Zvi Lanir

Dr. Zvi Lanir is an author and researcher whose work explores how individuals, organizations, and societies can respond wisely when the assumptions that have guided them no longer fit a changing reality.

His interest in this question grew out of his experience in Israeli military intelligence, including the intelligence failure surrounding the 1973 Yom Kippur War. A graduate of the Israel Defense Forces’ Command and Staff College, he later served as an instructor at Israel’s National Security College. These experiences led him to investigate what he came to call “fundamental surprise”—the kind of surprise that occurs not simply because we lack information, but because the conceptual framework through which we interpret reality has ceased to fit it.

Five decades later, the surprise of October 7, 2023, brought him back to these questions with renewed urgency. His current work examines what connects—and distinguishes—the two intelligence failures, and what they can teach us about the deeper cognitive and conceptual sources of fundamental surprise.

Over the decades, his research has expanded from intelligence and disruptive change to practical wisdom, human development, and the new possibilities of our advanced years. Across these fields runs a common question: What human capacities do we need when knowledge alone is no longer enough?

His books include Thinking Like a Fox, The Wisdom Years, and The Little Book of the Age of Wisdom: Moving Beyond the Age of Knowledge. Together, they explore the judgment, creativity, self-awareness, and practical wisdom needed to navigate a world of accelerating fundamental change.