“We had to conclude that some management teams were simply more foresightful than others. Some were capable of imagining products, services, and entire industries that did not yet exist and then giving them birth. These managers seemed to spend less time worrying about how to position the firm in existing competitve space and more time creating fundamentally new comptitive space. Other companies, the laggards were more interested in protecting the past than creating the future.” (Hamel G, & C.K. Prahalad, Competing for the Future. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1994, Preface xvii.)
Strategic foresight is thinking about the future with an emphasis on decision making and taking actions today to create the desired outcomes. Strategic foresight has a body of knowledge which consists of a robust set of tools and techniques to assist your organisation in creating systemic, repeatable processes, which deliver the inputs required for other organisational processes.
One of the outcomes of the strategic foresight process is strategic thinking. Do you wonder where the next great idea or new initiative will originate? Is there a means to explore this in your current strategy process?
Strategic Foresight creates this opportunity to take the time to think about the external environment and your organisation’s role within it. Every organisation operates based on a set of mental models or assumptions. Often these models are neither explicit nor shared, yet they drive decision making.
Strategic foresight creates a neutral space, the future, to facilitate strategic discussions. It promotes engagement across the organisation, can eliminate barriers and challenge your current mental models. Your organisation can move beyond the limits of your current thinking and assumptions and develop your ability to create strategic options appropriate for current and future market conditions.
Through participating in a strategic foresight engagement the organisation develops a common language, challenges their mental models and creates new alternative views of the future possibilities. It can assist the organisation to learn and understand complex situations and environments.
It is a chance to challenge what are often long-standing assumptions. Assumptions that may have worked in the past, but may no longer be appropriate for the conditions you face in the future. Challenging these assumptions is essential as it is these assumptions that lead to decisions and determine what actions the organisation ultimately will take.
If you would like to learn more about how strategic foresight can assist your organisation, please complete our inquiry form and we will contact you to discuss your organisations needs.
