Seventh Generation Thinking – A Replacement for SWOT

I have been reflecting on the continued relevance of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis as a critical element of strategic planning.

The SWOT analysis was invented in the 1960s by a management consultant named Albert Humphrey at the Stanford Research Institute to optimize environmental scanning to aid the development of long-term plans.

A lot has changed since the 60’s.

Our language has shifted from long-term planning to strategic planning or even strategic intent. The external environment has shifted from relatively stable to highly disruptive and dynamic. The assumption that you could create a strategic plan that would last for 3-5 years has shifted to annual updates and ongoing revisions to strategy.

If we examine the deep background assumptions embedded in SWOT, we can see some of the reasons why it may be a technique that has lost its effectiveness.

Seven Generations of Thought

An alternative to SWOT is another practice that is older and comes from the Iroquois Nation called Seven generation stewardship. This concept integrates long-term decision-making into our daily leadership practices. Seventh generation thinking urges the current generation of humans to live and work for the benefit of the seventh generation into the future.

I think an innovative approach to a SWOT analysis would be to use a variation of seventh generation thinking. In this variation, we would have seven generations, with us in the 4th generation with three previous generations before us and three generations after us.

You can read this article in its entirety here: https://kathleenallen.net/seventh-generation-thinking-a-replacement-for-swot/