The Overshare 04
Seven generations ahead
I’ve been dipping in and out of Warren Berger’s excellent ‘The Book of Beautiful Questions’, such a pertinent and easy read for business leaders to shake us up. I use it often to refresh my own approach and stop myself from getting too stale – an easy trap when you work solo.
One of the things I love in it – and one which drives a lot of my thinking – is the reference to the Iroquois seven generations principle, an indigenous philosophy that demands accountability to both ancestors and to the unborn. When making decisions, they weigh up 140 years in advance: how will this impact our people in seven generations?
I live in Wales (just two hours to London, one to Paris and Amsterdam and ten minutes to the beach – I’m not stupid),and something I love about it is that this thinking is built into our political systems via the Well-being of Future Generations Act. It means that inside our Senedd (senate, or parliament), decisions must be made with this front and centre. So rather than ‘Let’s build another road, there are too many cars on this one’, the thinking becomes ‘What can we do that will give people an alternative to using the car, so we can make this sustainable for future generations’.This is true strategic thinking at work. I love that it’s encrypted in our political system here.
Future thinking is critical to any strategy project. Understanding not only the impact your thinking will have upon people next year, but also in five years or ten - or a century’s time.
How does your business stack up when you think about it this way?