“Transformation is about managing the present while preparing for the future. You can’t pause one to do the other.”
— Pratik Pal, Tata Group
Most people understand the value of studying the past. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about wars, scientific achievements and failures, or the evolution of a Silicon Valley start-up – studying the past can offer a road map of choices made or avoided and the results of those decisions. We’ve all heard the classic warnings about not paying attention to history – “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” or “History repeats itself” – but the legendary historian David McCullough may have said it best when he wrote, “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”
Understanding the future is a little more challenging. It’s completely unknown and difficult – if not impossible – to assess. It’s not fixed and is subject to interpretation, as well as a variety of “what if” scenarios. It’s also harder to achieve consensus on what might occur and, more importantly, how to prepare for an uncertain future. Maybe Yogi Berra was right when he said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
The fact is that most organizations settle in rather than try to leap forward. When Einstein described the laws of physics, he noted that objects at rest tend to stay at rest. He could just have just as easily ...
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