How To Lead A Quest

13 Back to the Future

So far we've encountered a few nasties on our journey, but the two main villains would have to be the Curse of Efficiency and the Delusion of Progress. It's thanks to these two that we find ourselves locked into default thinking, which — if we're not careful — will see us descend into irrelevance and meet the Inevitable Kraken of Doom.

Of course, we need default thinking — it's how we learn, and life would be ridiculously inefficient without it. In fact, our defaults would serve us brilliantly in all facets of business and life, if only things were static and never changed.

But stuff does change. And in a strategic context, the biggest opportunity and threat facing any enterprise today is the sheer complexity of our dynamic and uncertain future. It's the fact that an infinite number of possible futures exist within and beyond reasonable probability — and any one of them may render your current business model and identity unviable.

But! Thanks to the fact that our strategy is augmented by pioneering leadership and an ongoing quest for enduring relevance, we have a sense of what lies ahead. What's more, we have a range of viable alternative strategic options to consider in addition to our defaults.

TOWARD COHERENCE

When we catch ourselves progressing within our defaults, the most important question we can ask ourselves in any given moment is, Is this ...