Strategic leadershipThis is a featured page

Strategic LeadershipIncreased agility and resilience
In the face of:
  • Increasing speed of innovation and product lifecycles
  • Globalization of markets, knowledge, and technologies
  • Growing risk of mis-directed R&D expenditures
  • Explosion of transferred knowledge and technologies from one industry to another
Organizations need more accurate and early anticipatory warnings of change. Changes can be perceived, before becoming effective, by examining "weak signals." An early perception of these signals prolongs the time organizations have to consider, prepare, and act instead of reacting too late.

Possible outcomes
Results of a Foresight program or project:
  • Feed organizational-wide consensus
  • Change thinking and create a sense of a shared future direction
  • Buy time
  • Encourage commitment and decision making
  • Avoid tunnel vision
  • Assist participants to develop and adjust their own team strategies
  • Improve networking in pursuit of solving common problems
  • Develop an organizational foresight culture
  • Help better prepare people to address future challenges
  • Increase chances of survival, performance, strategy, and decisions
  • Test robustness of policies
  • Improve the credibility of business cases
  • Help optimise use of resources over time
  • Generate many innovative ideas
  • Allow understanding of which technologies and concepts have more practical application

Wheel

Foresight work is both a strategic and tactical tool
An all embracing, organization-wide approach to foresight helps to determine a better vision, improves co-ordination and coherence across silos and strengthens cultural values, metrics and processes. Foresight thinking can be used as a:

  • Strategic tool
    It won't tell you what will happen in twenty five years, but, it will reveal a vision of a world that could plausibly happen, and challenge you to think about what that could mean and whether it should be welcomed or avoided.
  • Tactical tool
    It can be used for creating short-term strategies lasting just a few months, or years. Risk assessment, problem solving, solutions testing, crisis, reputation, and change management can all benefit from taking a futures thinking approach.
Quote
"Every decision maker in the foresight system, is the foresight system."
Dave Brown, Head of Futuring, British Telecom

Further reference

Next: Opportunity and Risk Management Back: Changing Futures To: Shaping Tomorrow

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Keyword tags: Agility Change Foresight Futures Globalisation Innovation Knowledge Resilience Strategy
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Changing Futures Foresight glossary Future Challenges
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More foresight resources References Networking
Developing perspective Visual models