The Future & Seventh Generation Principles, #8

Most business leaders are required to think in quarters. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy (made up of indigenous Americans) thought in centuries. Their Seventh Generation Principle asked leaders to make decisions as if seven generations of descendants were in the room. That’s 140–180 years of responsibility sitting across the campfire from you.

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.