Four things that identify the future as the present

The future has not only become an integral part of our thinking, but is also regarded as the business model par excellence in the face of digitalisation.

Whether the development is characterised by the prospect of the "smart factory", labelled as Industry 4.0, proclaimed as the Internet of Things or referred to as the "second machine age" (Brynjolfsson/MacAffee, The Second Machine Age, 2012)  speaks is irrelevant: 

She who lies before us is what drives us.

What is certain, however, is at best the crisis. Now that the old paradigms of the politically driven, East-West divided world have disappeared, the fact that a crisis exists cannot be ignored with the advent of globalisation and subsequent digitalisation. The crisis as a permanent state, a crystallisation point of identity, especially for the young generation ("Ypsiloners") and a permanent guest on news programmes and political shows.

The crisis has replaced the war

Now let us not misjudge the progress of this situation: The crisis seems to have replaced the war for the most part, but by no means for everyone, and could allow us a little rest and serenity.

But who wants to be the second to taste the fruits of the future?

And all the more so if there are no tasty ones left for the runner-up. The essence of the digitalisation of all economic processes is precisely that the winner takes all (Shapiro/Varian, Information Rules. A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. 1999) and the second is the first last, which is known to bite the dogs.

It is no secret that the Chinese character for conflict is made up of the characters for opportunity and crisis.  The price of the new possibilities, of these universally praised opportunities of digitalisation, is also the crisis. And change always brings with it a fair amount of potential for conflict.

Nothing seems certain anymore, nothing simple, nothing clear. Oh, how clear and simple and unambiguous the past seems in comparison. And we find it increasingly difficult to remember that time when today was still the day after tomorrow and the future was still ahead of us.

It's not worth debating, there's no need for dialogue here. This is the stuff fairy tales are made of. The past is the material that stimulates our mental weaving patterns of sighing and longing.

Today, the future needs something else - and it should be made clear right here: it needs heroes least of all. Even Batman may no longer be a hero in the skies today, but doubts, struggles and knows what the world is: vuka.

If anything is certain today, it is that the world is vuka.

The world is volatileit is erratic, unpredictable and unbearably varied.

The world is uncertain, It is unsafe, not reassuring and simply risky.

The world is complex, It is opaque, not guided by rules and difficult to grasp.

The world is ambiguousIt is ambiguous, not easy to interpret and quite contradictory.

For companies of all kinds, it is therefore important to develop your strategy accordingly.  or, as one managing director told us this year: "We no longer have a strategy! What's the point of planning? It'll be different again in the morning anyway."

You can do it, but then it will be…

And yet, this managing director was not entirely wrong, because his findings were correct, only the conclusion was somewhat rash. After all, in a volatile environment, it is more important than ever to weak signals at an early stage and interpret them accordingly.

It is the weak signals that herald the revolutions. 

What is needed for this are system-integrated Early warning systems, Their interpretative findings are taken into account extensively in strategy development.

Such early warning systems are formally designed spaces for the informal exchange of information. In the battle for the attention of decision-makers, weak signals are simply in competition with the strong signals that dominate day-to-day business. This is not only due to the strength of the signals, but also to the limited capacity of the decision-makers to absorb them. In addition, in a vuka world It is tempting to tackle tasks that are safe, easy to understand and easy to grasp: they are solvable and harbour little risk of failure.

Tasks that arise from weak signals are a completely different matter. They are barely recognisable and are processed while it is unclear whether their solution is important. Their meaning is simply uncertain. And mistakes are unavoidable.

This is why informal networks are so important and communication spaces that strengthen these networks and enable intensive communication with each other are vital for survival in a vuka world. They enable constant alignment in the interpretation of signals, the profiling of the task and strategy-led implementation within the organisation. These are not tasks for heroes, but for organisations.

Perhaps it won't even be possible to honour the first signal interpreters afterwards. That would be an occasion for a real group celebration!