In times when NASA looks to hire a Planetary Protection Officer and technology titans have heated discussions about the future of AI, it is unacceptable for entrepreneurs to think and plan the future of their companies based on short-term goals and gains.
As an entrepreneur, how often do you think about the future? And by the future here we mean not the next 3 to 5 years, but a bigger perspective of the next 15 to 20 years. All entrepreneurs in one way or another are future thinkers.
They develop products and provide services to solve a problem that exists today but grow their businesses and innovate to keep up with the changes that time brings.
The innovation in technology allows us to think bigger when it comes to solving problems looking beyond the immediate. Planning and creating implementation strategies for the long run is much more important, serious and responsible than simply thinking about the future.
Understanding the need to plan for 10+ years helps entrepreneurs to take their businesses to new levels, to outrun their competition and to become leaders in their niche. It allows them to build businesses that are here to stay and to be adequate in the future.
Of course, looking at the bigger picture when you are not sure if you can make it past the next six months seems like a ridiculously difficult thing to do. Being aware of the possibilities of failure is essential, but this does not mean that you have to assume it as a fact before it even happened.
During his TED Talk, Ari Wallach talks about the way “short-termism” prevents us from doing so much, making the future much more unpredictable and unsafe. He introduces to us a practice that he has developed called “longpath” and the three ways of thinking:
- Transgenerational thinking.
- Future thinking.
- Telos thinking.
This TED Talk may change the way you look at you business fundamentally. Don’t miss it!
