Abstract:

The world indeed is facing a period of colossal change and great uncertainty and these rapid changes and uncertainties have become major issues for individuals, managers, behavioural scientists and organizational analysts. Although it is difficult to envisage what tomorrow may bring, individuals and organizations alike are called upon continually to make decisions. Many of these decisions are not fateful; what we eat or what to wear will have few long term consequences. On the other hand, many decisions - about our careers, the economy of the country, the direction organizations should take, are the issues that matter for the future and how these decisions are translated into priorities for our neighbourhoods, communities, countries can have profound implications for our lives and the lives of others (Schwartz, 1998).
Before the discovery of Australia, people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the coloring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans (Taleb, 2007).
Thus in order to be thriving, it is imperative that organizations and individuals need to acclimatize and deviate from the cherished values, habitual thinking, limited thinking and repetitive patterns to focus on the ‘non oblivious’, left out and generally forgotten.
Jim Cannavino, a former IBM senior executive, suggested that stable equilibrium equals death. In 1993, Cannavino was asked why IBM had performed so badly and after examining the past twenty years of forecasts, trends and strategic decision analysis, the most important underlying factor was the fact that IBM never changed the way they perceived the market and resisted change. It was all coming and happening under their own periphery. Organizations can only be successful, if they keep on criticising themselves at every moment in order to achieve its objectives and keep on reinventing according to the future needs by making audacious strategic decisions(Markides & Cusumano , 2001).
The same happened to Polaroid Camera Company, when the management failed to recognise the market for digital cameras, even though the company possessed the technology and continued with the successful instant camera.
This paper aims at illustrating the importance of peripheral awareness and foresight planning for individuals and organizations, in order to sharpen their decisions making processes to survive in the current competitive world. It also shares some knowledge on the method of thinking that organizations and individuals should follow to be successful.

Keywords:

Peripheral Awareness, Strategic Foresight, Decision Making.