“Normally, I would calculate three to five moves. You don’t need more…. But I can go much deeper if it is required.”
Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov
In the Netflix series Queen’s Gambit, there are a number of sequences where Beth, the main character, envisages chess pieces on the ceiling. They cycle, in her mind, through every feasible possibility of how the upcoming moves will pan out, and, having ‘experienced’ all of the possibilities, she makes her choice of the right one in order to maximise the chances of success against her opponent.
Her mind, seemingly at warp speed, plays out all of the possibilities, as if to project each version of how the future will occur, and from studying those, she has the ability to take greater control over her own future.
In a similar vein, I’ve become somewhat of a devotee of the website FiveThirtyEight.com. This platform conducts a detailed statistical analysis of several factors in order to determine a winner for a football match. I won’t bore with the entirety of the details (you can read them here if you really wish) but it runs the outcome of all match possibilities 20,000 times before it determines percentage chances for each team finishing in each potential position in their respective leagues. Invariably, it gets them right.
Of course, this ‘game’ of predictions and planning for possible futures is both difficult to ‘win’ and difficult to gain credit for ‘winning’. We often think people are successful because of luck, when in fact it was their foresight that made them “lucky.” Foresight enabled them to take advantage of opportunities and to avoid problems that trap other people.
We are coming to the part of the academic year where forward thinking and strategic priorities come to the fore.
It’s a time of year that always excites me, and yet, if I’m being completely honest, this subject - of forward planning - is always on my mind. It’s one of the last things I think about at night before I drop off to sleep and one of the first things I contemplate in the morning when I wake up: what needs to be done in the long, medium and short term to make the College a success? What are the difficulties coming soon which I can affect now which will make them easier to turn into opportunities? How can I mitigate risk in order to ensure harmony is maintained?
To my mind, forward thinking is the strongest indicator of the capacity for leadership.
I happened upon an excellent article recently by the blogger Gilbert Ross through his Wisdom Times website which identified the key traits of a forward thinker. Though his background is in marketing and communications, his work translates superbly to the world of education.
I would struggle to define the characteristics anywhere near as well, so why try to reinvent the wheel?
Ross suggested that there are eight key areas:
1. Not dwelling in the past
Time is always moving forward, so do not get hung up on past glories or past failures. Your excellence last year does not necessarily make for excellence now. I’m a particular fan of Thomas Frank, the Brentford FC manager’s 24 hour rule with this in mind. Whether you won, lost or drew last time out, get back to the bigger picture quickly, and build towards the vision you are trying to create. Every day will not be a good day.
2. Seeing the bigger picture
I used to love ‘join the dots’ puzzles in order to get to the larger picture in the end. Finding the focus to avoid distractions, I’ve found, brings the greatest rewards.. This gives with it vision and conviction, a potent combination which can create an absorbing momentum to bring along others - all of whom become invested in the project as a whole. Some need help with the visualisation of how things will look in the end. It is the job of leaders to paint this picture.
3. The creative and analytical balance
According to Ross, “Most people have the predisposition to be either predominantly analytical or predominantly creative. Analytical people are good at drilling down things into smaller units of understanding and zooming in on the details.”
“Creative people” as Ross points out, “are good at synthesising everyday things and creating a new picture or meaning out of them. Forward-thinkers are people who, either naturally or by habit, manage to keep a good balance between these two approaches.”
This can be difficult to perfect, but being able to gain valuable experience in both areas is critical to successfully finding the balance between both. One or the other is not enough. Both must be in harmony to find the right blend.
4. Keeping a solid vision
Once the vision is found, it is resilience which keeps it at the forefront. Constantly working towards it, despite the inevitable setbacks which get in the way, such as lack of time or resources. Consistently reviewing progress towards this ideal makes those who truly seek it a realist rather than an idealist. I see this regularly with students in their academic progress, and the tracking of this progress enables our students to make the first steps in becoming excellent forward thinkers.
5. Not being trapped by conventional thinking
‘Growth mindset’ has become an exceptionally popular concept in education, largely because it is a fundamental ingredient for student development. Getting away from ‘but we’ve always done it that way’ thinking is one of the key reasons why the College was able to successfully evolve, enabling a huge rise in interest for places. EIC has found its space, found its voice, and is very comfortable with where it is at present. That is not to say that we would rest on our laurels in any way. That, in itself, would be dooming ourselves to the conventional patterns of the product cycle. And I’d never let Ealing take a downward trajectory unchecked.
6. Perseverance
Does not just mean individual ‘bouncebackability’ or the ability to recover from personal setbacks. For me, it’s about creating a team who are abundant in these qualities, from senior leadership, all the way through the support staff. Only when this universal language of resilience is understood and transmitted to all students can there be full immersion in it. Recruitment, and getting the right people ‘on the bus’, creates collective perseverance. Again, this can have a momentum all of itself.
7. Open to possibilities
Likewise, being able to listen well, and take on ideas from contemporaries is vital. Making room for the consideration of those suggestions, examining them in a similar way to one’s own, and then working to adapt and adopt those proposals for the greater good is empowering to those involved, and a mark of security of conviction for the one who leads. Excellence is not exclusive to the leader.
8. Taking responsibility of one’s destiny
It needs to be remembered, at all times, that the leader defines the role, and not the other way around. Having a strong will enables an enhancement of skills of independence, but, critically, independence never means that one is alone. Independence means that one can decide to go it alone, but never does because one realises that one cannot possibly do it all by themselves. Being able to draw on support to bring out the best in oneself, while empowering others to make meaningful contributions to the greater whole is a fundamental of good leadership.
And so, how can capacity for these traits be enhanced…
In the view of Ross, “although some of these traits come natural to some, perhaps because of a combination of predisposition and particular life experiences, all of them can be acquired through awareness and practice. In fact, one can go far as to say that the mind can be trained to acquire any of the whole spectrum of human abilities, even those that we are not gifted with at birth or early life.”
Some individuals may see it better than others, but in enhancing the skills required to carry out a ‘future analysis’, anyone can become a better leader, as long as they are exposed to opportunities to grow the methods required to ‘see’ the potential futures and make the right decisions. Many people pass this off as intuition - where someone has, somehow, luckily happened on the right decision through instinct.
Intuition is defined as ‘the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.’
As far as I’m concerned, there is always a degree of conscious reasoning involved in any decision. That conscious reasoning, for me, happens quickly, in depth and logically, in order to set up a decisive move forward, with confidence. It is in having the faith in one’s ability to complete this type of thinking which carries things forward at the right pace. That pace for me, is always ‘with urgency’.
Why wait to improve?
To do so successfully requires a mastery of as many of those skills explained above as possible.