JimCarroll

“You knew what you needed to do, so why did you do what you did?” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

As a futurist, I’ll admit I’m often mystified by the future!
As in: why would a whole bunch of smart people undertake activities that align themselves to the reality of the future, and then do something that is completely at odds with their ability to get there?
That’s where we are in the world today as a ‘trade war’ unfolds. I’ve spent time with leading manufacturing groups and executives throughout the US; I have spoken to thousands of farmers and agricultural groups; I’ve spent time with Fortune 500 CEO’s who are focused on global markets; all kinds of people who work in the HR industry and are thinking about how to get advanced skills; and many more situations.  All of them have talked to me about the fact they know their path to growth is found in world markets, and ensuring they can adapt to the technology and opportunity of today in order to compete in the global economy of tomorrow.
And then, many of them did the exact opposite. They chose a a path forward that involves walls, tariffs, barriers and and an attitude of intolerance.
We’re starting to see the inevitable results of that conundrum in thinking.
What happens from this point out? Did I say that as a futurist, I am often mystified? One thing I do know is this: a 2 year old learns quickly that if they do something dumb, they get hurt, and they adjust their behaviour going forward.

“If you keep listening to the same old people, you’ll end up doing the same old things!” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

People get stuck in a mono-culture, a sameness of being, a routine of predictability.

They end up doing today what they did yesterday, and will do it tomorrow, and will wake up one day and say, “WTF? Why didn’t I do anything great with my life?”

Don’t do that. It’s not a lot of fun.

One of the quickest pathways to failure is getting stuck in a rut. Break out of it.

It happens with companies and organizations too – they seek the same old insight, the same old advice, from the same old people, and end up doing the same old things.

Last week, I was contacted by a senior executive with a global company. “We need to shake things up!” went his message. “We really need your insight to get our team to think differently!”

Then yesterday, he came back with a phrase that is all too common in this industry. “We decided to go with the same industry person we had speak to us last year.” Then he confided that management decided they didn’t want to worry anyone too much about the pace of change.

LOL. In other words, they are going to hear the same old things, the same old ideas, and will end up doing the same old thing.

This organization is in the energy industry – which is being energized, if you pardon the pun, by change.

Trends? Accelerating changes to the grid, distributed energy concepts, faster renewable science, changing consumer behavior, the impact of hyperconnectivity -massive business model disruption – tomorrow, his company won’t look anything like it does today.

Yet, it probably will for these foolks, because they’ve got a culture of sameness, an inability to reach for vision, incapacitated by lemming-like thought. Eventually, they’ll begin to witness the wreckage of their mono-thinking.

This happens all too often. The simple act of seeking my insight would not have changed the world, but it would have indicated their ability to reach beyond themselves to understand what comes next.

You deal with this all the time, don’t you? You are in an organization that is dying from a monoculture of groupthink – no one dares to think big, everyone is thinking small, being marginal in thought is the only goal!

Do this today – find someone weird, unique, different, odd. Find someone you don’t like, who might have a message that is going to shake you to your core. Someone who scares you.

Spend some time with them, and listen to what they have to say.

Because deep down in your soul, you know they are right, and you need to be shaken out of your complacency.

You’ll come away with a different perception of the world, and better insight into your future!

“The best method to achieve success is to focus on the results of your early failure!” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

I’ve got a brand new set of golf irons – Titleist AP3’s – and I’ll use them today for the first time. I don’t expect it to go too well, since they’re a pretty dramatic change from my existing set. And today’s round will follow a stellar round yesterday in which I had my best ever results on the back 9 of my home course. But it’s going to be a great day nonetheless, because today will be all about insight – understanding, learning, experimenting, trying things out. Today is all about gaining the knowledge to achieve better long term success. My playing partners will probably be a pain, because they might take joy in my potentially miserable performance, but that doesn’t matter. They can have their fun. The same type of thinking – insight comes from failure – should apply to your efforts to align yourself to the future, and your thought process on innovation. There’s a lot of fast-paced stuff coming at you with a massive number of trends, and you need to constantly work to understand it, embrace it, and work with it. Many aspects of that process might not go well at the start, and you are probably doomed to a regular series of short term failure, but it’s a critical part of aligning to change. As an aside, the clubs I used yesterday on their final round with me were fitted to my game by the late PGA Pro golfer, Jerry Anderson, who worked relentlessly at my home club, Credit Valley Golf & Country Club. He was a golf journeyman, competing on the European Tour and many other events – and then later in life seeking joy from helping golf hacks like me to understand how to turn our regular series of failures into long term success. R.I.P. Jerry.

“Your attitude towards the future is just like running a race: if you already have the idea of defeat in your mind at the starting line, you aren’t going to see much success!” – Futurist  Jim Carroll

Some people defeat themselves merely by getting up in the morning – because as soon as they do, they convince themselves that it is going to be ‘just another day.’ With that idea in mind from the start, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they won’t try to do anything extraordinary. They’ve got failure embedded in their routine from the moment they get out of bed. ‘Just another day’ – what an awful phrase! There is never ‘just’ another day – a better frame of mind is that there is ‘every day’. Every day is a new day, full of new ideas that can lead to new opportunities! Every day is an opportunity. Every day is a fresh start. Every day is a sign of success.
When people start out with the idea that it’s ‘just another day,’ they immediately begin to limit the scope of what they can accomplish. Don’t do that. Do something else! If you don’t have a great attitude even before you run the race, you won’t run a great race. If you don’t think you can do great things in the future, you won’t do great things. These people need a ‘future-coach.’ Just like someone who counsels an athlete of the mindset they need to give the race their all, they need someone who can inspire them to achieve the great things they could if they align and innovate around fast paced trends. That’s what I do. I’ve been accused by some folks of being relentlessly optimistic. To that, I’ll ask the question – what’s the alternative to relentless optimism? What will THAT get you?