Future Proof

When Vice President Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" came out in 2006, I didn't rush to go see it. My Environmental Studies course in undergrad already had me convinced that humans were altering the environment. With excessive water consumption, fossil fuel depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, and overpopulation all driving us towards some dystopian future, I felt there was little left for me to learn or understand from Vice President Gore' Powerpoint movie. When I finally saw "An Inconvenient Truth," it was as I'd expected: a doomsday story with little or no hope. My biggest complaint was that there was no WIIFM (what's in it for me?) in the movie. The ship of climate change had already sailed, and the political and economic structures driving Earth's metamorphosis were far too large for me to make a difference. The positive was that the movie further justified my vote for Ralph Nader (Green Party) in the 2002 election. I had voted for...

Business problems can come in many forms. Some are linear. Others are complex. Some are apparent. Others are latent. Some are knowable. Others are unknowable. The best leaders identify business problems frequently, and classify them readily. Technical business problems are linear, apparent, and knowable. For instance, if a critical server goes down, this is a problem with a clear solution: Bring the server back up as quickly as possible. For leaders, technical problems are treated by exercising authority and expertise. We feel pressure to drive these problems out of existence. The best leaders prioritize, triage, and optimize their approach to technical problems. Nowadays, more and more business problems we encounter are not of the technical nature. They are complex, latent, potentially unknowable, and as a result, they frequently require learning before solving. Take the buzz worthy notion of "disruption," which threatens nearly every business model. Practically by defi...