Four Laws of Brand-Building in the Digital Age (Part 4 of 4)
Law 4: From Ideal Future to Practical Future
Law 4: From Ideal Future to Practical Future
One of the common concerns we hear from brands and organizations is that many of them know that they need to evolve but don’t know quite how. “How do I keep up with the changing times and build the future of my brand and business?” is a recurring worry we hear all the time.
As such, companies in recent years have been using phrases such as innovation, digital transformation (DX), disruption, design thinking, and even moonshot thinking, to push their brand or market relevance agenda.
So how do you achieve innovation, transformation, or even disruption? The key is to balance the ideal and the ambition with the practical mindset.
DX Is Not A Tool But A Culture
Corporate reform issues with DX are not because of a lack of tools. Just because your organization uses Slack, Asana, or 15Five, that doesn’t make it more digitally savvy. Many traditional corporations mistake the introduction and integration of digital tools into their corporate process and practice with DX.
The success of DX is actually a matter of culture.
To illustrate the point, here’s a story from an era long before the word “digital” even existed. It dates back to 1943 during World War II.
At the time, the US Air Force was threatened by the possible and imminent jet fighter the Germans were developing. To get ahead of the enemy, the US government ordered the development of a jet fighter from the manufacture, Lockheed Martin. Lockheed’s management nominated a young engineer named Clarence “Kelly” Johnson as the leader of this secretive mission. Johnson agreed under the following conditions, which would later become to be known as Kelly’s 14th Rules & Practices:
1. The Skunk Works® manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.
2. Strong but small project offices must be provided both by the military and industry.
3. The number of people having any connection with the project must be restricted in an almost vicious manner. Use a small number of good people (10% to 25% compared to the so-called normal systems).
4. …
The Johnson team was called Skunk Works because their “development room” was a tent outside a factory that manufactured rubber tires and the odor wasn’t so pleasant. Later, Lockheed would use Skunk Works for the name of this secret development department.
In just 143 days, Johnson and his team created a jet engine called the XP-80 and a fighter called the P-80 Shooting Star, which was faster than the German fighter.
To achieve success, Johnson focused less on the tools, but rather, placed the focus on the structure and process of the organization.
In present-day, Johnson’s Rules and Practices is still posted on the company’s site, and the term Skunk Works refers to teams that research and development projects for the purpose of radical innovation.
In terms of innovation and transformation, reform is not a tool issue, but an organizational process and most importantly cultural issue.
Constructing The Future
In 1964, Arthur C. Clarke, author of A Space Odyssey, proclaimed:
“When we try to predict the future, we fall into two patterns. First: If a prophet’s words sound realistic, in 20 years, or at most 50 years, the evolution of science and technology makes that prediction easy. On the other hand, if the prophet’s words sound very ridiculous and everyone ridiculous the prophecy, then the prophecy will be accurate.”
In 2021, more than 50 years later, we can see how spot-on Mr. Clark’s words are today. He predicted that we one day would have brain surgeons in Edinburgh operating on patients in New Zealand. While this may not be an everyday occurrence, this is easily within the realm of possibility today. For his time, this would have been unimaginable. We‘ve entered a world where remote work from multiple locations is commonplace.
When looking to the future, even before COVID-19, headlines would caution about the potential threat of machines doing jobs that were once completed by humans.
At a conference, AI experts were asked this question and gave the following answers: how long would it take for artificial intelligence (AI) to surpass a human brain?
The question sounds simple, but the far future is unpredictable, so we can see that even experts have a range of opinions.
“Trying to predict the future is a reckless and disappointing profession.”
The Creation Of “New Value”
This series has covered examples of innovation that required two years of development (Disney+), some that lept forward and ballooned over a decade(Uber, Lyft), and one that happened in a few weeks (Restaurant Narisawa). There is one thing all these cases have in common. while the outcome was radical, innovative, and/or disruptive, their approach was extremely practical.
Market opportunities open up whenever a consumer need is identified where a solution to that problem is still yet to exist. They are tangible because they sit in between being theoretical and probable. We call this a Practical Future.
Let’s look at the two axes: the X-axis is time and Y-axis is speculation. The further into the future you go, the more inaccurate and speculative it becomes. On the other hand, drawing too close to a future is beyond the scope of reasoning and is unlikely to be differentiated. The future cannot be imagined perfectly. However, if you don’t always look ahead to some extent, you can’t keep up with the competition.
Over the past year, businesses that have relied on speculation and wishful thinking that the pandemic will soon subside have disappeared. On the contrary, businesses that approached their future with a practical mindset survived, and in some ways, thrived.
From Ideal Future to Practical Future. The future cannot be built only on ideals, aspirations, or ambitions. You must be able to put it into practice. It’s not just about leveraging new tools and technologies. What Uber and Lyft did, for instance, was that not only did they identify an unsolved problem, but also matched it with a burgeoning technology–GPS in widely available mobile devices–to make it a huge success.
Be ambitious with your goals. But be precise with your idea and solution. Edit your focus ruthlessly. There lies the subtle art of the Practical Future.
Those who can create a Practical Future are those who can create new value in the world.