Redraw the Charts
You can't navigate a new world using an old set of charts.
Many leaders are trying to solve the problems of today with the solutions of yesterday.Chapter 2, The Big Bold Mindset
365 islands. Charts drawn by Captain Cook.
Just east of the Panama Canal lie the San Blas Islands, ringed by coral reef. When I sailed there, I was struck by how many boats had run aground.
The reason was simple. The charts for the area were last updated by Captain Cook, several hundred years ago. They were out of date, they were wrong, and they sent a lot of good boats onto the reef.
Many leaders are sailing with Captain Cook's charts. If you last studied leadership, mindset and change even five years ago, yours are already out of date.
When did you last upgrade the charts in your head?
When did you last properly update how you think about leadership and change?
Which books are you still steering by, and when were they written?
Where is your team saying "we're great because of" something that was true five years ago?
The time you get at the top has shrunk by 80%.
How long a company could expect to stay on the Fortune 500 list. The number is still falling.
Professor Kamal Munir, Cambridge Judge Business School: start in the future
Take yourself out
Imagine the world five years from now. What are the trends, who are the players, what has changed?
Find where value sits
Which parts of that world get commoditised, and which become the most valuable?
Then position yourself
Look at the cards you hold today and map your story back from the future.
One large bank built its own low-cost currency app. The head of currency pulled the plug because it would hit his profitable business. Non-bank disruptors launched theirs anyway. The safe move was the wrong move.
Kevin Gaskell: one version of the truth
His process starts by ditching 5 or 10% growth and asking what could create 5x, 10x or even 100x.
The team goes out into the future and describes what they will see, hear and feel, until there is one version of the truth everyone agrees on. Then they list the projects needed to get there, pick the most important, and run them as 50-day sprints.
"Being wrong might hurt you a bit. Being slow will kill you."Jeff Bezos, Amazon
Put on the Future hat
Leadership is three separate steps: imagine a better future, see today as it really is, then close the gap. Do them one at a time. Answer every "how" while you're still imagining, and your ambition shrinks to what you already know how to do.
The Future
Five years out. What do you see, hear and feel? Use words and pictures. No "how" allowed.
The Past
What have your experiments taught you? What have you learnt about what customers really want?
The Present
What do you have today, and which experiment starts closing the gap?
Twenty minutes in the future
Block 20 minutes in your diary. Go five years out and write down what you see, hear and feel. Make it vivid. Don't write a single "how". Read it back the next morning and notice how it makes you feel.
Find your one version of the truth
Run it in your next team meeting. Everyone wears the same hat at the same time, so the future-focused and the past-focused finally look in the same direction.
Want Caspar to take your team through this? casparcraven.com