RECAP: 2018 FOX Fall Enterprise Forum

Navigate Uncertainty by Building Vision

Speaker:
Robert Wolcott, Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Kellogg School of Management

Session Description: 

If you don’t create your future with purpose and intention, you will become the past. Professor Wolcott shared his insight on the discipline required to build your vision for your future, whether it be for your family or your family enterprise. Navigating through uncertainty by envisioning the contours of threats and opportunities is essential to prepare for the unexpected – and to create the future you desire.


"It’s important to be directed by purpose. People only see the things for which we are looking. If we don’t have right purpose in mind, we won’t ask the right questions."
- Robert Wolcott
Key Takeaways: 
  1. In order to navigate uncertainty, it is important to have purpose, vision, and ask the right questions. We often do things even after the context for doing it is no longer relevant.
  2. Some of the very best companies lost their way (ex. IBM, Xerox, Hertz, GM, Kodak, Kmart, Lehman, PanAm, Sears) because they didn’t have a portfolio of options for the future.
  3. Every company needs to balance fortification vs. exploration. Fortification is operational excellence and exploration is looking toward the future. Many leaders have difficulty doing both. (Ex. fracking was something big oil companies were aware of but didn’t take seriously and it has now transformed the industry).
  4. Set up leading indicators to help look into the future. Affected by Proximity (what’s happening), Paradigm (how we understand), and Periphery (where to look). 
  5. The 4th “P” is Purpose. People only see the things for which we are looking. If we don’t have the right purpose questions in mind – we won’t ask the right questions. Definition of purpose will drive what we see and the threats and opportunities we uncover.
  6. Foresight is not about predicting the future, but you can see the wide range of plausible futures and have the leading indicators to track opportunities and threats.
  7. Avoid trying to cram new innovations into the old paradigm: “how can we use this to do what I already do?” Reimagine the future.
     

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(FOX Members only)