We live in times of great radical change and restructuring. Many governing bodies are confronted with new challenges and constant changes in an ambiguous information society are now part of everyday business life.

Our observations and a wide variety of conversations with managers confirm this trend and are looking for ways and solutions on how they, as a collective leadership body, can steer their company into the future. Many are still stuck in a short-term reaction and fail to address cultural change, remaining in supposedly safe and time-honoured leadership models. Such behaviour by governing bodies deprives themselves of an opportunity to align the company with the new realities. The rethinking of competence and performance management is only hesitantly tackled in some places because possibilities of a constructive approach are either still unknown or one could not yet bring oneself to try something new.

An external view supports the implementation and starts with the desired future. A self-reflective and intuitively strong leadership body are prerequisites for a healthy, resilient and successful company and are more willing to take courageous steps and creatively help shape their own future.

Future management is interdisciplinary and focuses on how achievement and performance can be made possible in the first place. An increased pressure to suffer or a changed perspective and attitude will not be able to close itself off to new access channels and tried and tested diagostic tools, as according to surveys it is not about more training, but how can coaching and mentoring processes strengthen and make visible what is already there in a target-oriented and sustainable way.

The results of studies on future competences for Swiss SMEs have revealed three trend-setting dimensions. On the one hand, it is about the willingness to “learn new things” and, on the other hand, to align actions to the changed customer needs and market situation. The key competence is communication, which acts as a link into all areas and the cultural understanding of the company.

With proven diagnostic tools, in the area of “future management”, combined with professional coaching support, companies empower themselves not only to increase productivity, but also to create something new. The visible and positive results cannot be denied and support the elaboration of the dimensions of success that are not yet strongly developed.