A Book Review on

“Anticipate(The Art of Leading by Looking Ahead)”

by Rob-Jan De Jong

Submitted by: Aila Keana C. Miranda|BSPE 4-1

As stated in a business book entitled “Anticipate(The Art of Leading by Looking Ahead)”

written by Rob-Jan De Jong, business schools, leadership gurus, and strategy guides agree-leaders
must have a vision. But the sad truth is that most don't...or at least not one that compels, inspires,
and energizes their people. Leaders who lacked it have often guided their companies to
obsolescence and failure. The rare leaders who cultivated a strong vision have disrupted
industries, created new ones, and remade the world. A powerful vision may sound like a quality
attainable only to a select few—but nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone can expand
their visionary capacity. You just need to learn how.

This business book teaches the practices that can make you a successful visionary, such
as:

▪ How to grow your ability to detect change.

▪ How to connect the dots among emerging trends to develop a coherent and
robust vision.
▪ Ways to create scenarios that help you design interruptive strategies, products,
and services that are game changers.
▪ Practical ideas and exercises you can incorporate into your daily routine to nurture
your visionary side.
▪ How to speak like a visionary leader, present your ideas more colorfully, and ignite
your followers emotionally so they’ll put their best efforts into a commonly shared
cause.

In this business guide, the author postulates that the reason more leaders aren’t achieving
peak innovation is by means of using the wrong approach. Rob-Jan de Jong elaborated that to
develop vision you must sharpen two important skills. The first skill is the ability to see things
early-spotting the first hints of change on the horizon. The second skill is the drive and power to
connect the dots-turning those clues into a gripping story about the future of your company. A
powerful vision is the most important tool in being a transformational leader.

Powerful visions have at least four fundamental purposes:

1. A Vision Shows the Path Forward: A vision is the necessary starting point from which
to develop a strategic agenda that guarantees you get where you want to be and helps
to tackle any hurdles that might come up in the process.

2. A Vision Stretches the Imagination: An effective vision takes beyond the obvious into
the unknown and expanses the restrictions of what we conventionally think up to that
point in time.

3. A Vision Challenges the Status Quo and Breaks through Existing Paradigms: A well-
developed vision can provide new and previously “unseen” opportunities. Challenging
the way of thinking can help us break through existing paradigms to find new ways
of working, thinking and behaving.

4. A Vision Energizes and Mobilizes: A powerful vision provides something certain other
leadership tools can, the potential to galvanize the followers you lead. Vision
motivates people to put their greatest effort into the cause. It bonds them around a
shared purpose, gives significance to their day job and assembles them into action.

The four purposes of vision illustrate the main difference between leaders and managers.
A manager’s role is a very important one but it essentially goes down to keeping things on track
while a leader’s role is fundamentally different since it’s about transformation, motivating people
to move towards a new reality.

Leaders prepare the whole organization for change and give assistance to them to cope
as they struggle through it. In order to attain this organizational change, a leader must stretch
the imagination, challenge the status quo, show a way forward, break through existing
paradigms, energize and mobilize people to follow, in simpler words, a leader needs all the
elements a vision brings.

People recognize the importance of good health and thousands of books exist about
developing a healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, there’s almost nothing that explains how to
develop and nurture one’s visionary capacity. So maybe we can decipher that the lack of visionary
leadership is also because of the absence of knowledge and understanding about how to develop
this quality. This absence would also explain the lack of developmental guidance.

Anticipate is about unravelling the mystery vision in its broadest sense. From increasing
our ability to look ahead and anticipate the future to turning that ability into a compelling story
that ignites your followers. It took vision from the realm of the mysterious into the real world,
providing assistance for those who wish to become a more visionary and inspirational leader. As
Rob-Jan De Jong said, “Visioning, future engagement, anticipation is a skill set and a mind-set.”
In the book, the author also laid out his trademarked Future Priming process which develops skills
in four major quadrants: visionary content, visionary practices, visionary self and visionary
communication. Moreover, he proposes well-defined terms which describe vision, citing
Microsoft’s early stated objective of “having a computer in every home running a Microsoft
software” as a great point for clarity in company mission statements. He also emphasizes that
intelligence isn’t the only necessary component for innovation since leadership and passion,
creativity and authenticity are important as well. To add up, the greatest advantages of the book
can be seen through its well-defined concrete ideas and the cautious planning for getting through
big world of business management.

In this business book, people will discover how to tap into your imagination and open
yourself to the unconventional, become better at seeing things early, frame the big-picture view
that provides direction for the future and communicate vision in a way that engages others and
provokes action and to anticipate change before your competitors in order to create massive
strategic advantages.