When to Call it “Creative Dreaming”
On executive behavior at strategic planning retreats, Dick Levin comments:
“I’ve observed that whenever you get a high-powered bunch of people together in a nice environment, away from all the mundane issues of running an organization, and ask them to consider futures, that setup presents an almost unavoidable temptation to bullshit. Bullshitting with intelligent people about where we ought to be ten years from today is a lot of fun, awfully stimulating, and sometimes unavoidable. Granted, we are at the retreat to do creative dreaming. But the difference between creative dreaming and bullshit is focus. So publish an outline [before the retreat starts], focus sharp, and knock off the bullshit.”
– Dick Levin in The Executive’s Illustrated Primer of Long-Range Planning
I was fortunate to take an MBA class from professor Levin just before he retired from teaching. He was an “old school” professor of management who leaned as much on data acquired from his own business experience as he did from data pulled from carefully designed surveys or government and industry reports.
The Executive’s Illustrated Primer of Long-Range Planning is not essential ADDexec reading, but it does a nice job of reminding executives in 2007 that not everything in business is about formulas. In fact, executives with attention deficit disorder might appreciate how Levin affirms the sometimes-neglected functions of intuition, observation, and not doing things the same way as everybody else (while also making sure you’re looking at the whole picture). Many of the book’s details are no longer true or relevant — business has changed since 1981* — but it’s a worthwhile read if you like incisive commentary on topics that newer texts sometimes ignore. Amazon has used copies of The Executive’s Illustrated Primer of Long-Range Planning from $0.01 plus S&H.
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*context: the National Institute of Mental Health had cataloged and named “attention deficit disorder” only one year prior!
