That’s where I believe future thinking and foresight come in. By truly analyzing future scenarios, we can internalize both the radical change ahead, and the pace of that change. The lens of our analysis would focus on where the world is heading, and our potential role in that world. This analysis brings challenging questions into focus:
• How does a traditional organization keep pace?
• How does it find the talent required to deal with these scenarios?
• How do traditional structures change to enable success and viability in this vastly different future?
• How do these scenarios play out and on what timeline?
• What are the potential obstacles that block a scenario?
• What accelerators bring them to realization faster?
• What is the organization response to a given scenario?
• How do these scenarios converge, and what is the amplified effect of that convergence?
• What are the emerging value ecosystems and how do I participate in value creation and capture?
• What are the job implications and what does work look like in the future?
On a recent radio program, Futurist Gray Scott said something that stuck with me:
“If you’re not working with a futurist in your company right now, you’re already behind the game. I mean a futurist job is to come in and say to you; let’s embrace what is possible right. Forget what we’ve known because these startups are showing us that everything that we’ve known is wrong, that it can be broken and that technology is going to change the paradigm”
This massive paradigm shift is indeed the point. What we think will take ten years will likely take two or less. Therefore, our view of the future in the context of strategy and planning has to change. Future thinking, simulation, and the use of foresight are critical to this change. As a result of my struggles, I’ve made a subtle change to my anchor visual. The scenario curve was labeled “disruptive scenarios” – it now reads “future scenarios”. As subtle as that change seems, I hope it shifts the lens and places it squarely on future thinking.