Keeping up with the times

Here are a few recommendations:

• ensure you are making time to read what is going on in the world in terms of technological and human developments; it may be online or print, but choose the sources which you feel will serve you well; for me, I look at:

o Financial Times

o The Atlantic

o The Economist

o Harvard Business Review

o LinkedIn articles

o blogs/social media written by people whose opinion I value

• talk to your team, and ensure different generations are represented; ask them what they see coming

• in your risk reviews (if you are in the corporate or not-for-profit world), have discussions with colleagues in terms of horizon-scanning (i.e. flagging up what might be coming over the horizon to hit the business soon)

• consider yourself and your approach to change over time; if you find you are starting to resent change and want to keep things the way they are, then give yourself a good talking to – life is not like that!

• deliberately introduce some change into your life regularly, so it becomes the norm and you can therefore deal with ‘external’ changes more easily

• refresh your business strategy regularly, thinking about what has changed since you first developed it: this is a really useful exercise.

I’ll come on to dealing with different generations in detail next week, but hopefully this has given you a few ideas as to how to keep up with the times and not fall into the trap of apathy or resistance. The leader will not survive if they succumb to either of those.