I met someone recently who told me that he had once been a spy.

Over yet another cup of coffee with an old friend I was introduced to a most interesting man who had once been one of Australia’s leading spies. Now retired, he had been trained in the ‘old school’ with Britain’s MI6. As we talked over his most interesting life he told me that the best spies, as they worked their sources, always encouraged them to share with them the most important things that they knew. He maintained that no matter how outlandish the idea it should always be encouraged with a “really, tell me more,” response. His view was that the modern approach was the exact opposite. Now everything is examined with a sense of disbelief and cynicism. He went on to say that what this sense of disbelief does is cause ‘sources’ to filter information to a level where they know its acceptable and believable to their handler. And in the process, what goes missing is that half piece of information that might be critical. My spy believed that this change in approach was at the heart of many of the modern intelligence failures.

The same mechanism of cynicism and scepticism is alive and well in modern organisations, particularly at a leadership level. Too often businesses require proof that the large shapers of the future will really impact. Few act on the half piece of information as the basis for future exploration, especially if it challenges current success. In the process they abdicate future creation to others.

Nowhere is this truer than with the great issues of our time like climate change, technological convergence, energy shifts and geopolitical shifts despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Maybe what we need to do is retrain ourselves to suspend disbelief and, like the spies of old, encourage exploration of big ideas as a virtue.