This video really drives home the point that we can use technology to work together in different ways – our ways of collaborating have to change.

As an example of leadership, the chief of this tribe is firmly focused on the future for himself and his people. He had the vision to take completely foreign technology, see the potential for connecting with large numbers of people, and to use that to move his tribe into a new phase of fighting for their lands and their culture.

Would you be this quick to recognize the opportunities new technologies offer?

An extraordinary video of swarming birds, with a narration by Don Tapscott of Wikinomics and Macrowikinomics fame. He uses this as a metaphor for the possibility for humans of mutual awareness, consciousness and connectivity. One of the more interesting points is that the birds change leadership constantly and dynamically – are you ready to take leadership when it makes sense for you? Are you ready to allow others to lead when its right for your goals? Is this already happening in your organization?

Leadership lessons can sometimes come from unexpected places. The recent HBR series on leadership lessons from the military has revealed some interesting insights. This article by Col. Bernard Banks discusses the importance of experiential training in creating leaders that can think critically in a variety of situations.

“The goal is not to teach them what to think, but to enhance their ability to think critically and creatively about the myriad of contingencies posed by a fluid environment — in essence to teach them how to think. ”

Whlie the U.S. military certainly has the resources for extensive training at all levels, its important that you don’t neglect your own individual learning because it seems as though opportunities are not there. See all your experiences as learning experiences.

“Today is the opportunity to prepare for tomorrow, regardless of how much else is going on.”

What will your job be in 2030?

What is the future of employment? What are the jobs and careers for the future? What can we expect to be doing 20 years from now? What will our children likely be doing when they enter the workplace?

The only certainty is that the jobs and careers of the future will be very different from those we’re in today.

A recent research study commissioned by the British Government  took on the task of predicting the future of jobs and careers. The research for this Shape of Jobs to Come report was done by Fast Future.

The list of the top ten predicted jobs for 2030 make for fascinating reading:

1. Body part maker
2. Nano-medic
3. Pharmer of genetically engineered crops and livestock
4. Old age wellness manager/consultant
5. Memory augmentation surgeon
6. ‘New science’ ethicist
7. Space pilots, tour guides and architects
8. Vertical farmers
9. Climate change reversal specialist
10. Quarantine enforcer

Any of these on your horizon? Any of these on the list of your children’s career aspiration list?

Given the close identification that many people have with their career, this also raises the interesting question of how job and career will feature in our self-identity in a world where we need to change this aspect of ourselves quite radically several times over the course of a life time.

What is important to take away, however, is that the world of jobs and careers is being changed by a multitude of factors. What we can be sure about is that the jobs and careers of tomorrow and the day after will be quite different from what we have today. So staying plugged into the wider world – and not just the narrow world of our current job and career – is probably a very good thing.

Maybe even more important: because of fast pace of change, the number of jobs and careers anyone will have during a life time of work will only increase. Here’s what Rohit Talwar, chief executive of Fast Future, has to say about the “career for life” idea:

“Students coming out of university now could easily have eight to 10 jobs in their lifetime, across five different careers. Technology is advancing so fast and industries are changing so fast that what looks like a solid job today disappears tomorrow.”

Given the close identification that many people have with their career, this also raises the interesting question of how job and career will feature in our self-identity in a world where we need to change this aspect of ourselves quite radically several times over the course of a life time

This all means that one of the most critical FutureSmart skills will be the capacity to learn, and the flexibility to take on new challenges in new environments.

If we stand a chance to deal with the massive challenges facing us to create a positive future, we will need to become highly skilled at connecting and collaborating.

FutureSmart working and leading will require extraordinary levels of connection and collaboration. One key application of this is in getting technical experts working together for solutions to the challenges facing our planet.

In a recent interview, Charlie Pellerin – ex-Director of Astrophysics for NASA and President of 4-D Systems – talks about both his passion for helping teams be effective, and his system for helping to do just that.

NASA is an example of an institution that has had some extraordinary technical successes that could only be done by teams of highly talented and skilled people working together – sending a man to the moon, exploring Mars, Hubble…

NASA also provides some spectacular examples of how badly things can go wrong when leadership fails and when team work falls short of what is needed.

How much does the soft social side contribute to team performance and effectiveness? Consider that in every spectacular NASA failure a review board has pointed to leadership and other “soft” factors as the root cause.

Since 2003 I have had the privilege to work in 4-D Systems, created by Charlie Pellerin – to help high level technical teams and the leaders of those teams become more effective. Charlie is an extraordinary person who has been responsible for one of NASA’s massive failures – sending the $1.7 billion Hubble space telescope into space with a flawed mirror. He is also responsible for a daring rescue mission to correct the flawed mirror – and as a result Hubble ‘s science is widely cited as one of science’s greatest accomplishments.

Charlie took the lessons of Hubble mission to heart, and devoted himself to understanding what it needed for technical teams to function at a high level. The result: A 4-D dimensional framework, with simple, high-impact and rigorous supporting assessments, workshops, and coaching, to help teams enhance the critical soft factors that are essential for effectiveness and success.

The future is coming at us all the time, day by day. To succeed you need to have the right mindset and an awareness of the nature of the change coming at you.
Jim Carroll’s “Ten things that are true about the future” is a good summary of the things to keep in mind when your goal is not just to survive, but to thrive tomorrow.

Here is the quick version of his list.

The Future…

1. …is incredibly fast.
2. …involves a huge adaptability gap.
3. …has a huge instananeity.
4. …hits you most when you don’t expect it.
5. …is being defined by renegades.
6. …involves partnership.
7. …involves intensity.
8. …is bigger than you think.
9. …involves innovation intensity.
10. …comes from experiential capital.

How does this list make you think about your approach to the future? Are you ready to change and innovate fast to thrive instead of just survive?
Click on the link for Jim Carroll’s whole article, or click here for an illustrated PDF about furture trends in general.

Happiness is typically seen as a soft, intangible concept with no place in business. It never appears on a spreadsheet or a yearly report. But could focusing on these intangibles be the key to doing business in the future?

Chip Conley believes in focusing on the intangibles – such as well-being and happiness – in a business context. He suggests that there should be a perspective shift in what we value and what we measure. Intangible yet meaningful things like intellectual property, emotional connections between employees and customers, and corporate culture are increasingly important and valuable. But since they are not measured they are not valued properly.

“So what the world needs now, in my opinion, is business leaders and political leaders who know what to count. We count numbers. We count on people. What really counts is when we actually use our numbers to truly take into account our people.”

FutureSmart leader connection: Leaders and organizations who want to thrive in the future need to count differently. We need to focus more on the intangibles that create engagement with employees and customers. Quite simply, we need to figure out how to count what really matters.

What will give your company an advantage in the future?

Umair Haque claims that there is a shift in how companies gain advantage. He argues that we are shifting away from an old model of extractive and protective advantages to an allocative and creative future.

“The future of advantage is radically different from the past for a simple reason: because it’s economically better. 20th century advantage focuses firms on simply extracting resources from people, communities and society — and then protecting what they extract. 21st century advantage focuses firms on creating new resources, and allocating them better. The former is useful only to shareholders and managers — but the latter is useful to people, communities, and society.“

Companies that respond to this change will thrive and will be able to compete in the future, but those that do not will lose out.

FutureSmart connection: Is your company locked into the old model of extraction or protection? Or would you still have an advantage over competitors in the new model of allocation and creativity? What could you do to change leadership thinking in a way that will push you closer to the new model?

Is bigger necessarily better? Will you be prepared to lead in the future if you simply work your way up to managing areas with a larger scope? Is your desire to manage more people with a bigger budget really setting you up for success tomorrow?

Scott Anthony argues that the focus of current leadership development on more of the same kind of experience is not enough. Giving a potential leader more – more direct reports, more assets to manage, more responsibility – will not give them the skills to successfully navigate what they will encounter in the future. That will only teach them to “master today’s complexity”, but it will not give them the skills they will need for the future.

“[G]iving up-and-comers more responsibility helps them to refine skills they already have, when what they need to do is to develop the capability to flexibly respond to unanticipated challenges.“

The key is to prepare future leaders to be creative, flexible, focused and responsive to change when faced with the “new normal” of ambiguity and uncertainty that will challenge them in the future.
How is your company responding to the need for leaders with the skills to deal with the challenges of uncertainty? How are you preparing yourself?

Jason Clay, in this TED.com video, talks about how his work on biodiversity with the WWF led to getting big brand companies to focus on the future. Maintaining biodiversity and then carefully using the finite resources of the planet is essential to our future survival.

The initiative Clay talks about in this video is a great example of what commons creating – a future leadership skill – looks like in practice. The key is to step back from the race to consume and the fight to compete. We have to focus on collaborating in ways that help us do more with less and less. We need to innovate to make products that are sustainable before consumers even get to them. From a leadership and business perspective, it means being able to balance commons creating with competitive advantage.

“Sustainability has got to be a pre-competitive issue. It’s got to be something we all care about. And we need collusion.“

Futuresmart Leader Connection: It is essential to focus on collaborating across the usual divides. Commons creating, collaboration and working towards the greater good will be increasingly important as we shape the future.

What do you need to look at differently from a sustainability viewpoint in order to be in business in the future? Where do you need to consider commons creating before you move to competing?

“The issue isn’t what to think, it’s how to think. These companies have begun to think differently. They’re on a journey, there’s no turning back. We’re all on that same journey with them. We have to really begin to change the way we think about everything. Whatever was sustainable on a planet of six billion is not going to be sustainable on a planet with nine.“