Perceive or not Perceive

Foresight is the ability to see and prepare for the future. It is the ability to see the potential “effect” of present decisions on future outcomes. Foresight is also the ability to benefit from past experience to improve future performance.

My job as a CIO, like any other C-level leader, is to have foresight and ambition for the business. And foresight is the start of innovation. What worries me is that so much of innovation in business today, especially in the technology arena, takes place in what I would call "shadow IT." In other words, it's unknown to IT. There are business-led skunkworks projects, when what should be happening is for innovation to be facilitated and in some cases, even led by IT. So, the CIO needs to be out there, with the business understanding what they do and where they want to go, so that he or she can have foresight and ambition, and facilitate or even lead innovation with the business.