THE FUTURE-GENERATING SELF CONCLUSION

The Future-Generating Self is then the part of us that integrates the past, fully avails of the present, and then mints the future. It is informed by the past, but not trapped by it. It is guided by the experience of the present, but transcends it. It is the ultimate creativity, it is the quintessence of leadership innovation.

The Problem:

The problem occurs when our fascination with the future leads us to ignore the past. So we build sand castles on shifting sand, while ignoring glittering nuggets of past learning that lie all around us. Our ability to envisage the future then is stuck in the outmoded paradigms of the past.

The companion problem is when we trivialise the present. When we do so, we undermine the future. We forget today's opportunities, today's relationships, today's possibilities. This then, at least to some extent, forecloses future options. Then the future becomes more of a fantasy or a pipe-dream, rather than a blue-print we are actively in the process of actualising through our everyday behaviour.

Most democracies try to be future-generating. As leaders have to appeal for votes, they tend to paint portraits of inviting futures in which problems will be resolved and greater abundance for all will be generated. Many of these promises sound hollow. The apathy engendered by the disbelief, leads to poor voter turnout, with then the most gullible or the most partisan deciding the fate of whole nations.

This is precisely what happens when we don't reflect on past learning, nor make the most of present-day experience. The antidote to such self-defeating blindness is AWARENESS. Democracies, in order to generate REAL futures, demand not only the PARTICIPATION of but the AWARENESS of their electorate. That awareness will ensure we are not ready to swoon at every telegenic inanity or cheer at every mindless slogan that panders to us.

Futures have to be generated with an adamantine commitment to reality...precisely so we can recreate that very reality. In a different context, Carl Jung said prophetically, 'We cannot change anything until we can first accept it.'

Companies also seek to be future-generating. Customers, employees, shareholders, all want to know there is a brighter future ahead. They all want to believe the company has a 'vision' of the future. Yet most companies state futures that many of their constituents believe no more than jaded citizens believe the chest-pounding of political candidates. Why? Surely companies are far more reality and performance-based than politicians? Certainly, but accordingly the standards of credibility are much higher as well.

Most companies are trapped by a core past paradigm that they have not used their present to transform. It therefore puts the brakes on their future. The purpose of hierarchy as a structure was to provide clarity. The aim was to clarify who reports to who, who has responsibility for what, etc. This should then liberate us to be able to fully focus on creating value. It should also embolden bosses to invite wide-scale participation and enable real buy-in by getting everyone engaged. After all, the organisation structure reassures them they are the boss, and can take the final decision. Therefore why not get ALL possible input and participation on behalf of a decision they will ultimately live or die by and be accountable for?

What has happened, sadly, is that hierarchy the structure has mutated into hierarchy the relationship(s). And this makes us all less than we are or might be, and diminishes the organisation by depriving it of tapping all the intelligence, learning and passion it has available to it. This is the Achilles heel of organisational culture after organisational culture.

What is needed is a present-day transformation of relationships which can generate a future where hierarchies FREE us to be human,and to really interact -- while giving us a clearly understood overall playing field.

Then we can generate creative interaction and true mutual accountability.

The Solution:

The solution lies, as implied above, in aiming to CREATE the future, inspired by yesterday's learning and today's experiences. It is to move away from arguing for limitations and onto amplifying the significance of each interaction and opportunity. It is to challenge today to provoke FRESH DESIGN for tomorrow. It is to be addicted to NEW VALUE being sought, endowed, enabled and cultivated continuously.

I saw this in action not long ago, at a very individual leadership level.

Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, recently emerged from roughly six years of imprisonment. While many feel he was locked up for political reasons, that is a controversy I don't want to enter into. Whatever the merits of his detention, he is a man admired by many in his own country, and indeed around the world. He represents a symbol of modern Asian, and indeed modern Islamic leadership. His is a message that we arguably need very desperately.

Watching a man who was once the heir apparent to the Prime Minister of Malaysia, a man who wielded so much power, emerging from a physically crippling time in jail, I was in awe. Anwar spoke with such love of Malaysia, such hope for the future, such commitment to reformation, as well as appreciation for the new Malaysian leader who had paved the way for his release. His dedication was undimmed.

He spoke emotively of his family who he had missed so, a mother whose bedside he could not be by when she died. When asked about anger at those who had put him away, he expressed none. He said he would never forget of course, but it's over, it's time to move on. He pointed out that hatred serves nothing, and his congruence when he said this was almost luminous.

Despite having initially been brutally beaten (he was in Germany for an operation on his spine when interviewed), he had befriended his jailors. This was reminiscent of Nelson Mandela teaching philosophy to inmates and guards during his incarceration, so that the prison came to be called 'Mandela University'. Anwar read extensively during his captivity and created structure and meaning for his life there, so that his spirit would be alive and well when he was set free. Apparently his jailors came to visit him after he was freed and said emotionally, 'We miss you.' He said with a smile, 'I miss you too, but not the prison.'

Here is a man whose future-generating self was in full sway. By his future focus, built on the past and present, he has become a transformational possibility and variable for everything and everyone around him.

In a different vein, Martha Stewart is currently in jail. Again, irrespective of what you and I may feel about whether she should have been locked up, whether she was a megalomaniac who had it coming, or whether she was scape-goated, she certainly knows how to generate the future! Prior to heading into jail, Martha negotiated with a major publishing house to write a memoir of her time in prison. Figures being bandied about in the press referred to a $5 million advance! Talk about turning base metal into gold!

Martha had decided to generate future learning and even greater emotional connection with her fans by ensuring her time in prison would be generative of learning, imagination, insight, meaning. Given her wealth and position, it would be hard not to be intrigued by her experiences. She transformed the experience before she even underwent it!

Another global brand is our strategic alliance partner Tom Peters. From the time IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE helped us generate the future by pointing to the primacy of people in management and leadership (at a time when charts and statistical analysis were in heady ascendance); to celebrating chaos while the rest of us wanted order; to championing crazy iconoclastic differentiation; to beating the drums of passionate innovation before it became 'cool' to do so; to intuiting trends like the emergence of women as a key factor in the economy and the centrality of 'design' to a high value-added environment; Tom Peters has challenged the past, wrung every iota of insight from the present, and been busy floodlighting the future. Any afficionado of websites could do little better than to imbibe Tom's 'blogs' from the road.

Some of his critics have accused him of 'inconsistency'. What balderdash! They ought to congratulate him for it! People who live from their future-based selves re-invent themselves feverishly. No wonder Tom's recent best-seller was called RE-IMAGINE! That's been the anthem of his life AND brand.

One of my partners, post 9/11, faced a terrible cash crunch in his business. He had fiddled with the business model in the past, sought to bring in new talent, but it wasn't working. What was clear was that he had very skilled people with him, but they weren't business-builders. They delivered well, but they had neither the extent of my partner's imagination nor the depth of his pragmatic experience. Based on his past learning, and the pain of his present experience, he decided not to close down the business, but to help it metamorphose into an exciting new reality.

Legally, he did close the business in the sense of removing all employees. But he committed to these people that instead of dealing with salaries and internal bureaucray, he would hire them on a ongoing project basis.. Why wouldn't he? He had helped train them, he trusted them, they knew our methodology. At the same time, if they generated other business for themselves, they could prosper and build confidence, rather than perpetually feeling like failures. He even committed to selling a certain amount of work for them, so they could predict a good part of their upcoming level of business.

Of course they were capable and talented people, and freed from roles that didn't play to what Dan Sullivan calls their 'unique abilities', they flourished. The relationships were maintained, and a far more entrepreneurial and value-sharing network of alliances was created. The problem BECAME the future-generating opportunity. Clients got the same team, my partner got more sleep at night, and more money in his bank account to boot.

Less lavishly, in Dubai we have a work colleague called Riaz. While we live in New York, we spend some time in Dubai. Riaz used to drive for us, employed by a local car company. Riaz always behaved as if he wanted to solve our problems for tomorrow, not just today. He kept track of our frequent clients, our beloved restaurants, the key people we interacted with at our Bank, and elsewhere. He developed a data base and volunteered for more and more responsibility.

Before long, he made himself constructively indispensable. We hired him away from his car company when he became disaffected with them. Today he makes more money, but his role is evolving into all kinds of other areas. He helped us move into a new apartment -- part interior decorater, negotiator, fiduciary. We are helping him build a home in India and educate his children. We feel only richer for the exchange, and admire Riaz for not being trapped by his past circumstances, or the shabby behaviour then of his present employers (the car company). By treating his interactions with us, and BEHAVING for the job he wanted not the job he had (far more powerful than just DRESSING for the job you want), Riaz has begun to live in a future he envisioned.

ACTION POINTS:

In the coming weeks, challenge yourself to see where you can create and generate the future.

What relationships can you transform?

What projects can you revitalise and make into a 'Wow'?

How can you begin to build tomorrow's opportunities through today's actions?

How can your communication invite everyone to participate in building a shared future?

What visionary objectives can you commit to that will DEMAND re-invention? Dan Sullivan again reminds us to ensure our 'future is bigger than our past'. That way WE have to become bigger than our past.

What key lessons from the past can you and I use to inform our present? How can we imaginatively commit to the present, to lay the groundwork for the future?

What would our team of the future look like? What can we do to enable that NOW?

What will our organisation of the future look like? What do we need to LEARN to make that so? How do we need to PERFORM today to prepare the ground for that? What NEW DESIGN can we audaciously dare to imagine -- in concert with customers and partners -- that we can get excited about making real?

Live to generate the future! That's the essence of leadership, as long as the future is inspired by the present and informed by the past.

As you and I live from our future-generating selves, we help all our team-members do likewise, we recreate our organisational cultures, we electrify our customers, we invite on board our suppliers and partners, and to some extent, we help nudge the world a little.

How can we ask for any more than the opportunity to do the above? How dare we settle for anything less?

HAPPY LEADERSHIP DESIGN!

This list is used only to share information with current clients and friends, it is NOT in any way sold or given to other companies or third parties. If you wish NOT to be included in future mailings of this newsletter you may unsubscribe by emailing unsubscribe@sensei-international.com and including the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email info@sensei-international.com.