Create the Future: Powerful Decision-Making Tools for Your Company and Yourself
Rick Williams
Amplify Publishing (September 2024)
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Peter Drucker is usually credited with this observation but it was probably first expressed by Abraham Lincoln. Whatever, it reminds me of remarks by Steve Jobs: “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently – they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
Jim Collins and Clayton Christensen are among those who have asserted any organization’s #1 competitor is itself: who it is, what it does, and how it does it. Marshall Goldsmith agrees: “What got you here won’t get you here.” I take it a step further: What got you here won’t even allow you to remain here, however you define “here” and “there.”
In the first chapter of Create the Future, Rick Williams explains that his book is for leaders tackling an important opportunity or threat.”Create the Future [CTF] is a structured methodology for defining the problem, clarifying goals, developing realistic options, and making decisions without paying a big consulting fee. Create the Future Thinking is an attitude, a way of approaching difficult situations,” be they promising opportunities or problematic threats.
The abundance of information, insights, and counsel is presented within a framework of the Foreword and six Parts. Williams explains HOW TO
Prepare your organization and yourself (Chapters 1-4)
Define the given challenge (Chapter 5)
Envision success (Chapter 6)
Create options and contingencies (Chapters 7-8)
Identify and evaluate barriers to success (Chapters 9-10)
Choose the future to be created (Chapters 11-14)
The Foreword and six Parts are separate but interdependent throughout the creative process. Each of the 14 chapters begins with a list of the Six Parts and another list of “Chapter Topics” to be discussed. Each ends with a set of “Takeaways.” Williams also makes full use of other reader-friendly devices. I am among the readers who feel that he has wrapped his arm around me as he patiently guides me through the material.
These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to indicate the nature and scope of Williams’ coverage:
o Creativity — The Power of Your Team (Pages 39-44)
o Zone of Leadership (60-64)
o Leadership Roles (74-80)
o The Value of a Team and Choosing the Team (84-88 and 91-95)
o Defining the Challenge (103-108)
o Success — Aspiration and Success (114-117)
o Categories of Future Choices (127-132)
o Strategy and Business Model — Important, But a Separate Discussion (133-141)
o Execution Barriers — The Framework for Profiling Your Company Today (152-156)
o Making Decisions with Incomplete Information (172-175)
o Decision Agenda and A Decision Tree (186-187 and 187-189)
o What Have We Learned? Do We Need to Know More? (196-199)
o The Decision — It’s Meaning (215-219)
o Choose the Future (221-224)
o Lead the Implementation (241-244)
As I began to work my way through the lively and eloquent narrative, I was again reminded of one of Saint Paul’s first letters to Corinth in which he shares his thoughts about “many parts, one body.” Dick Williams has researched, tested, and redundantly verified the effectiveness of decision-making tools that almost any worker — at almost any level in almost any organization — can master and then apply effectively.
Create the Future is a brilliant achievement. Bravo!
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Here are two suggestions while you are reading Create the Future: First, highlight key passages Also, perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to head notes and key points posed within the narrative. Also record your responses to exercise questions as well as issues addressed or suggested. And pay special attention to the “Chapter-by-Chapter Snapshot” (Pages 20-23) and the “Key Takeaways” at the end of all chapters.
These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite your frequent reviews of key material later.