“Future Fit” - Implementing Necessary Strategies

“Future Fit” - Implementing Necessary Strategies

Helikx have been to a couple of meeting recently looking at human resource intensive organisation need to do in order to prepare for the future. 

Key lesson: We all know we need to dedicate the time to such thinking but the ongoing workload of immediate priorities too often wins.

At a meeting convened by one of our client, participants were asked to imagine the year 2025, where several scenarios may have come to pass: the government control will be reduced, small time players will merge with big or vanish, the skilled work force will be a challenge, office timing will not there, the task completion is measured rather than physical presence, organization will pass the problems to future generation  trusting organisation will be minimal and health will become important rather than wages and salary and so on. 

Some of the capabilities required by the organisation to cope with one or all of these were presented as : flexible and varied business models; strong digital presence, reliance on data and knowledge, building relational skills like managing networks, the focus would be on intangibles such as knowledge, relationships, patents, and copyright etc, rather than tangibles asset, building, machinery and money.

The challenges may be listed as:

1. In a world where exponential change is the new normal, how to build a company that can change as fast as change itself?

2. In a world where no organisation is protected from intense, un predictable, disruptive competition, how to make innovation every body's responsibility?

3. In a world where knowledge itself is becoming a commodity, how to cultivate an environment that engages and unleashes the gifts of each human's imagination, initiative and passion?

4. In a world of increasingly limited resources, how to rethink what it means to win so that profit comes not from modelling the business but from responsive business model for everyone? 

Strategies to tackle those challenges:

There are many school of thoughts. Gary Hamel in his "Reinventing the technology of Human Accomplishment" argues that: 1. Aim high, 2. Challenge the status quo, 3. Explore the fringe are going to be the key. 

The organisations should be resilient, inventive, inspiring and accountable. Being like this will increase the chances of sustainability.

This "Modern" management was developed more than a century ago. The focus was maximizing, shareholder interest. While that model delivered an immense contribution to global prosperity, standardization, specialization, hierarchy, control, and the values driving our most powerful institutions are fundamentally at odds with those of this age " Zero-sum" thinking, profit obsession, power, conformance, control, and obedience don't stand a chance.

Our business history going through seismic shifts that alter the competitive landscape. The trends create "inescapable threats" and time for game changing opportunities. 

Now, challenge for the business houses is: to adapt and innovate or be swept aside. 

Managing change in today's organisation is not getting any easier. However doing it well is the new imperative. 

It is time to radically rethink how companies mobilize people? 

Helikx HR Training and business consulting is working towards making organisations "future fit" and implementing necessary strategies. 

By

Balaji.S

Principal Consultant & Founder,

Helikx HR Training & Business Consulting