Page 190 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Innovating for the Future 179

Sustainability is up to you
There is no magic formula for continuous reinvention and ensuring that
your unit or company will be sustained for the long term. The innovator’s
dilemma is still alive and well and is not easy to overcome. But if you get
ready for the future, manage a portfolio of innovation projects that helps
shape the future, and embrace a culture that supports adaptability and
change, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of enduring success.
Wherever you sit in an organization, or whatever kind of organization
you work in, adding future thinking and discovery to your job is also a
stepping-stone for longer-term success. It will doubtless take you out of
your comfort zone—there’s nothing easier than simply focusing on tomor-
row’s deadlines—but it’s a discomfort every great leader has learned to
embrace.

Questions to Consider

■ Balancing your own time. How much time do you spend focusing on get-
ting things done today versus planning for the future? If your time is overly
skewed toward the present, how can you create capacity for developing
longer-term opportunities?

■ Scanning the environment. What do you do to identify and keep track of
potential threats and opportunities for your team, both inside and outside
your organization?
■ Solidifying the core and building surplus. Is your key existing business well
managed? Is it creating some extra headroom to explore and pursue
future-seeking opportunities?

■ Innovation portfolio. Do you have a portfolio of innovative experiments—
with different time frames and risk profiles—that can help you and your
team shape the future?