Leading from the Future
In 1993, I was invited by the Army Chief of Staff, General Gordon R. Sullivan, to be his “scout.” The Army, under his leadership, was focused on bringing the force out of its worst period of decline, the Vietnam War era, and preparing it for the twenty-first century. For the next two years, and many times thereafter, I got to know the military. It was where I learned about dedication, service, and warriorship. It was my introduction to a rare form of leadership, vigilantly focused on the future, rapidly absorbing and making sense of information, with no room for failure.
General Sullivan remains one of the most extraordinary leaders I’ve known. When he asked me to be his scout, at first I thought this was a cute metaphor, the kind we consultants might use. I quickly realized this was a specific role, familiar in the military, to be taken very seriously. I was sent out to many places where innovations were taking place, met with all ranks of soldiers, and generally became familiar with the Army’s change initiatives. Then I reported back to General Sullivan and we delved deeply into what I had seen and the potential meaning of my observations.
To this day, my respect for soldiers has never waivered. Their leadership training is far superior to anything I’ve encountered elsewhere: They are taught how to process large amounts of information, to think systemically, to develop situational awareness, to lead in chaotic situations, to lead from behind as well as out front, to use their intuition. And everything depends on teamwork. Soldiers know their lives depend on being there for each other. I’ve relished every chance I’ve had to teach military officers. Their intelligence, curiosity, and esprit de corps are palpable; it’s easy to engage them in vibrant and complex learning.
General Sullivan had invited me because of my work with self-organization and the role of information. In working with the Army, I learned more than I could have imagined about the power of self-organization to bring order out of chaos. At the time I came in, soldiers had just been armed with new technologies that gave them real-time information about the battle. Once they could see what was going on, they demanded to be involved in decisions. Unlike most organizations, the Army quickly realized that, with such information, soldiers could self-organize their responses and make better decisions in the chaos of battle than any command and control system. Later, in Iraq, the quick exchange of electronic information from soldier to soldier saved lives—moment by moment they could relay where the explosives were hidden, what new traps to watch out for. A now-famous self-organized community of practice emerged among captains, Company Command.9 They became adept at rapidly communicating tactics and strategies faster than the established protocol of Army Lessons Learned. Company Command is credited with saving thousands of lives.
Senior commanders learned that well-trained soldiers could be trusted to process information in real time; the soldiers would make better decisions about the battle than if they had to wait for a command from above. Rapidly exchanged information became the critical factor, rather than rank or procedures, to reduce the chaos of conflict.
General Sullivan once told me that he spent 50 percent of his time focused on the future. In one conversation I will never forget, he said, “Sometimes I get afraid. What if there’s another war and we’re not prepared?” In that moment, I had a brief, frightening glimpse of what it means to carry the defense of the free world on your shoulders. We had just been in an inquiry, which included the Army historian and a few four-star generals, as to whether the Army should keep investing in tank training. What would warfare look like over the next decades? (This was in 1994; by 2005, the Army had prioritized resources for Special Operations, small cadres of brilliantly trained soldiers to operate in war zones and undercover against insurgent groups.)
When he voiced his deepest concern about being prepared for an unknown future, our inquiry about future battlefields became deadly serious. Perhaps the generals had been viewing it that way all along, but for me it was a dramatic wake-up call to be in this deliberation with the greatest intelligence and insight I could muster. It stands out for me as memorable because of the thousands of conversations I’ve been in with leaders since then that lacked this sense of consequence.
I believe that General Sullivan was unique in focusing 50 percent of his time and efforts on the future. Sometimes he spoke about the challenge of not getting too far ahead of the troops, of having to bring them along—and how difficult that was. The more clearly he saw the imperatives of the future, the greater his frustration with the ponderously slow movement of the Army so laden down with tradition and bureaucracy.
How many leaders spend time in the future? How many decisions are made using information from both present realities and future scenarios? How many organizations are willing to open their boundaries and absorb as much information as they can, knowing that it is only these exchanges that prevent deterioration and death?
How many leaders understand how to step off the arrow of time and consciously engage with the future so as to influence its direction, not with complex strategies but by using information well? General Sullivan’s leadership was rare then. Now it is an endangered species.
The last time I was with General Sullivan was at a scenario planning session hosted by Shell Oil Company at Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center, just a few years before the attacks of 9/11. He voiced his frustration to me about the behavior he was encountering on the corporate boards where he now served. “We spend hours debating how to get the stock price up a penny. Nobody is thinking about development of leaders or the future.”
THE ARROW OF TIME: NOTES
1 For a brilliant brief history of how our economics is tied to the belief in progress, read Pankaj Mishra, “Welcome to the Age of Anger,” theguardian.com, December 18, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/08/welcome-age-anger-brexit-trump
2 I’ve been puzzled by this assertion of the arc of justice growing stronger over long periods of time because it cannot be verified historically. But within the last stage of collapse, the Age of Decadence, human rights, social justice, gender equality, education, and healthcare benefits all surge ahead as leaders create the welfare state. The leaders, acting as if they’ll always be in power with unlimited resources, are hugely beneficent in offering a progressive society to all. So it appears that justice and the social good are moving forward, which they are in the context of the moment and the past few years of the civilization. However, the tragic irony is that all this progress in human rights occurs at the end of the civilization and cannot be sustained because of all the other forces at play. The arc of justice seems to surge, but it is actually a sign of imminent collapse. Such a harsh truth to contemplate.
3 Evolution has become a synonym for progress, but this is not the science. Evolution describes adaptations that make the organism more fit for its current environment. That environment can be improving or deteriorating. The survival of any species depends on its recognition of how the environment has changed and what it demands if the species is to survive. Adaptations are not necessarily improvements or progress; they are intelligent responses to what has changed.
4 Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People (Grove Press, 1994).
5 A Short History of Progress.
6 Ibid., p. 50.
7 True Command: The Teachings of the Dorje Kasung Vol I, “The Town Talks,” ed. Chögyam Trungpa and Carolyn Gimian (Halifax: Trident, 2005; out of print).
8 See my book Perseverance (2010), a day-to-day guide that draws on this Hopi prophecy.
9 Company Command: Unleashing the Power of the Army Profession (West Point, NY: U.S. Military Academy, 2005) tells the history of this powerful community of practice, written by its founders.