Are EAs frustrated futurists.

We spend our time looking to improve the outcomes of an organisations operating model.

We assess the operating model from a people, process, data and tech perspective and look at our “as is” and sketch out a feasible “to be” based on the emerging trends in operating model and tech.

The “to be” nature of our role often means we are looking at things from an “art of the possible perspective” looking at what we can unlock, looking at how we can create that step change, looking at how we can transform the business or more importantly how we are going to have to transform the business to compete with the emerging disruptive competition or be that disruptive competition.

The discussions of the “what a new tool is” “how it could be adopted in the business” “what it could ultimately unlock in an operational sense” is a pretty practical discussion but how it could change the business model, how it could improve the life of all those that you want to attract and what difference it could ultimately make is where the fun starts but often the conversation stops.

The “cloud” has been discussed in the world of EAs for decades now – but look at the business models that have changed as a result.

Look how quickly businesses can be spun up by buying into the services, promoting what the business has to offer and ultimately trading in the online market place.

Look how it has enabled us all to work from home as office based products are accessible to all and we can collaborate in the virtual worlds.

The frustrations of an EA are less about being able to understand the technical aspects of a new product or the “new ways of working” methodologies its getting the world to see how it can change and transform how we all connect and engage with each other – how we can remove pain points, speed up action, eliminate time consuming processing that’s where the frustrations can start.

With that aspect of imaging the future the role turns to influencing the key influencers to step up, step out and see the future potential – it’s an art and not a science and therefore collaborating and facilitating discussions and driving agreement on the end state potential is a challenge.

Appetite, risk, belief, capabilities, competencies, capacities, money all get added into the mix – convincing the laggards and lighting the fire of the early adopters is all part of the challenge to get agreement to the “what next”.

As a frustrated futurist you have to be tenacious, resilient, patient – you have to be able to tell the story and have the facts – and you have to have people around you that want to go into the future embracing the changes and prepared to bend and flex as new insight is discovered and new “ways of doing things” are able to be added into the mix..

How frustrated are you? Are you constantly looking out to the future? Are you seeing the “tipping point” getting ever closer? What would it take to make your life as an EA less frustrating from a futures perspective.