For my posting this week on the Eight Challenges Facing Community Leaders, we examine how rapidly change is occurring in our society and in community leadership. With the advances in information technology and being able to get information on a moments notice, how will community leaders keep up with change?
The late futurist Robert Theobald, who was among the founders of the Heartland Center, wrote that leaders today are like someone riding a boat through a rapids, where little is known about the dangers that lay ahead. The point is that change today comes at an increasingly faster pace and with unpredictable complications, and the patterns of the past are no longer reliable predictors of the future. As Theobald put it, today's leaders need to learn how to "avoid being surprised by unexpected events." Only through some locally driven "future forecasting" will the community leader keep on top of fundamental changes affecting the community and the region.
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