When we have to drive a vehicle and make a long trip, it is common to stop for a while to rest and stretch your legs, contemplate the landscape, smoke a cigarette, fill your stomach or learn about the culture that emerges from the heart of a town or a zone. When we have the opportunity to make a trip of this type, surely on our return we have the opportunity to tell someone about the good times enjoyed. But… why do we never do anything similar about the experience lived in companies in this "new" economy?
In this new economy, undertaking the journey means for a company to face many and numerous challenges in the market, both inside and outside the company. If you, dear reader, think for a moment, you will surely remember that in a company there is human capital, there are resources, there is invested capital, there are - probably - partners, there are managers, and above all, there is work to do. And there are more than a few barriers to find when it comes to finding customers and placing their products or services in the "must have" category.
All these factors, and many more that arise from day to day, force us to constantly seek ways to find our "balance point", seeking solutions to the most diverse problems and the satisfaction of the smallest achievements.
The path to the company of tomorrow is the path of continuous and perpetual learning, where the company that really wants to compete, redefines itself, adapts and restructures itself over time, seeking solutions to the most diverse difficulties or the most unexpected changes.
This occurs in difficult times, and occurs in not so difficult times.
The market is in continuous movement (we have already experienced it), and the company must know how to act in these circumstances. You must know how to work to build tomorrow's products and services, even if that morning is a few months ahead of the almanac.
And if you are probably someone who is already thinking: "Is it good to work thinking about the future?", Let me answer that we all, consciously or unconsciously, all think about the future. We all have the strange habit in this life of always thinking about the future.
We thought about the car we could buy, the house we would like to have, where to go on vacation. Sometimes we take a loan in a bank to have our own roof, and it will not be ours until after 15 or 20 years. Or we go into debt to buy the latest music equipment that we saw in the catalog, or a new cell phone model, because the one we have is out of fashion…
The most curious thing about the society in which we live is that time, that tyrannical variable created by man, ties us hand and foot. We plan everything we do throughout the days and months, and that mist with which we tie ourselves, prevents us, most of the times, from living in the present.
And it is the same with the past. It is as if we lived only in the poles of the past-present-future triad. The past serves as a lesson in everything we do in our lives. Historical memory has a powerful influence in doing everything we want and want. Mistakes made, successes of others, advice learned, and everything that, either on our own or through a third party, has remained in our minds flow through our heads. Our own education and our personality is a faithful reflection of all that formation from our past, which we apply constantly or incessantly.
In the environment of the company, which is, after all, an extension of the sum of all who form it, exactly the same thing happens. We act, unconsciously, always thinking about tomorrow's company. In times of economic well-being, the company only thinks about moving towards that tomorrow, developing products, providing new and more services and acting driven by a market that accelerates its progress, setting the pace. In times of economic uncertainty, the trend is transformed. Instead of thinking about tomorrow, it stops dead in its tracks, returning to the structures in force before putting the "machine of the organization" to work on intangible concepts, that is, towards the past. But what happens to the present? We do not realize, nor have we ever done,but it is highly probable that if we lived more intensely the midpoint between the two poles, while looking sideways at them, our company would enjoy better health.
And to conclude, dear reader, let me clarify that I am not talking about doing "futurology", but about making "fine-tuning" adjustments to interpret the change that the company needs, and ultimately, that customers and / or the market they want. And as in any change, one must seek evolution and generation. Those behind him adapt, but those who provoke him are the true leaders. Do not be fooled, only a few can think of the future. The rest have to live in the present by taking advantage of some opportunities.
