Beating the Global Odds: Successful Decision-making in a Confused and Troubled World

Introduction

Seizing the Future Is (Fortunately) Not a Game of Chance

As we begin, I can’t do better than quote pioneering French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.”

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If you’re looking for a roadmap to a better future for your company, your country, our world, and your career and personal life, I trust this book will help.

Today’s society—a swirl of businesses, governments, organizations of all kinds, and individuals—has been rendered confused and paralyzed by a multitude of shocks, crises, and high-speed changes that we are all more familiar with than we’d like to be. A technology-driven and connected world has exponentially increased our inputs and choices. At the same time, there is a lack of a fundamental, shared sense of purpose on which people and organizations can build things that last—inspiring and sparking actions that will yield longer-term benefits both within and across borders.

We can’t, nor would we want to, turn back the tide of connective technologies. Instead, we need to leverage them to solve the very problems they helped spawn. Information Technology 1.0 has enabled a transaction-based society in which “the deal” became more important than the value it drove or the relationships it was based on. And so this decoupling of wealth creation from value creation ...