After President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin met for several days with President Jimmy Carter, the “Camp David Accords” were announced. Sadat and Begin were asked how their countries were able to reach the agreements after thousands of years of deep hatred and bloody warfare. Begin replied, “We did what all wise men do. We began at the end.”

In my opinion, this is among the most valuable insights that business leaders should consider when facing all the unique challenges generated within a global marketplace that is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I remember.

Sadat and Begin followed the process of reverse engineering. Briefly, it involves taking apart an object to see how it works in order to duplicate or enhance the object. The practice, taken from older industries, is now frequently used on computer hardware and software. Years ago, a manufacturer would dismantle and examine a product sold by a competitor. Today, the process has much wider applications.

Here are five key points:

1. Define as specifically as you can the strategic objective to be achieved.

2. Then assume that it has already been achieved and reconstruct the process, working backward through the sequence of events that had to have occurred.

3. Identify the major implications and probable consequences (e.g. benefits) of achievement.

4. Use them as the basis of efforts to create a sense of urgency and — yes — excitement and obtain wide and deep buy-in.

5. Use the Toyota “Five Whys” technique each stage of the reverse engineering process when drilling down from symptoms to their root cause(s).

The potential power of reverse engineering is limited only to what the human mind can imagine… and then make happen.