Through a glass darkly

The theme to Interbrand's Best Global Brands 2018 is "Activating Brave", which is another variation on the theme of "long-term agility" - the acknowledged approach for brand growth in the 21st century.

In this article, Daniel Binns from Interbrand explains a little more about how the best brands grow:

“What are these brands doing to achieve success? They are harnessing the ability to take bold short-term action in pursuit of a clear and aligned long-term vision. The key to Activating Brave is to simultaneously look through a microscope and a telescope, and have the courage to intercept the future, not just flow with it,”

I like the idea of the simultaneous microscope and telescope - but does it miss something? Or, rather, are we in danger of missing something if we are forever looking through this lens or another - the customers lens, the consumer lens, the competitor lens. In marketing workshops these days, there seem to be more lenses than at Specsavers!

How would it be if we also used those perfectly good lenses behind the aqueous humour and looked at how brands exist out there in the real world, too?

As the Good Book says (1 Corinthians Chapter 13, v12): 
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.