“The end of certainty means the possibility of novelty, of evolution.”
Ilya Prigogine

A critical function of leadership is to ask questions and not settle for answers. This protects uncertainty as a space for curiosity and imagination. When there are too many answers provided and too few questions asked, things stagnate and the atmosphere stifles. Protecting uncertainty is akin to keeping a window open for light and fresh air, maintaining a sense of opportunity and the ambiguity that keeps the spirit of humanity as a search for meaning.

We believe leaders inspiring others to superior performance works best when people pursue opportunities to innovate as a natural part of their daily work, when openness and playfulness become as valued as structure and reason. Yet we have found leaders struggle mightily with this simple premise. They have traditionally seen their role as shutting the window and eliminating all the mistakes. Here´s why!

Drucker Forum 2020

This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the fully digital 12th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “Leadership Everywhere” on October 28, 29 & 30, 2020.
#DruckerForum

The Baggage of Uncertainty

There is a core idea that aggregated things have lower variability than individual components. For example, while individual air molecules behave chaotically, the air in a room can have a stable, ambient temperature as it takes on the aggregate behaviour of all molecules.

The notion of aggregation is central to insurance where the pooling of individual risks creates a more stable aggregate that can be priced. The same idea operates in financial markets where securitization pools debt obligations to create a synthetic reconfiguration into tranches sold to investors with different risk appetites.

In the same way, every innovation project has a large degree of uncertainty that cannot be eliminated: we cannot know all the outcomes of our actions, the consequences of those outcomes, and the meaning of those consequences. This represents an irreducible tension between doing and knowing. We need to know in order to do, but we also need to do in order to know.

Commitment serves as a mechanism for projecting certainty and clarity onto a project´s desired outcomes. Yet it comes with baggage, the humility of not knowing everything. All the uncertainty surrounding what could happen needs to be bagged up and set aside. The more we commit to one particular unfolding of events the heavier the  bag containing the possibility of being wrong.

The Leader´s Role

When commitment and baggage move together, the baggage serves as a constant reminder of the need to focus on learning and to maintain the flexibility to change direction. No certainty is assumed. The illusion of certainty emerges only when the bag of uncertainty is hidden from view or otherwise detached. We argue that leaders must ensure the two always move together, for the future is often hidden in the bag.

However unintentionally, in many organizations the hierarchical relationships of accountability produce a separation between those facing uncertainty and those evaluating performance. Being accountable to someone is about being watched and judged, yet without them considering the uncertainty inherent in deciding what to do next. Practically, the uncertainty of outcomes sits on one side of time, while judgment and evaluation await on the other. Remember, action in the face of uncertainty is about doing before knowing. Judgment, on the other hand, is about knowing after doing.

Unhitched is organizational undoing

This is where something interesting happens in organizations: commitment and its counter-baggage of uncertainty get separated. Unhitched, the commitment slowly rises upwards, ultimately bringing a false sense of certainty to top management. In the meantime, the bag of uncertainty is left behind and settles on the shoulders of the middle managers or frontline staff. No matter how hard they try, they are left holding the bag. In short, as organizations pool frontline commitments they create synthetic certainty at the top at the expense of anxiety and stifled curiosity elsewhere.

Leadership facilitation

Over time, organizations accumulate all this baggage with pent up questions. Leadership is about slicing them open and facilitating meaningful discourse. The leader is a protector of uncertainty as intellectual humility and must be present anywhere innovation is taking place. Unlocking the potential of entrepreneurship is about replacing the quest for certainty with a quest for meaning.

About the Authors:
Joseph Pistrui is Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at IE Business School in Madrid, and co-founder of Kinetic Thinking.

Dimo Dimov is Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Bath University in the UK, and co-founder of Kinetic Thinking.

This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the fully digital 12th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “Leadership Everywhere” on October 28, 29 & 30, 2020.
#DruckerForum

Ask not what the ecosystem can do for you, but what you can do for the ecosystem.

In the ‘paradox of thrift’, saving money is good for the individual consumer, but if everyone saved money the overall economy stagnates.

There is a paradox of managerial thinking in a networked world: staying in the shell of legacy brings internal comfort; but if everyone did it the ecosystem atrophies.

When it comes to innovating the ecosystem re-draws the boundaries of the organization. The value equation expands to include the social context of the system and your role and place in that system. What is at stake is the very shaping of the value the system creates, offering the rewards of enhanced status and influence.

In the age of ecosystems, there is no free ride in a system defined by its constantly evolving value equation. Even if you are on the right track you can be overtaken by the relentless progress of others. Any company that rises to systemic opportunities must be an entrepreneurial company, which begins with managers who think more entrepreneurially across traditional organizational boundaries. Here are two ways to do just that.

Drucker Forum 2019

This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “The Power of Ecosystems” taking place on November 21 & 22, 2019 in Vienna, Austria.
#GPDF19 #ecosystems

Forget Right and Wrong

Entrepreneurial thinking starts with recognizing that right-wrong categories apply only to the past. They need facts. Yet there are no facts in the future. Tomorrow brims with possibilities — it is seldom a replay of yesterday.

“Focus on the future” is an unassuming prescription for overcoming the limitations of legacy thinking. By simply looking ahead to a world not nailed down by facts and supercharged by ever-growing networks, the right-wrong label is always behind you — and it can never catch up with you.

The “kick in the teeth” of rejections and setbacks become signals of what does not work and serve as props for learning. To call such experiences “failures” is to remain locked in the past.

Look for what’s not there

Managers need to look for what’s not there, products or services that will address what Drucker calls incongruities of daily life and leverage evolving values and meaning.

Brian Chesky saw air beds in a world of ample hotels and motels, while James Dyson had a vision of a bagless vacuum in a world of bags.

Entrepreneurial thinking relies on what is possible in the marketplace and prompts us to “imaginate” (an old Scottish word) beyond what there is. Managers must look for what’s not there, empowered by the words of George Bernard Shaw: You see things as they are, and you ask “Why?” But I dream things that never were, and I ask “Why not?”

Being entrepreneurial values doing for the sake of doing. Only action can provoke the world to respond. Invite serendipity by keeping things in motion; remember: the future is shaped not by past facts but possibilities yet to be realized.

About the Authors:

Joseph Pistrui is Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at IE Business School in Madrid, and co-founder of Kinetic Thinking.

Dimo Dimov is Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Bath University in the UK, and co-founder of Kinetic Thinking.

This article is one in the Drucker Forum “shape the debate” series relating to the 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “The Power of Ecosystems”, taking place on November 21-22, 2019 in Vienna, Austria #GPDF19 #ecosystems

“First, let’s fire all the managers” said Gary Hamel almost seven years ago in Harvard Business Review. “Think of the countless hours that team leaders, department heads, and vice presidents devote to supervising the work of others.”

Today, we believe that the problem in most organizations isn’t simply that management is inefficient, it’s that the role and purpose of a “manager” haven’t kept pace with what’s needed.

For almost 100 years, management has been associated with the five basic functions outlined by management theorist Henri Fayol: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.

These have become the default dimensions of a manager. But they relate to pursuing a fixed target in a stable landscape. Take away the stability of the landscape, and one needs to start thinking about the fluidity of the target. This is what’s happening today, and managers must move away from the friendly confines of these five tasks. To help organizations meet today’s challenges, managers must move from:

Directive to instructive: When robots driven by artificial intelligence (AI) do more tasks like finish construction or help legal professionals more efficiently manage invoices, there will be no need for a supervisor to direct people doing such work. This is already happening in many industries — workers are being replaced with robots, especially for work that is more manual than mental, more repetitive than creative.

What will be needed from managers is to think differently about the future in order to shape the impact AI will have on their industry. This means spending more time exploring the implications of AI, helping others extend their own frontiers of knowledge, and learning through experimentation to develop new practices.

Jack Ma, co-founder of the Alibaba Group in China, recently said, “Everything we teach should be different from machines. If we do not change the way we teach, 30 years from now we will be in trouble.” Ma is referring to education in the broadest sense, but his point is spot on. Learning, not knowledge, will power organizations into the future; and the central champion of learning should be the manager.

Restrictive to expansive: Too many managers micromanage. They don’t delegate or let direct reports make decisions, and they needlessly monitor other people’s work. This tendency restricts employees’ ability to develop their thinking and decision making — exactly what is needed to help organizations remain competitive.

Managers today need to draw out everyone’s best thinking. This means encouraging people to learn about competitors old and new, and to think about the ways in which the marketplace is unfolding.

Exclusive to inclusive: Too many managers believe they are smart enough to make all the decisions without the aid of anyone else. To them, the proverbial buck always stops at their desks. Yet, it has been our experience that when facing new situations, the best managers create leadership circles, or groups of peers from across the firm, to gain more perspective about problems and solutions.

Managers need to be bringing a diverse set of thinking styles to bear on the challenges they face. Truly breakaway thinking gets its spark from the playful experimentation of many people exchanging their views, integrating their experiences, and imagining different futures.

Repetitive to innovative: Managers often encourage predictability — they want things nailed down, systems in place, and existing performance measures high. That way, the operation can be fully justifiable, one that runs the same way year in and out. The problem with this mode is it leads managers to focus only on what they know — on perpetuating the status quo — at the expense of what is possible.

Organizations need managers to think much more about innovating beyond the status quo – and not just in the face of challenges. Idris Mootee, CEO of Idea Couture Inc., could not have said it better: “When a company is expanding, when a manager starts saying ‘our firm is doing great’, or when a business is featured on the cover of a national magazine – that’s when it’s time to start thinking. When companies are under the gun and things are falling apart, it is not hard to find compelling reasons to change. Companies need to learn that their successes should not distract them from innovation. The best time to innovate is all the time.”

Problem solver to challenger: Solving problems is never a substitute for growing a business. Many managers have told us that their number one job is “putting out fires,” fixing the problems that have naturally arisen from operating the business. We don’t think that should be the only job of today’s manager. Rather, the role calls for finding better ways to operate the firm — by challenging people to discover new and better ways to grow, and by reimagining the best of what’s been done before. This requires practicing more reflection — to understand what challenges to pursue, and how one tends to think about and respond to those challenges.

Employer to entrepreneur: Many jobs devolve into trying to please one’s supervisor. The emphasis on customers, competitors, innovations, marketplace trends, and organizational performance morphs too easily into what the manager wants done today — and how he or she wants it done. Anyone who has worked for “a boss” probably knows the feeling.

The job of a manager must be permanently recast from an employer to an entrepreneur. Being entrepreneurial is a mode of thinking, one that can help us see things we normally overlook and do things we normally avoid. Thinking like an entrepreneur simply means to expand your perception and increase your action — both of which are important for finding new gateways for development. And this would make organizations more future facing — more vibrant, alert, playful — and open to the perpetual novelty it brings.

We want managers to become truly human again: to be people who love to learn and love to teach, who liberate and innovate, who include others in the process of thinking imaginatively, and who challenge everyone around them to create a better business and a better world. This will ensure that organizations do more than simply update old ways of doing things with new technology, and find ways to do entirely new things going forward.

About the Author:

Joseph Pistrui is Professor of Entrepreneurial Management at IE Business School in Madrid. He also leads the global Nextsensing Project.

Dimo Dimov is Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Bath University in the UK, and co-founder of Kinetic Thinking.

Drucker Forum 2018

This article is one in a series related to the 10th Global Peter Drucker Forum, with the theme “Management. The human dimension” taking place on November 29 & 30, 2018 in Vienna, Austria.

This article was first published in Harvard Business Review

While some level of progress around the world is undeniable, the challenges facing the world today are unparalleled. If you can, set aside momentarily the flagrant terrorism and threats of war. Focus for a second on the daily upheaval that is only sure to grow as today’s workplace (built on a 19th century manufacturing model) is supplanted by a workplace built on 21st century digital platforms, more automated and robotic than ever — requiring fewer people to achieve greater productivity. “Artificial Intelligence” isn’t so artificial when it decimates an entire marketing department. Moreover, this is happening at a rate of change also unparalleled in history.

Coming soon to a place near you: Top-tier companies are going to be dethroned as market leaders. More workers are going to be dismissed pre-retirement. Entire industries are going to be redefined. McKinsey says its polling indicates 80% of executives believe their business model is at risk, yet only six per cent are satisfied with the innovation prospects inside their companies. The trajectory of economic progress needs a much-steeper slope than what we have.

And this is happening against a backdrop of ominous human pain and suffering. Six years ago, Business Insider published “The 10 Biggest Problems In The World According To The EU”. What topped the list a half-dozen years ago? First came poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water; second, climate change; and, third, the economic situation. Google “world needs” for yourself, and you will find more current lists of world needs that echo this one. Problems are growing, not shrinking. Why has so little been done to address the modern world’s basic needs?

Catalytic Immersion

Many economists speak of GDP, the gross domestic product of a country; a few economists even talk about the GWP, the gross world product. Yet, these concepts are numbers-based, not human-based. We can change this. What’s needed is a new index that measures the most imminent needs of the world and makes it a commonplace concept, a “Gross Needs Index” (GNI), if you will. But we need more than a list; that is just a target for people to aim at.

What’s needed most is the immersion of everyone into an appreciation of the positive role of enterprise in society and how to use the tools of entrepreneurship. Where to start? The answer is easy: anywhere.

If we can start a worldwide discussion based on “needs”, it will become evident that this could quickly become the common denominator that slices right through any border or language. Governments, corporations, small businesses, nations, local communities, even families — all can be brought to the discussion table with the question, “What can we do to address the greatest needs we confront?” Get people to focus on the GNI for this year, enlist them to begin to address it on their level, and we may very well start to see wholesome progress. Immerse everyone in a focus on needs, and it could just be a significant catalyst for social progress.

In Search of Enterprise

Back in the 1980s, the world conceded (with the help of people like W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran) that a focus on quality was missing. Eventually, programmes on quality control blossomed. This was an early example of how organisations (profit and nonprofit) committed to changing the social ecology. Let’s take that kind of change up a few notches.

What if we simultaneously had a top-down, bottom-up approach? What if we could get a massive number of people (at a wide array of ages) to learn to be more enterprising; by that, I mean the definition of the word rooted in “initiative and resourcefulness”? What if we can simultaneously convince governments (which influence, if not control, educational systems) and corporations (which control human resource development) that — at every level — people need to study the essentials of what it takes to frame and meet a need?

Just for starters, consider this simple syllabus appropriate for people from five-years old all the way up to 65-years old and beyond:

• Solving simple puzzles
• Defining problems
• Understanding what’s needed most today
• Employing entrepreneurial thinking tools to solve problems
• Appreciating short-term versus long-term perspectives and the value of acting now with the bigger picture in mind

The idea here is to provide a course of study that starts in pre-school and never ends, even post-retirement. Can’t be done? Look at how the language and tools of quality have become embedded in society in the last four decades!

Dream On?

As someone who teaches entrepreneurship, works in the corporate world and serves on boards, and who has started businesses, I realise the fact that this can seem no more than fantasy. Yet, it is my firm belief that anyone can be more  entrepreneurial — and everyone should try. Back in the 1800s, the British novelist Charles Kingsley noted, “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” The notion of the entrepreneur as the person who risks everything to win as much of the world’s wealth as possible should be abandoned. Says Virgin CEO Richard Branson: “Being an entrepreneur simply means being someone who wants to make a difference.”

Yet the best way to view my proposal as more than a mere dream is to examine the exciting growth that is happening in the world while our sedentary governments and status-quo-content businesses muddle about in their bloated zones of comfort. Those more entrepreneurial minded are simply not willing to wait and they are showing the rest of us the way forward.

Consider:

• Ellen Hunt’s list, “These Are the 50 Most Promising Startups You’ve Never Heard Of”. You’ll see here movers and shakers in industries as diverse as education, fashion, and space technology.
• Peter Daisyme’s list, “50 Inspirational Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2017: There are an incredible number of people moving and shaking the existing global business environment.” You’ll meet here people such as “Shradha Agarwal … president and co-founder of Outcome Health, a healthcare-decision platform that has grown rapidly since its founding in 2006. She also co-founded JumpStart Ventures in 2011 to help other entrepreneurs turn their great ideas into businesses. It now backs over 40 different companies.”
• Or, for inspiration, take less than two minutes to watch Mashable’s introductory video on “Boyan Slat [who, at 17] started ‘The Ocean Cleanup’ to create a system to clean the huge trash problem in the Pacific Ocean.” [see also Boyan Slat’s website]

What’s most needed now is to take all those people who, perhaps unconsciously, are saying “include me out” when it comes to the world’s innumerable problems and entice them to start thinking and acting like the entrepreneurs who are shaping an entirely new social ecology. Progress is desperately needed on all levels of society and on all kinds of problems.

Peter Drucker once quipped, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” For any group that truly believes such a dismal dictum, include me out.

About the author:

Joseph Pistrui (joseph.pistrui@nextsensing.com) has more than 30 years of management experience and is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at IE Business School in Madrid.

Top 10-50-100 entrepreneur lists abound with many overlapping names. Could it be that such lists are a huge disservice to entrepreneurialism? By tagging only a relative handful of elite “entrepreneurs”, have we demoted the endemic, innate — even genetic — trait shared by most, if not all, humans? Have we allowed the history of entrepreneurism to be defined solely by the few hundred people who practised it so well that profound commercial success became the capstone of their careers?

What’s tricky about such questions is the elusive definition of “entrepreneur”. One is that entrepreneurship is “the process of starting a business”; it asserts that the first entrepreneurs “can be traced back to nearly 20,000 years”, with the growth of entrepreneurs tied to expanding trade routes. This source also acknowledges that, in its modern form, entrepreneurship is much more than simply trading this-for-that. Notable entrepreneurs, it says, “innovated and invented new technologies to solve problems that nobody had ever solved before.”

On the spot?

Perhaps reviewing a classic thinker will help. It is hazardous to reduce the complex thinking of F. A. Hayek; however, addressing problems “that nobody has solved before” did provoke me to reread his 1945 essay, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”. Hayek outlined his thoughts on a “rational economic order” and talks about the “man on the spot”. After noting that the central “economic problem of society is mainly one of rapid adaptation to changes in the particular circumstances of time and place”, he rejects the idea that some “board” could ever serve to take note — and act upon — better ways to utilise resources.

Hayek thus speaks of the “man on the spot” who can move to address societal needs when a larger entity of men and women cannot. What must an on-the-spot person know before acting? Hayek answers:

There is hardly anything that happens anywhere in the world that might not have an effect on the decision he ought to make. But he need not know of these events as such, nor of all their effects. It does not matter for him why at the particular moment more screws of one size than of another are wanted, why paper bags are more readily available than canvas bags, or why skilled labor, or particular machine tools, have for the moment become more difficult to obtain. All that is significant for him is how much more or less difficult to procure they have become compared with other things with which he is also concerned, or how much more or less urgently wanted are the alternative things he produces or uses.

Perhaps society itself being “on the spot” — facing a problem large or small — is the true catalyst for entrepreneurial thinking. If yes, then being on the spot creates both the need for and the opportunity to be entrepreneurial. And this is not a restricted activity, to be accessed by only a few hundred, or thousand, “entrepreneurs”. It is a much more basic, and uncultivated, part of humanity.

Sure, we can celebrate the Elon Musks in a society on the spot, wanting to drive cars whilst preserving the planet. Certainly not the first to take a stab at building a business on battery-powered cars, Musk has made meaningful progress and has become an entrepreneurial star. However, Musk would hopefully acknowledge the many others who preceded his work without as much success (or publicity). Remember, the origin of Musk’s own Tesla brand is historic.

A society of entrepreneurs?

Amazing how we nonetheless quickly fall into a well-established thinking trap. We quickly focus on Musk and, only if pushed, think about the nameless people who work with him. Musk is the entrepreneur; all the rest, employees. It’s like Zhang Ruimin of The Haier Group, who moved a bankrupt Chinese refrigerator company to world-class size and status. But not alone. Sadly, we think of ourselves as a society of employees — blessed with a relative handful of forward-thinking entrepreneurs. In truth, entrepreneurs today — given the global economy — are more likely to be, first, employers of many other entrepreneurs.

There are hundreds of thousands who find themselves confronting daily problems that require fresh thinking. Some explore ways to address their problems; most wait for someone else. Yet, for decades, innovative new businesses have been wildly springing forth, and those who started those businesses are usually unknown.

Consider William Baumol’s 2004 research paper on “Entrepreneurial Cultures and Countercultures”. Whilst acknowledging that the definition of entrepreneurship is evolving, he cites more than 50 innovations (most of which, for me, were started by “nameless” entrepreneurs); yet, all have become sub-sector industries, such as double-knit fabrics, gyrocompasses, quick-frozen food. Baumol’s goal was to reinforce the concept that independent entrepreneurs and large corporate firms are co-dependent, one (populated by entrepreneurs) to inspire innovation, the other (populated by employees) to replicate entrepreneurial visions to large scale.

Let’s rearrange his thought. Supposing in small and large firms, society were to instil an expectation that entrepreneurial thinking is not for the few but for the many, that society needs as much entrepreneurial thinking as is humanly possible, and that people should be trained to be entrepreneurial much as they are trained to drive an automobile. Such a change in attitude would impose whole new demands on the educational priorities of society. From the earliest school age, everyone would stop learning facts and start learning how to think so that they grow into independent-minded adults who refuse to accept overcomplicated, complex ways of working.

Let’s cultivate the innate talent inside humans to address problems they confront. This is not so much a job of creating entrepreneurs out of whole cloth; it’s rather a job of honing people to think entrepreneurially — from not allowing roadblocks to stop their brain processes to polishing rough conjectures into creative, even inspired, thinking. Do this and we would no longer need to separate entrepreneurs and employees: both would go about their work of combining thinking and acting in ways much more symbiotic.

What is required to jumpstart such a world is, first, new thinking. I have been speaking recently about the four “nextabilities” that will be required of 21C leaders. In brief, leaders should (1) attack problems by thinking more widely, including a wide array of views from a wider circle of leaders, (2) take a stand on the need for a new agenda, (3) enable  new ways of doing things, and (4) lead with a point of view of the future in mind. Universities, business schools and all types of firms should develop these skills now. Yet for anyone who wants to see the dawn of a society of entrepreneurs, these skills should be cultivated fully and early in our educational systems.

Baumol also mentions the father of “creative destruction”, Joseph Schumpeter: “… [Early] innovative warriors were not entrepreneurs as we tend to think of them today, as creators or promoters of new enterprises, new products, and new processes…. Schumpeter … conjectured that growth and innovation were becoming so routine that the entrepreneur would thereby be threatened with obsolescence.”

Entrepreneurs will never be obsolete; but society has too often isolated them, demonised them, or made them celebrities. Left obscure are the secrets of entrepreneurial thinking. We have either unconsciously created or unhappily inherited an entrepreneur/employee society. Desperately needed for the coming century of endless on-the-spot problems is an unflinching commitment to cultivate a new generation of entrepreneurs, from bottom to top and without delay.

About the author:

Joseph Pistrui is Professor of Entrepreneurial Management at IE Business School in Madrid. He has published a free e-book and video, The Story of Next, on the Nextsensing website.

Suppose the management lens was smeared, even opaque. In this case, management could easily misapply its resources. Or suppose the lens was a mirror looking only at the way resources had been deployed. In this case, management typically repeats decisions about how best to use its resources.

There are signs that this is very much the state of management today; and, with consumer and product cycles moving ever faster, the danger of management missteps increases. Too many surveys show that managers are either confused about what to do or uncertain whether to change their priorities.

• Per a recent global survey done by the Institute for the Future, “Business Leaders Admit ‘We’re Not Ready for the Digital Future.’” Only 30 per cent of those surveyed felt they could act on the data they had, and half of those surveyed said they did not know how to get value from all the data they receive. Less than one in 10 firms said they “innovate in an agile way”.
• A 2014 survey of top US business executives revealed that most are confident about beating the competition in the future. “However, they are not acting with confidence when it comes to making business decisions or addressing specific obstacles,” Deloitte said.
• A 2015 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers of 1,300+ CEOs in 77 countries is equally alarming. Reported The Irish Times: “Business leaders are increasingly pessimistic about the outlook for global economic growth this year. The number of chief executives expecting a decline in growth has more than doubled to 17 per cent…. Sentiment was generally poorest in Europe and strongest in the Asia Pacific region.” My conversations with top-level business managers reveal that most are in a state of disruptive ambiguity — they are overwhelmed by conflicting data about what’s happening in the world and in their marketplaces. As a result, questions abound; answers are scarce. All forecasting models they learned seem broken because it is increasingly hard to interpret the data. With their management lens clouded, any step is timid. Many simply stick with how they managed in the past.

Cleaning the Management Lens

The world cannot be changed, but managers can change the way they think and act. As part of our Nextsensing Project , we deduced that managers would be wise to cultivate four “nextabilities”.

Stretch sensibilities Managers need a change of mindset and a commitment to exploration, moving beyond reading business bestsellers for guidance.

What’s needed is the formation of a leadership circle that brings in many views about trends in the world, shares those viewpoints widely, and organises them into probable patterns of the future. The idea that one person, or one small group, is smart enough to know and command all is outdated. The goal must be for the circle to arrive at some foresense of future possibilities that might serve as a springboard for action.

Stand for change Soon it will be 60 years since the first satellite launch. All the global interconnectedness we now take for granted was then impossible. Satellites happened only after the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States committed to that goal. Nothing was allowed to get in the way. Today, companies with the best chance for survival have leaders who personally stand for change — not talk about change, not hint about it nor suggest that others change.

Create a new order Purpose is the first step in creating a new order for an organisation. Leadership must begin to shape new priorities and norms that are more productive and harmonious with the firm’s mission. It is critical to make adherence to the status quo less appealing than shaping a new and better way of doing things.

Lead with foresense Most companies now have a “vision statement”, but many lack foresense. To lead an organisation to a new place, the entire company must become aware of the desired outcomes and be convinced that its leaders are serious. Thus, the fourth nextability is to remove any and all doubt that everyone needs to develop the skills and behaviours that will achieve something that’s novel and special.

Using Your Own Lens

Imposing the practices of a widely known company as a perfect fit for one’s own is a precarious path. I mention Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, not as a role model but as someone, per a study by InformationWeek, whose actions have reinforced these four nextabilities.

Stretch sensibilities? The company has expanded its cloud platform so it is the umbrella for the whole company. Using the banner “One Microsoft”, Nadella’s leadership circle has been tying everyone to the cloud with data managed on servers and not on desktops or on digital devices.

Stand for change? Nadella is changing Microsoft’s culture so that the customer is the central focus. He’s branching out into the Internet of Things, so the company can be a leader when it comes to computers talking directly to other computers.

Create a new order? The new Windows 10 software has a universal app configuration and offers free upgrades to attract new users. Microsoft is also moving speedily into holography, an entirely new field.

Lead with foresense? Nadella has pushed Microsoft to create winning apps for Apple products to place Microsoft prominently on Apple desktops and iDevices. In this way, Microsoft must now forget old rivalries and think first of its own best interests.

It’s fine to observe what someone else is doing, yet every leader must cultivate these four nextabilities in his or her own way. When leaders are not sure about the future, the entire organisation suffers. Turbulence becomes the norm. Confusion reigns. What lies ahead is painfully unclear; and, for humans working inside the firm, there can be little joy.

These four nextabilities are powerful ways to equip you and your leadership circle to become clear about what’s next for your organisation. It’s past time to clean the management lens.

About the author:

Joseph Pistrui is Professor of Entrepreneurial Management at IE Business School in Madrid. He also leads the global Nextsensing Project