Rethinking Strategy

CHAPTER 9 Conversations with Mr Silly

Alternative perceptions are a great source of strategic insight

During the first week of my master’s course at Swinburne University I was introduced to a quote from American philosopher Ken Wilber that would torment me with its complexity for the next two years: ‘Nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time.’¹

It’s an observation about appreciating different perspectives, or the important truths, however limited, that reside within alternative viewpoints. Just as nobody is smart enough to be 100 per cent right all the time, it’s equally true that nobody is smart enough to be wrong all the time. And herein lies an essential skill for environmental scanning: the ability to seek out and engage with different points of view.

Why are alternative perceptions important? Because significant change springs from the growing acceptance and adoption of alternative or fringe perceptions.

In the 1980s Victorian Laurie Levy founded a direct action group, the Coalition Against Duck Shooting, to campaign against the recreational shooting of native waterbirds. Each year Laurie would lead a team of rescuers to Victoria’s regional lakes. ‘Going out to the wetlands in those days always reminded me of the Wild West in America,’ he recalls. ‘It was a frightening experience; birds were falling out of the sky.’² As a teenager in the mid 1980s I remember watching Laurie on the evening news and thinking: Threatened by angry shooters with guns, often arrested, ...