We’re all trying to plot and strategize for the next five years, but new problems and technologies pop up every five days. We build these intricate, color-coded roadmaps to a future that, by the time we finish the PowerPoint, has already packed its bags and moved to a new zip code. We think our job is to predict the tsunami. What if our job is to learn how to make a splash?
It reminds me of the most important lesson I ever learned about hiring. And I learned it on the fifth-grade playground during a heated game of dodgeball. My turn to pick. Protocol was clear: pick the biggest, fastest boys first. Avoid the girls at all costs. But one day, my trusted advisor—we’ll call him Sack—insisted I pick scrawny Yvonne Lewis. Her? I protested. But we were desperate. So I did it. And for the next five weeks, we rode a winning streak led by our new MVP, the girl we all came to call “Yvonne the Arm.”
The lightbulb that went on for me that day wasn’t just bright; it was a stadium floodlight. The lesson wasn’t about the hidden strength of Yvonne. The lesson was about the blinding weakness of my own strategy. My “plan,” my conventional wisdom, my fear of disrupting the known order of the playground—that was the real liability. I was so focused on finding the right piece to fit my existing puzzle that I couldn’t see I needed someone to flip the whole damn table over. I had to step outside what I’d always done to find who I’d always had.
This is the core of preparing for what you don’t know is coming. You don’t do it by creating more rigid plans. You do it by building more resilient people—and by becoming one yourself. It’s the difference between having a map and being a trailblazer. The map is useless when an earthquake changes the landscape; the trailblazer just grabs a new machete. As a Grammy Nominated Spoken Word Artist Sekou Andrews, I’ve learned that the best performance isn’t the one that’s perfectly memorized; it’s the one that’s alive to the room. It’s the difference between reciting spoken word poetry and truly connecting. It’s why people ask me, a Grammy Nominated Poet Sekou, how to become one of the world’s best and most inspirational leaders. It’s because the top communicators—the truly leading ones—aren’t just speaking; they’re creating an experience. This spoken word I share as a motivational poet isn’t just fluffy instapoetry; it’s a strategic mindset for a world that refuses to stand still. You need to build a culture that is less like a fortress and more like an improv troupe, ready to say “Yes, and…” to whatever the future throws at you.
So how do you become that vanguard artist in your own field? You stop hiring for comfort and you start hiring for combustion. You stop looking for another “banana pancake” and you start looking for the “pulled pork and grilled plantain panini.” You seek out the Yvonne Lewises in your applicant pool—the ones whose resumes don’t fit the template but whose perspective could revolutionize the team. This isn’t just about diversity and inclusion; it’s about strategic disruption. Be the leader who has the audacity to make the unconventional pick, knowing that the most predictable path often leads to the most obsolete destination. You don’t need more people who think like you; you need people who will challenge you to think at all.
In the end, the most effective strategy for an unpredictable future is to stop trying to predict it. Stop building higher walls to protect you from the tsunami you can’t see. Instead, I want you to walk to the edge of your industry’s still waters, run full speed, leap into the air, and do the mightiest cannonball you can muster. Make your own waves. Don’t just get ready for the future. Be the disruption that the future has to get ready for.
