Written by: Ahmed Avais, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The future of business is imagination. Businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups that can imagine the future before it happens will reap tremendous rewards. To learn more about how to get in touch with your own inner visionary, read on.
Learn about the future of business
The future of business is not just about being able to adapt to change. It’s also about being able to learn (and unlearn) skills and adapt to a new way of doing business. If you can do that, you will succeed. If you're looking for guidance on the Internet, you will find it in equal parts inspiring and frustrating. Will artificial intelligence and machine learning harm humanity or take them to the next level? What of Web3 and the levels of autonomy possible now? Well-designed machines and computers will always be more efficient and more productive, however, there's a glaring gap in their capability: the power to imagine!
That's right, your human imagination can be harnessed to make your business future proof. If you let your employees feel empowered by your vision, they will have free reign to imagine the future. You can do this for your business, family, community, and even the world.
My late mentor, Norman Bodek, taught me to imagine better goals and make them practical. Lovingly known as the godfather of Lean, the last book he published before his passing in 2020 was about CEO coaching and those aspiring to be a great leader. I believe that imagination can be harnessed for anyone willing to rise to the level of future leadership, regardless of their title or experience.
Have you ever thought about what your vision says about you? The truth is that your vision can tell a lot about the kind of person you are and the beliefs you hold dear. For example, if your vision is to better serve customers, it implies that you have good customer service skills and are a valuable asset to any business or organisation.
The three powers
According to Kazuyoshi Hisano, author of the aforementioned book "CEO Coaching", there are three powers a leader can harness:
The power to see the future
The power to believe in oneself
The power to engage and move people
According to Hisano, the ability to lead effectively stems from how leaders apply these three powers.
The power to see the future is the basis for all three. It is the power that allows leaders to envision the future and to see what must happen to get there. It is the power that often results in people, such as company employees, following a leader’s vision and making it a reality.
The power to believe in oneself is the power to believe one’s own capability and to push oneself to use it. This power can be utilized to keep up one’s striving and to keep expectations high. It can also be utilized to lead others effectively.
The power to engage and move people is the power to get others to move. This power comes from establishing rapport and building relationships with other people.
Getting comfortable with change and uncertainty
There's a level of comfort that you will need to build with uncertainty. Understanding that clarity is emergent will help you influence a future you can't control or predict. Build your capacity to seek inspiration and then spread that inspiration in your company. Businesses need to be agile and adapt to change. With increased competition, innovation, and technology, businesses are facing unprecedented uncertainty, which can bring fear and anxiety into the workplace. Instead of fighting this, think of it as an opportunity to grow and become stronger. Accepting uncertainty is a vital part of being a leader.
Keep it simple and clear
Imagination is our greatest gift — and perhaps the only one that can take us to the stars. Once we harness it, we can focus on a specific goal: a business, a personal project, or even just a good healthy snack.
We all have the ability to imagine what could be, but only some of us choose to. To make our dreams into realities, we need to visualize them. A simple tool like the balance wheel helps us visualize the future state — with clarity of mind, we can make our imagined successes become real.
I've had the pleasure of creating grit, clarity and commitment with my clients using nothing more than the balance wheel. You can learn more about the tool, how I use it, and how you might apply this free template: https://miro.com/miroverse/balance-wheel-goals/
Takeaway: If you want to inspire your dreams, then read on. It's better to give yourself a challenge than give yourself a blank slate. Make sure to keep it simple and clear. You can always change things that you don't like if they aren't working out too well.
Ahmed Avais, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Ahmed Avais is an Enterprise Agile Coach, focused on Business Agility. He brings his natural and insatiable curiosity to invite people into his teaching and learning. He uses a variety of tools and techniques, all focused on helping teams and businesses more clearly see their system, allowing them to unleash their potential. Ahmed is passionate about mastery, growth, complexity, agile games, and social responsibility.
