Vigilance: The Next Strategic Weapon for Entrepreneurs

Can your organization see around corners? It’s a crucial capability in today’s world. Kodak and digital cameras, Nokia and the smartphone: the pages of business history are crowded with examples of companies that missed the boat. And you can expect more chapters to be written, considering the unprecedented levels of change and ______ today. It’s become even harder to spot early warning signals, making vigilance an ever more ______ leadership capability. Are you truly vigilant? And just what does that take?

We ______ this issue by comparing vigilant and vulnerable companies. We did not just want to understand why companies ______ or missed external opportunities but also why some leaders got blindsided by internal problems that ______ for years. Why did Volkswagen or Boeing miss the tripwires(使人挫败的人或事)or run through red lights that were flashing before scandals and disasters unfolded?

Whether it’s a missed opportunity or threat, from either inside or outside the organization, the root cause is usually ______ of organizational vigilance. We all miss signals due to limited attention, competing ______ , and, often, a lack of curiosity. What manager has not said, “My plate is full,” then ______ a signal of potential problem and later regretted it?

In my new book See Sooner, Act Faster, coauthored with Wharton professor George Day, we ______ the key skills and practices of vigilant organizations and leaders.

______ methods of strategic planning, risk analysis and decision modeling are less effective today. This may seem odd, given the growing information processing capabilities available. But there is just too much uncertainty on the surface and too little ______ at the core. To deal with this new reality, you’re going to need a new set of skill-building tools, including: how to allocate the scarce resource of attention, detect weak signals and respond ______ ahead of competitors. You can use the diagnostic survey at the end of our book to check current levels of vigilance in your organization. Then, ______ the leadership agenda that follows to build vigilance throughout your organization as planned.

Assemble a diverse team of independent thinkers from both inside and outside the company. Invite everyone to ______ concerns, doubts or intuitions. The leadership team can then spotlight issues that may emerge as big ones over the next few years.

Many companies interrogate the present by monitoring blogs, social media sites and chat rooms for signs of brewing trouble with customers, but they may not really see ahead. Truly vigilant organizations, ______ , track market changes by studying cases that signal opportunities or threats. Leaders should also develop different future scenarios that capture how today’s major uncertainties might jointly play out in years to come.

Looking around corners for new threats and opportunities allow leaders to peer farther ahead than rivals.

Everyone has a phone in their pocket nowadays, but how often do we really use them for their original purpose — to make a call? Telephone culture is _______. What brought us to this moment, and what are its   _______?

“No one picks up the phone anymore,” wrote Alex C. Madrigal on The Atlantic. “The reflex (习惯性动作) of _______— built so deeply into people who grew up in 20th-century telephonic culture — is gone.”

The shift is of course due in large part to more _______ options: Texting with photos, videos, emojis, links and even voice messages can be a more _______ option.

Texting is light and fun, not nearly as demanding of your attention as a phone call. It can also be done with _______ people at the same time. Social media, email and video calls have also _______ traditional phone calls.

In recent years, another reason has caused people to _______ phone calls completely: robocalls. Robocalls are automated (自动化的) messages from organizations verifying (核实) your phone number or telemarketers trying to _______ something. Americans received 22.8 billion robocalls halfway through 2020, ________ an annual rate of 45.6 billion, according to YouMail, a robocall protection service and blocking app.

As telephone culture disappears, what is the loss of a singular family phone doing to the family unit? Early landline phones unite family members, whereas mobile phones ________ them.

“The ________ family phone served as an anchor (给以安全感的物品) for home,” said Luke Fernandez, a Weber State University computer-science professor and co-author of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Feelings About Technology, From the Telegraph to Twitter. With smartphones, “we have gained ________ and privacy. But the value of the home has declined, as has its ________ to guide and monitor family behavior and perhaps bind families more closely together,” Fernandez said.

Of course, as technology progresses, lives always change for better or for worse. With the loss of telephone culture, families will need to find other ways to ________.

One of the biggest complaints in modern society is being over-scheduled. Ask people how they are and the answer usually is “super busy,” “crazy busy” . _______ is just “fine” any more.

When people aren’t super busy at _______, they are crazy busy exercising, entertaining or parenting. And if   there is ever a still moment for thoughts—for example, while waiting _______ at the supermarket or sitting   in traffic—out come the mobile phones. So it’s worth noting a study published last month in Science, which shows how _______ people will go to avoid the examination for our thoughts.

“We had noted   that we   are   so   dependent on   our mobile   phones that   people seem to   find   any _______ they can to keep busy,” said Timothy Wilson, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia. In his experiments involving 700 people, the majority found it _______ to be alone with their thoughts for just 6 to 15 minutes.

It could   be because human beings,   as problem solvers and   meaning makers, when _______, tend to       think about what’s wrong in their lives. When we aren’t _______ our Facebook page, the things we haven’t   figured out appear in our minds—_______ relationships, professional failures, health concerns, etc. Unless     there is a solution, these thoughts just ________ themselves in our heads.

But you can’t solve problems ________ you don’t allow yourself time to   think about them. It has        actually been ________ by our culture, which values doing more than thinking and believes answers are in        your hand ________ in your head. “We   all fell that busyness   is ________ but it’s really harmful,”   said        Timothy. “There’s a widespread belief that thinking will only slow you down and get ________, but it’s the opposite.” ________ negative feelings only makes them more powerful, he said. Allowing and ________ the   flow of thoughts is part of the solution itself, such as meditation(冥想).

Negative feelings are sometimes hard, but they are part of everyone’s life, ________ if you are busy. It is those deep   and troubling feelings,   and how you ________ them, that make you who   you are. While       busyness may seem to prevent the flow of sadness, it may also limit your ability to be filled with ________.