We all know that leadership in a fast changing world requires a very different set of skills. This deck looks at what those skills are and how you can develop them.

1. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
Being a future ready
leader means
understanding our
changing world and being
able to respond to it.
It means new skills and capabilities, and perhaps, at least
for some …a few shifts in leadership styles…

2. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 1
Become Actively Interested
in Understanding the
Future.
By all accounts tomorrow will be
different from today in more ways than
we can as yet imagine. Plug into a good
source of information to understand
these.

3. Well, here are some of our favorite sites:
Singularity University Programs
https://su.org/
Ideo Futures Podcasts:
https://soundcloud.com/ideo-futures
World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/archive/fo
urth-industrial-revolution
Ray Kurzweil’s Blog
https://www.kurzweilai.net/
How do you even begin to find more
information on what the future might
look like?

4. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 2
Set up listening posts!
Consider setting up listening posts for
trends in at least 4 areas: Technology,
Business Ideas, Culture Trends and Policy. It
may help to track change through a tool such
as the “Trend Matrix”.

5. Trend Mapping Tools: Trend Matrix
Reference: 101 Design Methods

6. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 3
Build Forums to Share
(and make sense of)
Trends
Chances are—your people already know
more than you realize—but they need
forums to share—and you need forums to
make sense of what you discover.

7. Building forums for idea exchange
can really help you (and your team)
understand change
1. 3 key forums—tech trends;
business ideas; changing
customer
2. Encourage your team to be
outward focused.
3. Participating in the forums will
itself make everyone more
observant of outside change.
4. Speak last—listen first.

8. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 4
Seek Conversations
With Other Smart People
No one knows everything any more.
But by speaking with other smart people you
can exchange ideas and learn new trends you
were not aware of.

9. Some good forums to meet others:
Nasscom, TiE, Livemint forums.
If you have specific questions, you can
try GLG (though it has a cost and I haven’t
personally experienced it)
Check out any other good professional
forums on topics of interest to you.
Speak to smart people from both similar
and very different disciplines…
Side note: Some of the most interesting
conversations today are online—In interest
groups. Seek them out---

10. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 5
Sensemaking is key!
What do tomorrows trends
mean for your business?
Sense-making is a key leadership task for
future-ready leaders.

11. In times of change, “sense-making” is
a specially important capability for
“future ready” leaders.
Each one of us will join the dots in
our own unique way. Yet you may
not be right.
Even “experts” do not necessarily
hold a single view of how the future
is unfolding.
That’s because there are simply too
many moving parts. So keep testing
out your emerging hypotheses.

12. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 6
Deliberately Plan
Innovation
Innovation won’t just happen (at least
consistently) unless you design for it.
What is your structure and process for
innovation?

13. Innovation comes in many different forms
and shapes. There are the big
breakthroughs and small improvements.
And to be sustainable—you need to be
consistently innovative in about 4
organizational areas.
Here are a few good resources to get
started
https://www.boardofinnovation.com/staff_picks/10-books-
were-reading-in-2019/

14. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 7
Master the “Art of Teams”
The unit of innovation is the team—if you
want to build innovation, you will need to
learn how to effectively work ”teams”.

15. Project Aristotle is a great read for
everyone who wants to build great
teams. read more here--
https://rework.withgoogle.com/print/guides/5721312655
835136/

16. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 8
Think like David!
(you may be Goliath for
someone)
Someone, somewhere is thinking of ways
to disrupt your business.
Talk to them, learn from them, and/or
invest in them.

17. The many different ways of “thinking like
David”
--crowd-source ideas
--sponsor a hackathon
--build an incubator or accelerator
--become an investor
--acquire start-ups

18. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 9
Diversify! Diversify!
Diversify!-- Your Networks!
Ideas often travel in networks. By being
part of diverse networks you can connect
the dots far better than someone who
speaks to people of only one background.

19. One of the most powerful ideas of all time in the
field of Sociology is the strength of weak ties!
About 4 decades ago, Granovetter studied what
kinds of networks helped people develop better
careers.
He discovered that it was better to be part of
many diverse networks than deeply embedded
within a single one.
The diversity of your network is now more
important than ever—it reflects the many
sources of your ideas.
you can read more here--
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jure/pub/papers/granovetter73ties
.pdf
“The Strength of Weak Ties!!”

20. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 10
Embrace “Design
Thinking” – It is fun and it
is for you!
Design Thinking tools will allow you to
build innovative solutions consistently—
whenever you like, however many times
you like.

21. There are many many different design
thinking tools. What each has in common
is the ability to deeply understand a
problem from the point of view of a user
and creatively develop solutions for it.

22. Design Thinking, University of Virginia

23. Design Thinking, Stanford University

24. Google Design Sprint

25. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 11
Master asking–How
might we?
There is magic in how you word a problem!
Convert problems to triggers for solutions by
asking “How might we….”

26. How Might
We?
HOW : Assumes opportunities exist
MIGHT : Says we don’t have to find something
WE : Is about doing this together

27. How to write good
HMWs
Amplify the ‘good’ –
crowds make the place
vibrant
Remove the ‘bad’ – make
crowds less stressful
Explore the opposite –
give people a reason to
enjoy the interaction
Question an assumption
– remove wait time, so
crowds are not formed
Leverage unexpected
resources – tie up with
online entertainment
providers
Create an analogy from
need or context- make
buying coffee online like
buying books online
Break the problem into
pieces – preserve
freshness, explore
subscription models
Prob statement: Reduce crowding at
airports
Prob statement: Increase coffee
sales online

28. “How might we” questions were invented
at Procter & Gamble to come up with new
product ideas.
They are still used at Ideo, Google and
Facebook to allow managers to think
beyond the obvious.
read more here: http://www.designkit.org/methods/3

29. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 12
Business Models Matter!
Ask yourself this—
How can someone else solve your customers
problem in a way that is completely different
from yours!

31. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 13
Build a culture where
innovation thrives
Cultures that encourage innovation share
characteristics such as respect for people,
empowerment, team-work, a free-flow of
ideas, initiative and risk-taking.

32. REFIT your culture to
build innovation
Encourage
R- Risk Taking
E- Empowerment
F- Free Flow of Ideas
I - Initiative
T- Teamwork
Cultures That Support Product-Innovation Processes Author(s): Avan R.
Jassawalla and Hemant C. Sashittal Source: The Academy of Management
Executive (1993-2005), Vol. 16, No. 3 (Aug., 2002)

33. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 14
There is no failure—only
learning!
Failure is simply an outcome different
from what you had predicted.
Use that different outcome to develop a
deeper understanding of your product and
customer.

34. Think like a scientist
When there are so many variables that cannot
be predicted—your best way of understanding
something is to run experiments and learn
from them.
These experiments could be better processes,
better products, new customers, new business
models—the possibilities are endless.

35. Suggested Resources:
The Lean Startup

36. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 15
Find the Fault in the
Defaults!
Very often the Status Quo exists because
it suited someone—somewhere—in the
past. Question the status quo.

37. Why is the railroad spaced at 4 feet
and 8.5 inches?
Well, that is because this was the width of the axle of a
horse drawn carriage. This ensured that chariots and
carriages were of similar dimensions.
When the railroad was invented—it was simply easier to
adapt vehicles already in use in carriages. Hence the rather
unusual measure.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-
chariots/

38. Finding the Faults in Defaults!!
“Justifying the default system serves a soothing
function. It’s an emotional painkiller: If the world
is supposed to be this way, we don’t need to be
dissatisfied with it.
But acquiescence also robs us of the moral
outrage to stand against injustice and the creative
will to consider alternative ways that the world
could work.”
--Adam Grant, Originals

39. 20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
# 16
Instead of
time-lines
think of
time-cones
Timelines assume linear change. As you go
further away the range of possibilities
expands…

41. Recommended reading: How to do strategic planning like a
futurist, by Amy Webb
Harvard Business Review
July 30, 2019

42. # 17
Practice
first
principle
thinking
20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
One of the best ways to learn how to think for yourself
is to learn “first principle thinking” or building up from
fundamental truths

43. What is First Principle
Thinking?
First Principle Thinking is starting to find
solutions from those principles that we
absolutely know are true—or reasoning from
the ground up.
This is different from reasoning by analogy,
which is where you start with what others
think is the truth.

44. Step 1: Look at the problem—
and think of what are its basic
building blocks (or assumptions).

45. Step 2: Which assumptions in
the problem are “really true”?
What is “not necessarily true”?

46. Step 3: Build a “new solution”
from scratch based on only those
assumptions you find are truly
true.

47. Watch Elon Musk explain how he uses first principle thinking and
why this is so important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV3sBlRgzTI

48. Somebody could say, “Battery packs are really expensive and
that’s just the way they will always be… Historically, it has
cost $600 per kilowatt hour. It’s not going to be much better
than that in the future.”
With first principles, you say, “What are the material
constituents of the batteries? What is the stock market value
of the material constituents?”
It’s got cobalt, nickel, aluminium, carbon, some polymers for
separation and a seal can. Break that down on a material
basis and say, “If we bought that on the London Metal
Exchange what would each of those things cost?”
It’s like $80 per kilowatt hour. So clearly you just need to think
of clever ways to take those materials and combine them into
the shape of a battery cell and you can have batteries that are
much, much cheaper than anyone realizes.”
Elon Musk on how “first
principle thinking” helped
him build the battery for
Tesla

49. # 18
Build
Psychological
Safety
20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
If your team members don’t feel “safe” to
speak their mind—they won’t!

50. Psychological safety is the climate where people in
your team feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Without Psychological Safety team members
hesitate to state views of explore new ideas.
When people feel threatened, they rarely speak
up—instead they say what they think everyone
wants to hear, and when things go wrong are quick
to blame others.

51. It is the number 1 predictor
of team effectiveness.
Source--Project Aristotle at Google

52. The key is high
standards with
high
psychological
safety

53. Academic research consistently shows how the presence of
psychological safety allows for work debates to lead to high team
performance.
Without psychological safety work debates do not lead to higher
team performance!

54. https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-
successful-google-team/
The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety
in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth by
Amy C Edmundson
If you want to know more…
New York Times—What Google learnt from its quest to
build a perfect team!
Project Aristotle—The five keys to a successful Google
team!

55. # 19
Stay
hungry for
learning
20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
The half life of a skill has dropped from 30 years to 6 years.
Expect to be a lifelong learner.

56. “The illiterate of the 21st
century will not be those who
cannot read and write, but
those who cannot learn,
unlearn and re-learn”
Future Shock, Alvin Toffler

57. Learning agility is the willingness and
capability to learn from experience, and then
be able to apply that learning in new
situations.
This is one of the most critical competencies
of the future.

58. Studies of executive derailment show one factor
repeatedly:
“the inability or unwillingness to adapt and change
This is even true (or perhaps specially true)
when you know yourself to be very smart

59. So does this mean you should keep going back to
school?
Well not necessarily…
There is so much that you can learn without stepping
into a classroom. And this has to do with your own
ability to learn from others and by reflecting on your
own experiences.

60. 1. Learn about the changing world
by reading/ watching podcasts/
talking to others who are well
informed.
What should you learn?
2. Learn from your own
experiences by reflecting on
them and drawing new
learning.
3. Learn how to work better
with other people.
4. Learn how to be more
“self-aware” and mindful of
your own actions.
5. Learn to give up past
positions and ideas when
they stop working for you.
6. Learn to enjoy ambiguity
and uncertainty and the act
of “figuring it out”!
7. Learn about new ideas, skills & develop
the vocabulary to express these so that you
are able to lead future conversations

62. # 20 Take
your team
along on a
journey—
through
storytelling
20 Ways to be a “future
ready leader”?
Stories engage, inspire, clarify and persuade your audience
all while building an emotional connect.

63. Storytelling will help you clarify:
where you are going, why you are going
there, and how you will get there.

64. Stories grab us.
They take us in, transport us, and
allow us to live vicariously and visually
through another’s experience.

65. 5 ways you can become a
better storyteller
1. Keep a log of
actual experiences
that might make a
good story
2. When you have
important points,
match them to
the story
3. Your stories will
get better when
you practice them
4. Bring in your
authenticity and
vulnerability into
the story
5. Use a story with
a good
structure—a
journey through
time.

66. Watch how it is done.
Brian Chesky launches Airbnb trips

67. Watch how it is done.
Tony Hsieh (CEO Zappos) on why he works at Zappos

68. Read more here…
https://www.echostories.com/7-leaders-who-embrace-storytelling/

69. And here’s what not to do…
1. Giving too much background
2. Telling—not showing
3. Taking too much time (about 90 seconds is good)
4. Not including any dialogue– even a single line is good.
5. Taking your audience through unnecessary detours.

70. We hope you enjoyed reading these 20 ideas on
becoming a future-ready leader!
We would love to hear from you! Feel free to
write in with your questions.
Make sure to tell us what other topics you would
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