The Past is Not the Only Prologue
I'm very pleased to have a short piece I wrote included as part of a collection of articles published on January 14th by the Middle East Institute on goals and challenges for the Biden administration. I’m also honored to be in such distinguished company, with fellow authors General (Ret) Joe Votel, former USCENTCOM commander; internationally recognized cybersecurity expert Chris Kubecka; Shahrokh Fardoust, former director of strategy at The World Bank; and others.
To (hopefully) frame this with no intimation of partisanship … it’s a momentous time in our country when any new Administration comes into power. The same is true for any organization when a new leader or set of leaders take the reins. It’s an opportunity and an obligation to put strongly held beliefs and strategies into play to drive the organization forward.
But it’s also a temptation to launch them without pausing to consider what’s changed since those ideas and strategies were formed – or what could change in the future that suggests different choices. Great leaders recognize that temptation, and temper it with open-minded thinking, at the start and throughout their tenure.
There’s lots of ways to do it. Employing foresight tools and methods is one way, but honestly not the most important one. Even more powerful is creating an environment of intellectual and experiential diversity. Surround yourself with people unlike you. Make sure to throw in some out-and-out contrarians.
On any given decision or strategy, what you think based on your experience may indeed be the best way ahead. Yes, and … and ideas from outside your experience could make it better, or could point in a very different direction instead. Think through how they could play out and the future outcomes they could create. That’s when foresight approaches can be especially effective.
I hope President Biden takes this approach, in the Middle East, and in every policy area. And I hope leaders in businesses and other organizations of every stripe do as well.