This wasn’t just a nice idea. It was wisdom written into the Great Law of Peace, the constitution that bound six nations together. Leaders who ignored it could be removed by the Clan Mothers—the original accountability committee. In other words, responsibility for the long-term wasn’t optional; it was enforced.
Why does this matter to us? Because the Seventh Generation Principle is one of the earliest examples of polyintelligent leadership. It combined human intelligence (through governance and law), ecological intelligence (through care for land, animals, people, generations, and water), and ethical intelligence (through responsibility to the unborn) into one operating system. Today, we need to add machine intelligence to that mix, but the principle gives us a template: decisions must serve more than just our short-term lives—they must cohere across generations.
The Haudenosaunee also saw time differently. In Western thinking, time runs like a straight line. For them, time was a circle. Past, present, and future were linked like rooms in one longhouse. Looking seven generations ahead wasn’t abstract—it was personal. In one lifetime you could often see seven generations, from great-grandparents to great-grandchildren. Responsibility stretched both ways: honor the sacrifices of those before you, and protect the lives of those yet to come. How would this kind of thinking change how we manage and govern today?
You can still see this principle at work. Seventh Generation, Inc., now owned by Unilever, built its brand on the idea of protecting the next seven generations. Interface, a global carpet manufacturer, committed itself to “Climate Take Back,” aiming to reverse ecological damage rather than just reduce it. Ørsted transformed itself from a fossil-fuel energy company into one of the world’s largest providers of wind power. These are modern examples of long-loop thinking—companies aligning today’s actions with tomorrow’s generations and needs.
This principle also ties directly into our framework of time. Most leaders live and think in “human time”—the daily cycle of meetings, budgets, and deadlines. Digital systems now force us into “digital time”—instant reactions, real-time dashboards, algorithms that never sleep. The Seventh Generation Principle pushes us into “future time.” It demands we expand our horizon far beyond our tenure, our bonuses, even our lifetime. It reminds us that we don’t own the future our descendants do and they don’t want us to screw it up.
Finland is another good example of a society that is known for thinking deeply about their future. They even have an official government ministry tasked with looking at the future and planning for it! This enables Finns to think about the future, their goals, ambitions and aspirations, and then to purposely develop plans to accomplish them. What a novel concept!
The Seventh Generation Principle provides a compass for leadership doctrine: align your tempo and your decision loops not just with the demands of today, but also the needs of generations you will never meet.
The Seventh Generation Principle is not a relic. It is a guide. It teaches that true intelligence is not just being clever today, but being coherent across centuries. The future already has a seat at the table. The real question is: will we listen?
Listen to AI generated podcast hosts discuss this article in detail:
*I use AI in all my work.
************************************************************************
Kevin Benedict
Futurist, and Lecturer at TCS
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on X @krbenedict
Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence
***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
No comments:
Post a Comment