A thought experiment

Imagine you are the CEO of a horse-drawn carriage company at the end of the 19th century. This is the leading horse-drawn carriage company in North America. With the best horses, the most competent drivers and the most luxurious carriages. Everyone knows your company. From the East to the West Coast, it has an impeccable reputation. With pride, your management says: "We are the leading horse-drawn carriage company in North America." Every new employee has this drilled into them. Every customer is told this with grand gestures and small details. One is the undisputed top dog - without being arrogant. The position is the result of hard work. Over decades. Well-deserved. And full of ambition, you and your team tackle the next chapter of the company's development: "In the future, we want to become the leading horse-drawn carriage company in the whole world." And then come the railways. Then come bicycles, cars and aeroplanes.

If you had understood your company as a horse-drawn carriage company in the dynamics of change that characterise our world then and now, and positioned it accordingly: How should you assess the company's growth potential? What are the future opportunities? Could the horse-drawn carriage company have somehow improved its chances for the future back then? And what can we learn from this today?

Hypothetically speaking, what would have happened if the company had seen itself as an "innovative mobility company"? As a premium service provider that wants to get people from A to B in a sensational way? With openness and passion for new transport possibilities at its core. Without placing a technology like the horse-drawn carriage so dominantly at the centre of its self-image. Without being lulled by the success of the past. What would have been the future viability? What do you think?

Perhaps the company would still exist today. Maybe it would even be the world's leading mobility company after more than 150 years, operating fleets of railways, aircraft, buses and ships. Then it might also be tinkering with the solution to the battery capacity problem in order to help e-mobility achieve a breakthrough. And it would certainly work - as one of the pioneers alongside Elon Musk, Richard Branson and co. - on the question of how we can get humans to Mars.

You sure? Maybe. It's just a thought experiment to show: The way an organisation sees itself has a fundamental influence on what it can and will become in the future.

Openness to the future

Openness to the future should be firmly anchored in the cornerstones of your organisation! In the past, as today, the more markets, customer needs and technologies change, the less past principles of success count. And the more important it becomes to be open to the emerging opportunities of tomorrow.

This openness to the future should be firmly anchored in the cornerstones of your organisation and brought to life in your daily work. The following questions are important:

• What is the self-image in your company based on?

• Is it attached to something ephemeral that becomes irrelevant with time?

• Is it free from the complacency of past successes?

• Is it open to the future?

• Does it inspire entrepreneurs, management and employees to tackle new issues and challenges? To try something out? To dare to do something new?

Companies tend to be guided by the success principles of their past - and unintentionally make it difficult for new ideas to gain acceptance. After all, yesterday's principles of success do not all lose their meaning overnight. They are indispensable for the efficient operation of the business. But, hand on heart: what are you really doing today to question your principles of success and enrich them with a good portion of the future? Do you succeed in cultivating creative chaos alongside efficient order - without getting stuck in the conflict between conservative and progressive forces?

Giving the future more room to emerge

This is difficult for small and large companies alike. Even the German automotive industry, which was very successful for a long time, demonstrated for many years that even incredible resource power and the highest professionalism do not help - as long as the self-image is fixed on the combustion engine and yesterday's success.

Medium-sized companies are more open to the future and more agile. Their challenge lies on the resource side: far too often the right employees are missing and far too often day-to-day business "eats up" the time that had been planned for strategic topics and business development tasks. So a month, a quarter, a whole year passes quickly - without any progress being made. This is where systematic business development is particularly needed. More binding work on the future that moves the business forward instead of being swallowed up by it.

Start with the “entrepreneurial mission for the future”

The first step is to cultivate a self-image that is open to the future - ideally in the written form of an "Entrepreneurial Future Mission" with clear answers to the following core questions:

• What is the higher purpose of the organisation? What positive, transformative contribution does it want to make in our challenging world (purpose)?

• What exactly are the corporate vision (future vision) and mission (work mission)?

• What rules, values and attitudes apply and shape the thinking and actions (of managers and employees)?

The second step is to derive ambitious goals and measures from this self-image. And after that, the advancement of progress activities begins. Iteration by iteration. Learning curve by learning curve. Initiating and leading this process is the core task of management. Ideally, one involves one's divisions and flag-bearers, pooling their strengths in a joint programme for the future. Very little can be done alone.

Author: Bastian Schneider