Four careers over 50+ years. USMC, engineering, consulting, education. Past twenty years have focused on helping leaders become and remain relevant during times of change.
MindPrep 309 – Quakes: physical and ideological
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Reader, The last issue MindPrep Reflections dealt with the work of scanning the larger environment and I told you that I would address the need to build hypotheses (i.e., guess) in the next issue. However, I started thinking about what I was seeing in today’s business and political environments, and, for some strange reason, I started thinking about earthquakes. That lead me to think about the relationship between earthquakes and “IdeaQuakes.” Bear with me as I explain my thought process. Just as the Earth’s crust is made up of large, constantly moving tectonic plates, our business and political worlds are built on layers of ideas - assumptions, models, technologies, values, and social norms. (I’ll stick with the business world for the time being. Politics triggers anger for some of us.) An IdeaQuake is a sudden shift in core beliefs, paradigms, or technologies - like the advent of AI, the rise of remote work, or the collapse of trust in institutions. The result is a dramatic reshaping of markets, business models, or even society at large. And just as landscapes are forever changed by tectonic activity, so too is the business world transformed by these seismic shifts in thinking. Some examples from the past quarter century
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Just as geologists study seismic activity to predict and prepare for earthquakes, business leaders must track idea shifts to anticipate and withstand disruptive change. Next issueI’ll do as promised last time and provide a quick outline of the Guess Phase of intercepting the future. I hope you had a fun 4th of July break. I’ll be back with more brilliant observations soon. Cheers, Bill |
Bill @ MindPrep
Four careers over 50+ years. USMC, engineering, consulting, education. Past twenty years have focused on helping leaders become and remain relevant during times of change.
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