Anticipate: The Art of Leading by Looking Ahead

“Creating a vision requires ideas, ideally intriguing and refreshing ideas that trigger people’s interest, curiosity, and excitement. It requires engagement with your imagination and an ability to think outside the clichéd box. It requires an open mind and willingness to listen to others’ unconventional ideas and, in a responsible way, incorporate these ideas into your own perspectives. It requires clarity of thought on what you fundamentally stand for: the values you maintain, the beliefs that are dear to you, the enduring commitments you have set out for yourself.”

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. —WAYNE GRETZKY”

“We’re supposed to learn from the past, but short-term success appears to shield our willingness to accept long-term implications.”

“You cannot put a strategy in place today in the pharmaceutical industry, in the automobile industry, in the food industry with less than a seven- to ten-year time frame. That’s how long it takes. Particularly [for] companies going through a cultural transformation it takes closer to ten years to get it done.”14”

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. —JOHN QUINCY ADAMS”

“What we see is often determined by what we are prepared to see. —PAUL SCHOEMAKER AND GEORGE DAY”

“adaptive capacity: the ability to be attuned to developments in the external environment and to act on these changes accordingly. It’s this ability to anticipate and engage with these changing dynamics that make organizations—and their leaders—successful over the long run.”