Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast where we have conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. We explore emerging trends on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist.
Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Think Forward EP 134 - Embedding Futures Thinking Into Your Company DNA:: A Practical Guide
The key to organizational survival lies in embedding foresight deeply into company DNA, creating structures that detect change, understand implications, and adapt accordingly before crises emerge. Futurist Steve Fisher shares practical frameworks for developing this capability, regardless of team size or organizational readiness.
• Four organizational models for implementing foresight: Lone Wolf, Dynamic Duo, Special Forces Unit, and Enterprise Transformation
• Step-by-step implementation playbook covering environmental scanning, scenario thinking, and strategy connection
• Common pitfalls to avoid: academic rabbit holes, crystal ball expectations, shiny object syndrome
• Real-world success stories from retail, manufacturing, and financial services
• Practical tactics anyone can implement tomorrow, from weekly signal drops to future press releases
• DNA integration framework showing progression from basic immune system to full imagination system
• Metrics that actually work for measuring foresight success, beyond traditional ROI
• Strategies for handling resistance from time horizon skeptics, control freaks, and resource guardians
Take the 30-day challenge to start embedding foresight into your organization. Begin with one signal to track, one scenario to explore, or one assumption to challenge. The future belongs to organizations that see it coming, and it's up to you to help develop that vision.
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast, where we speak with futurists, innovators and big thinkers. Come along with your host, steve Fisher, and explore the future together.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Think Forward podcast, where we speak with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. I'm your host, steve Fisher, and today we're diving back into our being a Futurist series with something I'm genuinely excited about and something that's been on my mind after all the incredible interviews we've done recently. Back into our being a Futurist series with something I'm genuinely excited about and something that's been on my mind after all the incredible interviews we've done recently. You know we've talked to everyone, from space entrepreneurs like Guillermo Sonnlein to innovation leaders like Christian Mulroth at Etonics, and design futurists like Phil Balagtas. And there's one question that keeps coming up, steve. This all sounds amazing, but how do I actually get my organization to think about the future beyond next quarter's earnings? Well, today we're rolling up our sleeves and getting practical. We're talking about embedding foresight into your company DNA not just having a futures thinking workshop once a year that everyone forgets about by lunch, but actually making a part of how your organization breathes, thinks and operates. And before you start thinking, great, another consultant telling me to change everything. Relax, I'm going to share models that work, whether you're a team of one trying to be the lone voice of reason or you're lucky enough to have a whole crew of future-minded rebels. So grab your coffee, settle in and let's figure out how to turn your company into a time-traveling, trend-spotting, future-ready machine. No DeLorean required.
Speaker 2:All right, let's start with the elephant in the room, or should I say the elephant in the conference room? Most companies are about as forward-thinking as a rearview mirror. They're so busy fighting today's fires that they don't notice tomorrow's volcano erupting in the distance. And I get it. When you're dealing with quarterly reports, budget constraints and that one system that crashes every Tuesday at 2 pm, thinking about what might happen in five years feels like a luxury. But here's the thing and this is something we've learned from every single guest we've had on this show the companies that survive and thrive are the ones that embed foresight into their very DNA. Now, when I say DNA, I'm not talking about some genetic modification experiment gone wrong. I'm talking about making futures thinking so fundamental to how your organization operates that removing it would be like trying to take the caffeine out of a coffee shop Technically possible, but you'd be left with something that nobody recognizes. Let me tell you what embedding foresight really looks like. It's not about having a crystal ball in the corner office or hiring a full-time profit. It's about creating an organizational immune system that can detect change before it becomes a crisis and an organizational learning system that can adapt faster than your competition can say disruption. Think about it this way If your company were a person, would it be the type who sees a storm coming and grabs an umbrella? Or the type who gets soaked and then complains that nobody told them it was going to rain? We're aiming for umbrella grabbing here, people.
Speaker 2:Now, before we dive into the how-to, let's talk about why this matters. More than ever. We're living through what I call the Age of Intelligence, and if you've been following our Super Shifts framework, you know we're dealing with nine massive transformations happening simultaneously, from generational drift to bio nexus. These aren't your grandfather's business challenges. The pace of change isn't just accelerating, it's accelerating exponentially. Remember when we thought the internet was fast? Now we've got AI that can write poetry, robots that can do backflips and teenagers who can create global movements with a TikTok video. If your organization is still thinking in five-year strategic plans, you might as well be planning your vacation itinerary with a sundial. But here's the exciting part, and this is why I love this work Companies that get foresight right don't just survive this chaos, they thrive in it.
Speaker 2:They're like surfers who've learned to read the waves while everyone else is still trying to figure out which end of the surfboard goes in front. I've seen organizations transform from reactive firefighters to proactive wave riders, and the difference is night and day. They stop asking what happened and start asking what's next. They stop saying nobody could have predicted this and start saying we saw this coming six months ago. So how do you build this capability? Well, it depends on where you're starting from and, more importantly, how many allies you have in this noble quest to drag your organization kicking and screaming into the future.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about organizational models for embedding foresight, because not all heroes wear capes. Some wear business casual and try to convince the C-suite that thinking about the future is actually a good idea. There are four models to discuss. Here's the first one. Model one the lone wolf Population.
Speaker 2:You Maybe you're the only person in your organization who thinks strategic planning should involve more than just adding 10% to last year's numbers. Don't worry, every revolution starts with one person, and you might just be your company's Neo, except instead of dodging bullets, you're dodging budget cuts and eye rolls in meetings If you're flying solo. Your strategy is guerrilla foresight. You're going to be like a futures thinking ninja, embedding insights into existing processes so smoothly that people don't even realize they're thinking about the future. Start by becoming the signal spotter. Make it your job to bring interesting trends and weak signals to every meeting you're in, not in an overwhelming the robots are coming way but in a helpful hey, did you know this thing is happening that might affect our project way? Think of yourself as the organizational early warning system. Next, become the scenario whisperer. When people are debating strategies, start asking what if questions, what if this trend accelerates? What if our main assumption is wrong? What if that competitor we've never heard of suddenly becomes relevant? You're not being a pessimist, you're being a possibility thinker. And here's a pro tip from my own experience Always frame futures thinking in terms of business value. Don't talk about foresight methodologies. Talk about risk mitigation and opportunity identification. Sometimes you need to speak the language of the organization before you can teach them a new vocabulary.
Speaker 2:Model 2. The dynamic duo Population U plus 1 to 2 allies. Congratulations, you've found some fellow time travelers. This is where things get interesting, because now you can divide and conquer, create what I call a futures underground network. One person focuses on scanning for technological signals, another on social trends, another on regulatory changes. You're essentially creating an informal intelligence network that covers all the steep categories social, technological, economic, environmental and political. Start hosting future Friday sessions, informal lunch conversations where you share signals and brainstorm implications. Make them fun. Bring snacks. Make it the meeting people actually want to attend, not the one they try to escape from. Most importantly, start documenting everything. Create a simple shared document or Slack channel where you capture signals, trends and insights. This becomes your evidence base for when someone asks how did you know that was going to happen?
Speaker 2:Model three the special forces unit population 3 to 10 people Now we're talking. With a small but dedicated team, you can start building real foresight capability. This is where you can implement something approaching the spectrum foresight method we've talked about on the show. Create formal roles A chief signal scanner sounds cooler than trend analyst. A scenario builder, a strategy translator, a person who turns insights into actionable recommendations, thank you. These are half-day workshops where you bring together people from different departments to explore scenarios and implications. Make these cross-functional, because the best insights happen when you get the accounting person talking to the marketing person about what AI might mean for customer service. And here's something I learned from Christian Mulroth's work at Itonics Create innovation challenges based on your foresight work. Design a product for this future scenario. Solve this emerging customer need. Turn your futures thinking into innovation fuel.
Speaker 2:Model four the enterprise transformation population organization-wide. If you're lucky enough to work somewhere that's ready for full transformation, congratulations. You're about to build a futures operating system. This is where you create formal structures, a foresight center of excellence, futures thinking integrated into strategic planning processes and foresight metrics built into KPI outcomes. You're not just doing foresight, you're becoming a foresight-driven organization. But remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Don't let this become another bureaucratic monster. Keep it agile, keep it relevant and keep it connected to real business value. Now let's get practical about implementation. I'm going to give you a step-by-step playbook that you can adapt to your situation, whether you're Team Lone Wolf or Team Enterprise Transformation.
Speaker 2:Step one start with the so what factor? Before you do anything else, figure out why your organization should care about the future. And because it's important is not an answer. What specific business challenges could foresight help solve? What opportunities might you miss without it? Maybe it's that your industry is being disrupted by technologies you've never heard of. Maybe it's that your customer base is shifting in ways your traditional market research isn't picking up. Maybe it's that your supply chain keeps getting blindsided by unpredictable events that actually had plenty of warning signs. Document these pain points. Make them visible. Nothing motivates change like pointing out that the thing keeping everyone awake at night might actually be solvable.
Speaker 2:Step 2. Build your scanning system. Every good foresight capability starts with environmental scanning. You need to be systematically monitoring your environment for signals of change. But here's the key Make it systematic, not overwhelming. Pick your domains. Start with three One directly related to your industry, one related to your customers and one wild card that might seem unrelated but could impact you in unexpected ways. Set up your sources. Mix formal sources industry reports, academic research with informal ones social media, blogs, conferences. And don't forget the most underutilized source of weak signals your own employees. The person in customer service might be hearing complaints about things that don't exist yet. The sales team might be getting questions about capabilities you've never considered. Create a capture system. This could be as simple as a shared document or as sophisticated as an AI-powered signal detection platform. The key is that it's easy to use and actually gets used.
Speaker 2:Step three practice scenario thinking. Once you're collecting signals, you need to make sense of them. This is where scenario thinking comes in, and it's one of the most powerful tools in the Futurist's toolkit. Start simple Pick one trend or driver that could significantly impact your organization. Then ask what if this accelerates? What if it stalls? What if it combines with this other trend we're tracking? Build out many scenarios not novel-length documents, but crisp, one-page stories about how these different futures might unfold. Focus on implications. If this scenario happens, what does it mean for our customers, our business model, our competitive landscape? And here's something I learned from Phil and his work on speculative design Make your scenarios tangible. Create artifacts from these futures. Design the product brochure for a world where this scenario has happened. Write the news article from five years in the future. Make the future feel real.
Speaker 2:Step four connect to strategy. This is where a lot of foresight efforts die. They stay as interesting intellectual exercises instead of becoming strategic inputs. Don't let this happen to you. Create what I call strategy translation sessions. Take your scenarios and ask hard questions. If we believe this future is possible, what should we be doing differently today? What capabilities do we need to build? What assumptions in our current strategy might be wrong. Build option portfolios Instead of betting everything on one future. Develop strategies that work across multiple scenarios. Think of it as strategic hedging You're placing smart bets on different possible futures and measure everything. Develop strategies that work across multiple scenarios. Think of it as strategic hedging You're placing smart bets on different possible futures and measure everything. Track how often your scenario thinking influences actual decisions. Document when early signals help you avoid problems or spot opportunities. Build your evidence base for why this work matters. Now let's talk about common pitfalls, because I've seen more foresight initiatives crash and burn than a discount airline in a thunderstorm.
Speaker 2:Pitfall number one the academic rabbit hole. Foresight can be intellectually fascinating and it's easy to get lost in building elaborate frameworks and methodologies, while forgetting that the point is to help your organization make better decisions. Stay grounded in business value and always ask so what Now? What? Pitfall number two the crystal ball expectation. People will expect you to predict the future with perfect accuracy and then get disappointed when your scenarios don't unfold exactly as written. Manage expectations early and often You're not a fortune teller, you're a possibility thinker. Your job is to expand the range of futures your organization is prepared for, not to predict exactly which one will happen.
Speaker 2:Pitfall number three the shiny object syndrome. It's tempting to chase every new trend and weak signal that crosses your radar. Resist this urge. Focus on the signals and trends that matter for your organization's specific context and challenges. Quality over quantity, always. Pitfall number four the ivory tower problem. If your foresight work happens in isolation from the rest of the organization, it will remain irrelevant, no matter how brilliant your insights. Embed yourself in existing processes, build relationships across departments and make foresight feel like a natural extension of what people are already doing. Pitfall number five the one-hit wonder. Running one successful futures workshop doesn't mean you've embedded foresight into your DNA. This is about creating sustainable capability, not one-off events. Think systems, not projects. Now let me share some success stories that prove this stuff actually works.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to name companies because you know NDAs and all that, but these are real examples from organizations I've worked with or learned about through our guest interviews. Case example number one the retail revolution. One retail company I know started with a single person in their strategy team doing basic environmental scanning. She was essentially the organizational radar for emerging consumer trends. Within two years, this grew into a cross-functional futures team that included people from merchandising, operations, technology and customer experience. They started seeing signals about changing shopping behaviors six months before the pandemic hit, when everyone else was scrambling to figure out e-commerce. They were already three steps ahead because they'd been preparing for a future where physical and digital retail would need to merge. The result they not only survived the retail apocalypse, but actually gained market share while their competitors were closing stores.
Speaker 2:Case example number two the manufacturing metamorphosis. Another example a traditional manufacturing company that was getting disrupted by newer, more agile competitors. They started with what they called Future Fridays monthly sessions where employees from different departments would share signals and brainstorm implications. These sessions uncovered weak signals about changing workforce expectations, emerging technologies that could revolutionize their production processes and shifting customer demands that their traditional market research was missing. Within 18 months, they'd completely restructured their product development process, implemented new technologies that increased efficiency by 40% and launched a new service line that now represents 30% of their revenue the financial services fortune. And then there's the financial services firm that embedded foresight into their risk management process. Instead of just looking at historical data to predict future risks, they started using scenario planning to explore how emerging technologies, regulatory changes and social trends might create new types of risks. They identified cybersecurity threats, regulatory shifts and changing customer expectations months before their competitors. This early warning system helped them avoid several major problems and position themselves advantageously in emerging markets. The common thread in all these stories they started small, stayed focused on business value and built capability over time. They didn't try to boil the ocean. They started by heating up a cup of water and then gradually expanded from there.
Speaker 2:Let me give you some specific tactics that you can start implementing tomorrow, regardless of which organizational model you're working with. Tactic 1. The weekly signal drop. Every Monday, send out a brief email, two paragraphs max, highlighting one interesting signal or trend you've spotted and its potential implications for your organization. Make it conversational, not academic. Think did you see this interesting thing? Not pursuant to my environmental scanning methodology. Tactic two the scenario post-it. When you're in strategic planning meetings, carry scenario post-its in your pocket. These are one sentence descriptions of different future conditions. What if our main competitor gets acquired? What if regulation changes in this direction? What if this technology becomes mainstream? Stick them on the wall during strategy discussions and ask how does our plan work in this scenario?
Speaker 2:Tactic three the future customer interview. Instead of just talking to current customers, start interviewing people who represent potential future customer segments. Talk to people who are early adopters of relevant technologies, younger demographics who might become your customers in five years, or people from adjacent markets. Ask them not just what they want today, but what they imagine they might want in the future. Tactic 4. The Assumption Audit.
Speaker 2:Quarterly, gather your team and list out the key assumptions underlying your current strategy. Then systematically challenge each one. What if this assumption is wrong? What signals might suggest this assumption is becoming outdated? How would we know if this assumption was breaking down? Tactic five the future press release. When you're developing new products or strategies, write the press release from five years in the future announcing their success. This forces you to think through not just what you're building, but what success looks like in a future context and what changes in the environment might be necessary for that success to happen. Let's talk about how to measure success, because what gets measured gets managed and what gets managed gets funded.
Speaker 2:Traditional ROI measurements don't work well for foresight, because the value is often in the problems you avoid rather than the opportunities you capture. It's hard to measure the value of the disaster that didn't happen because you saw it coming. So here are some metrics that actually work the early warning score Track how often your foresight work identifies significant changes before they impact your organization. Give yourself points for spotting things six months early, 12 months early, etc. The decision influence rate what percentage of major strategic decisions incorporate foresight insights? This should trend upward over time as your organization develops futures fluency. The scenario stress test how often do strategic plans get tested against multiple future scenarios before implementation? This measures whether foresight is becoming part of your planning DNA. The Assumption Challenge Rate how frequently do teams revisit and challenge their underlying assumptions? Organizations with embedded foresight should be constantly updating their mental models. The Signal-to-insight conversion Of all the signals you collect, what percentage generate actionable insights? This measures the quality of your scanning and analysis processes. And here's my favorite metric the future fluency score.
Speaker 2:Survey your organization regularly about their comfort with uncertainty, their ability to think in scenarios and their tendency to challenge assumptions. Mature foresight organizations should see these scores improving over time. Now let's address the elephant in the room resistance to change, because, let's face it, not everyone in your organization is going to be thrilled about this whole thinking about the future thing. You'll encounter the time horizon skeptics who think anything beyond next quarter is science fiction. You'll meet the control freaks who are uncomfortable with uncertainty and prefer the illusion of predictability, you'll run into the resource guardians who think foresight is a luxury the organization can't afford. Here's how to handle each of them For the time horizon skeptics start with shorter time horizons and gradually extend them. Show them how thinking six months ahead helps with next quarter's challenges. Prove the value before expanding the scope For the control freaks. Frame foresight as a way to gain more control, not less. Scenarios aren't about embracing chaos. They're about being prepared for different types of order. You're not increasing uncertainty. You're making uncertainty more manageable For the resource guardians. Start with resource-light approaches. Foresight doesn't require a big budget to begin. It requires curiosity, systematic thinking and a willingness to look beyond the urgent, to focus on the important. And remember you don't need to convert everyone at once. Start with the willing. Demonstrate value and let success speak for itself. Nothing convinces skeptics like results. Let me bring this all together with what I call the DNA integration framework, a step-by-step approach to embedding foresight so deeply into your organization that removing it would be like trying to remove the operating system from your computer Level one immune system.
Speaker 2:This is where you build the organization's ability to detect change. You're creating early warning systems, environmental scanning capabilities and signal detection processes, the organization starts to notice things it used to miss. Level two learning system. Here you build the organization's ability to make sense of change. You're adding scenario thinking, pattern recognition and strategic analysis capabilities. The organization starts to understand what the signals mean. Level three adaptation system. This is where you build the organization's ability to respond to change. You're creating flexible strategies, option portfolios and rapid response capabilities. This is where the organization starts to act on its insights. Level four anticipation system. At this level, the organization doesn't just respond to change, it anticipates and shapes it. You're building innovation capabilities, market creation strategies and future shaping initiatives. The organization becomes a driver of change, not just a responder to it.
Speaker 2:Level five imagination system. This is the highest level, where the organization becomes genuinely future creating. It's not just adapting to possible futures, it's actively creating preferred futures. This is where you get breakthrough innovations, new market categories and genuine transformation. Most organizations start at level zero. They're essentially flying blind. Getting to level one is a major achievement. Reaching level three makes you competitive. Operating at level five makes you a market leader. The key is that each level builds on the previous one. You can't skip steps. You can't go straight from level zero to level five, but you also don't need to wait until you've perfected level one before starting to work on level two. These systems can develop in parallel.
Speaker 2:As we wrap up, I want to leave you with something actionable. Here's your 30-day challenge to start embedding foresight into your organization's DNA. Week one assessment Map your current state. Where is your organization on the DNA integration framework? Identify your allies. Who else might be interested in futures thinking? Document your pain points. What problems could foresight help solve?
Speaker 2:Week two signal setup. Choose three domains to monitor. Set up your scanning sources and capture system. Start collecting signals. Aim for two to three per week. Week three sense making. Analyze your signals for patterns and implications. Create your first mini scenario based on a key trend. Share your insights with your allies.
Speaker 2:Week four strategy connection. Pick one current strategic challenge. Apply scenario thinking to explore different approaches. Present your findings to someone who can act on them. That's it Four weeks to start building your organization's foresight capability.
Speaker 2:Will you transform your entire corporate culture in a month? Probably not. But will you start the process of embedding futures thinking into your organization's DNA? Absolutely, and here's the thing. Once you start this process, it tends to take on a life of its own. People start asking for more signals, more scenarios, more futures thinking. And here's the thing Once you start this process, it tends to take on a life of its own. People start asking for more signals, more scenarios, more futures thinking, because once you start seeing the future clearly, it's hard to go back to flying blind. Look, I'm not going to lie to you.
Speaker 2:Embedding foresight into your organization isn't always easy. There will be skeptics who think you're wasting time on science fiction. There will be setbacks when your scenarios don't unfold exactly as written. There will be moments when you wonder if you're just tilting at windmills. But here's what I've learned after decades in this field and hundreds of conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers the organizations that survive and thrive in our rapidly changing world are the ones that develop the capability to see around corners, to spot opportunities before they become obvious and to prepare for multiple possible futures instead of betting everything on one prediction.
Speaker 2:You have the power to make your organization one of them. Whether you're starting as a team of one or you're leading an enterprise-wide transformation, the tools and frameworks exist. The methodologies work. The only question is whether you're ready to start. So here's my challenge to you Take everything we've talked about today and pick one thing, one signal, to track one scenario, to explore one assumption, to challenge. Well, start there, start small, but start Because the future belongs to the organizations that see it coming, because the future belongs to the organizations that see it coming and it's up to people like you to help them develop that vision. That's all for today's episode of the Think Forward podcast. If you found this useful, please share it with someone else who's trying to bring futures thinking to their organization. And if you try any of these approaches, I'd love to hear about your experience. Drop me a line. Until next time, stay curious, stay prepared and always think forward.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Think Forward podcast. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at wwwthinkforwardshowcom, as well as on YouTube under Think Forward Show. See you next time.
