have already navigated a set of environmental experiences. To name a few:
• Volatile Markets
• Socio- Economic Survival
• Security Challenges
• Tough Business Environments
• Government and Governance Challenges
• Newer Business Models/Hyper-competition
• Rapid Technology Changes/Digital Disruption
Based on these challenges, what is an organization to do? What are leaders and managers to do? More specifically, how should you behave differently? Understanding things that are outside your control as well as defining things that are within you control is a great place to start. Your mindset and approach to the things that are within you control will have a direct positive impact on increasing the scope of your influence. For organizations --- strategic agility will be key. For managers and leaders – learning agility will unlock the future.
As futurist and philosopher Alvin Toffler once wrote: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.