Adaptation key to survival of businesses — Speakers

SPEAKERS at a business leadership summit have emphasised the need for organisations to create flexible structures that could enable them to adapt seamlessly as the world continues to evolve. 

They explained that having those in place presently would enable them to anticipate future occurrences that could disrupt their operations and adequately prepare for them. 

They were speaking at a summit organised by Africa’s Premier Doctoral School, Noble International Business School (NiBS) last Wednesday,  on the theme; “Future-Ready Leadership: Reimagining Leadership in a World of Unrelenting Change.”

The President of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), Dr George Agyekum Donkor said future-ready organisations accept that change is constant, anticipate disruptions and prepare extensively for emerging challenges by building resilience and agility that allows them to cope. 

He further said that organisations could also be future-ready by putting the customers first; recruiting and nurturing the right talent; proactively pursuing and utilising technology; updating processes and procedures, compliance with environment, social and governance requirements; and minding data analytics. 

“Underpinning all this is leadership, the lever of future readiness. Future-ready organisations are engineered by transformational leaders, who deliberately review and repurpose every aspect of the organisational structure and processes to be ready for challenges now and in the future,” he added. 

The Executive Chair of Jonah Capital and Equity Fund, Sam Jonah drew on the experiences and success stories of Microsoft, Google, Tesla, Safaricom (Kenya) Tata Group (India) and Grab (Singapore) to highlight the importance of growth mindset, innovation, emotional intelligence and empathy, financial inclusion and ethical leadership for organisations that seek to be ready for the future. 

He also urged organisations to commit to personal and professional growth of employees through mentorship and leadership opportunities at all levels, to cultivate the resilience and expertise necessary for the uncertain future.

“In conclusion, the journey to cultivating future-ready leaders is both daunting and exhilarating. It demands of us not just to react to change but to actively shape the future, to not merely adapt to new realities but to envision and create them,” Sir Jonah, who is also Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), added. 

The Executive Dean NiBS, Prof. Kwaku Atuahene-Gima, encouraged business leaders to take a conscious effort to unlearn old ways of doing business and acknowledge that some of their methods may be obsolete. 
“All it means is that as a leader you have to create conditions where both leaders and employees can question their current knowledge so that they can learn new things. You don’t wait for something to happen first ,” he explained.