Business is changing fast and it’s nearly impossible to know how to stay alert to forces we need to watch to stay ahead. It’s very hard to figure out what to do differently, how to be confident when we pull the trigger to act, and what it takes to build courage to enlist and inspire people to support change.

But, it’s also the most important thing we can do. We need to see shifts in the market, understand our customers better and faster than before, and learn to respond.

Part of the opportunity lies in working on our teams, our organizations, our communities and our ecosystems. The first step toward success starts on a personal level: How can we become better at staying on top of change?

On the one hand: It can feel like Whac-A-Mole to stay on top of everything that might change.

On the other hand: If we don’t stay alert and build responsiveness into our personal DNA and our organizational cultures, we’ll have hell to pay.

Andrea Kates is a San Francisco-based expert at moving innovation to revenue. She is an expert at uncovering untapped opportunities and galvanizing strategic vision. For 20 years she’s led bold initiatives in virtually every sector and every geography that help companies figure out where to place their bets on emerging products, services, and technologies and to scale dynamic business models. In essence: How do you disrupt before being disrupted, avoid the blind side and get ahead of the future? Leaders who work with Andrea develop a new mindset about future growth, informed by both data and new insights.