The future is unpredictable and faces us with countless challenges. The traditional business mentality becomes obsolete and the methodologies that emerge from the entrepreneurial world become relevant.
The focus moves away from efficiency
It was the main objective of business management in the 20th century. It was key in a more predictable world, but when the unexpected becomes the norm, prioritizing efficiency over flexibility can be dangerous.
Inaccessible abundance
Peter Diamandis, co-founder of Singularity University, proclaims a future of abundance. Anticipate that we do not face a problem of scarcity, but of accessibility. Scarcity is contextual and human beings, through technology, can release unimagined resources.
The skills system for the future
Considering both the volatility of the future and the great opportunities it offers, I suggest five entrepreneurial skills to face our work.
- Continuous learning: Companies have difficulty developing a learning culture because of fear of failure. Management processes still rely on efficiency. Budgeting, resource allocation, and risk control require predictability, and executive performance is evaluated based on their ability to control the future. However, thinkers like Salim Ismail, author of Exponential Organizations, tell us that “the return of learning will replace to return on investment as a key indicator in companies.”
- Curiosity: When our curiosity is activated, we have an engine on to look for creative solutions. But, at work, most repress curiosity and avoid asking questions, so as not to incur risks. For this reason, I highlight the phrase from Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, in which he explains that they ran the "company based on questions, not answers."
- Awareness of the potential of technology: Understanding how exponential technologies operate in business development is key. It is necessary to be in touch with their evolution and analyze how they leverage possible improvements or new solutions to the problem that our company solves, to try to avoid disruption, which is increasingly common. “Our intuition about the future is linear, but information technology is exponential and that makes a profound difference.&rdquo explains Ray Kurzweil.
- Courage to make decisions: Many executives procrastinate making difficult decisions. This creates more problems than the consequences they are trying to avoid. The obsession with making the perfect decision is a great challenge. The future requires learning to make decisions continuously, with available or quickly accessible information, trying to reduce the impact until gaining knowledge through testing, active listening and measurement. “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions” according to Mark Twain.
- Networking: It is the skill that transversally nourishes the rest of the capabilities. Everything we do is through each other. According to Francisco Santolo, CEO of Scalabl, “it is the willingness to explore who it is, what does and what the other wants. It involves listening without wanting to give an opinion, listening without looking for what to say. "respond, above all, without seeking to be right or passing judgment." It involves listening to what they have to tell us, lowering all defense barriers. In the end, the word does not imprison us, we are free to interpret and choose. I think the world needs more people who allow themselves to be like that. They are vulnerable and can ask for help and can give it.
To design our future, it is necessary to contemplate possible scenarios, to dare the challenge that allows us to create what does not yet exist. It is there where these skills, which we entrepreneurs exercise so much, become fundamental for everyone.
