In a changing and unpredictable world you need to discover quickly where your options are. You're going to need to see what's going on around you and anticipate how it's changing. This is Situational Awareness — the key skill that distinguishes wise leaders from foolish ones.

Wise leaders have a knack for out-thinking and out-manoeuvring rivals. They start with a map so they can see the current situation more clearly and learn where their options for action are. In fact, most of us use maps to do exactly this in our daily lives but we don't do this in business. Why?

Password: landscape2021

Password: landscape2021

The wise leader knows that the landscape does not stand still. The future may be unpredictable but you can apply recurring patterns of change to your maps to anticipate how your industry will evolve. The 'rules of the game' are 30 economic patterns that will help you discover WHERE your options are.

Password: climate2022

Password: climate2022

Password: climate2022

Once you have awareness about where you're going to attack the market and the moves you can make you need to make sure you can execute. The greater your organisation's Adaptivity Intelligence (AQ) the more effectively it will be able to act. You increase your AQ by adopting 40 key principles (habits and skills).

A problem almost every organisation has is that different departments speak different languages. Finance speaks in numbers and IT seems to speak in Elvish, which is why approvals for technology projects take so long to get approved. You need a common language everyone can understand.

If your strategy is to "Go Agile!" or "Become Lean!" then you're in trouble. Firstly, these are methods — tools to achieve aims — not strategies. Secondly, there are no universal methods — what works well in one place will not work well in another. But you'll need a map to see where and why.

Waste is one of the biggest unseen problems in any organisation: people building things they could be buying or outsourcing far cheaper (bias), or re-inventing the wheel time and again (duplication). With multiple maps you can start to identify and remove waste and prevent it from building up again.

Most leaders say they're "focused on the bigger picture". But how many can answer these three questions: Who are your users, what do they need, and how do you satisfy those needs? Any leader who can't answer these key questions has no chance of influencing the bigger picture.

Rather than launching another big, expensive change management program design your organisation for constant evolution instead. By adopting multiple principles you will not only enable your organisation to adapt at speed but it'll also start to evolve effortlessly in response to changes on the market.

Once multiple options for action have been identified the wise leader will use logic and intuition to decide WHY to make these moves over those. By making moves faster and more effortlessly than rivals you can start to manipulate the landscape to your advantage. Because moves make money!