For every action there is a reaction.  The reaction may not happen now, tomorrow, or a week from now.  The ripples from your actions will take time to propagate through the system and will return in it’s own time.

People that are adept at creating, leading, and managing change understand the first, secondary, tertiary (and beyond) effects of their plans ands actions.  The impact can spread through an organization, over city blocks, or across a landscape.  It can also span several units of time from days and weeks to generations.  Grasping this information and balancing it with your needs often requires one to hold multiple viewpoints in their mind at once.

If you want positive outcomes can you ensure that what you decide to do will have a positive outcome for all?  Would you still make the same decisions if you knew how people were going to affected?  Would you realize a short term gain at the expense of a positive future?  Clearly you can’t please everyone.  The best you can do is make people aware of what you are doing and give people the opportunity to speak up.

Sometimes all that’s needed is awareness.  The more people can see what may be coming, then the better prepared an individual or an organization may be with adapting to it—or avoiding the situation altogether.