The Future Enterprise, and with it future enterprising, can no longer rest on established mindsets, assumptions and frameworks which decouple the organization from its environment and create separations which by now have become blurry. Rather than isolated optimization (e.g., profit, employee retention), actions and decisions far beyond the boundaries of the firm need to orchestrated, continuously revised and tensions and fuzziness need to be accepted and mitigated. In such an environment, tomorrow’s leaders will be measured by their capability to adjust three levers.
First, what is the right dose of aspiration? How to best balance responding to problem-centric urgency with capitalizing on emerging opportunities with an ambitious narrative? How to remain decisive, curious and robust in an economy that puts increased value on dynamic capabilities?
Second, what is the right degree of augmentation when it comes to the integration of human and machine capabilities? What are the capabilities needed to develop data literacy and augmented creativity? What areas of the organization benefit most from algorithms and autonomy, and how can these entirely new capabilities be composed and balanced to create and sustain new value?
Third, what extent of alignment between internal and external requirements, and their respective shareholders, is needed? What purpose justifies the enterprise to the outside, and creates direction on the inside? How to navigate the paradoxes of tensions? How to ensure the organization is responsible, explainable, sustainable and trusted, not just as a regulatory response, but as a source of competitive advantage?
Finding the right levels of aspiration, augmentation and alignment will be the challenge of the coming years. The capabilities presented in this book will provide the competence to approach this challenge well-equipped and with confidence.
