Finding Your North Star In A Fog Of Change
Humanity crossed multiple points of no return in the last twelve months, according to the futurist and founder of the Future Today Strategy Group (FTSG), Amy Webb, in her 18th annual Tech Trends Report. Over 1,000 pages of trends across 15 industries and technologies, Webb wrote about how the first telescopes revealed the vastness of space, while today’s science and tech advances are revealing how much we don’t understand about our own potential. AI, advanced sensors and biotechnology are converging to create what she called ‘living intelligence’ – systems that sense, learn, adapt, and evolve. Systems that are changing what it means to be human.
“Living intelligence will drive an exponential cycle of innovation… For some organizations, this will unlock unprecedented opportunities in everything from drug discovery to energy production to financial services,” Webb wrote. “For others, it will trigger overwhelming disorientation as they struggle to adapt to change occurring faster than their ability to process it. The gap between leaders and laggards will widen dramatically, not over decades, but months…. The decisions we make in the next five years will determine the long-term fate of human civilization.”
In this moment, amid rapid change, persistent global insecurity and ambiguity, it’s incumbent on each of us to consider how we make the best decisions right here in the present, rather than overthink or fear how we get the future ‘right’. As leaders in our organisations, disciplines or industries, in our families or communities, we need to diligently harvest the crops in the fields we have already sown. That way, we keep the lights on. We get on with business as usual.
In parallel, we must also sow the wild fields of the future by putting principles and strategies in play now. When we are in sowing mode, we are making decisions today for a future yet unknown. We must identify the emerging technologies and trends likely to impact us. We have to map out where disruption could potentially come from and understand threats and opportunities, while also assessing our performance today against what might be required in a fast-moving space in future. Then we must convert the insights we have gathered into flexible and dynamic plans – plans that allow us to pivot or reset at a point that doesn’t cost us dearly.
Enter the idea of radical optionality or ‘polydexterity’ as coined by the Harvard Business Review. According to this theory, we exploit advantages in the current business context, but the difference with traditional planning is that with radical optionality we assume we are working towards multiple unknown future states. Increasingly, we must find moments to preserve our options, rather than find ourselves cornered with binary choices. This requires a mindset that is about ‘also/and’; the ability to exploit and explore, to think and do, to be entrepreneurial and executional, harvesting and sowing, thinking about now and later, being efficient and effective, playing offense and defence, playing to win and playing not to lose, being practical and idealistic.
Often that requires us to sit in our C.I.A – to think about what we can directly Control in terms of our decisions, actions, tactics. Here in the C of Control, we can affect the most change directly. Then there are the things we can Influence but not control when it comes to people’s behaviour, team dynamics or an organisation’s culture – influencing through our own communications, role modelling, rituals, tone and approaches. Which brings us last to the Acceptance – the things outside of our control or influence when it comes to past actions, geopolitics, technology or other people’s decisions. In letting go, we can get back to our harvesting and sowing again. What can guide our CIA and decision making in these complex and rapidly changing times is our North Star Metric which helps people find a way through the moments of endurance and perseverance, to reconnect with the ‘so what’, the ‘why it matters’.
Major digital entities think about nights booked (AirBnB), watch time (Netflix), monthly purchases (Amazon), active merchants (Shopify), learn time (Duolingo). For those less focused on traditional metrics – whether you’re a creative, a leader in your community or your field – your ‘North Star’ might be a core principle, a guiding ethos, or a singular, measurable impact that clarifies your purpose. More than ever, these simple, clear anchors provide clarity and direction in the stubborn fog of change and ambiguity, enabling us to trust that what gets focused on, gets done. Finding that north start metric requires us to think about our individual whys, the whys of our teams and organisations – the why we do what we do, why we are the right ones to do it, and why it needs to happen now. Having five-year roadmaps and strategic plans feels more fanciful than ever (especially when you consider the pace of change Webb is forecasting in months, not years above). But having a map that empowers us to make decisions about the future now, that connects to our north star metric, that roots us in our CIA is critical – even if we tweak and change it as we better understand our lived realities.
Borrowing from Szent-Gyorgyi and Miroslav Holub, organisational theorist Karl Weick once told the story of how a group of Hungarian soldiers got lost in a snowstorm in the Alps. After three days of worry and despair, one of them produced a map to the group which the group of soldiers used to eventually and patiently find their way back to camp. Only later did one of the lieutenants discover the map was not of the Alps but of an entirely different landscape, the Pyrenees. Weick used the story to talk about the importance of ‘sensemaking’ and is quoted as saying: “When you are lost, any old map will do.”
At its heart, the Weick sensemaking theory teaches that rather than wait for the perfect plan, you just move with one foot in front of the other, take it step by step, build momentum, push on with the desired future in mind. Once moving, you’re learning and iterating, building capabilities and capacities, taking control of the things within your control, trying to influence preferred outcomes while accepting you can’t change technological advancement, geopolitics or the weather.