The 3 Questions Leaders Need to Ask to Thrive in The Digital Age
Roselinde Torres leads Boston Consulting Group’s CEO advisory practice in North America. She’s advised more than 200 CEOs across the industry. In Roselinde’s TED talk, “What it takes to be a great leader,” she shares three crucial, but straightforward questions leaders need to ask to thrive in the future.
1. Where are you looking to anticipate change?
Leaders can see around corners. A great example is Reed Hastings who was able to surround himself with people who were able to anticipate live streaming as the next big thing for their business. Instead of doubling down on their DVD business, Reed made a big bold bet on Live Streaming. He made a similar bet on original content. Here are some questions for thought starters- Who are you spending time with?, What are you reading?, Where are you traveling?
2. What is the diversity measure of your network?
Leaders can connect and help you achieve a shared goal. In the digital age, ideas tend to come from anywhere, and the most successful ideas come from connecting diverse networks of people from various disciplines. So, do you have the capacity to develop relationships with people who are very different from yourself? Do you network with people at the intersections of multiple disciplines? Can you ask profound, thoughtful questions to promote innovative solutions to old & new problems?
3. Are you courageous enough to abandon the past that made you successful?
Leaders are not afraid to fail. Great leaders dare to be different. They don’t just talk about taking a risk, they take the risk and have the emotional stamina to withstand the naysayers. Satya Nadella famously said his industry respects innovation, not tradition. He followed these words with actions when he moved Microsoft away from Windows. Microsoft was able to successfully avoid disruption by abandoning the past that made it successful.
Watch Roselinde’s TED talk in full here:
Here are a few more things that I thought were worth sharing this week:
- Inside the Binge Factory: “I don’t want any of our shows to define our brand, and I don’t want our brand to define any shows. There’s no such thing as a ‘Netflix show.’ That as a mind-set gets people narrowed. Our brand is personalization.” — Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix. Vanity Fair’s profile of Lisa Nishamura, Netflix’s head of documentary and comedy programming is also very interesting.
- A 4-Step Guide to Ranting Productively: “Think of ranting as something you do with the singular purpose of changing yourself”
- The Leader’s Calendar: A 12-year study of how CEOs manage their time shows the complexity of the role.
- Wonderful Quotes from Naval Ravikant: “My 1 repeated learning in life: ‘There Are No Adults.’ Everyone’s making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.”
