Build What You Need Next, Not What You Had

"A lot of times a local government will come to our team and say, 'We need a pump for flooding.'"

That is how Shalini Vajjhala began explaining her work to me. Shalini helps communities become more resilient, and she has spent years watching well-intentioned leaders solve the wrong problem.

"But what they need is flood protection," she continued. "Where's your water coming from? Could you build a wetland instead and have a sponge? Then you wouldn't have to pay for a pump over and over again."

I have thought about that example many times since, because it applies far beyond flood control. It describes how most of us approach reinvention.

We Ask for the Pump

When something stops working, our first instinct is to replace it with a newer, better version of the same thing. The pump worked before, so we ask for a bigger pump. The job title worked before, so we look for the same title somewhere else. The strategy worked before, so we refine it and run it again.

It feels responsible. It feels efficient. And it is often a mistake.

As Shalini put it, if we don't consider how the current situation differs from the past, or what other options exist, we fool ourselves into thinking we are building resilience when we are actually securing a less resilient future. We spend money, time and energy maintaining a solution designed for conditions that no longer exist.

Serving the System Instead of the Need

What makes this so hard is that the old solution is familiar. We know how to operate it. We know who to call when it breaks. Our expertise, and sometimes our identity, is wrapped up in it.

Shalini described the alternative this way: "Focus on where we can build systems that serve what we need now and next, instead of being in service to systems we had. We know what we currently use. It takes imagination to think about what we actually need next."

That last sentence is the heart of it. It takes imagination.

Most organizations train people to execute existing ideas well. Success is defined by how effectively you operate the systems you inherited. Over time, that training narrows our imagination. We stop asking what we actually need and start asking only how to keep what we already have running. As I explore in Most Leaders Confuse Adaptation With Reinvention, adjusting the old model is not the same as building a new one.

What This Looks Like in a Career

Consider how this plays out for individuals.

Imagine a professional who loses a role in a shrinking industry. Her first instinct is to look for the same role at a competitor in the same industry. That is the pump. It may buy time, but it doesn't address where the water is coming from.

A different question would serve her better. What is changing in my field, and what kind of contribution will matter in the next five years? What do I already know and do well that could serve a growing need instead of a declining one? What would a wetland look like for my career?

The same logic applies to leaders. A team underperforms, so the leader adds another layer of oversight. A process breaks, so they add another approval step. Each fix replaces what was there with a slightly stronger version of the same thing. None of them ask whether the underlying design still fits the work.

Reinvention Requires Imagination and Action

Building what you need next is harder than replacing what you had. It requires you to step back, understand what has changed and imagine options that don't yet exist. Then it requires you to act on those options, often before everyone around you is convinced.

That is why reinvention is a discipline of both imagination and implementation. Generating a new idea is only the beginning. The real work is moving it forward, with or without support, and learning as you go. As I've written before, learning, unlearning and relearning is a cycle, not a single event. Building what you need next is what that cycle looks like in practice.

Notice what the wetland does that the pump cannot. The pump answers yesterday's question, and you keep paying for it. The wetland answers a better question about where the water comes from, and it keeps working. That is the difference between replacing and reinventing. One maintains the past. The other is designed for the future.

Two Questions to Ask Yourself

As you think about your own reinvention, ask yourself honestly. Am I relying on old ideas packaged differently? Am I holding myself back because I'm waiting for support before I act?

Then ask the question at the heart of Shalini's work. What do I actually need, now and next?

Replacing what you had feels safe. Building what you need next is what actually prepares you for the future.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.