Comparing approaches of present and future focus in organisations
Different approaches to how work happens in organisations significantly impact the effectiveness of prioritisation and the value of the work itself. Here are the effects of each approach.
With the growth in organisations adopting goal-setting and outcome-thinking approaches, there’s a renewed focus on thinking about the future in a variety of ways other than the classic purpose, mission, and vision statements that had become the mainstay. This is positive, but I also see the growth of a common type of failure.
Jabe Bloom articulated a typical failure pattern for how organisations approach working toward their desired future end states, which he describes as ‘Gap Thinking’. You can read some of his thinking behind this on X here. He has a dissertation he has been working on for the past few years, which is nearing completion. I covered these ideas previously here:
Begin with the end in mind, act on your present
What is meant by ‘Begin with the end in mind’? This phrase was popularised as Habit #2 in Stephen Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. The intent as explained in the book was for a feedback mechanism to check that actions in the present were really steps aligned with where you were trying to arrive in the future.
Many organisations think about the future and anchor their thinking with the end in mind; however, they are more likely to end with lists of many things that must be done to reach the end state. Brainstorm ideas - add them to the list of things to be done. Run an audit - add the mitigations to the long list of things to be done. Run a maturity assessment - add the gaps to the long list of things to be done…
He contrasts this with the idea of ‘Present Thinking’, where the organisation constantly assesses its current condition and improvement to that condition it can take, which is oriented towards a desirable future state. This approach acknowledges that we cannot be certain about the effects of every action we take and the interaction between the complicated dynamics of an organisation and introduced changes.
John Cutler made a slightly cleaner visualisation of Jabe’s original work, which, in turn, had taken its inspiration from Russell Ackoff’s ‘Idealised Design’ among others. It seems likely it was also influenced by some lean/agile concepts - for me, it almost seems like an organisation-wide application of kata or A3 problem-solving technique in the way there’s a thorough account of the current state and the problems being addressed:
https://x.com/johncutlefish/status/1202430054623408128?s=20
Related to this concept is Jabe’s ‘Ideal Present’ planning approach described here by Ben Mosior in this video:
Planning with the Ideal Present
How does this translate in the workplace?
It might help illustrate the idea by looking at the attributes of the different ways organisations approach work and how they relate to their present, their future and whether they use feedback loops to adapt and course-correct towards success.
Once you look through this lens, you might be able to assess organisations you know and see if the description matches how they operate and whether they realise the effects I’ve described.
Do you see some patterns for organisations you are familiar with? Which row broadly describes your current organisation? Share your observations in the comments.
