This article received the 2021 Business Innovation Brief Most Valuable Post Award in the Innovation Mindsets category.

Good news is 2021 will be shorter since Earth is spinning faster and faster, scientists say. Bad news is  the pace of technology advancements is speeding up exponentially, and it’s getting harder to stay in the game. Increasingly, organizations are facing  immense pressure to stay hypervigilant, to be proactive, and to discover new ways to reinvent themselves. Further compounding this challenge are the unforeseen events of 2020; now, more and more executives are plagued with sleepless nights as their organization’s future spirals into the unknown. 

Twenty years ago, the Agile Manifesto revolutionized the planning and execution of work. Twenty years later, many organizations still rely on this approach to develop the agility that allows them to turn on a dime, deliver results, and satisfy customers. However, our fast-moving world requires a fresh, modernized mindset — specifically one that builds on agile and enables organizations to proactively shape their future. This is what the Future-Fit Manifesto is all about. To adopt this mindset, organizations should start embracing the following four values:

Collaborative culture over individuals and interactions

Innovative systems over working software

Discovering opportunities over customer collaboration

Creating alternate futures over responding to change

It’s important to note that while there’s value in the items on the right, we should value the items on the left more.

These simple yet imperative values are the lifeblood of Future-Fit organizations. 2020 is the proof: organizations that were already  embracing these values not only survived, but also thrived in the market. A lot has changed since, so much so that for many it feels like ten years went by in the last 12 months. The silver lining though is that we’re now on fertile ground for new ideas, new business models, and new practices. 

Everyone is looking to become the next unicorn with that next big idea that will flip the market on its head. To make this dream a reality, organizations must start embracing a collaborative culture that involves all internal and external stakeholders to build intimate connections, to nurture engagement, and to encourage human-centric and innovation-led conversations. As we enter the age of innovation, the time is ripe to shape the future and own our destiny. The Future-Fit Manifesto proposes a new strategic approach and puts forth prevailing values and principles that empower organizations to explore new possibilities, to seek new frontiers, and to boldly create new futures.

Being a fast follower is no longer enough. You cannot imitate the next unicorn. Being predictive means an organization must lead its future in self-disruption, explore different opportunities constantly, and take a leap of faith to create the next paradigm shift. 

Organizations need to rethink, reinvent, and refocus their systems to thrive in this new hyperdigital world, and the underlying processes have to be reimagined and rebuilt. Quick fixes that do not address the fundamental constraints of being truly digitally native will be only bolt-on solutions that constrain the adaptivity, creativity, and resilience required to be Future-Fit. In the art of the possible, it’s the growth mindset that rules.

More than ever before, organizations can ensure their core values and principles match the future they want to create. Let’s take a deeper look at the Future-Fit values, which build on Agile and establish a growth mindset that is paramount in the age of innovation: 

Collaborative culture over individuals and interactions 

Individuals and interactions offer limited future readiness as everyone follows agile processes. Future-Fit organizations foster a culture of collaboration that is built on trust and rewards creativity, learning, and success; this collaborative ethos is the foundation of sustainable and continuous innovation, as well as adaptability.

Innovative systems over working software

Working software focuses on getting a defined deliverable to a functional state. Future-Fit organizations also value building and improving an innovative system that constantly produces the desired solutions. Creating traceability from strategy to delivery enables organizations to be more adaptive and resilient by proactively responding to disruptions, new regulations, and unavoidable future evolutions.

Discovering opportunities over customer collaboration

Collaborating with customers on a deliverable is important but it provides a limited view of their immediate needs. Future-Fit organizations pursue a customer-obsession strategy by actively uncovering new opportunities based on emerging trends and technologies, and by listening to all feedback to delight stakeholders, build trusted relationships that last a lifetime, and create value.

Creating alternate futures over responding to change

Responding to change is not enough. Being a fast follower does not ensure resilience. Future-Fit organizations predict and anticipate possible scenarios, customer behavior, market needs and other elements not in their control to decide which business models and future states are most desirable. It is crucial to embrace growth strategies by taking advantage of any disruptions.

The nature of work, new technologies, emerging trends, best practices, and regulations are evolving exponentially and in unexpected ways. If the past two decades weren’t enough proof, then the last year alone reminded us that change doesn’t come knocking at our door: it bashes it down, leaving us little or no time at all to pivot accordingly.

Disruption comes in many ways, shapes, and forms, but the result is always the same: a shock to the system. Now, more than ever, organizations need to adopt a proactive mindset that empowers their employees, partners, and community to fearlessly navigate through turbulent times and into uncharted space at warp speed.

How Future-Fit is your organization? Use this free assessment tool to find out your organization’s level of future-fitness in 5 minutes.



Ludwig Melik

CEO at Planbox and author of the Future-Fit Manifesto. I help organizations build a sustainable culture of innovation. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.