Strategic Foresight

For, as futurist author William Gibson said, “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.”19

Focus too much on the past and you can’t adapt to change and the shape of things to come. Focus too much on the present and you are likely to miss small changes in your external environment. Focus too much on the future and you might make reckless decisions and follow one fad after another.

Systems try to maintain equilibrium through feedback (which in the case of a PC usually means it tells you to reboot).

Messes are exacerbated by complexity. Complexity tends to encourage fragmented thinking (which isn’t a good thing if you want to manage a mess) by making it more difficult to get to a shared, agreed understanding of a mess.

A system has a purpose, even if it is changing and emerging or you can’t see what it is (or it isn’t a system)

The order in which the parts are assembled or arranged affects the system’s performance (if parts aren’t connected properly to the motherboard, the system won’t work)

You can’t problem-solve your way into the future – problem-solving works on what is happening today by applying what has worked in the past.

When you do all the hard work to understand what’s going on and you don’t share it—effectively—you negate your role.

You can learn to extend your ability to think into the future and this is very important if you want to develop your Strategic Foresight muscles further.