Prospect the Future
Even as you stop, look, and listen to messages in the present, you also need to raise your head and gaze out toward the horizon. Being forward-looking is not the same as meeting the deadline for your current project. Leaders have to prospect the future. They have to be on the lookout for emerging developments in technology, demo- graphics, economics, politics, arts, and all aspects of life inside and outside the organization. They have to anticipate what might be coming just over the hill and around the corner.
One of the leaders we interviewed told us, “I’m my organiza- tion’s futures department.” All leaders should view themselves this way. Leaders need to spend considerable time reading, thinking, and talking about the long-term view, not only for their specific organiza- tions but also for the environments in which they operate. This imperative intensifies with the leader’s scope and level of responsibil- ity. For example, when a leader’s role is strategic (as it is for a CEO, president, or research director, for example), the time orientation is longer term and more future oriented than it is for a leader whose role is more tactical (for example, a production supervisor or opera- tions manager).
There is no hard-and-fast rule as to how far into the future a leader should look, although it oftentimes varies with hierarchical level.8 Consider our findings about the perceived importance of “forward-looking” as a key leader characteristic varies by organiza-
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tional level. Eighty-eight percent of senior executives select forward- looking, as do 68 percent of middle managers, but only about 44 percent of college students consider it a preeminent leadership requirement. This is an indication that as individuals move into more senior levels in organizations, which bring with them respon- sibilities for longer-term projects and results, they see the value of looking farther out into the future.
Darrell Klotzbach worked at a small start-up company that was taking on the challenge of developing software titles for young chil- dren. Everyone was quite keyed up about the project because, as Darrell explained, “there were endless possibilities. We all wanted to develop a high-quality game that children would find exciting to play, that they would play again and again, and that would be an experience that they would learn from.” Darrell said that he “kept people focused on the future, reminding people how much kids enjoyed what we were doing, and how much they would enjoy it when we were done. Without keeping an eye on the future, they might have become bogged down with some of the day-to-day mundane activities and become frustrated by some very difficult challenges.”
Darrell appreciates how the leader’s job is to keep people focused on the future so that they will be eager to meet the daily challenges, work through the inevitable conflicts, and persevere to the end. Visions are future oriented and are made real over different spans of time. It may take three years from the time you decide to climb a mountain until you actually reach the summit. It may take a decade to build a company that is one of the best places to work. It may take a lifetime to make neighborhoods safe again for children to walk alone. It may take a century to restore a forest destroyed by a wildfire. It may take generations to set a people free.
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G E Imagination, asserted Nobel Prize–winning physicist Albert Ein-
stein, is more important than intelligence,9 and this is particularly true for leaders dealing with rapidly changing times. You need to give greater consideration to what you’re going to do after the current problem, task, assignment, project, or program has been completed. “What’s next?” should be a question you frequently ask yourself. If you’re not thinking about what’s happening after the completion of your longest-term project, then you’re thinking only as long term as everyone else. In other words, you’re redundant! The leader’s job is to think about the next project, and the one after that, and the one after that.
Great football coaches, for example, aren’t thinking about the current play on the field—that’s the execution left up to the players, and they’ll be either successful or not. What the coach is thinking about is the play after that, considering all the possibilities before even knowing the outcome of what’s currently being executed.10 Similarly, Grand Master bridge players (or chess or even poker players) aren’t simply thinking about their next move. They are considering possible permutations that could emerge as the game unfolds. And that’s what you should be doing—thinking about what you and your team will be undertaking after what you’re cur- rently working on has been completed. As a leader, you need to be thinking a few “moves” ahead of your team and picturing the future possibilities.
In a series of studies, researchers have shown how leaders who are focused on the future attract followers more readily, induce more effort and intrinsic motivation from group members, promote group identification, mobilize collective action, and ultimately achieve better performance on measures of both individual and organiza- tional outcomes.11 Leaders must spend time thinking about the future and become better at projecting themselves ahead in time.
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Whether it’s through reading about trends, talking with futurists, listening to podcasts, or watching documentaries, developing a deep understanding of where things are going is a significant part of your job. Your constituents expect it of you. You have to spend more of today thinking more about tomorrow if your future is going to be an improvement over the present. And throughout the process of reflecting on your past, attending to the present, and prospecting for the future, you need to keep in touch with what moves you, what you care about, where your passion is.