As small business owners and entrepreneurs, we don’t get serious enough about the “future fit” of our business.
We totally get it.
It’s hard enough to ensure our business is operational and profitable to begin with. And if that’s the case, then when does the question of future fit ever come up?
“Besides, what does my restaurant have anything to do with future fit? I’m just trying to make ends meet.”
Does future fit even come into the business equation? Probably not. It’s too far fetched to think about future fit, especially in the development phase of a starting business.
Maybe that’s where we as business owners and leaders perpetuate the flaws of business logic.
What is Future Fit Anyway?
We previously published an article written by guest contributor, Giles Hutchins, called “Business The Way Nature Intended.” Giles, among many things, is a thought leader in the space of transformational leadership and sustainable business strategy. He’s a speaker and an award-winning author with titles like The Nature of Business (2012), The Illusion of Separation (2014), and his latest book, Future Fit (2016).
“Future fit”, according to Giles Hutchins, is a logic of business that recognizes organizations as living systems rather than machines.
…these living systems are intimately entwined with living systems of society and our more-than-human world.
If our businesses are to thrive in our present state of economy, in all its volatility and injustice, then the responsibility rests on leaders, at all levels, to “create the conditions conducive for life.” Business leaders and owners must operate with “strategic intent to serve life.” Businesses must replenish, contribute, and respond to the existing needs of life, culture, and society, in what he calls a “regenerative business.”
In his article, Giles Hutchins distinguishes the characteristics of a future fit business and provides hardline examples of businesses that employ these characteristics.
It can be done, and it’s being done, as we speak.
In his most recent book, “Future Fit,” he covers the topic with more depth, and he connects closely with his readers by using case studies and exercises that bring pragmatic solutions to business.
This new business logic asserts the interconnectedness of all life, and is central even to our own model here at BoominGroup.
A Future Fit Benchmark
“Future Fit”, is also a term that’s used by a completely different organization with a keenly tied objective: “to reorient the way we do business in pursuit of a prosperous future for all.”
Future Fit is a UK-based non-profit foundation. They’ve designed a benchmark to measure the future fitness of a company, namely the impact business organizations make environmentally and socially. They provide tools that companies use to transform “well-meaning intentions into measurable impact in and beyond their value chains.” The metrics they use help companies change the way they achieve “long-term value for themselves and society as a whole.” But it starts with the behavior of entities that hold power, meaning business leaders and owners, governments, including us, the individuals. Future Fit works with various groups and individuals to change the way they perform business.
Future Fitness and BoominGroup
How do we connect what seems to be such a grand scale project to our businesses? How can we even begin to apply these concepts into our day-to-day entrepreneurial ventures? It starts with changing our very own logic and behavior towards what we know as “business”. The Booming Model helps build the people behind the business in such a way that enables entrepreneurs and business owners challenge the status quo, and connect the dots between uncommon or unknown possibilities.
Each day we learn of new organizations and leaders making the move to create a new paradigm for our global economy. BoominGroup contributes to this fresh step by awakening individuals to the deep logic that runs through each phase of business development, from financials, operations, to marketing and all the in-betweens. The flaw we as business owners and entrepreneurs perpetuate is the failure to connect the dots when developing our business–that business is interconnected with all of life and that business is the very mechanism by which to deliver value to all of society.
How is your business future fit?
