Temporal Perspective Shifts
topic
Temporal perspective shifting is the creative practice of examining the same situation from radically different time horizons — from the immediate operational perspective of right now, through the medium-term strategic perspective of the next quarter or year, to the long-term systemic perspective of the next decade, and to the deep historical and geological perspectives that reveal current situations as moments in much longer temporal arcs — with each temporal perspective revealing dynamics invisible to all others.
Role
Temporal perspective shifting is the creative practice most directly corrective of the short-termism that characterizes most contemporary decision-making — with the immediate temporal perspective consistently over-weighting recent information, discounting future consequences, and missing the long-term systemic dynamics that determine whether immediate decisions prove wise or disastrous over longer time horizons. The strategist who can simultaneously inhabit the immediate, medium-term, long-term, and deep-historical temporal perspectives on a situation has access to the full range of relevant dynamics that the single-temporal-perspective thinker systematically misses.