Innovative. Agile. Collaborative. Bold.
Why Leaders Don’t Embrace the Skills They’ll Need for the Future
The primary challenge most large companies now face is disruption, the response to which requires a new strategy, new processes, and a new set of behaviors. But if employees have long been valued and rewarded for behaviors such as practicality, consistency, self-reliance, and prudence, why wouldn’t they find it uncomfortable to suddenly embrace behaviors such as innovation, agility, collaboration, and boldness? When we feel uncomfortable or stressed, we tend to double down on what has worked for us before. Prudence congeals into timidity. Overemphasizing practicality stifles imagination. Consistency turns into predictability. What we don’t see — but need to recognize — is that it makes more sense to balance practicality and innovation, boldness and prudence, collaborativeness and self-reliance, agility and consistency, without choosing sides between them.