Inventing the Future: Leadership as a Beacon for Change

So, also, I often say that one of the things that leaders need to do is invent the future.

Do you agree with that? Is that Is that like How does that fit within your sort of research and practice of leadership?

>> You know, inventing the future, these are such intimidating words, right? Inventing the future. But what it is,

it's really determining and thinking about what's in the present and beginning to anticipate what can be

possible in the future. Sometimes it's to say, "Whoa, I see an oncoming train. I see it, others don't. So, that's part

of the future." Other times it's to say, "Whoa, I see all these dots. Imagine if we connect them.

What new possibilities can we engage in?" And so, part of that is we talk about this in

our leadership work here at the Harvard Business School as leaders as beacons. >> Yes.

>> To be able to see the landscape and to imagine

what may be the very next thing that we all need to think about. So, you're right. In a sense, that is inventing the

future and it comes from understanding the landscape, understanding today in order to imagine what's for tomorrow,

which means we need to be exposed to a lot of things. >> And so And so, this is like setting

direction and a vision, right? Like part of inventing the future is direction and vision.

>> It's absolutely direction and vision. I mean, even if you think about the image of the leader as a beacon,

it's the ability to look far and to set a direction and a vision based on not

facts that are very much in front of you, but the facts that you imagine will be in

the future. So, if you think about all of the innovators of our world, those who've invented telephones,

those who've invented new ways of doing things. And as you know, we're living at a time where there's so much innovation

going going on, but it took leaders to be able to see those things. And sometimes it's also responding to what's

here. >> Yeah. >> Uh in in an affirmative way. So, for

example, we know that technology's moving very fast, and leadership requires us to

understand those technologies, to start shaping those technologies. That's where vision and direction

>> happens if you're not a technologist? >> You learn as much as you need to learn. Often time, there's a baseline. We call

it, in fact, the 30% rule. And you learn a ton of research. My latest book with Paul Leonardi is called the digital

mindset, and you learn the baseline or some basic, some common vocabularies, languages around these technologies, and

you shape it. That's what it means to be a beacon. You shape it, and to shape it, you have to understand it.

>> Now, one of the things I've heard you say quite a bit when you've been You know, as a doll talks to leaders

everywhere, executives of large companies around the world,

you've often talked about like the importance of becoming good at change. So, why should our audience care about

change change management? Because that seems like a thing that companies do. You know, like your old fart company,

sorry, your old company around for a while, and then the the old line executives say, "We need change

management." Why should they care about change and and becoming good at change?

>> Change is a fundamental core competency of leadership. Because what is change ultimately? It's improvement. It's

either small improvement or big improvement. And change management is actually an entire field.

>> Yeah. >> Uh we can teach a whole a whole module on it. Uh but it's a core leadership

competency. Otherwise, you're presiding over something and you're not anticipating the future and you're not

making any improvements. So, to make improvements, to think about the future, it requires change and change

management. And there um two ways to think about leadership. One is leaders uh as um

or the role of leaders as transactional, which is the presiding over to make sure the trains are running and the

uh buses are running and everything that need to run >> Yeah.

>> on time and adequately. But that's not enough. The world is so dynamic. It changes so much all the time

that we need to be ready to improve and change and meet the moment. And at times, we need to transform. That's why

uh it's a very core competency for leadership, change. >> Yeah, you know and you know like you

have to be able to change cultures, organizations, people, their mindsets, their perspectives. And and

that to me is part of this leadership journey, right? Like how do you actually enable people to change? Because most

people tend to At least what I found in all of my inventing the future activities

>> [laughter] >> that she knows all about uh that I come to her for therapy

uh uh is is that you you've got to be able to

enable others to change, to sort of be comfortable with change because most people resist change.

>> People don't love change. >> Yeah. >> They may say they like change. And you

know >> Change is good for others, not for ourselves.

>> good for others, not for ourselves. And you've heard people say, "I love change. You know, I change my hair all the

time." And change change change. That's not true. People like predictability. >> Yeah.

>> They like certainty and they like um stability. >> Yeah.

>> Change by definition is not about certainty, is not about predictability, is not about stability. So, they resist

and there's always this belief of if we enact any of these changes, are we actually going to break things

that are working? >> Mhm. >> Change is also breaking things that are

working. >> Yeah. >> You're very familiar with that, aren't

you? >> Uh a little bit. >> [laughter]