Warp speed or road kill?

Critical to the process of navigating the future is the issue of speed. We need to be as imaginative and innovative in thinking about the pace of the journey as we are about the destination. Too often people have anticipated viable futures but failed to get there because the pace at which change was instituted was too slow. On the journey they looked up to find that the desirable future position was already occupied. Frequently those who got there first may not have anticipated the future in such a rigorous way but they undertook the journey at warp speed. Often these people make mistakes but it doesn t seem to matter.

Understanding the speed of the journey will be a key part of emerging strategic thinking. Those who fail to set the pace will be metaphorical road kill . . . that is, on the right road but run over!

For Navigators the challenge is considerable. It means that they need to push for destinations that are seen only vaguely in the mists of uncertainty. They must persuade others that this is a more desirable thing to do than to strive for specific targets created inside the machine. They need to follow their instincts as much as rely on clarity of empirical evidence.

Machine thinking is seductive in its certainty , which is fine if you live in a certain world. But we don t. Warp speed requires us to think very differently. It requires us to construct our thinking around a series of projects rather than day-to-day functional activity.

Projects allow us to focus in the short term . They give us the opportunity to be flexible. Most importantly they provide the mechanism to adopt any appropriate behaviours that get the job done and in a way that is consistent with the integrity of the system we belong to. They also fulfil a human need for accomplishment and they nurture the confidence for change. Projects often have their beginnings in chaos. They help us find a pathway to a new order different to what is there now. By definition, they signal change and, if they are driven from a foresightful position, so much the better.

Being able to assess where you are on the dotted line in Figure 2.1 is vital in a warp-speed world. Many organisations develop a future view, but have no opinion of the required speed of change. In such organisations, the inertia of Stagnators or the intervention of Isolators sees change move to the ˜too slow line . . . road kill in the making.

Figure 2.1: Strategic speed: determining the right speed for a strategy s execution is critical