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What’s Impossible?

What’s impossible? The question sounds rather quixotic doesn’t it? It isn’t. It’s a question every business, political and community leader needs to ask themselves if they are truly serious about successfully leading their organization into the future.

We now live in an era of accelerating change. Every day new advances in nanotechnology, robotics, biotechnology, and information technology bring science fiction-like advances one step closer to becoming science fact. People unaware of these advances risk leaving their organizations unprepared to compete in this accelerating future.

A perfect case point occurred in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. There was an article entitled ”Why the Gasoline Engine Isn’t Going Away.” Although I disagreed with the premise of the article from the beginning, I decided to read it because I like to challenge my thinking. After finishing it, though, I concluded it was a piece of trash because the author completely missed the context of accelerating technological change.

For example, in a single sentence, he dismissed the possibility of fuel cell technology because hydrogen is currently expensive to transport and store. This is true today, but will it always remain so? The answer is no. Every week new advances in nanocatalysts and nanomaterials bring practical fuel cell technology one step closer to reality.

The same was true of his dismissal of advanced battery technology. To prove his point that battery technology will never be up for the job of replacing the internal combustion engine, he quotes a single battery manufacturer and accepts their conclusion that battery technology will always be expensive. I’d encourage the author to interview officials at A123 Systems and review their new battery technology. If he does, he might have reached an opposite conclusion.

The greater problem with the article, though, is that it serves only to reinforce the power of the status quo. Change is difficult and people will often latch on to any evidence that supports a person or organization’s resistance to change. The Exponential Executive, however, does not seek comfort in the status quo. Instead he or she constantly challenges it.

To this end, one of the most powerful tools for doing this is to challenge people’s perceptions and ideas of what is impossible.

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