Sense and decide
The Long Shadow
Weigh the effect far into the future
Weigh a consequential decision by what it costs years out, in people, skills, and memory, not by this quarter's gain.
Borrowed from the seventh-generation principle associated with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy.
Ongoing habit · Minutes to start · Anyone on the team can start it
Try this first
Add one question. Who bears the cost of this in three years?
Use it when
A consequential decision is optimizing only for short-term gain.
Skip it when
Save it for consequential, hard-to-reverse calls. Apply it everywhere and it stalls the team.
How to introduce it
On a consequential AI decision, ask who pays for it in three years. Name the effects out loud: the junior who never learns the skill, the memory that walks out the door, the capability you stop building. Give one person standing to argue for the long view.
How to show up
Make the long-term question a required step, and protect whoever raises inconvenient answers. Push past the immediate gain to specific effects. "It'll be fine long term" is where the damage hides.
How long it takes
A few extra minutes on consequential decisions to name the long-term effects.
What makes it hard
The gain is concrete and the cost is abstract, so the short term wins unless you weight the long view on purpose. People wave the future away with optimism. Hold them to naming which skills stop being built.
What it looks like when it's working
Long-term costs get weighed, and sometimes a short-term gain gets trimmed because of them. Every decision justified by this quarter alone means the long view is not landing.
How long until it sticks
Expect several decisions before weighing the long shadow becomes a natural part of the team's thinking.
How you know it stuck
The team asks who pays in three years before committing.
The idea behind it
Decisions that look good this quarter can cost you for years, and nobody in the room speaks for that. Naming the long cost gives the future a seat.
Where it comes from
The seventh-generation principle. For a consequential AI decision, explicitly ask who bears the cost years out: the junior who never learns the skill, the eroded institutional memory. Not just this quarter's gain. Weigh decisions by their effect on descendants seven generations out. Paired with a veto used to protect the community's long-term wellbeing.
Why it matters for senior teams
It shapes direction and consequential decisions
Evidence
No reference link has been found for this move yet.