Olivia: Most people think visionary leaders are born, not made. That they have some kind of mystical crystal ball. Today, we're going to argue that's not just wrong, it's a dangerous myth. Your ability to see the future might just depend on unlearning what you think you know. Jackson: I'm glad to hear that, because my crystal ball has been on backorder for about thirty years. It’s comforting to know I don't need one. But it does feel like some people just see things others don't. Olivia: They do, but it’s a skill, not magic. That's the core idea behind a fascinating book we're diving into today: Anticipate: The Art of Leading by Looking Ahead by Rob-Jan de Jong. Jackson: And de Jong isn't just some business guru, right? I read he's a behavioral strategist who teaches at places like Wharton. So he's coming at this from a psychological angle, which makes it way more interesting. Olivia: Exactly. He's obsessed with the psychology of foresight. And it's why leaders like Paul Polman, the former CEO of Unilever who famously ditched quarterly reports to focus on the long-term, have praised this book. It’s about rewiring your brain to see what's coming. Jackson: Okay, so it’s a brain-rewiring manual. I’m in. Where do we start? Olivia: We start with a perfect, almost painful example of a leader who completely missed the boat on this: George H.W. Bush.

Olivia: In 1987, as Bush was gearing up for his presidential run, a friend urged him to go to Camp David and really think about his vision for the country. His response became infamous. He dismissed it with a wave of his hand, saying, "Oh, you mean for ‘the vision thing.’" Jackson: Ouch. That's not a great soundbite for a future president. Did it actually matter? Olivia: The book argues it mattered immensely. That phrase, "the vision thing," haunted him. His opponent, Bill Clinton, ran on a very clear, forward-looking vision. Many historians believe Bush's failure to articulate a compelling future was a key reason he lost the 1992 election. Jackson: Wow. So a single phrase, a single blind spot, might have cost him the presidency. But why is it so hard? Is it just being busy or, you know, lazy? Olivia: That's the common assumption, but de Jong argues it's much deeper. It's not laziness; it's our own psychology working against us. He points to two major culprits: mental frames and cognitive dissonance. Jackson: Okay, break those down for me. Mental frames sounds like something you buy at IKEA. Olivia: A great analogy, actually. A mental frame is like a pre-built structure in your mind that helps you organize information quickly. It’s a shortcut. The problem is, once the frame is built, your brain automatically filters out any information that doesn't fit inside it. Jackson: Wait, so my brain is basically running on autopilot, filtering out anything that doesn't fit my pre-existing beliefs? That's terrifying. Olivia: It is! And it leads to what the book calls "thoughtlessness." The most devastating example of this is Eastman Kodak. In 1975, a Kodak engineer named Steven Sasson invented the world's first digital camera. Jackson: Hold on. Kodak invented the digital camera? The very thing that would eventually destroy their entire business? Olivia: They invented it, they looked at it, and they buried it. Their mental frame was, "We are a film and chemical company." Digital photography had no film, no chemicals. It didn't fit the frame. So, they concluded it was a "toy" with no future. Jackson: That's a corporate horror story. They invented the future and then put it in a closet because it didn't fit their spreadsheet. What was going on in their heads? Olivia: That's the second culprit: cognitive dissonance. It's the intense mental discomfort we feel when we hold two conflicting beliefs at once. For Kodak executives, the two beliefs were: "Our film business is incredibly profitable" and "This new digital thing could make our film business obsolete." Jackson: And the discomfort of holding those two thoughts was so great that it was easier to just deny the second one. Olivia: Precisely. It's easier to call the new thing a "toy" than to confront the painful reality that your entire business model is about to become a historical artifact. We are all wired to seek consistency, even if it's a foolish consistency that leads us right off a cliff. Jackson: That makes so much sense. It explains why big, successful companies are so often the ones that get disrupted. Their success becomes their biggest blind spot. Their frame is too strong. Olivia: Exactly. And it's not just companies. We all do it. We stick with a career, a relationship, or a belief system long after we see the warning signs, because the pain of admitting we were wrong is just too high.

Jackson: Okay, so our brains are wired to be blind. This is getting a bit depressing. How do we fight back? Is there a practical way to break out of these frames? Olivia: There is. This is where the book gets really practical. De Jong says developing visionary capacity comes down to mastering two core skills: first, "Seeing Things Early," and second, "Connecting the Dots." Jackson: Seeing things early sounds like the Wayne Gretzky quote, right? "Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." Olivia: That's the perfect way to put it. And de Jong offers a technique for this called "FuturePriming." The idea is to consciously prime your brain to notice signals it would otherwise filter out. You don't just look for trends; you imagine specific, concrete future events, which he calls "FutureFacts." Jackson: Can you give me an example? What's a FutureFact? Olivia: Okay, instead of a vague trend like "aging population," a FutureFact would be: "In 2030, the best-selling video game is a strategy game designed exclusively for players over 70." Or, "The most popular university degree is in 'AI Ethics and Philosophy'." These concrete images act like hooks in your brain. Once you've imagined them, you start noticing the little signals in the real world that point toward that future. Jackson: Huh. So you're planting a seed in your own mind. You're telling your brain, "Hey, start looking for evidence of this." That's clever. But what about connecting the dots? It's one thing to see a bunch of weird signals, but how do you turn that into a coherent story? Olivia: That's the harder part, and it's where most people fail. De Jong's answer is a powerful tool that was pioneered, funnily enough, at another giant company: Royal Dutch Shell. The tool is scenario planning. Jackson: I've heard of that, but it always sounds a bit abstract. Olivia: The story of how Shell used it is anything but abstract. In the early 1970s, Shell's planners, led by a man named Pierre Wack, were getting nervous. They saw a few small, disconnected signals: the US was becoming a net importer of oil, and oil-producing nations were starting to meet more frequently. Everyone else dismissed these as noise. Jackson: Just background chatter. Olivia: Exactly. But Wack's team decided to connect these dots into a story. They created multiple scenarios for the future of oil prices. One was the "official view"—business as usual. But they also created another, which they called "The Unthinkable." Jackson: I love that name. What was the unthinkable scenario? Olivia: The unthinkable scenario was that these oil-producing nations would form a cartel, seize control of production, and cause a massive, sudden price shock. They presented this to Shell's executives, who basically laughed them out of the room. It was too radical. It didn't fit their frame. Jackson: Just like Kodak and the digital camera. Olivia: But Wack's team didn't give up. They kept refining the scenario, making it more vivid, more real. They forced the executives to walk through what they would do, step-by-step, if this "unthinkable" future actually happened. And then, in 1973, it did. The OPEC oil crisis hit. Jackson: Whoa. And Shell was ready. Olivia: They were the only ones. While their competitors were panicking, Shell was executing a plan they had already rehearsed. They had created what the book calls a "memory of the future." They had already lived through the crisis in their minds. It vaulted them from one of the weakest major oil companies to one of the strongest, almost overnight. Jackson: That gives me chills. It's the complete opposite of the Kodak story. It's foresight as a survival weapon. Olivia: And to make the point even sharper, the book contrasts Shell with the collapse of Fortis, a huge European bank. In 2007, Fortis was all-in on the idea that the banking sector would consolidate. They saw only one future. They had massive tunnel vision, ignored all the warning signs of the coming financial crisis, and made a huge, risky acquisition. When the 2008 crisis hit, they were completely unprepared and collapsed. Jackson: One company embraced multiple futures and thrived. The other was fixated on a single future and died. The lesson couldn't be clearer.

Jackson: It seems like having the right tools isn't enough, though. The Shell leaders had to have the courage to listen to these crazy ideas from Pierre Wack. That feels... personal. It's not just a process; it's about the people. Olivia: You've hit on the final, and maybe most important, piece of the puzzle. De Jong calls it "Your Visionary Self." All the frameworks and techniques in the world are useless if the leader isn't authentic. The vision has to come from a place of genuine passion and deeply held values. Jackson: It has to be real. You can't fake "the vision thing." Olivia: You can't. And the book gives this incredible story to illustrate it: the architect Jørn Utzon and the Sydney Opera House. Utzon was a relatively unknown Danish architect who won the competition to design it. His vision was breathtaking, inspired by nature—the sails of a ship, the segments of an orange. Jackson: An absolute masterpiece. One of the most famous buildings in the world. Olivia: But the creation of it was a nightmare. The project was plagued by politics, cost overruns, and technical challenges. Eventually, the government officials turned on Utzon, withheld his payments, and essentially forced him to resign. He was fired from his own masterpiece. Jackson: That's heartbreaking. I would have been bitter for the rest of my life. Olivia: And that's what makes him a true visionary. He never was. His son said he was the most positive person he'd ever met. Utzon believed the building was more important than the architect. He never let his ego or his bitterness tarnish the vision. His authenticity was in his selfless commitment to the idea. Years later, when asked about it, he just said he was grateful to have been allowed to conceive of it. Jackson: That's a level of integrity that's almost hard to comprehend. It's so different from the 'cult of personality' leaders we often see today. His power came from being true to the work, not to himself. Olivia: And to show that this kind of authenticity isn't limited to quiet, stoic artists, the book gives another, wildly different example: Taïg Khris. Jackson: The extreme sports guy? What's his story? Olivia: Khris was a world champion in-line skater whose dream was to do a record-breaking jump. First, he wanted to jump over the Seine river in Paris, but the police shut him down. So he redirected his dream: he would jump off the first platform of the Eiffel Tower. Jackson: That sounds completely insane. And impossible to get permission for. Olivia: It was. The bureaucracy was a nightmare. But instead of getting angry, Khris approached the officials with empathy. He listened to their concerns about safety, tourism, and liability. He didn't fight them; he worked with them. His passion was so infectious and his respect for their position so genuine that he eventually won them over. And in 2010, he successfully made the jump. Jackson: Two totally different people, Utzon and Khris. One an architect, one an athlete. But the common thread is that their vision was so deeply, authentically theirs that it became contagious. Olivia: Exactly. It wasn't a corporate mission statement on a poster. It was a living, breathing conviction. And that's what ignites followers.

Olivia: So when you put it all together, it's this really clear, three-part journey. First, you have to recognize and break free from your own mental prisons—the frames and dissonances that keep you stuck in the past. Jackson: The Kodak problem. Olivia: Right. Then, you have to actively use tools like scenario planning to map out multiple possible futures, not just the one you expect. Jackson: The Shell solution. Olivia: And finally, you have to ground that entire process in who you are. The vision has to be an authentic expression of your values, because that's the only way you can ignite the passion of others. Jackson: The Utzon and Khris principle. What's really sticking with me is that anticipation isn't about predicting the one right future. It's about preparing for multiple futures. It's a fundamental shift from seeking certainty to building resilience. That feels incredibly relevant right now, in a world that feels more uncertain than ever. Olivia: It's a profound shift in mindset. And it leaves you with a really powerful question to ask yourself. The book makes you wonder, what's the one 'unthinkable' scenario in your own industry, or even your own life, that you're actively refusing to consider? Jackson: That's a heavy question. And a necessary one. We'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Find us on our socials and share the 'unthinkable' future you're going to start anticipating. What's the blind spot you're ready to confront? Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.