My strategy clients are often concerned that to be a strong strategist they need to be good at accurate prediction. Let me reassure you that strategic behaviour does not require you to be clairvoyant!
It does help if you can discern signals.
Even better if you can differentiate them from lagging indicators and old news.
When I recently asked my three-year-old grandson Remy what he enjoyed about our time together in Zimbabwe, he said, “Hunting for animals.” I said, “Do you mean seeing animals?” and he said, “No, hunting for them.”
It’s true. All of us loved the days we spent hunting for animals, particularly lions. We never saw them, but we did see male and female lion tracks. As our driver followed the scat and the tracks, it occurred to me that we could see where the lions had been, but not where they were going to be. Maybe they’d been there many hours ago and were nowhere near us anymore. As the hours wore on, the hunt began to feel like it involved far more luck than skill. I could picture the lions and leopards hiding just out of our sight, grinning at how close we’d come to them without noticing them at all.
How often do we look to past patterns to predict future behaviour, feeling three steps behind and wishing we could get ahead of things?
For leaders wanting to be more strategic, three postures help:
- Pursue adaptability
- Embrace what is
- Shape your future rather than discovering it
Rather than seeking to predict what’s around the next bend, let’s learn to flex nimbly with whatever that is. Adaptability is a learnable skill, and there are many ways to get good at it. (I’d love to talk to you more about that if you’re interested).
When you get around that corner, what can you do with what you actually see there? On our hunt for lions, we saw close to 40 other species of incredible animals. And we loved the excitement of the hunt itself. When we tell people about our trip, do we focus on what didn’t happen?
And, unlike on safari, as strategic leaders we can articulate a vivid picture of the future we want to create and take steps toward making that happen. Our future isn’t inherited or handed to us as a ready-made, take it or leave it package. But if we don’t know where we want to head, we are highly unlikely to get there.