Breakthrough Strategy
How can we form a strategy in the face of uncertainty?
Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, disruptive technological change, growing economic interdependence, and increasing political instability had conspired to make the future increasingly uncertain.
The word uncertainty was so overwhelming on so many fronts that researches came up with the acronyms VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) and TUNA (turbulent, uncertain, novel, and ambiguous).
By the start of 2020, the sense of uncertainty was so prevalent that leaders were doubling down on efficiency at the expense of innovation, favoring the present at the expense of the future.
And then COVID hit.
So how best to proceed?
Strategic foresight—which I have spent years researching and practicing with global brands—offers a way forward.
Strategic foresight is not about predicting the future – though it is the closest we can get to understanding it. Rather, it is more about strategic framing, informing, opening up minds, and inspiring creative dialogues about possible futures – and how one might plan for and approach these futures.
Organizations equipped with an effective foresight capability will be able to make sense of, and respond to, the emerging pattern of threats and opportunities, and to use this understanding to both see potential disruptions and capitalize on opportunities that are in their blind spots.
It’s all about getting familiarize with timeless tools that can help you navigate your way to create the future that you want to see.
The Process
Strategic foresight spans across the following four phases:
Learning. First we must try to understand where we came from and where we are. We collect relevant history, trends, causal factors, economic and socio economic influences and models. We look carefully and analytically at history, and scan the horizon at the relevant present environment. This is largely divergent thinking.
Anticipation. Next, we try to forecast the relevant trends, consider the way they may interact to create more change, and make some probabilistic predictions. We look for constraints and likely outcomes of the past and current state, both obvious and hidden, and we try to estimate risks. This is largely convergent thinking.
Innovation. Next we try to imagine possibilities that spring from our historical analysis and learning gathering, and forecasting, risk assessment, and prediction. What are some of the implications of the changes we expect? What changes and wildcards are we missing? What experiments might we or others do, to either gather more foresight, create, or adapt? This is largely a return to divergent thinking.
Strategy. Finally, we arrive at the fourth strategic foresight practice, the only one that is covered well in typical business management and policy books. With strategy, we analyze all the above data and try to come up with the most resilient and high value set of actions we can, to prevent bad outcomes and achieve good ones, based on our resources and goals. We stress test those strategies against both the future we expect and the futures we can imagine, and come up with both tactical and strategic plans, for reaching our goals, and monitoring our progress towards them. This again is ultimately convergent thinking.
Next, Implement those Strategies.
This may sound obvious, but it is the place where most organizations fall down. To couple strategic foresight with action, leaders should set up a formal system in which managers have to explain explicitly how their plans will advance the company’s new strategies.
Ingrain in the Process.
In the long run you’ll reap the greatest value by establishing an iterative cycle—a process that continually orients your organization toward the future while keeping an eye on the present, and vice versa.
This will allow you to thrive under the best of conditions—and it’s essential for survival under the worst. Moving in a loop between the present and multiple imagined futures helps you to adjust and update your strategies continually.
As the current pandemic has made clear, needs and assumptions can change quickly and unpredictably. Preparing for the future demands constant reassessment. Strategic planning—the capacity to sense, shape, and adapt to what happens—requires iterative exploration.
Only by operationalizing the imaginative process can organizations establish a continual give-and-take between the present and the future.
Breakthrough! Don't just Prepare for your Future. Make your Future.
Moments of uncertainty hold great entrepreneurial potential. It takes strength to stand up against the turmoils of the present and invest in imagination. Strategic foresight makes both possible—and offers leaders a chance for legacy. After all, leaders will be judged not only by what they do today but by how well they plan and prepare their organization for the world of tomorrow.
BreakQuote!
As Noam Chomsky once said:
“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.”
Optimism is a strategy for making a better future.
Because unless you believe that the future can be better you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.
If you assume there is no hope, you guarantee there will be no hope.
If you assume there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world.
The choice is yours.
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About Me:
I'm obsessed with empowering individuals and teams to hack traditional systems and disrupt themselves. Breakthrough old patterns of thinking to reach their full potential. I deliver that through keynote speeches, masterclasses and executive coaching.
