Strategic Foresight Explained

Strategic Foresight, much like Design Thinking, isn’t the most clearly named discipline. I’m the first to admit it sounds kind of made up, or at least elastic enough to cover a broad range of activities.

It’s a bit ironic that it’s so ambiguously named when the discipline itself is purpose-built to help organizations manage the ambiguity of the future. Quite different from forecasting, strategic foresight is a methodology that guides us as we step out of our daily momentum to look more broadly at the forces that have brought us here, and where they might carry us in the future, or what currents might be coming our way to shift and shape our path.

To use one of my least-favourite clichés, Strategic Foresight is the opposite of shrugging your shoulders and saying "It is what it is."

Instead, it’s taking a moment to zoom out and ask "Why does our corner of the world look like this? Whose interests are being served? What systems and patterns are reinforcing the status quo, and how will they stand in the face of emerging trends?’"

Investigating these questions is incredibly powerful – regardless of whether you get to a right answer. Just taking the time to contemplate the questions changes a team’s mindset from being passive (at worst) or reactive (at best) in the face of future change to being active participants in shaping what is to come. It creates space for people to advocate for which trends your organization should be leaning in on and which weak signals deserve a boost.

It’s a tremendous tool to increase organizational resilience as well. Working through Strategic Foresight exercises clarify what are the non-negotiables for your organization; what conditions must exist in order for you to survive, and what conditions are best to allow you to thrive.