10 - 20 Years From Now

Every entrepreneur should be asking, “What will the world look like in 10-20 years, and how will my business fit in, make sense, meet needs, and continue to create value?”

Every religious leader should be asking the same questions about their faith community.

Every parent should be asking similar questions about their children.

You get the idea.

Entrepreneurs “sell” their companies short with vision for a year, even five. (But that’s not their biggest problem.) Faith communities do the same obsessing about last year, the previous generation, and what once was. (But that’s not their biggest problem.) And parents can hardly think about anything other than surviving in the present. (But that’s not their biggest problem.)

Their biggest problem is that they’re not doing the hard work of thinking through where this is all going. I don’t mean “planning for the future”. I mean spending the time and energy and brain power required to hold their precious responsibility next to the radically different future of 2029 (or ’39) and making decisions accordingly.