Why CEOs should be futurists

What would you do if your business suddenly became illegal?

It’s June 2024 and the US looks like it’s set to ban drones made by Chinese company DJI.

It’s July 2024. Chinese company DJI announces the Avinox; a new power system for electronic mountain bikes.

There is no way DJI turned on a dime to create a whole new product line in less than a month.

And while it’s unclear how long DJI had been considering creating power systems for electronic mountain bikes, it doesn’t feel like a stretch to assume that with rising tensions and spying fears between China and the US, and the related push for a TikTok ban, that DJI’s leaders will have looked at the next few years and thought their days selling drones in the US (one of their biggest markets) might be numbered.

Earlier this year, the PwC CEO Survey showed Australian CEOs don’t (yet) think they have a burning platform for reinvention.

In fact, the majority (or 85%) of Australian CEOs surveyed believe their company would still exist 10 years from now, even if they don’t make changes to their business model.

This sounds like it could be good news.

However …

45% of global CEOs think their companies will not be viable in a decade from now if they continue on their current path.

Australia is known for being slower to respond to changes, and while we’ve been lucky to avoid some of the worst disasters of the 20th century, it’s been more due to distance than design.

So, either CEOs elsewhere are very pessimistic, and us Aussies are doing something right, or, Australian CEOs are either:

not reading the signals of change;
have fallen into a complacency trap assuming that things won’t change too much (she’ll be right… we’re the lucky country after all); or
are too busy with today to worry about tomorrow.

Maybe it’s all of these, maybe it’s something else, but I worry in particular about it being number three. That we’re too busy fighting today’s spot fires, to see an inferno on the horizon. (Or to see it, and think that’s someone else’s problem later on!).

How can CEOs be futurists?

A significant role of the CEO should be being a futurist. As a CEO (or founder, or business owner), you need to see around corners, imagine what might come next, and prepare for the most impactful possibilities.

But you can’t do that without thinking time and space, and whilst you’re stuck in the trap of today’s busyness, that thinking and imagining simply won’t ever get the time it deserves in your schedule.

And that’s what you keep telling me.

You’re all busy, pulled in all directions, and your role can often end up feeling a lot more tactical than it is strategic. Which leads to doing more of what you’ve done before, until there’s a significant shock to the system that forces change and adaptation (if it’s not too late).

But here’s the rub: while you’re busy being busy, things are changing (quickly). And tomorrow’s problems aren’t like yesterday’s. They’re more complex and more interconnected. They require adaptive approaches that are more about experimentation than technical expertise.

Now, we could debate for days whether we really are in the most uncertain, turbulent times in the whole of human history, but the more important point is that this is the most challenging environment that most of us have worked in in our lifetimes, and leaders are struggling to keep up.

Even just looking at the last five years, it’s clear the future won’t look exactly like the past. CEOs need to think more broadly and more imaginatively about the environment their organisations (and they) might exist in. Because what got us here, won’t get us there.

Here be monsters

“The old world is dying, the new world is struggling to be born. Now is the time of monsters”. This quote was written by Antonio Gramsci in 1929, but feels almost frighteningly relevant today.

If we’re in the time of monsters, we need to get used to them. And this means leaders getting comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty.

The CEOs I’m working with are actively seeking out existential conversations about the organisations they lead and the industries they work in. They want to explore what might happen and what the impact could be on their organisations. They actually want to think about the significant policy, economic, social, and technological changes that could not just change their business, but could render it unsustainable.

Interestingly, I’m seeing that not-for-profits and local governments seem to be more open to doing more of this work at the moment in Australia. I put this down to two reasons:

not-for-profits can have an inherent underlying sense of existential risk and fragility of their business and funding models, so know they always need to have plans B, C, and D ready to go; and
local governments are making decisions that will span generations, so they understand that they need to look further into the future to make better decisions now.

There is a lack of complacency from these leaders.

These CEOs want to ask the questions to get to the bigger conversation: what could they be as a business in the future? How can they adapt, change, prepare, and act to either start moving towards or away from those changes? How should they start to plan for how they’ll respond if those shifts materialise.

Getting comfortable with ambiguity is a constant practice, and it’s self-perpetuating. The more you invite hard questions and ambiguity, the more normal those conversations become, and the stronger your muscle gets for considering what’s next.

It might look like exploring possibilities through scenario planning, having more ‘what if’ conversations with your co-founders or exec team, and stepping outside of the tactics and approaches that have got you to where you are now.

Courage beyond busyness

Leadership requires foresight. And embracing foresight in your ways of working as a leader requires courage. The courage to say no to, or delegate, some of the tactical work you’re currently doing. The courage to look ‘un-busy’ and put time aside to think.

Such thinking might look like lying on the floor (this is where I often think), going for a walk, reading a novel, or sitting and looking out of the window.

Our societal addiction to busyness is certainly a barrier, but I personally think the bigger challenges to overcome in embedding this mindset are:

A belief that we can’t influence the future; and
A fear of the unknown.

If we don’t know what to do, we’ll always choose to spend time doing the work we’re familiar with and that feels safe to us.

If we feel a lack of control and agency about what happens next, we’ll always ignore the harder ‘what if’ questions and focus on reacting to the ‘what now’.

We’ll sink into apathy and end up frozen by inertia. Or at least until some external shock happens and snaps us out of this daze.

Maybe you *can’t* easily change the future that plays out, especially for large-scale changes like demographic changes. But you *can* control your level of preparedness for that happening.

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