PREFACE

We think we are connected today, but the next ten years will be a period of explosive connectivity and asymmetric upheaval. In this future world of dramatically amplified digital connectivity, anything that can be distributed will be distributed. Most leaders—and most organizations—aren’t ready for this future.

We are on a twisting path toward—but never quite reaching—a place where everything will be distributed. This path will be characterized by increasing speed, frequency, scope, and scale of disruption.

Younger leaders will be better prepared for this future than older leaders. Many young people are in a blended-reality world already with constant mobile online filters for the physical world. They are on online, unless they are off. For most adult leaders, we are offline—unless we are on. Quaintly, some leaders today still say they “log on” to the internet. And do we really need to capitalize the word internet any longer? I think not, and this is the first book I’ve written where I’m not capitalizing the word internet. It is pervasive already, but this is just the beginning.

Leadership will be much less centralized and much more distributed in this future. The hierarchical practices of leadership for centralized organizations will be brittle in a future world that is not only decentralized but also distributed. Firm structures will give way to shape-shifting organizational forms that function like organisms. Enduring leadership qualities like strength, humility, and trust will still be foundational, but the future will require new literacies for leading.

It’s too late to catch up, but it’s a great time to leapfrog. I introduce in this book five ways for current and future leaders to take their own leap to the future.

■  Learn to look backward from the future. The future will reward clarity—but punish certainty. Looking long will help differentiate between the waves of change that can be ridden and those that must be avoided. Judging too soon will be dangerous, but deciding too late will be even worse.

■  Voluntarily engage in fear. Think of this as gaming for grit, creating readiness for an increasingly frightening and unpredictable world. Again, the kids will have a competitive advantage since many of them have grown up playing video games. I believe that gaming—emotionally laden first-person stories—will evolve into the most powerful learning medium in history. Most kids will be ready for this world; most adults will not.

■  Embrace shape-shifting organizations. New organizational forms will become possible through distributed computing networks, which have no center, grow from the edges, and will be uncontrollable. Hierarchies will come and go, as they are needed. Economies of scale (where bigger is almost always better) will give way to economies of organizational structure, in which you are what you can organize. Authority will be much more distributed. Fluid shape-shifting organizations will win consistently over centralized hierarchies. Disturbingly, terrorists and criminals already make use of shape-shifting organizations better than most of the rest of us.

■  Be there even when you’re not there. Most of today’s leaders are best in person, but they will not be able to be there in person all the time. Their ability to lead will be reduced dramatically if they cannot continuously feel present even when they are not present. New digital tools will allow leaders to bridge the valley created by their absence in ways that move beyond being there. The best leaders will be close—but not too close—even when they are at a distance.

■  Create and sustain positive energy. Leaders will need to radiate positive energy at all times, and that will require them to have physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. In this highly uncertain future, hope will be the key variable—particularly for young people. Young people who are hopeful and digitally connected will be inspiring. Young people who are hopeless and digitally connected will be dangerous. Leaders will need to seed realistic hope in a future that will be laced with fear.

I’m asking you as leaders to understand and practice these new leadership literacies, but also to open yourself to new leadership literacies, new practices for engaging with an increasingly uncertain world.

For at least the next decade, the world will be in a scramble: many things that have been stuck will become unstuck. A scramble is a ripe time for innovation, and leaders will see things they’ve never seen before. The new leadership literacies will provide a process for taking advantage of the scramble, enabling leaders to make the future in positive and practical ways.

The intended audiences for this book include

■  Current, rising star, and aspiring leaders—of all ages—especially leaders who wonder about their readiness for the future. This book is a great pre-read before a leadership team retreat or conference on the future, for example. It also makes a great end-of-year gift to get people thinking about the future in creative ways. Boards of directors and top leadership teams will use this book to help them think about the future of their own organizations.

■  Human resources leaders and others looking to hire leaders who will thrive in the world of the future. Anyone seeking to develop a talent profile for the future will find a rich collection of resources here. Before you post your next job description, read this book.

■  Innovation and organizational design leaders who are imagining new ways to lead.

■  Designers and leaders of development programs of any length. This book would be an excellent tool for those who are preparing leaders for external future forces, as it provides guidelines for imagining new approaches that will help leaders get ready for the future.

■  Executive coaches seeking a fresh view of the future, who will be exploring how leaders will need to prepare. This book shows just what kind of coaching will work best, given the external future forces of the next decade.

The core of this book is five pairs of chapters, one pair for each future leadership literacy. The first chapter in each pair defines the literacy and how it differs from current leadership practices. The second chapter in each pair probes the future we are moving toward with that literacy.

The Table of Contents is a good overview, and you can read the chapters in any order—depending on your interests and priorities. My big-picture forecast (twisting toward distributed everything) introduces the book and it is a great place to start to get the gist of the future that leaders will be facing. I end the book with a call to action, a practical and future-oriented guide to leading with realistic hope.

This book is grounded in foresight. By looking ten or more years ahead and then coming back, leaders can see the subtle patterns of change that are not visible in the noisy present. My goal is to use my foresight to provoke your insight and your action. There is short-term value to long-term thinking.

My publisher, Berrett-Koehler, has created a companion product to this book: an online future readiness self-assessment (see link in the back of this book). This self-assessment includes the five future leadership literacies and the ten future leadership skills from my earlier book Leaders Make the Future, as well as advice for how to improve in each area. I suggest setting a goal for yourself one year from now. You can take the self-assessment up to five times over the next year. It is a great conversation starter for your own leadership development or for group experiences with your team. I will be using it before, during, and after my talks and workshops.