What new initiative are you launching? Are you embarking on a journey intended to provide service to others, or is it an intriguing route for you to explore? Understanding our intentions helps us provision and promote the quest. What ‘help wanted’ sign will you post to assemble a crew? How does it change based on your motivation?
Features and benefits that set people up for success can also cause damage. How might we recognize that our newest upgrade might disrupt the user’s experience when approached in the wrong direction or with misaligned intentions?
Sometimes the past reveals itself even after the original structure/event has passed. It might add depth and dimension to our understanding of the place we occupy. Otherwise, we will likely label something irrelevant while missing an opportunity to be curious.
When we encounter terrain changes, some give us pause, some cause us to re-route, and others go almost unnoticed.
What topography do we navigate without as much thought as perhaps they are worthy of? What geography causes us to stumble when it might not require special consideration?
If we endeavor to keep our cause in perpetual motion, we might miss the opportunity to address deferred maintenance. Sailors who circumnavigate the globe look for opportunities to lift their boats above the water line to clean the hull and handle other necessary maintenance. To enhance the performance and efficiency of the boat’s movement through the water, the return on investment of a clean hull versus the time lost in port is a formidable decision.
How might we take the same mindset with our enterprises? How might we take time for a generative conversation? How might we address opportunities to improve our governance? How might we reflect upon or update our strategic plan? How might we update our board recruitment roster? How might we test our organizational assumptions?
What is the return on investment if we commit to any of the items mentioned above? What would a transformative moment of pause do for the future journey?
Lighthouses are often located in remote places. Their purpose is communication. A lighthouse might signal a navigation point, warn of danger, offer guidance, or be a historical relic from a time when technology needed fixed navigational aids.
What navigation aids does your enterprise use to confirm the team is on course or avoiding potential barriers? Are they accurate? Do they need recalibration? Are they inherited from an era that may no longer be relevant? Or have you upgraded to a version that allows the cause to move more confidentially?
What are you monitoring? Where have you placed your sensors to gain access to the data and metrics? Are you tracking the best information for your enterprise, or have you left the options on the pre-programmed default option?
Riding a bike on a velodrome removes variables present on the open roads. Velodromes tend to be limited to cyclists, ridden in the same direction, constructed with smooth surfaces, possess banked corners to support high-speed turning, provide a uniform distance, and allow riders to test their limits. Not every cyclist who is good on a velodrome is equal on the roads. Remove the controlled environment of the track, and the variables might disrupt their ability to put out constant power. Equally, not every great road cyclist can perform magic on the track.
Who might we recognize where we excel and under what conditions we thrive?
We can boast about our top-end capabilities, but if we do not have the skills to adjust to the terrain, we will crash fast in a straight line. Being able to navigate might be more important than harboring unlimited power.
If we want to intersect an orbiting planet, we will fail if we wait until it is closest to Earth and launch. We need to anticipate when the planet will reach the nadir of its orbit relative to Earth and then calculate how much time in advance we need to launch. The same is true for life. Savings funds are best started years in advance, not the week before a major purchase. Save-the-date announcements are sent months before a major ceremony. Architectural plans are drafted through iterations, beginning with broad concepts and moving towards construction and engineering details before building begins.
If the journey ahead is uncharted, we probably cannot plan today for tomorrow’s complete immersion. We need to aim for a point of confluence, where our vision and the future might intersect.
What-if-concepts 