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I recently had a conversation with an organizational futurist who had an opportunity to pitch foresight to a higher-up. They had already been doing some foresight work and here was a chance to get some support (or to be honest, to lose it). They were very eager, working hard, and doing some good work. The question for me was: “what should I ask for?”
Hmmm. Okay, I got it: “Patience.” I know, dear readers, that some of you have been in this very situation. You have faced the very real pressure to deliver — quickly. My main concern with the pressure to deliver is it assumes foresight is like any other capability that needs to show bottom-line impact right away. But foresight takes time to deliver. The ultimate value of organizational foresight is learning about the future of your space and using that to move out of reactive, crisis mode to proactive and creative mode.
This takes time! Sure, you can, if you’re smart and a bit lucky, show some immediate progress toward that goal. And we should absolutely try to do this! But if we’re asked for what we need, make the case for patience and explain the bounty that comes with it. For a few thoughts on the bounty, see a piece I did on this initial conversation: Let’s Talk about Success. Patience is not that big of an ask. Most of the foresight functions I know are small – often just one or two dedicated people.
We sometimes joke about our “surprise-free” guarantee, but we’re only partially joking. When you get your organizational foresight capability humming, you will start getting bored by how long change is taking, because you’re way out in front of it. Foresight hates crisis. Foresight is about anticipation and prevention and moving in a bold but sensible way. Foresight is being prepared so you are ready, and dramatic hero measures are not required. It takes some time to build up the learning to be prepared. It’s not overnight. It’s not one project. It’s an ongoing practice, and it’s a culture shift that says it’s cool to be future-ready. It’s confidence, which comes from practice. It’s mastery.
[We’ll save the opposite problem for another time. Spending way too much time getting ready and training, and not actually doing anything]. – Andy Hines
I wrote the future market place reports for my employer for almost 15 years. A couple of reactions come to mind when i read your post in context of looming change:
– an IT futurist (can’t remember his name damn it), circa 2001, said something like this, “most people get the future wrong once, futurists get it wrong twice. they see a change coming but highly overestimate the arrival (strike 1) and talk about it too much, everybody tells them to shut up. then later, when the change is about to happen (knee of the curve and all that), because of their prior experience they also ignore it (strike 2).”
– as you know there are possible futures (a waste of time), preferred futures (only a few have the ability to influence this), and probable futures. if you want acceptance of your views, focus on probable futures because those are more tolerable. with probable futures you can include a few edgy conditions and like the boiling frog gradually turn up the heat by including more and more edgy ideas…