This mini-course is an updated view of The Prepared Mind of a Leader: Eight Skills Leaders Use to Innovate, Make Decisions and Solve Problems, a book I co-authored in 2006 and have used since as the basis of a multi-day workshop I've presented globally to thousands of participants.

Covid-19 has demonstrated that many leaders were not prepared for their future. Some skills we need for the future are perishable, and others are durable. The skills associated with good thinking about the future are most certainly durable.

The famed French microbiologist, Louis Pasteur, was once accused of being lucky. His response has been paraphrased as "Chance favors the prepared mind." As we look into the remainder of the "roaring 20s" and beyond, we can modify his admonition to "The future favors the prepared mind."

The skills associated with being prepared for the future are simple, but not easy. They are:

• Observing, because the world is constantly changing.

• Imagining, because there is NO data from the future.

• Reasoning, because we need to constantly reconnect the "changing dots."

• Reflecting, because we need to be honest about our role in both success and failures.

• Challenging, because we need to stress-test thinking, both ours and our organization's.

• Deciding, because we need to progress by changing things around us.

• Learning, because we need to avoid the stagnation that comes with obsolete information and world views.

• Enabling others, because we are not alone. We need to help others as they help us.

  
  

  These skills may seem obvious, but I know from many years of discussions that not all are regularly used in many organizations. In fact, three are regularly underused.