A weather-eye
I was scarred in high school by enforced poetry. Badly-taught Banjo Patterson was followed by an even more badly-taught term of Shakespeare’s sonnets. So, when I saw a musty dog-eared paperback of Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf in a cottage I rented in Bali for a writing trip, I almost didn’t pick it up at all.
I’m glad I did because, within a half dozen lines, I was hooked.
It’s deservedly the most famous surviving piece of Anglo-Saxon literature and, in it is the first recorded use of the term ‘weather eye’, which is what sailors call the awareness they need to notice coming changes in the weather.
But, if one eye is on the horizon, scanning, where’s the other? It’s on the tiller, of course, with which they steer their vessel.
This is a nice metaphor for what my mentor, Alan Weiss, calls Sentient Strategy, where the most self-aware organisations succeed when they have BOTH high awareness of their external environment, AND high internal awareness, contributing to agility.
Question: What are your leaders using their weather-eye to look for?
Time zones are dead
A well-known organisational strategy framework prescribes three ‘horizons’: (i) short-term continuous innovation; (ii) medium-term business model extensions and (iii) long-term capability uplift to introduce (or counter) future disruption.
Some leaders operationalise these by applying timeframes: typically 3 - 12 months for Horizon 1 (the domain of middle managers), 2 - 3 years for Horizon 2 (led by senior managers), and 3 to 6 years for Horizon 3 (conceived and overseen by executives).
Yes, it’s deceptively neat but COVID has thrown an almighty spanner into such zonal thinking.
Like accelerant poured on a fire, Horizon 1 change now occurs overnight (think of everything you can have home delivered that you couldn’t pre-COVID). Horizon 2 change now takes months, not years. And, Horizon 3 change is common in less than 12 months (one of my clients is retooling completely to move from a suite of discrete financial products to seamless packages targetted to demographics e.g., ‘move out of home uni grads’ or ‘empty nesters’).
In every sector I’ve seen a proliferation of disciplinary boundary-defying experiments. Take a look at these furniture makers, artists, interior designers, technologists and architects who have dramatically re-thought the ways we live at home. Their fundamental questions include: (i) What if you could see the way music travels around your home?; (ii) What if you could see the true potential of your space by shuffling furniture in virtual reality?; (iii) What if you could turn your home into an ever-evolving playground?
You’ll notice all of the above ‘what ifs’ come from one site, EE (or everydayexperiments.com), a collaboration between IKEA and Space 10, a Danish design research lab. And, EE is just the tip of a very large innovation iceberg: check out this meta-site that collects 1000+ examples of COVID innovations in fields as diverse as transportation, health, education and clothing.
Taken together, all of these show us that planning to slow, orderly time horizons is well and truly a 20th-century phenomenon that has seen its day.
Question: What critical ‘third horizon’ work are you doing, right now?
The Goldfish Rule
As I write this, my wife and son are happily watching an episode of the almost impossibly-highly rated TV comedy, Ted Lasso. If you don’t know him, Ted’s an infectiously positive American football coach — who’s been comedically transplanted to the UK to train a dour and cynical soccer team.
In one episode, he coaches one of his players, Sam, to disregard the criticisms of another player, Jamie. Ted explains to Sam why the goldfish is the happiest animal: because it has a 10-second memory.
Ted’s message is: “Don’t pretend it didn’t happen. But, move on, quickly”.
My observation of corporate life is that reflection and learning from failure is vital, but it has to be done judiciously. Pick the events you commit to memory for later analysis, and forget the rest. Move on, quickly.
Question: When should you adopt the 10-second rule?
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Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you back here next Friday with more.
Andrew
Andrew, As the new COVID Commander in DET, I seem to apply the 10 Second rule every 11 seconds. Things moving so rapidly 😵💫
loved it this week - JJ