How The Skill of Envisioning Creates Purposeful Futures

Envisioning is a vital leadership capability in the information age. On-line streaming media shouting “the next big thing is...” creates uncertainty and confusion about current realities. Big data produced by technology reveals abstract patterns of a global world in ways that seem at times incomprehensible except to those who specialise in big data interpretation whilst organizations reduce risk at all costs by adhering to technology processes stifling the envisioning required to drive imagination and innovation. The truth is envisioning - to picture in the mind - is a human attribute technology cannot replicate. My recent research reveals most organizations and their leadership talk about the future yet very rarely develop envisioning as a basic organizational skill for creating value.

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Early Warning: A Global Business Model Tsunami Coming Your Way

The word tsunami keeps appearing in my conversations with senior leaders around innovation and the future. Why? Because they like I believe disruption is now too weak a term to describe what is happening in business models in many markets and industries globally. Business model tsunami more appropriately describes the phenomenon as social media and the digital world emerge from the edge and enter mainstream business and our daily lives. Indeed, a senior executive from one of Australia’s leading insurance companies in a conversation this week likened the eruption of digital to

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How Social Media is Democratising Banking

Recently I was reminded of how social media has emerged into the mainstream of organizational life along with our personal lives. How it is disrupting all forms of business and organizations in the most dynamic, uncertain and yet optimistic way I think I have ever seen over the 30 years I have been involved with organizational innovation. Over the past weeks, I have been working in the financial services industry assisting an organization’s team of future leaders develop their creative thinking around the organization’s design of future products and services. And I am surprised to report, there is a high level of creativity amongst the leaders in this large traditional governance dominated organization and a high level of belief the leaders can bring themselves to work and make a difference. More importantly the new generation of leaders coming through have a social conscience with more than a passing curiosity in social media and innovation. Banks, in particular, are under threat because web based technology platforms built by PayPal, Amazon and eBay, based on social media technology and principles and the notion of personal trust in commercial transactions, have begun to democratize the flow of ordinary funds in the global economy. Banks' positions as controllers of the flow of global funds has meant they have been able to dictate market terms and conditions on a whole range of financial services products. However, their position as the central processing hubs for payments is now under severe threat. As a result,

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The Fear of Organizational Innovation Thinking and How To Overcome It - an HR Industry Case Study

It has taken a decade for social media to finally deliver on its promise of democratising the work place. We might not have the paperless office but we certainly have free social media that poses a huge problem for the revenue, profitability and very existence of service driven organizations. The problem now for services organizations is not when to change but what to and how. This means organizational innovation is no longer an imperative. It is a must do. Yet, organizations find it extremely difficult to implement innovation as it requires strategic, tactical and behavioural change and to align those elements can be an Herculean task. This difficulty was highlighted recently when I was invited to a meeting with the MD of one of Asia-Pacific’s leading HR services companies. The MD has responsibility across all divisions for revenue, is passionate about innovation and recognizes the HR market is changing rapidly

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