How do we seize the best opportunities as entrepreneurs? What do we need to know to create the best business for all our stakeholders? What hard trends are going to impact are our organizations in the second half of 2018? I’ve been on the road for the past several months to better understand the hard trends that will impact your organization for the second half of 2018 and beyond.
What hard trends are coming up over the next several months and years that entrepreneurs want to take advantage of to grow a more valuable organization? How can you leverage these hard trends to seize new growth opportunities?
Building a high performing team requires you to both understand the team members and then create a mindset to leverage to build your high performing team. Using these hard trends can be the foundation for future growth and opportunities for you and your team!
The first hard trend is technology continues to be used in more and more places. I’ve spent the past 30 days in healthcare facilities. It should not surprise you when I say technology is changing how healthcare is being delivered. What might surprise you is the people who are adopting it to get the best treatment available.
Baby boomers are using technology to change the patient experience for them and their loved ones. From googling symptoms while sitting in the waiting room to using Facetime apps to consult with their doctors at a distance. We are on the edge of the next great healthcare revolution!
The second hard trend is the amount of data that is being created is changing how we look at and use data. The size of the information pool that is being gathered on us is growing at an even faster pace than was originally predicted. The recent revelations of Facebook have made people understand how far data gathering has come. It’s not if the data is out there, but how might it be used for good or bad.
GDPR is going to become law over the next several weeks. This is just the beginning of regulation coming from around the globe. Depending on what happens in enforcement, we will see increasing penalties for data misuse. The bad news is the law of unintended consequences changes things forever. The question for you is are you anticipatory or reactive to the coming changes?
The third hard trend is early technology adopters are just starting to understand the true power of artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, and robotics. The early results have been less than spectacular, but this is changing at a very rapid pace. The technologies are each capable of creating more hard trends.
Digital natives (My term for people who are naturally much better than I!) are creating a whole new business playbook in real time while sourcing the globe for possible solutions. Open source and disruptive incumbents are changing the landscape in their markets. These new capabilities are changing how we see our workforce and the future of work.
The fourth hard trend is people are learning how to function more effectively in the free agent economy. The explosion of contingent work is staggering. Organizations are outsourcing many capabilities that in the past would have been core organizational capabilities. The business of the future will be driven by both individuals and teams that are set up for a single purpose or reason. The speed and agility of these teams is breathtaking. The other addition on these teams is a blended team approach using technology and people to get activities done in a very short time horizon. Your virtual team not only can boast of several different nationalities but can also of many different technologies working seamlessly together.
No surprise here but generational change is happening, and people are not always doing what is expected of them. Many boomers who were moving towards retirement are staying around finding that new technologies have reinvigorated their physical and mental capabilities.
GenX leaders are discovering what happens when there is a shortage of leadership talent. Many are choosing to reinvent themselves for the longer haul. They may even take an early sabbatical to increase their education. Just in time leadership development is just around the corner. When you consider an average life span may be 100 years young, reinvention will continue to be a skill required for career success.
The fifth hard trend is people continue to feel more vulnerable to change in the workplace and automation taking over their jobs. Leaders need to know how to help their teams retrain and learn new things faster. These leaders also must learn a new leadership mindset in dealing with these new realities. In a time of uncertainty, you want to adapt a new philosophy in dealing with yourself and others.
What does this mean to you and your life? I’ll continue to sharing about each of these hard trends in future blogs. Want to know more about hard trends? You might enjoy Are hard trends the secret of predicting your future?
Next week I start sharing several coaching tools that you want to add to your leadership capabilities. It all starts with mindset and changing behaviors. See you next week.