{"id":12721,"date":"2024-04-23T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/?p=12721"},"modified":"2026-06-23T09:57:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T09:57:46","slug":"why-the-boards-duty-of-foresight-remains-a-radical-idea-ten-years-later-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/why-the-boards-duty-of-foresight-remains-a-radical-idea-ten-years-later-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Board\u2019s Duty of Foresight Remains a Radical Idea Ten Years Later: Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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AUTHOR’S ATTESTATION: This article was written entirely by Jeff De Cagna AIMP FRSA FASAE, a human author, without using generative AI.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Association boards have a duty of foresight.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the last ten years, this foundational assertion, which originated from an article I wrote<\/strong><\/a> for Associations Now<\/em> magazine in 2014, has become the core of a future-adaptive methodology for helping association boards set a higher standard of stewardship, governing, and foresight (SGF). As I mark the ten-year milestone in 2024, I want to share why I believe the board\u2019s duty of foresight was a radical idea when it first emerged, and why it remains one today.<\/p>\n

Marking the Milestone<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When I wrote my 2014 article on BlackBerry, I did not set out to coin the term, \u201cthe duty of foresight.\u201d Rather, as a long-time and enthusiastic BlackBerry customer, I wanted to better understand how one of the world\u2019s most capable technology innovators could see its success dissipate so quickly and completely. Among other concerns I uncovered, my research revealed that the company\u2019s board and management team were woefully unprepared for the 2007 release of the iPhone, and were either incapable or unwilling to imagine a world in which the company was not the dominant player in its ecosystem.<\/p>\n

To be clear, the failure among the company\u2019s most senior decision-makers to fulfill the duty of foresight was just one of myriad problems that led to BlackBerry\u2019s decline. In their excellent book, Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry<\/em>, authors Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff do a superb job explaining the wide-ranging factors that combined to bring BlackBerry down. Losing the Signal<\/em> was released about a year after I published my article and, in total candor, my excitement at the opportunity to learn more from the Globe and Mail<\/em> reporters whose work on BlackBerry had been central to my research was somewhat tempered by the concern that my article may have missed the mark. After reading the book, I was relieved to discover that it had not. (FYI, the book is also the basis for the outstanding 2023 movie, BlackBerry<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Why the Duty of Foresight Was a Radical Idea in 2014<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It is difficult to remember with great precision how I thought about the duty of foresight ten years ago other than seeing it as a compelling concept with clear implications for association boards that I wanted to explore further within our community. Only in hindsight have I come to view the duty of foresight as a radical idea at that time, in three specific respects.<\/p>\n