What’s More Important Than an Inspiring Vision? (Part 3)

Before you dive in: Read Part 1 and Part 2 

“Skate to where the puck is going.” – Wayne Gretzky

This often-shared bit of leadership wisdom is from the one who is widely considered the GOAT (“Greatest Of All Time”) of hockey. The key, Wayne Gretzky’s father taught him, was not to skate to where the puck is, but to where the puck is going to be. Anticipate the direction and speed of the puck and get there first. Jump ahead of the competition by learning to see the trajectory of the puck and predict where you need to be for optimal results. That is the key to success in both hockey and, well, everything else too, right? (Gretzky retired with 61 records, 9 MVP Trophies and 4 Stanley Cup Trophies.) This little saying has been repeated by Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett about business, and by countless others about leadership and politics.

Indeed, that is one of the things that people expect of great leaders: To offer a vision of the future that they can “skate” toward as fast as possible.

But what do you do when the pace of change is so great that you can’t possibly predict where the puck is going? (And what if it feels like the game has changed so much that it is now played with four pucks?)

This past year I was asked to speak to a large leadership concept about how to prepare for the church in 2030. They asked me to bring some predictions based on trends I was seeing in the larger church during the past few years of pandemic and political upheaval. I told them what I want to share with you here:

Don’t predict, prototype.

For the past three months, I have been using this email to disrupt the default of most leaders to try to motivate people to change through an inspiring vision. So far we have learned to focus on:

• Not vision, but values,

• Not a picture but pain points

And today…

• Not a plan, but prototypes.

Leaders not only love visions and predictions, but also love plans. Big, lovely, lavish inspiring plans. It is only the first week of January but already we have five organizations reaching out to us for consulting or coaching in strategic planning for the new year. New year? New plans!

We love working with leaders and organizations that are taking seriously the changing world (and even the changing calendar!), but what we help our clients understand is that the way to move forward into an uncertain future is not by trying to be all-seeing, all-knowing or even all-organized, but by being all-curious and all-courageous.

Leaders of the future are learners. And mostly they learn through experiments. They learn to explore the big questions that they are facing with small, safe, modest, experiments called prototypes. As the oft-repeated mantra of Silicon Valley goes, “fail fast, learn fast.” (To which a Silicon Valley venture capital investor once added in a meeting I was running, “And fail cheap. It’s my money.”)

What truly inspiring leaders quickly realize is that to lead into an unknown future they don’t need big plans, but good questions. They don’t need an inspiring vision but the courage to explore those questions with experiments, even if they might “fail.”

Leaders of the future aren’t fast to the future, they are fast learners in the here and now. They are clear on their values, committed to addressing the pain points of the world, and they are courageous for trying new things and learning whatever they need to keep going…one step at a time, one challenge at a time, one discovery at a time.

What could be more inspiring than that?