Page 108 - The Resilient Organization

Why Leadership Matters, but It Is Not Sufficient 95

WHAT IF . . .?

Roman children played with a toy called an aeolipile, made up of
a metal ball suspended by pins on each side so that it could spin
freely; the water-filled ball had directional nozzles on the top and
bottom. When the water in the ball was heated, steam would jet
out and spin the ball. The aeolipile was, in short, a rudimentary
steam engine. Imagine if some innovative Roman had envisioned
this child’s toy enlarged and hooked to a set of wheels moving
under its own power on the Appian Way. As it happened, there
was no such Roman. [Bonvillian (in Fukuyama, 2007: 70)]

Imaginative thinking must also be able to cope with issues that are pos-
sible but are also, by their nature, unthinkable. Perhaps their consequences
would be horrendous. Or, from our own perspective, undertaking such
action would be madness. Or we prefer not to see the slow erosion of our
company position in the marketplace due to competitor action. After all,
the final consequences will not be seen for many years to come, and they
may not be so bad anyway. Hope vacates judgment. (Or we simply decide
to leave the issue for subsequent managers and generations to deal with.)
By definition, we are in denial over such issues (unless we are simply being
calculative—not a problem during my tenure). The faster we get over the
denial, the sooner we can begin to deal with the issue.
In the long term, said Keynes, we are all dead, and thus no more capa-
ble of fixing things.