“The Ability to See Around Corners” – One trait of Great Leaders

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
Wayne Gretzky

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I had a visit recently with Jim Young.  How to describe Jim Young?  The most networked individual I know; he knows a lot of people!  They all respect him.  He used to be near the top at EDS – now he is; mentor; thinker; connector…  the list is long.  He offers (and freely shares — one of his great personal traits) a genuine wealth of information and insight.

We were discussing companies that had been successful and had either:

Continued to be successful
or
kind of lost their way (sometimes, completely lost their way, and “disappeared”).

The conversation flowed to leadership qualities, and we discussed Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, and more than a few “not so successful” leaders.

In the midst of this part of the conversation, as we discussed leaders like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos., Jim had this great statement/observation:  Such leaders have (had, in the case of Jobs):

The ability to see around corners.

Yep!  That’s it.  Great phrase.  I don’t know if Jim came up with the phrase for a leadership context, or read it/heard it somewhere else.  But it is the exact right phrase.   Steve Jobs could certainly see around corners.

So, I’ve been thinking about this phrase since Jim said it.  He mentioned an article about the potential next big thing – 3-D Printing:  Dinner is Printed by A. J. Jacobs.  I’ve read about 3-D printing.  It was even the centerpiece of a storyline one night on The Big Bang Theory (a funny episode!).  I read it, and thought –ok, we’re not there yet, but we’re certainly headed that direction.  In other words, 3-D printing is right around the corner.

The new USS Zumwalt

And then I read this article, The US Navy’s Most Intimidating Creation Yet Just Hit The Water, about a new, bigger, “different” kind of destroyer for the U.S. Navy, the USS Zumwalt.  From the article:

The Zumwalt’s weaponry is tailored for land attack and close-to-coast dominance and will also have a sensor and weapons suite optimized for littoral warfare and for network-centric warfare.
The Zumwalt has a peripheral vertical launch system (PVLS), which consists of 20 four-cell PVLS situated round the perimeter of the deck.

I don’t know much about what any of this actually means, but I think it means this – it can see around corners, and it can shoot around corners.

To be able to see around corners — to see what’s coming next, before anyone else can see it – to get prepared for it, to master the challenge before others even realize the challenge is upon them….  I don’t know how you train that kind of leadership.  But I think Jim is right.  The best leaders have always had “the ability to see around corners.”

And if there is anything we should have learned by now, it is this – something different is indeed coming around the next corner.  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see around that next corner?

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Here’s another line from Jim Young:  “Every industry/company is at risk of serious disruption.”  Yep, that’s true also.