This post is cross-posted from Econogy.co
If everything is changing, how do we know which way to go?
If the ways we work, buy, learn, collaborate, discover, you name it, are being transformed, how do we know what our business or organization should do to succeed?
And if all of that is happening so fast that we haven’t absorbed the last thing before it’s time to move on, then how do we make the right decisions to get us to a strong long-term future?
Everything has changed. And chances are it will change a whole lot more.
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During my years as an urban planner, I based dozens of plans on linear extrapolations. If Town X averaged 3% growth per decade over the past 30 years, then we projected future population growth as a continuation of that 3% trend. Employment changing? Households smaller? Less in-migration?
I’m ashamed to admit today, we didn’t always ask those questions. If we had, some of those towns might have had different plans.
But businesses and organizations make the same mistake.
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Econogy Talent Group was built to accelerate sustainable change in a future that we can’t simply extrapolate. Businesses that operate today the same way they did in 1985… are probably no longer businesses.
ETG specializes in change. Our best work comes when there is no tried-and-true blueprint to follow, because our youth-driven Innovation Teams don’t see the barriers that more experienced people take for granted.
One of the tools we use to help our Innovation Teams find new solutions is the Pathfinder framework. We’ve used Pathfinder with businesses, nonprofits, and even neighborhoods. And it consistently works.
Pathfinder
- Equips our clients with the Insight they need — about themselves, and about the world through which they are moving.
- Enables them to articulate the Impact they want to make — not just in terms of some grand ideal, but in terms of the concrete behaviors and access needed to make that Impact.
- Identifies several alternative Pathways — specific strategies and tactics to make that Impact happen
- Creates a synchronized Action Plan to make it happen.
Pathfinder helped one of our clients raise $5 million in start-up funds for an online business that was the first in its industry. Pathways helped another client identify a way to meet its Impact goals while at the same time setting it apart from the competition. And Pathways is even helping an entire community define and claim its own identity – and leverage their strengths to attract new residents and businesses.
You can learn more about Econogy’s Pathfinder method here. We’d love to learn about how we can help you find a Pathway to your future.
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