---
id: "action-role-play-leaders"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["¶25", "¶26"]
tags: ["geopolitics", "strategic-thinking"]
related: ["concept-zoom-in-zoom-out", "claim-geopolitics-challenges-multinationals"]
speakers: ["Indra Nooyi"]
action: "Role-play the rational decision-making pathways of foreign leaders to anticipate geopolitical shifts."
outcome: "Generates actionable strategic pathways rather than paralysis in the face of uncertainty."
source_url: "https://hbr.org/2025/10/innovating-at-the-core-and-for-the-future"
source_title: "Innovating at the Core—and for the Future"
sources: ["futures"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-futures"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-cl-91-innovating-core-and-future"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/10/innovating-at-the-core-and-for-the-future"
sourceTitle: "Innovating at the Core—and for the Future"
---
# Role-Play Foreign Leaders

**Action:** Role-play the rational decision-making pathways of foreign leaders to anticipate geopolitical shifts.

To navigate geopolitical uncertainty, CEOs must dig deep into the details of policy changes and then actively role-play how foreign leaders or competing CEOs might approach an issue, *assuming they are making rational decisions based on their own incentives*. It is a concrete drill within [[concept-zoom-in-zoom-out]] and a response to [[claim-geopolitics-challenges-multinationals]].

**Outcome:** Generates actionable strategic pathways rather than paralysis in the face of uncertainty.

**Enrichment.** Supported by game-theoretic and strategic-thinking practice (modeling counterpart incentives) and by executive-education 'perspective-taking' drills for geopolitical risk and negotiation.