Plans for The Prepared Mind: Rewired

I’ve been investigating and writing about a special level of complexity – wickedness – for about a year. As I’ve said before, wickedness, in this context, doesn’t imply evil—it means unpredictability, interconnectedness, and the absence of clear cause-and-effect relationships.

In a wicked world:

• The “rules of the game” are ambiguous, temporary, or contested. (Will today’s best practices regarding AI work next year?)
• Feedback loops are broken or delayed. (What will shipping fees be next month?)
• Expertise doesn’t transfer well from one situation to the next. (Can the 5-Forces Model describe Amazon?)
• Problems can’t be “solved” so much as navigated. (How will we handle “water in the west?”)
• And yesterday’s decisions often create tomorrow’s problems. (How will we dispose of all those electric vehicle battery packs?)

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” — Louis Pasteur

Jean Egmon and I believed this when we wrote The Prepared Mind of a Leader in 2006, and I still believe it today. But let’s be honest: the world has changed – and with it, the nature of leadership at all levels in all organizations. We’ve moved from managing complexity to navigating near the edge of chaos.

Think of a dragon—not the mythological kind, but the kind that shows up on ancient maps where cartographers reached the edge of known territory and simply wrote, “Here Be Dragons.” The dragon represents the unknown, the disruptive, the dangerous – but also the awe-inspiring. It represents what we can’t fully see, control, or anticipate, but must face anyway. It’s not a physical beast, but it’s real all the same.

In these settings, it’s not enough to rely on experience. It’s not enough to follow best practices. It’s not enough to assume your mental map still matches the territory. In fact, your map might be leading you straight into challenges that don’t have direct answers.

These emerging challenges are dragons—threats and shifts that operate at the edge of existing experience, grow quickly, and cannot be solved with conventional tools. These dragons come in many forms: evolving AI, fractured global supply systems, shifting social contracts, industry convergence, stakeholder volatility, and climate disruption. And they’re not waiting politely for you to be ready.

And so, my “summer project” is to write a follow-on to The Prepared Mind of a Leader.

This new book (tentative titled The Prepared Mind: Rewired) is not about crisis management. It’s about building the mental wiring and habits to operate in a world where the future is up for grabs—and where leadership requires continually learning from the past, dealing with the present, and intercepting the future.

I will revisit and rewire the eight essential skills of Prepared Mind leadership:

• To Observe differently, scanning for clues that others ignore.
• To Imagine beyond the probable and consider plausible and possible scenarios of the future.
• To Reason with frameworks tailored for fluid environments.
• To Reflect while still in motion.
• To Challenge and update our assumptions before the world does.
• To Decide under ambiguity and time pressure.
• To Learn faster than your competition.
• And to Enable others by providing knowledge, means, and opportunity on an as-needed basis.

I’ll also layer in new dimensions: strategic foresight, 360-degree awareness, and “dragon-ready” planning—tools and perspectives to help you lead not just through the noise, but into a future you must shape for your reality.

My intent is to develop a playbook for preparedness, agility, and resilience in a world that defies prediction.

We will be surprised, but we don’t have to be taken by surprise.

This post is a duplicate of my MindPrep Reflections newsletter. If you want to keep up with the progress of the book, you might want to subscribe to the newsletter. You can do so HERE. Please note the I do NOT share subscriber email addresses.

Future issues of MindPrep will present bits and pieces of the book. Comments and questions are both welcome and very much needed.