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January 27th, 2019

1/27/2019

Rod

For the better part of the last four decades, I have been encouraging people and organizations to anticipate the shape of their futures and plan accordingly. It can be daunting, but it can also be immensely practical. It can be as practical as using a set of binoculars to scope out a distant slope when hiking or winterizing your car before winter’s onslaught. Organizations that develop foresight capabilities are, among other things, creating a kind of organizational radar. This enables them to integrate discernible elements of tomorrow into today’s strategies and decisions.

Developing a strategic mindset and organizational culture requires a “bifocal” management lenses. Bifocal lenses make it possible to see both near and more distant developments. They bring greater resolution to day-to-day developments within the mainstream. And, they enable leaders to observe new ideas arising on the periphery. Often, newborn ideas and innovations arising at the edge sound crazy. They may be so ugly that only a mother (or an entrepreneur) could love them. Some will in time find public and market acceptance and disrupt established mainstream incumbents. And those are the innovations worth watching. It’s a case of, “Today’s heresy; tomorrow’s conventional wisdom”. “Foresightful” leaders comfortably wear such bifocals.

Futurists typically employ a variety of methods and techniques. They include, for example, visioning exercises, trend identification, trend tracking and analysis, scenario development and variations of Delphi surveys. It’s important to help customers differentiate between what are possible and preferred futures versus probable futures. The foundation of my work is continuous, 360 degree environmental scanning. The process involves monitoring, tracking and analyzing key events, trends and developments, and their interactions, in five major domains:
• Environmental and natural resources
• Society and demographics
• Science and technology • Economy, business and trade; and
• Governance, policy and regulation.

If you’re seeking a speaker or presenter who is prepared to assist you to look deeper and stretch minds farther for your event or strategic planning exercise, please get in touch.

Dot-connecting, sense-making and path-breaking in an upside down world

January 27th, 2019

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Rod

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