The Most Overlooked Skill by Today’s Modern Leader

Key Takeaways:

• Foresight is a dynamic skill that is critical to organizational agility.
• For leaders to successfully carry out a vision, they must develop foresight and prepare for various scenarios.
• Strategic foresight can be practiced through exercises like scenario planning.

In today’s day and age, many of us live and work “in the moment.” We are constantly distracted at work — often getting caught in the whirlwind and shifting our priorities to match the problem of the hour.

As a leader, it can be very difficult to give any thought to the future while you’re responding to these routine daily tasks. Unfortunately, this is where the modern leader fails.

Strategic foresight may be the most overlooked skill in today’s modern leader. It is a dynamic capability that allows organizations to be strategically agile and adapt to their environment¹.

Without strategic foresight in their leaders, organizations can be led blindly into the future without anticipation of what is to come. Leaders must be able to capture the big picture (vision) and anticipate the consequences of their actions and inactions (foresight) to successfully drive a team into the future².

Every day, we see examples in the news of how organizations successfully or unsuccessfully use strategic foresight to reach their vision. A great example of an organization using strategic foresight is Netflix, which I wrote about in one of my previous posts.

If you’re a leader, how do you practice foresight?

Scenario planning is a scientifically proven process that leaders can use to develop their capacity for strategic foresight¹. This is the concept of mapping out potential futures and practicing how to respond to these various scenarios. Scenario planning processes help us anticipate the future based on external influences, environmental uncertainties, and our own decision making².

1. Identify the core issue to focus on. (Ex: Should we invest in more original entertainment content?)
2. Outline key factors that can affect the core issue. (Competitors, cost, etc.)
3. Examine the external environment. (Geopolitical, economic, social issues)
4. Identify uncertainties. (How quickly will technology advance?)
5. Using uncertainties, determine scenario logic. Narrow the number of possible futures by selecting two uncertainties to explore.
6. Write out potential scenarios. Use details gathered in the first five steps to develop scenarios and anticipate potential outcomes.
7. Play out all scenarios. Determine implications of actions/inactions and record appropriate options.
8. Watch for early indicators. Be aware of your environment and select an appropriate course of action³.

Scenario planning can help leaders develop strategic foresight and make decisions that will positively impact the future of their respective organizations. Next time you enter a strategy meeting in your organization, use this eight-step process to guide your decision making.

¹https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162514003011

²https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/lao/pdf/2005/issue_IV_winter/hammett_strategic_foresight.pdf

³https://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2015/01/08/scenario-planning-and-strategic-forecasting/#51cb30d3411a