A Walk Through Waterloo: Leadership Lessons from Napoleon

Introduction

Our recent offsite trip to Europe wasn't just all Champagne and Caviar, rather that was only a part of how we chose to study one of the most prolific figures in history–Napoleon Bonaparte. To get a true sense of his final battle, we made our way to Waterloo. Napoleon's life, marked by extraordinary successes and notable failures, provided a powerful launchpad for conversation. As we walked the Belgian farmlands where Napoleon met his ultimate defeat, we found ourselves seeing deep connections between his past and the current + future state of the business world.

On the battlefield, we delved into the principles & maxims that fueled his rise to power and the missteps that led to his downfall, uncovering lessons related to the journey that Forge and many of our clients are on. Inspired by Napoleon's career, we landed on three key takeaways for our business that we hope can help inspire entrepreneurs and enterprise leaders on their own paths to success.

The Belgian farmlands where Napoleon met his final defeat

Living and Dying by Strategy & Innovation: Napoleon’s Downfall

Napoleon, a master strategist and one of history's greatest innovators in warfare, transformed the art of combat with his bold and unconventional tactics. He revolutionized the way his military approached mobilization, organizational structure, artillery tactics, intelligence gathering, and logistics - taking his enemies and the continent of Europe by storm. On top of that, he was a master of speed and adaptability on the battlefield, always keeping one step ahead of his adversaries. 

However, as Napoleon acquired power, he grew complacent - leveraging the same tactics that led to his rise and abandoning the speed & adaptability that made him such a formidable opponent on the battlefield. His defeat at Waterloo serves as a stark reminder that even the most brilliant strategies can become stale if not continuously refined. Napoleon's failure to adapt and drive continuous innovation in response to the coalition of armies that had learned from their past defeats at his hands led to his own defeat. His reliance on established tactics, rather than evolving to meet the new circumstances, proved catastrophic.

For early-stage companies & products, your innovation, speed, and adaptability serve as short-term tactical advantages that lay a long-term trap. They can propel you ahead of competitors and enable you to outflank more established companies, but as we saw at Waterloo, innovation based competitive advantages will be eroded away by time without ongoing iteration and improvement. They will be studied by others, who will devise ways to beat you, and eventually, you will be watching your own Waterloo unfold–therein lies the trap of complacency. 

Speaking of complacency, this is where many established companies find themselves, whether they know it or not. They’ve reached a certain level of success, likely due to past ingenuity and innovation, and have now fallen into a cozy, somewhat unhurried and unbothered pace of operations. Much like Napoleon in his later years. 

For these companies, upsetting the status quo might disrupt the comfortable, profitable position they enjoy today. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, most companies fall into this trap at one point or another in their history. The difference is, great companies see the field of battle clearly and act swiftly to innovate themselves away from the jaws of defeat. Average companies go on this way, with no idea that their own Waterloo is upon them - and when they finally realize it, it’s too late.

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Whether you’re an early-stage or established company, we encourage you to explore:

1. What innovations or strategic advantages are you exploiting to beat your competition?

2. What are the blind spots in your strategy, and how can you address them before they become your Waterloo?

Find Your Edge and Put All Your Efforts Behind Exploiting It

Napoleon's triumphs were a testament to his mastery of leveraging his unique strengths, particularly his exceptional tactical genius and ability to inspire unwavering loyalty in his troops. At Forge, we call this "your edge"—the distinctive advantages that set you apart from the competition and enable you to achieve asymmetric outcomes. 

For businesses, identifying, cultivating, and relentlessly exploiting their edge(s) is the key to unlocking exponential growth and dominance. Whether it's a revolutionary technology, a profound market insight, exceptional talent, or a disruptive business model, doubling down on your edges can create a powerful moat around your company. 

When you fully embrace and harness your edges, you'll create products and deliver services that are not only unparalleled in the marketplace but feel almost magical to your customers. They'll struggle to articulate the secret to your success, describing it only as "that special something" that sets you apart. That's when you know you're on the right track.

If you’re already hearing this about aspects of your business or product, we would encourage you to study those to determine whether they are true edges or not - and then rapidly architect plans to exploit the hell out of them. 

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Similar to strategic innovation, traps certainly exist in this way of operating. Traps you may fall into and we encourage you to explore:

• Failure to monitor your edges relative to the market will lead to competition catching up and passing you.

• Spreading your resources too thin across too many edges will destroy your ROI and make you a "jack of all trades and a master of none."

• Misidentifying your edge as something you're not uniquely and undeniably ahead of the market in will foster undifferentiation and stagnation.

Inspiring Others to Be Greater Than Themselves

Napoleon's timeless maxim still resonates today: "A rapid march augments the morale of an army and increases its means of victory." He inspired his troops to achieve the impossible by harnessing the power of momentum and morale. He showed that with the expedient pace of movement, the right mindset and a sense of purpose, people will believe in themselves more than they thought possible and even the most daunting challenges will be overcome.

In the business world, this principle remains just as crucial. As a leader, your ability to inspire and motivate your team and stakeholders can drive extraordinary results, just as Napoleon's rapid marches and vision did for his ambitions on the battlefield. By decreasing friction to ensure things move at pace, crafting a compelling vision and fostering a culture of belief, you can create an environment where your team feels energized and driven towards common goals. For customer-facing organizations, this means extending that inspiration to clients, making them feel empowered, uplifted, and like they are doing the best work of their lives when they collaborate with you. At Forge, we believe that if we're not helping our clients become the best versions of themselves, we're not doing our job.

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So, we urge you to ask yourself: are you creating an environment where your team feels like they're achieving the impossible? Are you building momentum and morale or stifling progress? 

If not, what's holding you back? Is your vision lacking the spark of aspiration? Are you suffocating progress, strangling momentum? It's time to confront the obstacles, shatter the barriers, and unleash the greatest potential of your team. The fate of your success hangs in the balance.

Our Lessons from Waterloo:

Our journey to Waterloo offered more than just a walk through history; it provided us with a valuable lens through which to look at Forge and the broader business landscape. By learning from Napoleon's innovative strategies and his inevitable downfall, his focus on leveraging strengths, his inspirational leadership, and his ability to build on early successes, startups, and business leaders can navigate their own paths to victory. History is not just a lesson of the past but a guide for the future. Forge is going to take these lessons from Waterloo and march forward with renewed vigor and strategic clarity - and we hope that you join us!

Monument commemorating the victory at Waterloo, sitting high above the field of battle

Field Notes from Champagne - Exploring Excellence

Forever in search of world class products and experiences, the Forge team finished some client work in Paris and decamped to Epernay in the Champagne region of France. This was the first stop on our Napoleon-themed offsite (more on the rest to come in separate posts). We were there to see how this beverage that the world chooses to accompany its biggest celebrations comes to be, how the businesses that make it work, and how they crafted experiences to accelerate their core business. 

Our core finding was that the main players in the industry tell a story of David versus Goliath–small, artisanal producers versus global, industrial giants. But the reality is closer to David and Goliath versus the World. The Big Houses buy grapes from the small Growers, have spent centuries and many billions marketing Champagne as a luxury product, and produce consistently excellent wines by investing in aging and technology. The Growers sell grapes to the Big Houses, use the cash to finance their small-scale, artisanal production and get to freeride on the global brand that the Houses created. Both types of producers create experiences that fit their product, whether opulent and timeless or highly personal and connected to the land. The result is an ecosystem that produces one of the world’s favorite beverages with enough variety to serve all consumers. 

One of the many Houses on the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay

Quality by Committee 

The first thing we noted is that every producer, whether a Champagne House or Grower, operates in strict accordance with the Champagne Committee and its rules. The Committee is a public-private partnership charged with protecting the Champagne brand worldwide and a key aspect of its job is regulating quality. Things like grape varietals and blends, types of agricultural methods like pruning, production methods such as what types of presses may be used are all subject to strict oversight. The Committee also sets the price of grapes and can curtail production of finished wines to prop up market prices, in effect acting as a cartel. 

An Industry Divided

Next we learned there is a what seems to be a clear divide between the traditional Champagne Houses and Grower Champagnes, but in reality the two are interdependent parts of one ecosystem. 

The Big Houses

Boizel, a Champagne House founded in 1834

Champagne Houses produce the Champagnes we all know and love–Moet & Chandon, Veuve, Pol Roger, Perrier Jouet. The Houses buy grapes from Growers all over the Champagne region and blend several vintages to achieve a “house style”, which is why every bottle of Moet tastes almost exactly like every other bottle of Moet. They also rely heavily on aging their Champagnes in their extensive caves to impart more yeast characteristics. To customers, the Houses position themselves as the traditional, elegant and timeless option for the highest quality wine to celebrate with. Operationally, the Houses rely on a more capital intensive process and cutting edge technology to achieve more consistent quality. The Houses sell their wine around the world through global distributors and retailers. 

Growers 

Jerome Portier, a Chamagne Grower and owner of Paul Sadi

Growers on the other hand, are just that, growers of Champagne grapes (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier). They sell a portion of their harvests to the Champagne Houses and keep the best grapes for themselves. The sales to the Houses provide the working capital needed to produce their own wines. These wines are made solely from the grapes on their land, and thus reflect the terroir of the place, rather than a house style. Additionally, due to the cost of holding unfinished wines, they typically age their Champagne for much shorter durations (although still within the Committee minimums). Growers sell their wine predominantly in France and direct to consumers, often through clubs or by individuals stopping by the winery.  

The Stories They Tell

Growers position their wines as being of a more artisanal nature that’s higher quality than the Houses and more cost effective because they don’t spend money on marketing. Operationally, they are using a capital light model and betting that they can produce wines with higher quality by using older and more time consuming methods (barreling, corking, manual press) than the large Houses by having total control over the inputs and ability to flex from a house style. The Houses by contrast use vast storage space, working capital, and the ability to drive duration to consistently produce excellent wines year over year that they spend vast marketing budgets to promote as timeless. 

Not So Different After All

The approaches while at first seeming in direct opposition are really just two sides of the same coin. The Champagne Houses rely on the Growers to provide the bulk grapes to make their product that they take pains to blend and age. The Houses provide the financing so that Growers can produce their own wines that reflect their land and craftsmanship. 

How They Create Experiences

The experiences of visiting large Houses and Growers closely reflected their larger business strategies. Both welcome visitors with the goal of creating new customers or driving additional brand affinity, but how they go about doing so is quite different.  

The Grower Experience

We first spent time at Champagne Paul Sadi. Our host was the owner, Jerome Portier, who is a Grower, as were his father and grandfather before him. Jerome walked us through his fields and explained how the stone wall called a clos (more commonly associated with Burgundy) protected the vines and helped produce truly special grapes.

His operation is quite small and he only produces 20,000 bottles of wine a year. Jerome carefully and patiently answered our questions about the economics of being a Grower and even entertained our ideas for starting a mobile grape pressing business. 

When we got to the tasting portion of the experience, we sat on folding chairs at a simple table in a humble room, and Jerome walked us through each of his wines and even opened up a few rare bottles all at no extra cost. Like his winemaking, the experience was hands on, detailed and low tech. It focused on creating a personal connection with the land and the winemaker. 

The Big House Experience

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we spent time at Moet & Chandon’s headquarters. 

It’s a beautiful building with a timeless facade, this statue of Dom Perignon, and a sleek modern interior.

Once inside, we were ushered into a tasting room, sat down upon contemporary furniture beneath crystal chandeliers. We had decided to pass on the tour of the production facility since the team had recently been to another large producer and knew what factories look like. But not to be dismissive, the scale of the production is truly astounding–they produce 28 million bottles per year. (1,400 times the volume Jerome produces.)

We were presented with a lovely menu of different vintages and blends of Moet and Dom Perignon. The only food on the menu was caviar. Our besuited waiter gave us her best advice on which wines to choose.

The experience was opulent, while being reverent. The room was quiet and people spoke in hushed tones. Moet’s approach to the experience reflected how they make wine blending the old with the new (both in terms of wines and technology, spending lots of capital to achieve long term results, and ensuring that their brand is intertwined with timeless luxury. 

So what?

All told, the Forge team’s big takeaway was that there are multiple winning and often symbiotic strategies that both deliver excellence within one market. Players within a market frequently exaggerate their differences to help customer decision making, but the reality can be more complicated and leaders must understand their true position in the value chain to produce ongoing success. 

Critically, to be most impactful the experiences created around the product must highlight and correspond to your competitive advantages. From a product and experience perspective, the Big Houses cannot claim to be artisanal products, so they use their scale and marketing prowess to shape how the world views champagne and create opulent, if less personal wines and experiences. Conversely, Growers cannot possibly compete with the consistency, aging and industrial scale of the Big Houses, and so of necessity they create highly idiosyncratic products and experiences that reflect the land and the winemaker. 

Each side of the industry knows how it can win and then pursues that strategy single mindedly. With excellent results. 

Field Notes from Budapest - In von Neumann’s Footsteps

Following Thanksgiving, the Forge team decamped for Central Europe to visit a large multinational organization that wanted to incorporate artificial intelligence into their people’s daily work. Aside from spending time with them in their offices and over meals, we decided to have our 2024 Strategy Offsite since we were so far, well, off site. 

The setting was auspicious since Hungary gave rise to a surreal number of towering scientific and technological minds in the 20th Century including Edward Teller, Paul Erdős and John von Neumann. Teller was the father of the H bomb. Erdos wrote 1,500+ papers and had 511 collaborators during his lifetime, giving rise to the Erdős number.

Von Neumann’s impact on the world requires more discussion and a pilgrimage to his birthplace.

Von Neumann’s accomplishments are so numerous and diverse that the list sounds made up. He created the mathematical foundation for quantum physics. He was instrumental in the Manhattan Project. Laid the groundwork for modern computers via Von Neumann architecture and in fact built one of the first computers. He invented game theory, and later bridged nuclear weapons and game theory to define the US policy of nuclear deterrence. Amazingly, he worked on all these efforts tirelessly, while frequently being the life of the party.

Although he is well known in Hungary, where there’s an institute in his honor and they were celebrating the 120th anniversary of his birth when we visited, he was potentially the most important person in the 20th century most people haven’t heard of. 

Our offsite incorporated the typical reflection on the past year, looking ahead to the next and then getting down to the goal setting, initiative defining and action planning.

Our themes, inspired by von Neumann, were:

Be prolific and the best - We’ll take on any project where we can do world class work 

Work with world class collaborators - We seek out great people who get stuff done

Move fast and have fun - Velocity and fun generate self-reinforcing momentum

2024 will be a year of sprinting in as many directions as we can with people who will push us to the next level, and we’ll have many good times doing it.

Why your AI plans will fail (and how to shift the odds in your favor with AI Readiness)

Artificial Intelligence is forcing companies to grapple with how to adapt to a world where accessing near human intelligence no longer exclusively means hiring, training and compensating a human employee. Today, generative AI has few use cases that have dramatically altered some roles, and many where it can drive higher productivity and superhuman quality.

Within 5 years, we believe that organizations will be able to deploy nearly unlimited human level AI at a low cost. This shift to intelligence abundance will fundamentally change how organizations accomplish their missions, what jobs exist and what tasks humans perform. Companies that begin incorporating AI into their operations now will be able to take advantage of this change, and companies that do not will underperform at best. 

We’ve been helping executive teams understand the AI landscape, incorporate it into their strategies, and structure experiments with impactful use cases. While many are quick to say “Let’s go”, we’ve found that like any change, the appetite and ability to embrace AI within the rest of their organizations varies considerably.  We’ve created an AI Readiness framework to help leadership teams evaluate their organizations capacity for AI adoption, so that their strategy has a better chance of being implemented successfully. 

We define AI Readiness as the following factors:

Readiness Drivers

• Strategic Alignment: The alignment between business and technology strategies, existing strategic investment in new technologies, leadership buy-in.

• Propensity to Innovate: Available R&D budget that could be (re)allocated to AI and the freedom given to teams to experiment and launch pilots. 

• Infrastructure Robustness: Consider the agility, speed, strength, and security of existing IT infrastructure.

Readiness Detractor

• Organizational Inertia: Your org’s resistance to change, including bureaucracy, old technology stack, and complacency.

Readiness Factors

Strategic Alignment

Represents how closely the enterprise and technology strategies are interrelated, to what degrees the CIO and/or CTO drives and supports leadership priorities and how line leaders view the CIO org as able to accelerate their results. Key measures of this are how much time CIO/CTO gets on ELT/board meeting agendas, size of budget relative to other functions and the personal relationship between the technology leader and the CEO. 

In our work with technology companies, CEOs see these leaders as the key partners to their success and thus are often able to move faster. Conversely, in organizations where IT is seen as essentially a support function, leaders must reframe their thinking around the CIO org and often requires a new leader or extensive trust building. 

Propensity to Innovate

Is fundamentally a measure of the culture of innovation an organization has and there are 3 key factors that underpin that culture: autonomy, resources and mindset. Innovative organizations give teams the freedom to pursue new products/solutions, have budget allocated to innovation that could come from anywhere within the organization (not just R&D org), and view failure as an accepted part of the process. 

Innovative companies have a history of funding pilots from different parts of the business and their company lore is littered with fast, low cost failures that people only remember as opportunities to learn, as well as experiments that were successful and scaled when ready. Companies we work with that struggle with innovation often have employees who worry more about “looking bad” due to a failure, rather than recognizing the opportunity to create something new. 

Infrastructure Robustness 

Captures the entirety of an organization’s IT capability–whether it is constantly improving on core processes, has a user-centric ethos, and maintains an advanced infosec posture. Key business activities are frictionless from a technology perspective, the IT org takes in user feedback and consistently uses employees as beta testers. The CISO org has top-level talent and is constantly pushing the limits of threat detection and prevention. 

Leadership teams can quickly understand their company’s IT Robustness by asking a few frontline employees. If the technology stack inhibits, rather than accelerates employee workflows, then your infrastructure likely has not received the resource and talent investments needed. 

Organizational Inertia

Reflects the mindset within the organization regarding change. Organizations typically don’t start with high levels of inertia, their inertia is earned over time, ironically enough, through their success. That success leads to complacency and bureaucracy that is created to replicate and protect that initial success. If employees can’t identify the individual factors that led to success, they are afraid to change any process because it could break the system–leading to a “this is how we’ve always done things”.

Organizations with high inertia live with aging tech stacks that don’t support core processes, have long decision cycles and a culture of caution around change that causes delays. Organizations with low inertia are paranoid that their success won’t last if they don’t improve, and thus are willing to disrupt themselves. Their culture encourages people to openly and willingly question the status quo–and those questions lead to change and continuous improvement. Low inertia enables innovation to move forward unencumbered and increases chances of success provided the other factors discussed are present too. 

AI Readiness and You

Taken together, Strategic Alignment, Propensity to Innovate and Infrastructure Robustness represent the positive thrust of an organization’s AI Readiness which is then inhibited by Organizational Inertia. Leadership teams can do 2 things with this framework–they can use these factors to scale their AI strategy to their team’s AI Readiness today AND they can focus on improving the underlying factors to build AI Readiness for the future. 

In the not so distant future, organizations will operate in a world of intelligence abundance rather than scarcity. By beginning AI experiments that are aligned to strategy and feasible today, while building for the future, leadership teams can position their organization to compete and win as AI advances rapidly continue.

Beyond ChatGPT: How Talent Teams Can Use AI to Get More Out of Their Data

We've all heard it before: data is the new gold. Sure, but only if you can use it. Yes, some parts of organizations have gotten pretty good at capturing data and using it for decision-making. Marketing is a prime example of a function that's evolved into a data-driven powerhouse.

However, the same can't be said for talent teams, despite years of overblown hype and costly, often painful, software rollouts. These modern tools — HCMs, LMSs, LXPs, and other people analytics tools — while useful, still leave a lot of valuable data woefully unanalyzed. The data these tools gather is often easy pickings, neglecting a wealth of underutilized, unstructured, and qualitative data.

While many talent folks have at least experimented with AI Chatbots like ChatGPT and some are using them to generate content in their daily work, few have taken the next step of creating a co-pilot to help analyze their wealth of data. 

We've been helping talent teams tap into their data by building AI tools and extracting valuable insights from data that would've otherwise sat idle. The shift we're seeing–talent teams are starting to build up their own data analytics muscle, enabling them to become more strategic and deliver faster results.

What we’ve seen

There are several software vendors offering valuable tools in a narrowly defined scope. Still, their clients end up wanting more. Companies are obsessed with data collection and hoarding but aren't getting insights out of it. Mission-critical data is analyzed manually by non-experts, opening it to errors, bias, and flawed methodology. To solve for this, many enterprises pile on more data without a solid plan for analysis or impact improvement. The good news is: talent teams can build their data analytics capabilities using AI tools. We’ll start by outlining the current state of affairs before we dive deeper into what steps you can take to up your data game.

The underutilized data you already have:

• Historical hiring, promotion, attrition data

• Engagement surveys

• Performance evaluations, goal-setting, 360s, etc

• Job descriptions

• Exit interviews

• Post-program feedback

• Knowledge management documents

The insights you’re missing:

• Organization-wide skill gaps

• Future hiring needs

• Impact and improvement opportunities for learning programs

• Quality of goal setting and feedback

• Factors that drive engagement or disengagement

• What the organization truly expects from the talent team

• Predictors of promotion or attrition

• Competency models/skills profiles based on hard facts

• X factors for each role

So, how do we tap into this potential?  We've seen a four-step approach work well that non-experts can experiment with themselves:

Step 1: Data Preparation and Aggregation

Before you can utilize AI data analysis, you need to gather and prepare your data.

• Identify Relevant Data Sources: Such as historical hiring, promotion, attrition data, engagement surveys, performance evaluations, job descriptions, exit interviews, post-program feedback, and knowledge management documents.

• Consolidate Data: Merge this information into a unified data set. This step might require some manual efforts, such as converting different data formats into a common format, reconciling data from different systems, and cleaning the data.

• Anonymize Data: Ensure all sensitive information is appropriately anonymized to respect company policy, privacy laws and ethical guidelines.

• Convert to Vector Format: Convert this data into a vector format that can be ingested by Pinecone or a similar service.

Step 2: Load Data into Vector Database

Add your data to a vector database, effectively creating a form of long-term memory for your AI.

• Choose Your Tools: select a Vector DB provider like Pinecone and your preferred cloud provider like AWS that meets org security requirements. 

• Create a Vector Database: Using Pinecone or a similar service, create a vector database.

• Load Data: Add your vectorized data to the database. This step is the equivalent of storing your data for the AI as a form of long-term memory.

Step 3: Model Testing and Validation

The next step is to use this data to train and validate an AI model on the datasets you collected. 

• Choose an Appropriate Model: Use an AI model that's capable of interacting with vector databases.

• Testing the Model: Connect your model to your vector database. The model should learn to use the long-term memory provided by the database to better understand the data and generate more accurate insights.

• Model Validation: Validate the model's performance by comparing its predictions or insights with known outcomes. Refine the tool as necessary based on these results.

Step 4: Insight Generation and Interpretation

The part we’ve all been waiting for. Once the model is tested and validated, it can be used to generate insights.

• Generate Insights: Use the model to analyze the data and generate insights related to your focus areas. These could include identifying skill gaps, predicting future skills needs, assessing the impact of learning programs, evaluating the quality of goal setting, and identifying factors influencing engagement and attrition.

• Interpret the Results: AI-generated insights need to be interpreted and contextualized by human experts. Interpretation should consider the context of the data, the objectives of the analysis, and the practical implications of the insights.

• Implement Changes: Apply the insights into actionable strategies. This could involve changes in hiring practices, modifications in learning programs, refinement of goal-setting processes, or interventions to improve engagement.

The result

The shift we're seeing is one of empowerment. Leading talent teams are no longer just consumers of data; they're becoming insight-driven strategists. They're using AI-enabled analytics to weave valuable narratives, predict future trends, unearth hidden variables, and develop actionable strategies.

The path is clear for enterprise talent teams—they must extract more value from their existing data collection process, build up their teams’ capabilities and get better results, faster. 

The real question is when will you embark on this journey?

Navigate Next - a new leadership approach

There are countless leadership frameworks out there, and they are all about 80% the same and roughly as effective. We looked at many of these frameworks to pick one for our firm to adopt. During that process, we realized they were built by and for leaders of the past. They didn’t reflect the reality of today and the real challenges we are all facing. 

So we spent the last several months building a new leadership model focused on new-to-this-world challenges, built upon a proprietary dataset, and then testing it with over 50 leaders at enterprises across a number of different. 

Navigate Next is the result of that work. Fundamentally, we believe that legacy leadership models provide a necessary but not sufficient skill set and will leave you, your leaders and your organization flatfooted.

In the following, we look at the accepted wisdom of leadership frameworks, their undoing and the six skills that will help humans thrive in organizations of all kinds and build the future we all deserve.

Expect Change 

Accepted wisdom: Leaders need to “be ready for change,” adapt to a process of ongoing change and that “change management” is outdated because change is different nowadays. 

The undoing: Change is not different. Entropy is the 3rd law of thermodynamics. Change is a fundamental force of the universe. The level of stasis within organizations was an abnormality created by rigid hierarchies and relatively slow technological progress.  

Navigate Next: Tomorrow’s top leaders appreciate that change is like gravity; it is a constant in the modern business world, and they must effortlessly navigate its currents. Leaders should be encouraged to promote a culture of adaptability and resilience (because there is no alternative). We view evolution and reinvention, both individually and organizationally, as the only logical path to success. 

Coach with Intention

Accepted wisdom: Every organization needs a culture of coaching. Everyone is a coach. Everyone wants/needs coaching. Every conversation is a coaching opportunity. 

The undoing: Great coaches are very rare, and mediocre coaching is a net negative to an organization. To try to solve the problem of mediocre coaching, we provide inflexible and prescriptive coaching models that overrotate on long-term goal setting and development. A separate problem is that many people are not receptive to coaching, and thus are less engaged than they would be otherwise. 

Navigate Next: Leaders capable of being good coaches should emphasize quality vs. quantity of coaching. They should then assess who on their team is worth coaching. There are times when one must coach with a focus on building long-term capability & growth, times when they should “transactionally coach,” and times when they should be directive. Leaders that can intentionally leverage all 3 of these styles appropriately will maximize the impact their coaching has on their team.

Harmonize Data and Vision 

Accepted wisdom: Organizations are now creating data faster and at higher volumes than ever before–the challenge has been to be a leader who can distill the signal from the noise. Most people and organizations agree that more data-driven decision-making leads to better results in both short and long-term decision-making. 

The undoing: Our ability to analyze, visualize and make sense of data has grown exponentially and the mantra of data-driven decision-making will lead to lots of feelings of certainty when engaging in long-term business planning. However, data is most relevant to the past and its predictive value decays as you look to the future. 

Navigate Next: The best leaders of the future will be those who can oscillate between realms of hard data and imaginative vision, marrying the concrete with the abstract. They can balance the amount of data vs. vision they use in decision-making based on the immediacy of the decision itself. For instance, deciding on something with impact today, a leader should predominantly leverage data vs. making a decision for 2030, a leader should lean heavily on their visioning abilities. 

Outcome-Centric Execution

Accepted wisdom: “I don’t care how the work gets done, so long as it does,” “I set the direction and lead my team to achieve the results how they see fit.”

The undoing: The modern approach to work–always available to “collaborate”, non-stop video calls, pinging back and forth to accomplish anything leaves your people little time to actually get anything done and no time during the day to do deep work. The outcome is sub-par delivery created at an unsustainable pace. 

Navigate Next: This speaks to a shift in focus, moving away from time-bound work to result-oriented approaches. But to be outcome-centric means to create rules of the road for your team that lets them deliver outstanding results. This means leaders structure their teams to operate truly asynchronously, create space to do “offline work” without fearing they’ve missed an instant message/email, and intentionally create collaboration time when actually needed.  

Cultivate Humanity

Accepted wisdom: if you give people the tools and space to focus on their wellbeing, then they will. “Unlimited PTO” As a leader, my job is to take care of my team. 

The undoing: given the demands of the workplace, people often perceive a tradeoff between wellbeing and productivity. Leaders feel they are an exception to the rule and focus on output over humanity. Without leader support and role modeling, employees generally find it difficult to take care of themselves. 

Navigate Next: Leaders understand that there is no tradeoff between wellbeing and performance but rather a direct correlation. They role model the behaviors for their team and know that this is necessary for the team to feel safe. An uplifting and humane work culture creates a platform for self-reinforcing and sustainable success.

Learn with Discernment

Accepted wisdom: we need a culture of continuous learning. We’re all lifelong learners. It’s easier to learn than ever. 

The undoing: due to the ease of content creation, the quantity of learning content (whether that’s podcast, article, video, etc) has gone up and the average quality has gone down dramatically. Leaders face a deluge of potentially sub-par best practices and ideas daily and struggle to put the right ones into practice. 

Navigate Next: Leaders of the future will be those who approach learning seriously and strategically. They need to discern what to learn, who to learn from and how to put it into action. Leaders rapidly test learnings for themselves and broadly share the results of the experiment with colleagues. They foster a practice of saying “I learned this thing, I tried it here and now I’m telling you the results.” Thus creating a learning and experimentation loop that drives the organization swiftly into the future. 

What’s Next?

The Navigate Next framework gives your leaders and organizations the ability to traverse the challenges of the next 12-24 months.

Since we expect change, these skills will slowly be outmoded. The good news is, given that your leaders will be learning with discernment along the way, they will have innovated new tactics and adjusted their tactics accordingly.

What comes next for you, your leaders and your team, we can’t say, but we believe with the right approach our joint future is bright.