With a Creative Worldview, the reference point is the future, not the past. We don’t need to fall back on the past for our decisions. Choices are based on alignment with our purpose and our vision of a different world.
George Land and Beth Jarman, Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today
George Land, a giant in the field of creativity, has passed away. He lived a rich life and left a significant legacy, including the 1972 book Grow or Die, which Random House nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Science as well as for the National Book Award.
George profoundly influenced the lives of countless people, including me. His theory of transformation and his passionate belief in the power of future pull and backwards from perfect thinking as a “propelling force of creative change” altered the trajectory of my life. His advocacy that any person could create the future gave me the confidence — and his consulting methods, the initial tool set — to resign my corporate job and start my own business.
Nineteen satisfying years later, George’s legacy is visible in my daily work. Just in the last few days, I’ve used Prism’s Group Decision Support System™ — a version of George’s Conexus® — to accelerate a client team to strong consensus support for a number of critical decisions.
The simple fact of the matter is that Prism Decision Systems would not exist and I wouldn’t be doing what I do for a living had I not met George Land. I owe him a great debt. May he rest in peace.