One of the things that scares people about change is that, by definition, change is future-oriented; no one knows the future, and they have the fear of the unknown.
It probably all sounds perfectly understandable. It is easier to talk with the knowledge of hindsight than to speak with foresight. Yet any leadership role requires the person having that role to manage the future.
One may ask how can the future be managed if it is an unknown quantity. Again, this is a perfectly understandable perspective. It is always more comfortable speaking about the past and possibly the present. They are certainly more familiar than the future.
In fact, if we were to examine carefully how we spend our time, we would find that we spend most of our time managing the past, sorting out yesterday’s problems. We never seem to find time to think about the future.
What a seemingly fantastic excuse! We are too busy to think about the future and so we believe we are absolved from doing so.
The point is that we do not think about the future not because we do not have time but because we do not like to. We always find time for the things we like to do in life. So it is not a question of time but a question of attitude.
To illustrate how true this is, think of the problems you had to solve yesterday. Thinking objectively: how many of them could have been foreseen and/or prevented, but which were not?
Taking it further, think of at least one situation that you can foresee becoming a problem in the future if you do not address it. The odds are you can probably think of three or four, not just one situation. Once we have identified such situations, one can think of starting to manage the future. This means that instead of being at the mercy of the waves, we start to ride the waves. This applies to any leadership situation, in business, in government, in our lives.
Do we have the attitude to seek to anticipate what the future may bring? Do we adopt the concept that “prevention is better than cure”? We cannot prophesise the future, but we can seek to forecast it.
We cannot prophesise the future, but we can seek to forecast it
With the benefit of hindsight, there is generally a belief that the smartphone has made life more convenient. Whoever developed it is considered a genius. But when the person first came out with the idea, s/he was probably considered foolish.
Steve Jobs of Apple fame was reported to have told students of Stanford University, the university he had dropped out of: “Stay hungry, stay foolish”.
If we were to stop for a minute and think of how many other things we can do without, because we have a smartphone, we recognise how important it is to manage the future.
If I had a factory making alarm clocks, I would have found myself faced with dwindling demand. And I can think of more than 30 items that I can do without, like an alarm clock, because I have a smartphone.
We also need to manage the future of the Maltese economy. We cannot simply congratulate ourselves for having achieved good economic growth. With the way the Maltese economy has performed in recent years, what could be the social, environmental and the economic consequences in the future?
Today we take membership of the European Union and the eurozone for granted. However, we are reaping the benefits of two decisions taken without the benefit of hindsight but in the belief that the future needs to be managed.