What It Means to Think Whole
Any time a group of people get together in a team or an organization, they are being given an opportunity to create the future they deserve; whether it’s next week’s future, next year’s future, or the long-term future That future can be arrived at with a bold, sweeping vision or it can be the product of dozens, even hundreds, of little moments. Wouldn’t it make sense to make sure that every such moment rises to the level of genius; if you can find a way to make that happen?
Enacting the Future
Abraham Lincoln once said: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Old Abe not only said those words, he lived by them right to the very last day of his life. By so doing, he literally, and also nearly single handedly, created the America we know today. More accurately, he prevented others from creating an America along the lines the European model. If the South had successfully seceded from the Union, we would likely have ended up with any number of separate, and competing, nation states on the American continent.
Think of the likely wars that might have been fought between a German America, a British America, a French America, an American America, a Spanish America… and so on; endlessly replaying the old European scenarios on a vast new gameboard. The truth is that Lincoln was on pretty shaky ground to insist that secession was not an option for any state; especially as the American Declaration of Independence clearly states:
“Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
The point here is not an object lesson in history but, rather, a moment of insight into how the future is created by a concentrated force of mind and will. What Lincoln did on the grand historical stage is something each of us is capable of precipitating in our own personal or organizational setting; our little corner of the universe.
The operating principles for creating the future you deserve are, have been, and will continue to be, essentially the same.
One, you need a clear and actionable vision of what you see to be the desired destination.
Two, you need a sound, realistic, and unvarnished appreciation of your starting point.
Three, you need a roadmap and an action plan that will take you from the first reality to the second.
Lincoln was hardly the only one to do what he did. Churchill’s one-man stand against Nazi Germany is a prime 20th Century example. Churchill had had almost no army. He had no natural resources. He had virtually no armaments. So, what made him successful against cold steel and superior technology? Winston had the single-minded vision of the future he believed free peoples deserved. He also fully appreciated his precarious circumstances. Most importantly, he understood that England’s future lay in how he maneuvered between the to Titans of the time – Roosevelt in the West and Stalin in the East.
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