Childhood memories remind me of a time before television had made its entrance and board games ruled the kitchen table.

My favourite was a game embraced by all in our family.

It was called " Consequences".

Long printed pads with tear-off sections, note pads and pencils, and a score sheet.

It worked like this. You drew out one piece of paper with a brief situation statement. For example, ‘Tom got a bike for his birthday and could not ride it. But when no one was watching he took it out on to the busy road and got on ... ‘. The next player drew a piece of paper from a different pile marked '... and the consequences were...’ then read out what was printed on it.

Sometimes the answers made no sense, sometimes they were very funny and sometimes were amazingly logical. But often they were scary.

I had no idea at the time that I was getting one of life's most important lessons; perhaps the most pertinent of all given the daily observations around us.

The lesson was that every action has a consequence, perhaps many, and they are not always readily evident. Thinking through those consequences is a demanding responsibility.

If I had to nominate the most troubling, damaging, and the most recurring issue encountered in several decades of corporate involvement it would be the lack of thought around the impact of decisions and actions on other parts of a business, or individuals. It resides in the silo mindset that pays little attention to the spread of consequences from decisions large and small. It is one of the ill- considered side effects of self-consuming goal focus - the ends and means justification game. It hides under the forgiving title of ‘unintended consequences’, perhaps better described as 'thoughtlessly inflicted outcomes'.

This is not the sole property of corporations and management behaviour. It is even more evident in governments, not just today’s, but in all those driven by polls, short-term focus (inside long term speeches), and advisers with the sole responsibility to win the 'boss' another term in office.

It is in educational directorates, among scientists, in the arts, in religion, in professional services, in sport, and in the armed and emergency services.

Clearly and frighteningly, it is omnipresent in our every day lives.

Consider the layers of people involved in the gradual lengthening of opening hours of licensed premises in this town, and others across the country.

Couple that with the marketing of teen targeted alcoholic beverages and unedited 'reality' television that seduces a community to see borderless behaviour as
'funny' entertainment - all of which serve to normalize the idea that having 'a good time' means regularly wiping yourself out and not giving a damn for the outcome for others.

And the consequence is.... the daily news stories of brawls, bashings, sexual assaults and other nightmares of life on our city, suburban and country streets.

Each one of the isolated decisions noted, and others in the mix, may well have been persuasively argued on the day around the issues of the immediate circumstances. But in the longer running result, they have created a collective disaster.

What are the future consequences of giving our youngest minds the 'educational /entertainment' of video games that put into their brains and hands the ability to destroy others, to ' blow them away’ and learn that winning is everything, whatever it takes?

How about the same developing minds being told that it is necessary to be aware of our actions in sustaining the world we live in, while their television screens show them how the 'grown ups ' who run the country see it more as a grandstanding debate rather than a matter of unbiased judgment and appropriate actions.

Will a nation of cynical minds about the value of politicians be a surprising consequence?

Is it realistic to think that a society of declining respect and slippage of standards is unrelated to a dumbing down of so -called entertainment, with the spotlight on 'celebrity' lifestyle as the regular diet of mainstream media?

Move your mind to another phenomenon, the extraordinary measures of rising costs in seemingly unrelated fields ... senior executive salaries, the earnings of sports professionals ... and real estate prices.

What's the common denominator? Commission based agents and advisers. The higher the price, the bigger the prize for the ‘managing’ negotiator. A classic of unforeseen consequences.

In sharper focus are the reactions to the Global meltdown. Australia was told to be ready for the worst crash of our lifetimes.

Businesses reacted predictably. Costs were cut, and in so many places, that meant a decision to cut people. The ' numbers', for the current reporting period suggest that was the right medicine. Maybe.

No doubt, it has not been a period we would want again, but compared to other parts of the world, it has not been a total disaster either.
Move forward to today and tomorrow and the same companies are trying to find their way into new growth. It will not be easy.

Workforces are stretched, know-how has left a lot of the buildings, and there will be a scramble to put back the organisational capacity and capability to plan and execute a competitively smarter growth strategy.

As I write, the world has invaded Copenhagen with the questionable expectation that this grand scale forum will take the right decisions on managing a sustainable planet. If ever there was an occasion to carefully consider the consequences into the future for actions taken today, or not taken, this must be it. But will the more immediate influence of sending the winning report cards back to the various 'electorates' win over the much more profound task of getting the right answers for the longer term impact?

We hope not, but experience says otherwise.

In a way, this points to the sort of consequential problems that are never addressed because they are embedded in 'the way things are' and accepted as the outcome of 'how things have to be'.

The reference here is to the outmoded but unchallenged acceptance of a system of government (not just in Australia) that has two major 'Parties' taking turns at 'being in power', most often by relatively small voting margins with the loser (supported by about the same numbers of people) being "the Opposition", not the alternative choice, for three or four years, often less.
And then we wonder why we have a nation divided and unable to make critically important decisions because major proposals are routinely 'opposed' as a matter of the way things are.

The list of acts and implications goes on and on. Pause for a moment and you will likely recall a decision of your own responsibility that had, dare I say, unintended consequences.

That may well be the point of all of this. What might have happened, or not happened if a greater depth of deliberation on the wider implications of that decision had been pursued?

In a hectic world where daily onslaughts of emails, phone and text messages are all expected to bring instant responses, the capacity to think clearly and deeply
is severely handicapped. The rush from meeting to meeting leads to either the postponement of adequate thinking or under informed decisions on the run.

‘Too busy to think’ might be the appropriate door sign for 2010.

Recognising the severity of the problem and making time to address the answer is the first step.

Once more, it is about the critical requirement to ...THINK. The need to pause and think, wider, deeper and as informed as can be on the ripples that flow from every action and decision.

There is no doubt a widespread need, and an immense benefit, from lifting up our heads from the urgent focus of the pressing call on our decisions, to ask the powerfully important question...."and the consequence of this will be???"

It’s a pity the pad and pencil game of ‘consequences’ is still not around. It would be a timely find under the Christmas tree, a gift worth spreading around.

Kevin Luscombe