No organisation ever expects to drift. Never in a board room or a senior leader management meeting has there been an objective to set the organisation adrift. Yet organisations do drift and sometimes it is too late before they wind up on the rocks.

There are lots of reasons why organisations have come and gone. Just walk the high or main street in your town. Notice who is gone. There is a long list of them… Montgomery Ward, Blockbuster, Toys-R-Us to name a few. Once unstoppable giants, but now gone and yet people still need goods, videos and toys, so who is providing them now and why?

In my sabbatical studies I particularly focused on this topic and I summarise what I saw through two leadership questions which I propose have to be honestly and brutally faced in a continuous debate to secure the future.

1. What is timeless that cannot change?
2. What is not timeless that may need to or has to change?

The challenge is these questions are easier to ask than to take action on. Which leads me to my second sabbatical observation…

Change comes from one of two modes:

1. Corporate will exists to proactively preserve the timeless and change what is not, constantly checking and steadying the course heading by making corrections (and learning) from mistakes.
2. OR a lack of corporate will accompanied by cycles of costly mistakes is the status quo until the rocks are finally spotted, resulting in a crisis filled reaction which is often too little too late.

Further, it appears the drift to the rocks is often accelerated by Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity:

Insanity

‘Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.’

In other words, we think we are proactively preserving the timeless and changing what is not, but the reality is we are just doing the same thing and fundamentally are still on the same course. Insane, but again it is not consciously recognised as accelerating drift until crisis sets in.

So a question that you have to ask yourself is this… is this thing I am leading or investing in going to still be here in 100 years?

What is timeless that needs to be preserved to stay on course and what is not timeless that may need to change to keep moving forward? These concepts are not just for the longevity of business, but also other groups… faith communities, international development work, educational institutions, political movements and even entire countries!

I will be the first to admit that in every leadership position I have held I have wrestled with these questions. I think step one is to stay curious, ask questions and listen to our critics. In doing so in humility and courage, we will hopefully get it mostly right and if we are honest, we know we will not be perfect. Sailing at sea is never an activity of perfectly being on course. Storms come and go, sidewinds and swells may push us to the side, but the general direction to the destination with a thriving, effective crew running the ship is the course to a lasting legacy.

Regardless, there are no prizes if we think we have this all figured out on any given day. The only prize is in the future when the history books tell the story of the ships that kept sailing on and which ones did not.