Hey there,
You can’t predict the future. But you can prepare for it.
As a futurist and innovation researcher, I focus on the future. What is coming our way? How can you best prepare yourself, your team and organization for this?
In this newsletter, I therefore share 3 ways to become more future-oriented.
Enjoy reading,
Peter
P.S. In June, I spoke at DPG Grow Live. During that lecture, I shared no fewer than 5 tips to become more future-oriented (9 minutes).
This video in Dutch, but now with English subtitles! 🙌
Become future-oriented
It's a cliche: developments are happening very quickly. How do you keep an overview of what is going on in your industry or in society? And also: what can you do with those insights?
According to this research by Rohrbeck and Kum, future-oriented organizations are 33% more profitable and grow 200% faster. However, with one caveat: as an organization, you can also be too concerned with the future. The risk is that you are too early with an innovation and that you cannot invest that time/energy in your current activities.
Future-orientedness is a luxury.
Another note is that future-orientedness is a luxury. In your personal life: if you have to survive from week to week due to lack of money or other troubles, then plans for 5 to 10 years do not feel useful. The same applies to companies: if you have problems with your cash flow, you want to solve that first.
With these caveats in mind, I hereby share 3 ways to become more future-proof and future-oriented:
Scan signals
Share insights
Scenario thinking
Tip 1: Scan signals
Take time every week to look for signals about the future of your sector, policy area or industry. This does not have to take a lot of time.
For example, you can plan to spend 10 minutes every week on Tuesday morning with a cup of coffee reading about relevant developments for your work.
My favorite: newsletters
I personally get the most added value from newsletters. This is why I'm a fan of newsletters:
Newsletters are compiled with more care than updates on social media.
The creator of a newsletter usually provides the context of a particular insight he/she shares.
I absorb information better in text versus audio or video (but this is a personal preference).
Newsletters are more current than books. The turnaround time from a news event to a newsletter is shorter than with a book.
I’m a big fan of Exponential View by Azeem Azhar and IFTF News from the Future.
Do you have a favorite newsletter yourself (besides my newsletter of course)? 😉 Reply to this email and let me know! 🙏
Tip 2: Share insights
Even better than just scanning signals and developments, is that you share your insights with your colleagues, manager or director. Some organizations I worked for had this on the agenda periodically. The question in a management or board meeting can be:
Have you read, heard, seen or picked up anything recently that is relevant to our future?
But sharing signals does not have to be (only) formal. You can also share your insights with your colleagues during lunch or at the coffee machine.
Signals Club
In addition to an informal conversation or as an agenda item during a meeting, there are also organizations that set up a Signals Club. Such as the bank Meritrust Credit Union (United States) or the Institute for Research on Public Policy (Canada).
The design is simple: every colleague can participate. The club meets every few weeks, physically or online. The members discuss what signals they have picked up, what biases may be at play, what they can do with the signals, and how they will continue to monitor them.
Tip 3: Scenario thinking
Scenario planning is an instrument for developing scenarios to explore the future. In the scenario planning workshops that I lead myself, I always say that the purpose of the scenarios is not to predict the future.
No, this is what it's about:
Scenarios are intended to inform, inspire and confront.
The input for the scenarios is often the relevant signals from tip 1. You process these with your colleagues in stories about your organization in the future.
Scenario thinking is not a quick exercise. The sessions that I lead, last at least 3 hours. In addition, it is not easy either. It requires a combination of strategic thinking with imagination.
Deep dive
Articles, books, podcasts, videos, documentaries and more on this theme.
1. READ / Jane McGonigal's book Imaginable provides an accessible starting point for beginning futures research.
2. READ / A good article on Wired about future research with the most important tip: pay particular attention to cross-connections and combinations between developments.
3. WATCH / In my June newsletter, I shared a video about the backward bicycle. A nice experiment that shows how difficult it is to change your habits and routines. Applicable when it comes to future-orientation, as you have to change your way of thinking.
With this bicycle, the handlebars and direction of travel are reversed. So: steer to the left, the bike goes to the right. And vice versa.
Kai Schut responded to that newsletter and challenged me to try his backward bicycle. See how I'm doing here (7 minutes). 🙈
Again, in Dutch but now with English subtitles:
🙏 Thank you for reading
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