Educating the educated

Have you ever considered what difference a few years can make? Somebody came up with this brilliant observation:

Consider the great divide between the 1970s and the year 2000.

• 1970s: Rolling Stones

2000: Kidney Stones

• 1970s: Being called into the principal’s office

2000: Calling the principal’s office

• 1970s: Disco

2000: Costco

• 1970s: Parents begging you to get your hair cut

2000: Children begging you to get their heads shaved

• 1970s: Passing the driver’s test

2000: Passing the vision test

• 1970s: Whatever

2000: Depends

Change is so fast – are we responding to it correctly?

There was a time when business schools still taught their M.B.A. candidates how to write exquisite five-year business plans – because companies still thought in five-year frames.

Today, if someone showed me a five-year plan, I’d toss aside the pages detailing the third, fourth and the fifth years as ridiculous. If I were a business school professor, I’d tell my students, “Anyone who thinks he or she can evaluate business conditions in five years from now, flunks.” Why? Here’s what Harvey Mackay says in his book Never Wrestle With A Pig: “You can reach someone, get information, make a decision, build a brand, finance a start-up, and create a personal fortune a lot faster today than you could 15 years ago. Of course, the converse is also true: you can be overwhelmed by your competitors and wiped out of business a lot faster today.

“Some people, particularly those in the high-technology sector where the speed of change is blinding, know this intuitively – and behave accordingly. They build their businesses to respond to change, not to follow a business plan.

“But there are also a lot of people in slightly more glacial sectors of the economy who haven’t adapted as well. They’re still thinking in terms of the calendar and their one- or two-year plans while circumstances are changing around them on a daily basis – and not according to plan. Their business clock is out of synch with the times.”

A new talent is required for the 21st century business: the talent to see the need to change, to recognize the need to change sooner rather than later. You need people who display this skill. These are the people who enter the picture and almost always would have a new way of doing things. (Expect that there will be those who would oppose.) These are the people who, say if you’re on a hike in the woods and are lost, would realize early in the hike that the group is lost. Meanwhile, others would only acknowledge it only after having gone deep into the woods. Still others – a few – would who simply refuse to admit you’re lost, despite the evidence; they always believe the right path is just around the next tree or hill.

How about you? Could you say the same thing about your career and seeing the need to change? Do you have your finger on the pulse of your business? Have you thought about the nature of your business and where it’s headed in the next few years? Is it an industry with a future and one you want to continue in? Is your company in a strong position and likely to succeed? Do you have the skills to succeed as the industry changes? Do you have the support and the confidence of the people leading your organization in this new landscape?

Here’s one more crucial question: Do you have the training programs in place, and are you training your most valuable assets (your people) and investing in their growth? If you’ve been blithely moving along, never thinking about these factors, you might be more lost in the woods than you can imagine.

So continue learning. Read books. Analyze the news. Talk to people who are at the forefront of business, and cultivate a mindset of teachability.

The trophies of the past are no longer the assurance of victories for the future. Pride comes before any destruction, the Bible says. So here’s a friendly suggestion to leaders of organizations and institutions: I have to continue learning and so should you.

(Spend two whole days developing your leadership skills with Francis Kong this Aug. 22-23 at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel, as he facilitates the well-acclaimed Dr. John C. Maxwell Program “Developing The Leader Within You”. For further inquiries, contact Hannah at 09228980196, or call 632-6872614 for details.)