What pattern do you see when you throw stones into a stream? Adapting for a plausible future.

Heraclitus famously said “You can’t step into the same river twice;” meaning that as time moves forward and change happens you can not get back to the past. This resonates strongly in today’s pandemic environment – there was never one normal to get back to and even if you wished to get back to your normal you simply can’t.

In this blog we consider what looking for patterns when you are on the balcony might look and feel like currently but first let’s start with a thought experiment.

Imagine you are on the bank of a river, the river is calm and slowly flowing along, now you do what many of us have done – pick up a stone a throw it in – what do you see?  We all know that what you see after the initial splash is a set of ripples moving out form the impact in ever increasing circles, it is a pattern familiar to us all.

Next you pick up two stones and throw them in – what do you see?  In this case you see two sets of ripples moving out but what you notice is that when the ripples meet each other sometimes they cancel each other out and sometimes they amplify each other so a different pattern.

You then decide to throw in a handful of stones and although the same things take place it is much harder to decern any patterns as the pattern is much more complex and harder to replicate.

Now imagine instead of a calm slowly moving river you are standing next to one which is moving quickly, it might have some branches in it and the river bed is being churned up – again you throw in a stone but it is too difficult to see any pattern, you look upstream to try and anticipate when it might be calmer to try again but…..

How does any of this relate to Leadership?

Well think about how you used patterns previously, you would look for trends, what might influence these trends, mega trends and the like and use these as a way of extrapolating into the future to build your strategy and the means to deliver that strategy. 

Imagine the ripples, they give a pattern but are more predictable the closer they are to the splash – this is the traditional view of thinking about the future – the future by and large follows the past and is reasonably stable but the nature of change has also changed – is your river running faster than ever, is it flow less predictable are there more “sticks” in it?

There never were any facts in the future but at least we could think in terms of probable futures by using facts that were already there or things we believed would happen, like anchor points, or nuggets of certainty; but we can no longer do this.  Let’s go back to the river, what is the difference between the first and last experiments?  Clearly in the last one it is messier, more complex, less predictable and is hard to judge what might happen next. In other words, the context has changed.  When the context has changed you need a different way of thinking about the future one based not on probability but one that speaks of plausibility.

So to the Leadership challenge.

You run a successful business, you had a plan in place to grow further and have worked out how to win in the future and then the pandemic comes along which wasn’t part of the plan.  Uncertainty is now greater than ever, the context you do business in has changed and the route you previously set out is no longer available:

• Is this keeping you awake at night?

• What emails or calls are you not wanting to receive?

• Other than saying it is chaotic and unpredictable, can you describe what the future might look like?

• Which “what ifs” or plausible futures are you considering?

Traditionally strategy has been developed by extrapolating current trends into the future taking consideration of external market and wider environmental conditions to create a probable future(s), as the pandemic has shown these assumptions can be overturned extremely quickly – there are no facts in the future.  Have the previous patterns disappeared and you can’t see the new patterns, how quickly is your river flowing?

Scenario Planning is a different approach that can be used to produce plausible futures for a world in which disruption is the norm.  It deals in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous conditions.

This co-creation of plausible futures provides a springboard for deep conversations to navigate the current uncertainty where you need to think more abundantly.

Scenarios can be produced speedily to provide insight, identify new opportunities giving you a competitive edge in uncertain markets in order to win. It is real balcony work.

How about another experiment all you need is a pen or pencil and a bit of paper?

Think back before the current pandemic and draw out three circles, the first is the past, the second the present and the third the future:

• Comparatively how big are they?

• Is the past bigger than the present

• How connected are they – does the present overlap the future as illustrated below?

• What do you notice about the pattern you have drawn?

• What is good about it?

• What opportunity does the pattern indicate? 

Now try again in the current situation, but this time draw out the first two circles the past and the present, how big are they and how connected but rather than a circle what shape would you use to represent the future – is it a bit jagged, spikey is it bigger than the others how does it overlap?  What is at your disposal to tame or increase your control over the future such as collaboration?

Using scenarios can help you think this through.

The idea of being on the balcony is to see the pattern and to act. It is important work because it will inform what you need to do, the pace at which you need to act and sequence of the actions. Take the parcel company Hermes. Their CEO Martijn De Lange saw the Pandemic in the UK provide a huge opportunity. This week he said “The pandemic expedited the already phenomenal growth of online shopping and we see no sign of this changing”. Hermes ploughed £100m into expanding operations to take advantage of the new pattern including hiring 10,500 people, 9000 of who are contractors. How might Hermes draw their shapes? Could it be:

Hermes purpose has not shifted. Their context has. The CEO has responded quickly to invest in a plausible future and mitigated the risk of uncertainty about whether this is a temporary or permanent shift in consumer behaviour, with a controversial labour model that allows the firm to flex resource, should his optimistic view of the opportunity not sustain beyond the pandemic, he has the chance to shift again at pace.

Compare contrast to Royal Mail Group who compete in the same Parcels market and in fact have the largest share of the market. Switching CEO in the Pandemic is part of the story here, but how might the interim CEO draw the picture? Could it be like this?

Royal Mail is dominated by its big and fabulous past and is finding adaptation difficult. The company was slow to adapt to the dying letters market and invest in parcels automation and as a result they are still playing catch up with the competition. The interim CEO has a huge job on his hands to catch the prize he must clearly see. Maybe the picture is obvious but the route to get there weighed down by the dominant nature of the past. How great for our country and all who work in the big red company it would be if he can find a speedy route to the prize. We believe with the right talent around him, he can do it. 

Just like Hermes, Royal Mails core purpose has not shifted. It is still all about connecting business to business and business to people. But unlike Hermes, it is not adapting at the rate of the shifting context. It has become misaligned.

The balcony view will help leaders see the context for the organisation. Scenarios, will assist leaders to experiment with ideas of a plausible future and enable the bold decisions that are needed to thrive and stay aligned to purpose. 

It would be great to see the shapes you have drawn. Take a picture and send it to us with a brief explanation of the pattern you see. 

We leave you with this quote from Charles Darwin: 

“It’s not the strongest species that survives nor the most intelligent but the most adaptable”.  

Murray Cook is experienced at delivering change in complex situations and developing creative solutions to strategic challenges.

Anne McCarthy is an experienced leader of change and transformation, supporting business with their people strategy and developing leaders.