We spend so much time thinking about the present, that the future escapes us. This isn’t something that occurs just with individuals. It happens at all levels of society. Governments, organisations, and people. For uni not so long ago I was researching this topic and came across this quote in ‘Competing for the future’, by Prahalad and Hamel. There’s a lot in this quote that the our organisations could learn from.

Recently one of us spent a day with the top officers of a well known U.S. company. The question put to these managers was simple: What are the forces already at work in this industry that have the potential to profoundly transform industry structure?

A heated discussion followed, and a dozen discontinuities were identified. One of the potential drivers was picked at random, and the top team was asked, “Could you sustain a debate for a full day, among yourselves, about the implications of this trend to your company and the industry? Do you understand how fast this trend is emerging in different markets around the world, the specific technologies that are propelling it, the technology choices competitors are making, which companies are in the lead, who has the most to gain and the most to lose, the investment strategies of your competitors via-a-vis this trend, and the variety of ways in which this trend may influence customers demands and needs?

The top team agreed that it simply didn’t know enough about this critical driving force to answer these questions, and certainly couldn’t keep a detailed, intelligent debate going for a full day. A few people suggested that these questions weren’t really fair.

They were then asked, “Could you sustain a debate for eight hours on the issue of how you allocate corporate overheads, set sales targets, and manage transfer prices?” Now this was a fair question. “On this we could keep going for eight days, no sweat,” replied a senior executive.

Suddenly the point hit them: This group of managers was not in control of their company’s destiny. They had surrendered control of that destiny to competitors who were willing to devote the time and intellectual energy necessary to understand and influence the forces shaping the future of the industry.

Hamel, G & Prahalad, C K 1996, Competing for the future, Harvard Business School Press, Boston