The Best Leaders Live in the Future
Evolve or die.
Charles Darwin said, “It’s not the strongest who survive. It’s the ones who are most adaptable to change.”
There’s been a lot of change over the past year, especially from a business standpoint. As market needs and consumer expectations change, those who ignore them are going to have a difficult time not only competing — but surviving.
If you’re in an industry with a lot of different options (like legal), it’s really on you to adapt your organization to the needs of consumers.
Consumers have so many options of who they can work with, so how do they differentiate one company from another? The client experience.
They engage with brands like Amazon and Starbucks, so now they have a certain expectation about the businesses that they work with. They’re used to great customer service, quick response times, and reliable problem-solving.
As consumer expectations change, their standards increase. And that’s a good thing.
The firms that ignore those factors are the ones that go out of business.
I experienced this firsthand when I started Crisp. At the time, it seemed like everything was going digital. But if you looked at most video companies, they still had these huge crews using film. They were fixed in their ways and didn’t believe in this “digital movement” that promoted more flexibility and smaller, more nimble crews who could travel more easily for remote shoots.
Those who carried that mindset aren’t in business today because that move to digital represented much more than video quality. It stood for a way to innovate by working with more speed and cost-effectiveness and by introducing new players to the market due to lower barriers to entry.
The best leaders live in the future.
They see where things are going, where the market is changing, and how consumer needs are evolving. They’re planting those seeds in their organization today so that they’re ready for tomorrow.
They often get there early, when other people are still shaking their heads and doubting the value of these new trends or technologies. Then those innovators get the lion’s share of the market share.
Think about social platforms. The brands that build the largest audiences in the quickest amount of time are usually the ones who adopt these platforms first and immediately make a large impact on them.
As a business leader, you’ve got to live in the future.
