LEARN AS YOU EXPLORE?

7 Lessons of Great Explorers

School is a great place to learn history. The past is easy to teach and measure. But, there’s a saying for investors: “Past performance is not indicator of future performance.” So is the case with learning: focusing on the past doesn’t help prepare people for the future.
An excellent book on teaching forward is titled, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Edward Cornish. As Cornish writes: “Most of us know better than to drive down a highway at eighty miles an hour without looking at the road ahead. But when it comes to steering our careers and businesses, we hardly ever consider what’s coming toward us. We often wind up in a nasty ‘crash’ that we could have avoided if we had better anticipated possible developments. This is where futuring can help.”
Cornish is the president of the World Future Society and the editor of its magazine, The Futurist. As you will learn as you read the book, futuring is not “fortune-telling.” It is the science of looking at trends, studying demographics and researching attitudes and behaviors that will ultimately affect societies.
It seems to me that the main reason that people choose not to be a futurist is because it takes thinking. A good futurist will read, explore and think more than the person satisfied with the past. I suspect the main impetus for so many people be against continuous learning is the resistance to unlearn “history.” This does not mean world or American history, but that knowledge that fits our conceptual framework. What we know provides us with a comfort zone and a safe place to express our opinions and make choices.
An interesting section of the book deals with the great explorers. There are many lessons to be learned from those that explored without a “safety net.” Cornish has listed 7 lessons:
1. Prepare for what you will face in the future
It seems like the old axiom from the Boy Scouts is a must: Be Prepared. The age of the specialist needs to be set aside for the age of the diverse. The world is changing rapidly and the knowledge base turns over every 6 months or sooner. That’s much different from earlier generations when new knowledge may not appear for years. One of the keys in knowledge management is understanding what to keep.
2. Anticipate future needs
Businesses work in 3 to 6 month intervals. It is easy to understand why behemoths like General Motors get “caught” with the wrong consumer products. It can also explain why the majority of second generation businesses fail. What worked before is not necessarily what people want now.
3. Use poor information when necessary
Businesses are obsessed with analysis. Most likely the FEAR of making a wrong decision leads to paralysis by analysis. If no one makes a decision, no one can be wrong. Unfortunately, there are companies making decisions without all the “due diligence” and they will capture the new consumer market.
4. Expect the unexpected
“What will go wrong, will go wrong” is one of Murphy’s Laws. If you go into something without the necessary back-up plans, you increased your chance of failure. It is impossible to anticipate all that could happen, so be ready with an arsenal of alternatives.
5. Think long-term as well as short-term
When I first started in working in a large corporation, thinking in 5 year increments was expected. As factors influencing business accelerated, the leaders thought that 5 year strategies were a waste of time. Actually, loss of that kind of strategic planning actually accelerated their losses. Instead of having people exploring the future, everyone was consumed with the “here and now.” Short-term thinking with a long range plan helps people stay focused.
6. Dream productively
Do you ever see anyone sitting at their desk, staring off into space? Of course not! That kind of daydreaming behavior won’t be tolerated, regardless if it is at work or at school. Managers want their people to look busy, not being seen reading a book or magazine (that applies to work). Thinking looks like you are wasting time. Get busy even if all you are doing is moving papers from one file to another!
Dreams are the future. You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. --- Mark Twain
7. Learn from your predecessors
If a person is relieved of duties, terminated or “downsized,” people around them automatically assume that they did something wrong. There may be some real valuable learning that can be gleaned from this poor person’s fate. Not every person escorted out the door is wrong.

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE
© 2006 3 Minute Learning LLC