Stable Doors? Bolted Horses!

Living downtown on Planet Risk.

It's official. The words predictable, safe, secure, manageable, stable and long term are the new high risk strategies.  Avoid them or die.

Who would know.

The big objective for most people seems to be to reduce risk at all costs. And reduce cost at all costs. Oh and at low risk. But that will be at huge cost and risk. Because we know that risk is on the edge and at the edge is where the opportunity is.

Planning for safe is not only ludicrous it's stupid.

It bakes in apathy, risk and dumb process. It kills the spirit of what makes business survive.  And yet these things are the first words out of everyone's mouths when thinking about the future. Getting to anything like these things requires constant re-thinking. Constant disruption, black-belt creativity, truly flexible systems, passionate and engaged people right across the enterprise and incredible energy and passion by mercurial leadership.

Yes everyone want’s the latest technology, creativity and smart capability but it has an increasingly short shelf life.

Rising above the crowd and leading in the 21st Century means leveraging not owning what was once valuable or unique (but is soon commodity). Then doing it again.  All the time.  And again.  And again. It is how to think – it is not a one-off project. Designing ‘apps’ for the iPad is the hot ticket today - it will be the daily trudge for creative programmers inside a year. Probably already is.

Being in front is about being happiest with the uncertainty of next.

Staying at the top of the food chain is remembering that it’s always about next. Now is boring and already dying. Yesterday. Not a comfortable place for many people. We have to get used (and delighting) to the fact that the norm is that tense, adrenaline buzzed - risky more sporty place called "don't know, we can't be sure - but let's try this...".

This means we don’t have to own all of the current resources. But we need to know how to partner with the talent for next. We need to know how to build communities of innovation for next. We need to understand the value networks for next and the 21st Century Eco-Systems for next.

If we could be sure about anything it would not be realistic. We know that sure bets aren't. We know that fashion is fickle and short term. Getting shorter. Get to understand that. Fast.

Baking in stability is to die. Stable doors means the horses have bolted.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!