I recently attended the Dubai Global Convention 2023 (14th to 17th March 2023) organised by Institute of Directors (IOD).
The theme of the convention was : Building future ready Organisations.
During the period when the convention was held, the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) went bust, the IPCC (Inter governmental panel for climate change) report that came out raised alarm about rising temperature across globe, Russia – Ukraine war continued and many such socio-economic developments happening preceding that week raised questions in my mind : With all the resources (talent, technology in particular) available to institutions, if the current situation is looking so uncertain, can we build Organisations that are future ready with fair degree of certainty?
One panel discussion in this convention had the same topic as the theme of the conference : Building future ready Organisations. Panelist’s presented their informed and studied views during the discussion. Here is a gist of these reflections.
One speaker gave 7 principles that can help Organisations navigate through the uncertain world.
The seven principles are :
(i) Clarity and Purpose – Building clarity and purpose will be paramount than ever before
(ii) People and Human talent – What is the culture you are trying to build as an Organisation is the crux for future success; how are Organisations developing talent to meet current and future requirements will be the key
(iii) Agility – Organisations need to be ready for exogenous shocks; work through the unknowns and use agile philosophy to find ways.
(iv) Data analytics – Focusing and strengthening data analytics capabilities as an Organisation gives them the ability to be analytical on internal and external context
(v) ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) : Organisations need to check if the purpose of the Organisation integrated with ESG
(vi) Private – Private partnership : How can we collaborate and build private – private partnership to find solutions
(vii) Leadership – How do you straddle the past & future; how do you integrate values and aspirations of the people you lead will determine how Organisations retain talent and respond to the external changes.
On capital resource allocation the speaker made an interesting point. He said “Capital is like a fire : Keep it under control and it will give you warmth and light, if left unattended, it will consume everything in its path. Example – Managing debts in the world, at 0% manageable, at 5% absolutely unsustainable.”
The concluding mantra given by this speaker is – Track the past, organise the present and design the future as Organisations.
Another speaker gave a 5 R framework to build the future ready Organisaiton.
(i) Resilience – Agility and nimbleness will be at premium compared to size.
(ii) Risk management – Circumstances may give illusion of control but that may not be the case since data is not information, information is not Knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom. We need feedback loop that can help us in better decisions. We also need to be aware of left tail event – low probability but very high impact.
(iii) Resources – Organisations if want to be future ready shouldn’t look at their people as liability but assets, in future great resignation and great termination will co-exist.
(iv) Research and innovation – Word disruption has got a positive meaning, either you disrupt or get disrupted.
(v) Relationship with all stakeholders
The third speaker an academician and an advisor to various boards gave the 8 points framework.
8 principles of future proofing :
