The Cost of Not Asking
Outthink – not outspend – your competition with free prompts that reveal blind spots and new opportunities.
Any organisation - whether one person or 10,000 - can learn and leverage strategic and global intelligence to craft a competitive edge.
Let’s do that, now.
In the past year, many of us have updated the smart tools and technologies we use in business. It also pays to update the questions we ask.
What would have once cost significant sums of money to access as business intelligence is now effectively free. And, with some refinements, it can be turned into strategic and global intelligence – the kind that surfaces blind spots, widens perspective, and points directly to opportunities and risks shaping the future.
Intelligence in Business
Intelligence, in the context of leadership and business, means more than simply collecting data about markets and competitors. True intelligence involves weaving together insights from economics, technology, politics, culture, and society to understand what is happening and why and where things may go next.
Market intelligence is essential for tracking rivals and customer trends, but it is not enough in today’s world of rapid disruption and interconnected risks. Without strategic and global intelligence - seeing beyond borders and beyond the immediate short term - leaders risk blind spots that can upend their plans.
Strategic and global intelligence enables leaders and organisations to anticipate policy shifts, cultural currents, early-stage innovations, and unseen threats or opportunities emerging worldwide. This equips them to stay resilient and achieve long-term success.
The Questions to Ask
Start with questions that reframe how you look at markets, competitors, and influence:
Who is your competition? Look beyond your home market. Who is solving the same problem in Nairobi, São Paulo, or Jakarta?
Where in the world is the problem you solve most acute? Map where demand is greatest, not just where you are strongest.
Where do you solve it? Be clear about your footprint and whether it matches global opportunity.
Where are you discoverable? Which platforms, podcasts, online communities, or publications position you in front of clients globally?
Which tools and technologies make solving that problem easier, faster, cheaper, or more impactful? Track emerging tools not only from the US or Europe, but also India, Africa, and Latin America.
Who is investing in your solution? Identify global capital flows: venture firms, sovereign wealth funds, development banks.
Who are the leading thinkers or practitioners globally on your topic? What can you learn from their cultural or regional approaches?
What Most Leaders Miss
Most leaders don’t ask these questions often enough, thereby limiting the intelligence that informs their business decisions.
A large-scale analysis involving 500 leaders and 10,000 peer reviews (Merryck & Co. and Barrett Values Centre) showed that the attributes leaders believed needed most improvement almost never matched those their colleagues identified. In essence, leaders - regardless of seniority - were consistently unaware of their own blind spots, which in turn limited organisational performance and strategy execution. The study emphasised this is a common and not exceptional problem.
Blind spots are an issue of awareness. They are also amplified by overload. Research by McKinsey (2023) indicates that executive cognitive overload reduces decision accuracy by up to 20%. Sustained stress and complexity lead the brain to filter out non-urgent information, meaning executives become less likely to perceive new global or market developments. The result: strategic blind spots remain invisible until they cause real damage.
Consider the categories of insight leaders most often miss:
Markets and Demand: Regions leapfrogging traditional development with new technologies.
Partnerships and Ecosystems: Unexpected allies or collaborators outside your sector or geography.
Risks and Shocks: Trade wars, climate events, or regulatory changes reshaping your competitive position overnight.
Cultural and Social Shifts: Local behaviours that signal tomorrow’s global norms.
Capital Flows: New funding emerging from outside mature markets.
Global Influence: Standards being set in places leaders rarely look.
In short: what you don’t see can hurt you.
Free Prompts, Big Payoff
The cost of accessing strategic and global intelligence has collapsed. These insights are free to uncover, using any generative AI tool. Try prompts like:
“List 10 companies outside [my country] tackling [problem]. What do they do differently, and how are they gaining traction?”
“In which regions is [problem] most acute today? Include data, case studies, and local innovators addressing it.”
“Search global podcasts, online communities, and publications discussing [topic]. Which ones should I be part of?”
“What are the emerging tools, apps, or platforms in [sector] that make solving [problem] cheaper or faster, especially from non-US/EU/Aus/NZ markets?”
“Which global investors or funds are putting money into [sector] right now? Include Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.”
“Who are the leading researchers, entrepreneurs, or practitioners in [field] from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East? Summarise their approach.”
“Which recent or upcoming policy or regulatory changes in [region] could create opportunities or risks for [industry]?”
“How is [problem] understood or solved differently in [region]? What cultural or social norms influence adoption?”
“What grassroots movements, small startups, or citizen-led innovations in [topic] could scale globally if given resources?”
“What weak signals or early-stage experiments in [sector] hint at where the next big global opportunity may emerge?”
My clients are often surprised by the blind spots this type of exploration releals. We tend to assume competitors are established players, and that investment flows only from advanced economies. That is no longer the default as business models shift and new hubs of innovation emerge.
From Questions to Strategic Focus
Strategic and global intelligence is available to us and to our competitors.
We can go further, faster by expanding what we know and weaving it into how we work. This can be done:
At the individual level: ask each team member to map out answers for their area of responsibility. Have them report back on three areas that surprised them (for example, rising competition from Bangalore’s startup ecosystem) and three they believe are strategically important to monitor.
At the organisational level: bring small teams together to map out 5–7 strategically important themes - competitors, key tech shifts, funding flows, regulatory changes, or cultural trends. Do it on a map of the world, bringing the intelligence alive - whether on a Miro board, a Canva image, or a large printed map.
When we see the bigger picture, we can play a smarter game.
This doesn’t always mean aiming to be a globally dominant player. It can mean serving clients here and now with sharper insights and greater responsiveness, creating a competitive edge in a world of shifting rivals.
What prompt revealed the most valuable intelligence for you?
As usual, your insights are profound and readily available for implementation. The art of questioning is close to my heart. The art of questioning seems to shift now more to technology than to other fellow human beings. Why is that, I'm wondering, and maybe it's worthwhile to flesh that out. Do we value the answers from technology (read LLMs) as more valuable? Inspiration for a new article? I've been pondering that for some time, and it led to a series of articles that I shared via email... Warmly!