INFLUENCING SKILLS PROGRAM
Management Book Review
By Ria Gokharu PGDM C - 135
STRATEGIC PLANNING REVISITED : A FUTURES PERSPECTIVE
By Maree Conway
STRATEGIC PLANNING
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Strategic planning is not about planning strategically. Strategic planning is the process of documenting an plan to implement and monitor an agreed strategy. Just semantics? Perhaps, but …
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STRATEGIC PLANNING
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?Planning
lacks a clear definition of its own place in organizations? (Mintzberg, 1994). ?It may well be that the typical strategic planning exercise now conducted on a regular and formal basis and infused with quantitative data misses the essence of the concept of strategy and what is involved in thinking strategically? (Sidorowicz, 2000). ?While the need for planning has never been greater, the relevance of most of today‘s planning systems and tools is increasingly marginal? (Fuller, 2003).
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So, is what we commonly understand to be strategic planning the whole game?
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
No … it’s the last step …
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Actions
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
The Vice-Chancellor usually ends up making the ultimate strategy decision.
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
But … what informs that decision?
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic thinking is probably the least defined and least well understood part of the strategy process.
What informs strategy at your institution?
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
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Strategic planning is but one of three interdependent and overlapping steps in the development and implementation of strategy.
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Actions
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
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Differentiating among the three steps is important.
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It is simpler to use ?strategic planning‘ but, it blurs the boundaries between the three steps. Each step has a distinct focus.
Each step needs different methods and approaches.
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STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
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Strategic thinking: synthetic, intuitive, inductive, deals with incomplete information Strategic decision making: options, choices, decisions, destinations Strategic planning: analytical, logical, deductive, staying on track
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DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
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Can you describe your institution‘s strategic thinking processes?
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
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So, while it is more words and harder to say quickly ...
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Strategy development and implementation is a more accurate term for what we are talking about (SDI?)
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But, where does a futures perspective come into it?
FUTURES AND STRATEGY
Futures Approaches and Methods Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Action
FUTURES: WHAT IS FUTURES?
UP FRONT, SOME TERMINOLOGY
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Foresight: an often unconscious individual capacity to think about the future. Strategic Foresight: an organisational foresight capacity. Futures: the broad academic field now developing globally; interdisciplinary and inclusive in its approach. Futurists: those who work in futures, either as academics, consultants (outside organisations) and as practitioners within organisations. Scenario planning: a futures methodology.
FORESIGHT?? FUTURES??
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?Foresight‘ is the capacity to think systematically about the future to inform today's decision making. It is a capacity that we need to develop as individuals, as organisations, and as a society. 'Futures' refers both to the research, methods and tools that are available for us to use to develop a foresight capacity, and to the field in which futurists work.
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FUTURES STUDIES
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Futures Studies is an emerging academic discipline focused around the development of alternative futures:
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to assist people in choosing and creating the most desirable future, using any combination of the past, present knowledge, imagination, desires and needs, to highlight that individuals, groups, cultures etc., are not set on a deterministic path to a single unitary future but, by using their powers of foresight and decision-making, can select from a wide range of future trajectories and outcomes, and to explore the unanticipated, unintended and unrecognised consequences of social action.
Source:http://www.cambridgeuniversityfutures.co.uk/home.asp
FUTURES PRINCIPLES
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There is always more than one future. The future is not pre-determined – we have alternatives. The future is not predictable – we have choices. The future can be influenced – there are consequences of our choices and action today for future generations. Hence, we have a responsibility to act wisely in the present.
Adapted from Amara, and Voros
A MESSAGE FROM FUTURE GENERATIONS…
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You are alive at a pivotal moment in humanity‘s development. You are making some of the most important choices in human history. Your era is marked by positive and negative potentials of such newness and magnitude that you can hardly understand them. Through your public policies and daily lives, the people of your era have tremendous power to influence the future course of humanity’s story. We strongly care about your choices, of course, since we benefit or suffer from them quite directly. We live downstream from you in time; whatever you put into the stream flows on to our era.
FUTURES PRINCIPLES
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We cannot ?know‘ the future in the same way that we ?know‘ the present. There are no future ?facts‘. Futures work explores ideas about the future, not the future itself.
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FUTURES TIME
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Near Term Future - Up to one year from now
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Short Term Future – 1-5 years from now
Mid-Term Future - 5 - 20 years from now Long Range Future - 20 - 50 years from now Far Future - 50 plus years from now
FUTURES TIME
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From our vantage point of the present, we interpret the past, and we anticipate the future. But, we have blind spots. We can deny past acts, and we can avoid/negate future acts, depending on our perspective in the present. We need to understand our worldview and how we see and make sense of the past, present and future.
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FUTURES PUSH AND PULL
PRESENT
Ideas, Images, Hopes, Fears
Technology, Demographics, Economics, Science etc
FUTURE
CONSTRAINTS
THE FUTURE AS A STRATEGIC LANDSCAPE
‘The Star’—
Our enduring and guiding social role The purpose of the organization
• A ?future-focused role image? • Not completed or ?used up?
The strategic objective:
‘The Mountain’—
What we hope to achieve
• A compelling, relevant future • BHAG—?Big Hairy Audacious Goal? • A concrete, specific goal • A challenge, but achievable
‘The Chessboard’—
Issues and challenges we are likely to face
The strategic environment:
• Strategic implementation and tactics • Threats and opportunities • Actions of other strategic actors • Driving forces • Mapped and understood using scenarios
The ‘self’ journeys across the chessboard to the mountain, which lies in the medium term future
‘The Self’—
Our values and attributes as a strategic player
Strategic identity:
• Current reality • Self-knowledge • Strengths and weaknesses • Values • Preferences and experience
TYPES OF FUTURES
Potential – all futures, imagined or not yet imagined
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Possible - ?might? happen (future knowledge) Plausible – ?could? happen (current knowledge) Probable - ?likely to? happen (current trends) Preferable - ?want to? happen (value judgements)
TYPES OF FUTURES
?Wildcard? Scenario
Possible
Plausible Probable Preferable
Today
Time
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL
Inputs
things happening
Analysis
Interpretation
?what seems to be happening?? ?what‘s really happening??
Foresight
Prospection
Outputs
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
?what might happen??
?what might we need to do??
Strategy
?what will we do?? ?how will we do it??
FUTURES: WHY FUTURES?
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
All our knowledge is about the past, but all our decisions are about the future.
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know
What we know Most of what we need to know to make good decisions today is outside our comprehension: we don?t even know it?s there.
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
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“Inventions
have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for future development”: Roman
engineer Sextus Julius Frontinus, 1st Century AD
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"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.“: Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 “Heavier than air flying machines are not possible”: Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1895 "There is no likehood man can ever tap the power of the atom." Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923 “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau”: Irving Fisher, Professor of
Economics, Yale University, 1929
“Space flight is hokum”: Astronomer Royal, 1956
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
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“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out”: Decca Recording Co. rejecting The Beatles, 1962. “I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers”: Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”: Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment, 1977 “640K [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody”: Bill
Gates, 1981
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“The fact that conflicts with other countries [producing civilian casualties] have been conducted away from the U.S. homeland can be considered one of the more fortunate aspects of the American experience”:
Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) for the US Dept of Defence, 2001
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
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?We live in a time of clashing conflict and massive institutional failures, a time of endings and of beginnings. A time that feels as if something profound is shifting and dying while something else … wants to be born … The crisis of our time is about the dying of an old social structure, an old way of institutionalizing and enacting collective social forms.?
C Otto Scharmer, 2005
www.ottoscharmer.com
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
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At a time when human societies are altering the fundamental conditions of life on planet earth, the dominant outlook remains a focus on short term thinking.
Short term thinking is a major systemic defect within the industrial worldview. The world we are creating leads to Dystopian futures.
Richard Slaughter, 2003 www.foresightinternational.com.au
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WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
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Because:
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it is largely unknown, unpredictable, unpredictable and non-determined, so we need to:
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try and understand that uncertainty to make sense of what is going on today, and find ways of understanding possible futures that are only just emerging,
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it helps to assess the potential future risk of action we are considering today
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
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And because:
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we create the future through our actions and decisions today, individually and collectively, so we need to pay attention to it we are responsible for future generations as well as ourselves
and … you want to avoid saying something that sounds really smart at the time but which ends up as a quote in a presentation like this 20 years later ?
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WORLDVIEWS…
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Humans do not make rational, logical decisions based on information input, instead they pattern match with either their own experience, or collective experience expressed as stories. It isn‘t even a best fit pattern match, but a first fit pattern match … The human brain is also subject to habituation, things that we do frequently create habitual patterns which both enable rapid decision making, but also entrain behaviour in such a manner that we literally do not see things that fail to match the patterns of our expectations.
Dave Snowden 2003: 1
WORLDVIEWS…
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The majority is not always right, the conventional wisdom is not always wise, and the accepted doctrine could well be flawed. The more fashionable an idea, the more it is likely to be exempt from critical evaluation. Breakthrough thinking sometimes calls for contradicting the most widely held assumptions and beliefs.
Karl Albrecht
Corporate Radar, Tracking the Forces That Are Shaping Your Business, 1999.
WORLDVIEWS (THE INNER PERSPECTIVE)
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Being aware of our particular worldviews, our expectations, and how we see the world. Understanding what our blind spots are – what is it that we don‘t see because of who we are. Being open to accepting different worldviews – not better or worse, just different. And, it‘s okay (or it should be) to say ?No, I don‘t see the world in the way that you do.?
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REFLECTION: WORLDVIEWS (THE INNER PERSPECTIVE)
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Can you identify assumptions underpinning your worldview?
FUTURES: INTEGRAL FUTURES
INTEGRAL FUTURES
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Integral Futures ? Ken Wilber‘s four quadrants (www.kenwilber.com) SDI using the four quadrants Understanding your role in the process
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INTEGRAL FUTURES
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A holistic view of all phenomenon, not just the empirically observable or quantitative. Integrating Eastern and Western traditions, philosophies, sciences and approaches. Recognises that there are many ways of knowing, and that no one way is dominant.
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WILBER‘S FOUR QUADRANTS
Interior Exterior
Intentional “I” Upper Left
Behavioural “It”
Upper Right Individual
Collective
Cultural “We” Lower Left Social “Its” Lower Right
THE SCARY VERSION OF WILBER
FOUR QUADRANTS: INDIVIDUAL
Interior Exterior
Individual values, beliefs attitudes and meaning
Intentional “I”
Observed Behaviour
Behavioural “It” Social “Its” Individual Collective
Cultural “We”
Cultural context of the individual, creates shared context
The collective external world
FOUR QUADRANTS: ORGANISATION
Interior Exterior
Staff
Organisational Behaviour
Individual Collective
Organisational Culture
External Positioning and Relationships
FOUR QUADRANTS: SDI
Interior
Views of Staff: Focus Groups, Interviews
Exterior
Inclusive Planning and Decision Making Processes: Strategic Planning Workshops, Strategic Plans Individual Collective Understanding the External Environment: Scanning, Delphi, SWOT, Scenario Planning etc.
Understanding the Internal Environment: Casual Layered Analysis, Slaughter’s Transformative Cycle, Anthropological approaches
FOUR QUADRANTS: SDI
Interior
Staff Business as Usual
We don?t get rewarded for how well we think or understand culture, so we don?t spend much time here
We get rewarded for our performance here, so we spend most time here
Exterior
Visible and measurable
Individual Collective
Organisational Culture
Strategy and „Fit”
Invisible & not measurable
UNDERSTANDING YOUR ROLE
Interior Exterior
Individual values, beliefs attitudes – your perspective and worldview, your meaning
Observed Behaviour
Individual
Collective
Cultural
External
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
All our knowledge is about the past, but all our decisions are about the future.
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know
What we know Most of what we need to know to make good decisions today is outside our comprehension: we don?t even know it?s there.
Interior
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
Exterior
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
Individual
Collective
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
INTEGRAL FUTURES
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The future is not just ?out there‘, but ?in here‘ as well.
REFLECTION: INTEGRAL FUTURES
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How is information about staff views of the future collected at your institution?
FUTURES IN STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT & IMPLEMENTATION
THE HOME OF FUTURES IN SDI
Futures Approaches and Methods Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Action
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL Inputs
things happening
Analysis
Interpretation
?what seems to be happening?? ?what‘s really happening??
Foresight
Prospection
Outputs
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
?what might happen??
?what might we need to do??
Strategy
?what will we do?? ?how will we do it??
What‘s happening?
What seems to be happening? What‘s really happening? What might happen?
Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen?
FUTURES AND SDI
Options
Foresight
What might we need to do?
What will we do?
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
How will we do it?
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Action
FUTURES AND SDI
Input
What’s happening?
Right hand quadrants
Gathering
Analysis
What seems to be happening?
Categorising
Interpretation
Contextualising Sense Making Innovation Left hand quadrants
What’s really happening? Prospection What might happen?
FUTURES AND SDI: INPUT
Input
Information Gathering
Focus on past, present and future. Collect qualitative and quantitative information.
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Delphi
Genius based – sampling of expert opinions, reducing divergence over a series of surveys (Japan‘s futures program does this well)
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Environmental Scanning
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Voros - 4Q/11L scanning – taking into account both the worldview of the scanner and the worldviews of the users of the information. Integrating spiral dynamics into the equation. Aims to merge upper left and lower right quadrant activity. Choo (1998) – different levels: competitor intelligence, competitive intelligence, business intelligence, environmental scanning, social scanning (at level of country)
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FUTURES AND SDI: ANALYSIS
Current approaches at this level are largely quantitative in nature.
Analysis
What seems to be happening?
Forecasting – extrapolates trends out, useful for short-term work.
Categorising
Cross Impact Analysis – how trends interact and impact on each other.
Trend Analysis – data over time, underpinned by assumptions about how data is behaving – those assumptions condition what we see in the data. Emerging Issues Analysis – looks earlier in the trend cycle to identify issues before they emerge in the mainstream. Moving beyond quantitative data focus.
FUTURES AND SDI: ANALYSIS
Global, multiple dispersed cases, trends and megatrends
Number of cases; degree of public awareness
Look on the fringe (weird and whacky!)
Government Institutions Newspapers, magazines, websites, journals
Late Majority Laggards
Scientists, artists, radicals, mystics
Mainstream Trends
Late Adopters
Emerging Issues
Few cases, local focus
Today
Innovators
Time
Early adopters
Worldview issues will affect uptake at this stage – “I don’t believe that!”
Future
Adapted from the work of Graham Molitor, Wendy Schultz and Everett Rogers
FUTURES AND SDI: Interpreting the analysis for the INTERPRETATION organisation’s context. Making sense of
the data for the organisation.
Contextualising Sense Making
Interpretation What’s really happening?
Most strategy work stops at this step. Decisions are made once interpretation has occurred.
FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
Levels of Structure
News Items
Recurring Themes Underlying ?Drivers?
Events
Patterns, Trends System Structure Mental Models Thinking Systems
Mindsets, Worldviews, Metaphors, Myths
?Core? Human Intelligences
Copyright © 2001 Joseph Voros
? What‘s really happening????? FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
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Aim to challenge categories of analysis in the previous step – what does it mean? There are layers of reality, and layers of depth – how deeply do we want to go in interpretation? What is appropriate for my organisation?
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? Macrohistory – SDI: cyclesINTERPRETATION of large scale change over FUTURES AND
time; how social systems change; grand unifying principles are sought.
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Causal Layered Analysis (Sohail Inayatullah):
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Litany Social causes Worldview Myth/metaphor
Particularly good for digging deep to find those valued assumptions
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How do you challenge the prevailing worldview and assumptions underpinning it? What will your organisation be comfortable with?
FUTURES AND SDI: PROSPECTION
Focus on the future. Deriving a broader range of strategy options from the analysis: what options are available to us in the longterm? What might be the impact of those options in the longterm? What will influence those options? What are potential obstacles? Scenarios, visioning, futures workshops.
Prospection
Innovation What might happen?
FUTURES AND SDI: PROSPECTION
Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 1 Scenario 2
Scenario 3
Inductive
Scenario 4
Deductive Vision
Alternative scenario Official Future
Incremental
Normative
Adapted from Ged Davis, Scenarios as aTool for the 21st Century, Shell International, 2002
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL @ VU Inputs
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
Analysis
Interpretation
TREND/EMERGING ISSUES ANALYSIS
CAUSAL LAYERED ANALYSIS
Foresight
Prospection
Outputs
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
SCENARIO PLANNING
BROADER STRATEGIC OPTIONS
Strategy
DECISIONS IMPLEMENTATION
REFLECTION: FUTURES AND SDI
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What methods would you use to establish strategy processes underpinned by futures input at your institution?
FUTURES: BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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Foresight: an often unconscious individual capacity to think about the future. Strategic Foresight: an organisational foresight capacity.
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Foresight is the capacity to think systematically about the future to inform today's decision making. It is a capacity that we need to develop as individuals, as organisations, and as a society.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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Planning happens only after a decision has been made – you plan how you will implement the decision and keep track of achieving your goal.
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A decision is made only after some strategic thinking has taken place.
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How do you think strategically? How does an organisation ?think‘ strategically?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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Strategic thinking is about systematically and routinely:
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using a wide range of information and data from the past and the present, including that held by individuals, using that information and data to consider a range of alternative and plausible scenarios about what might happen in the future, thinking about how the organisation might respond in terms of risks and opportunities if those scenarios came true – Van der Heijden‘s ?strategic conversations‘, and
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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Without explorations of what the future might hold, strategic planning as we know it today creates a default scenario:
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A future that validates the plan, and this view of the future dominates … decision making (Hodgson, 2004).
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This is sometimes called the ?official‘ future - the one that‘s written in our vision and mission statements.
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Not thinking about the future risks depending on a business-as-usual approach, or the ?official‘ future (also known as ?let‘s bet the farm cos I know best? sometimes espoused by some Vice-Chancellors).
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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Strategic thinking involves exploring:
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Lower Left and Lower Right Quadrant factors in the internal and external environment that are critical uncertainties for the organisation, and recognises their interconnections and interdependencies, and Upper Left Quadrant hopes, dreams and images of the future held by individuals in the organisation.
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Successful strategy development deals with both -
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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There will be many, many competing images of the future. Only when those images are articulated can the possibility of a shared view of the future – and a shared strategy - begin to emerge. You need overt organisational processes to be able to articulate images of the future. Because images reside in the Upper Left Quadrant, you need processes that engage people as individuals.
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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All individuals have the capacity for foresight – we use that capacity every day. The aim is to move that individual capacity to a shared, organisational capacity.
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
Individual foresight is: Strategic Foresight is:
unconscious implicit
Individuals recognise and build their foresight capacity
conscious explicit
Individuals begin to talk about and use futures approaches in their work
Individual capacities generate organisational capacity (through structures & processes)
solitary
Adapted from the work of Joseph Voros and Richard Slaughter
collective
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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Generates a challenge: strategic foresight takes time to develop because:
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we are dealing with how people think, we are asking people to question their thinking and to surface the assumptions upon which their thinking is based – this is often scary and uncomfortable.
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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And, in today‘s ?business‘ environment, it is easy to dismiss the need to think about the future.
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?I am too busy dealing with the here and now to think about the future? (University Council member).
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?I think about the future every day, and it‘s an insult that you are here to teach me how to think? (Deputy ViceChancellor).
?I don‘t get paid to think about the future, I get paid to produce results? (Corporate Director).
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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In our jobs, we are rewarded not for thinking about the future, but for results in the present. We are rewarded for certainty in the present, not uncertainty about the future. We can speak confidently about the past and the present (or seem like we are), but it is difficult to speak confidently about the future.
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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But, strategy is about the future.
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Thinking about the future is thinking about uncertainty. How do we incorporate thinking about uncertainty, and hence, thinking about the future, into our decision making processes?
How do we demonstrate the value of taking time out in the present to consider long term issues to inform decision making today?
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
1927 2007 2027
Past
Present
Future
Strategy Decisions
We start in the present, wanting to make strategy for the future.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
1927 2007 2027
Past
Present
Future
Strategy Decisions
Strategic Hindsight
With the power of strategic hindsight, we add in the past, and focus on trends over time, maybe taking those trends a few years into the future.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
1927 2007 2027
Past
Present
Future
Strategy Decisions
Strategic Hindsight
Strategic Foresight
To enhance your future strategy and make wiser decisions, you need to use the power of strategic foresight to explore the future – just as you explore the past and the present.
REFLECTION: BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
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How will you convince whoever needs to be convinced of the value of strategic thinking using a futures approach?
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Language Maintaining Support at the Top Organisational Positioning Organisational Context and Politics Thinking is Work Too People Implementation Worldviews and Assumptions – the ?glazed eye‘ syndrome Knowledge
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Language
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Get used to crystal ball jokes Choose terms that will be understood Develop clear and unequivocal messages about what you are doing, and why you are doing it Stay strong!
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Maintaining Support at the Top
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Obvious, but critical Need to ensure futures work is not dependent on an individual Need a CEO who will support you and follow through Not only CEO, but executive group
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in my experience, it is this group that has the real influence on the degree to which futures work is accepted
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Organisational Positioning
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Setting up an organisational futures program is different to using futures approaches in your work.
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At organisational level, needs clear mandate and support. The Viable Systems Model (VSM) is useful here. In your work, will depend on your job and your boss!
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Organisational Context and Politics
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This is the one I misread badly. Who needs to be involved? Who can derail your work? Futures work competes with the power of people‘s egos and personal positionings, animosities and ambitions. You need to understand these.
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Thinking is Work Too
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Convincing people to take time out to participate in futures work will be difficult. How many of you have commented along the lines of … ?if only I had time to think?? And, how many think planning workshops and retreats are usually a waste of time? We need to schedule in time to think.
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We need to start viewing thinking as work too.
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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People
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People doing futures work need established credibility and goodwill, because this work will strain working relationships:
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?you were well respected when you worked in the teaching divisions, but once you started this foresight work, things went downhill‘ (said a DVC to me)
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While you need to maintain support at the top, you will probably find that people at the ?grass roots‘ are more open to futures.
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Feedback to my work suggests they like and see value in the
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Implementation
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Conceptual framework Strong methodology Clear project plan – purpose and structure, roles and responsibilities Communication strategy – explain why there is value Differentiate between content and process
If we are to find out what staff think about the future, we need to let them tell us, not present them with prepackaged views of where the university should be going. Long term – this will take time.
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Worldviews
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Watch out for the ?glazed eye syndrome‘ (you are hitting a strong worldview when this happens).
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Challenging deeply held assumptions is critical but very, very difficult. Watch out for your own worldview – develop a strong, reflective understanding of how you see the world – what you look for, and what you miss altogether.
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Knowledge
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Need to have a firm grounding in the futures field and concepts.
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Reading a book is not enough (and deluded!)
If you are serious about this work, get a qualification in it, or use a futures consultant who specialises in knowledge transfer as part of the deal.
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Doing futures work is both challenging and very hard work, but it will also be some of the most rewarding and exciting work you have ever done.
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It will change the way you think, and it will change the way you see the world.
STRATEGIC PLANNING REVISITED: SOME KEY MESSAGES
? ? ?
?
? ? ? ?
Terminology: SDI Three steps (thinking, deciding, doing) Responsibility for future generations Past, present and future Integral approach – consider both inner and outer worlds/perspectives Understand your worldview and accept the worldviews of others Generic foresight model (input, analysis, interpretation, prospection) Strategic thinking and strategic foresight
PITCH MESSAGE HERE
BACK TO WORK
Have good organisational diagnostics: can smell the cheese, but will jump ship. Get it, and can use the system – very rare.
Don?t bother – they are waiting for you to fail!
They will follow you blindly – just like lemmings!
THANK YOU
doc_732527102.ppt
Management Book Review
By Ria Gokharu PGDM C - 135
STRATEGIC PLANNING REVISITED : A FUTURES PERSPECTIVE
By Maree Conway
STRATEGIC PLANNING
?
Strategic planning is not about planning strategically. Strategic planning is the process of documenting an plan to implement and monitor an agreed strategy. Just semantics? Perhaps, but …
?
?
STRATEGIC PLANNING
?
?Planning
lacks a clear definition of its own place in organizations? (Mintzberg, 1994). ?It may well be that the typical strategic planning exercise now conducted on a regular and formal basis and infused with quantitative data misses the essence of the concept of strategy and what is involved in thinking strategically? (Sidorowicz, 2000). ?While the need for planning has never been greater, the relevance of most of today‘s planning systems and tools is increasingly marginal? (Fuller, 2003).
?
?
So, is what we commonly understand to be strategic planning the whole game?
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
No … it’s the last step …
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Actions
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
The Vice-Chancellor usually ends up making the ultimate strategy decision.
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
But … what informs that decision?
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic thinking is probably the least defined and least well understood part of the strategy process.
What informs strategy at your institution?
STRATEGIC PLANNING?
?
Strategic planning is but one of three interdependent and overlapping steps in the development and implementation of strategy.
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Actions
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
?
Differentiating among the three steps is important.
?
It is simpler to use ?strategic planning‘ but, it blurs the boundaries between the three steps. Each step has a distinct focus.
Each step needs different methods and approaches.
?
?
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
?
Strategic thinking: synthetic, intuitive, inductive, deals with incomplete information Strategic decision making: options, choices, decisions, destinations Strategic planning: analytical, logical, deductive, staying on track
?
?
DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
?
Can you describe your institution‘s strategic thinking processes?
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
?
So, while it is more words and harder to say quickly ...
?
Strategy development and implementation is a more accurate term for what we are talking about (SDI?)
?
But, where does a futures perspective come into it?
FUTURES AND STRATEGY
Futures Approaches and Methods Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Action
FUTURES: WHAT IS FUTURES?
UP FRONT, SOME TERMINOLOGY
?
? ?
?
?
Foresight: an often unconscious individual capacity to think about the future. Strategic Foresight: an organisational foresight capacity. Futures: the broad academic field now developing globally; interdisciplinary and inclusive in its approach. Futurists: those who work in futures, either as academics, consultants (outside organisations) and as practitioners within organisations. Scenario planning: a futures methodology.
FORESIGHT?? FUTURES??
?
?Foresight‘ is the capacity to think systematically about the future to inform today's decision making. It is a capacity that we need to develop as individuals, as organisations, and as a society. 'Futures' refers both to the research, methods and tools that are available for us to use to develop a foresight capacity, and to the field in which futurists work.
?
FUTURES STUDIES
?
Futures Studies is an emerging academic discipline focused around the development of alternative futures:
? ?
?
to assist people in choosing and creating the most desirable future, using any combination of the past, present knowledge, imagination, desires and needs, to highlight that individuals, groups, cultures etc., are not set on a deterministic path to a single unitary future but, by using their powers of foresight and decision-making, can select from a wide range of future trajectories and outcomes, and to explore the unanticipated, unintended and unrecognised consequences of social action.
Source:http://www.cambridgeuniversityfutures.co.uk/home.asp
FUTURES PRINCIPLES
? ? ? ?
?
There is always more than one future. The future is not pre-determined – we have alternatives. The future is not predictable – we have choices. The future can be influenced – there are consequences of our choices and action today for future generations. Hence, we have a responsibility to act wisely in the present.
Adapted from Amara, and Voros
A MESSAGE FROM FUTURE GENERATIONS…
?
You are alive at a pivotal moment in humanity‘s development. You are making some of the most important choices in human history. Your era is marked by positive and negative potentials of such newness and magnitude that you can hardly understand them. Through your public policies and daily lives, the people of your era have tremendous power to influence the future course of humanity’s story. We strongly care about your choices, of course, since we benefit or suffer from them quite directly. We live downstream from you in time; whatever you put into the stream flows on to our era.
FUTURES PRINCIPLES
?
We cannot ?know‘ the future in the same way that we ?know‘ the present. There are no future ?facts‘. Futures work explores ideas about the future, not the future itself.
?
?
FUTURES TIME
?
Near Term Future - Up to one year from now
?
? ? ?
Short Term Future – 1-5 years from now
Mid-Term Future - 5 - 20 years from now Long Range Future - 20 - 50 years from now Far Future - 50 plus years from now
FUTURES TIME
?
From our vantage point of the present, we interpret the past, and we anticipate the future. But, we have blind spots. We can deny past acts, and we can avoid/negate future acts, depending on our perspective in the present. We need to understand our worldview and how we see and make sense of the past, present and future.
? ?
?
FUTURES PUSH AND PULL
PRESENT
Ideas, Images, Hopes, Fears
Technology, Demographics, Economics, Science etc
FUTURE
CONSTRAINTS
THE FUTURE AS A STRATEGIC LANDSCAPE
‘The Star’—
Our enduring and guiding social role The purpose of the organization
• A ?future-focused role image? • Not completed or ?used up?
The strategic objective:
‘The Mountain’—
What we hope to achieve
• A compelling, relevant future • BHAG—?Big Hairy Audacious Goal? • A concrete, specific goal • A challenge, but achievable
‘The Chessboard’—
Issues and challenges we are likely to face
The strategic environment:
• Strategic implementation and tactics • Threats and opportunities • Actions of other strategic actors • Driving forces • Mapped and understood using scenarios
The ‘self’ journeys across the chessboard to the mountain, which lies in the medium term future
‘The Self’—
Our values and attributes as a strategic player
Strategic identity:
• Current reality • Self-knowledge • Strengths and weaknesses • Values • Preferences and experience
TYPES OF FUTURES
Potential – all futures, imagined or not yet imagined
? ? ? ?
Possible - ?might? happen (future knowledge) Plausible – ?could? happen (current knowledge) Probable - ?likely to? happen (current trends) Preferable - ?want to? happen (value judgements)
TYPES OF FUTURES
?Wildcard? Scenario
Possible
Plausible Probable Preferable
Today
Time
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL
Inputs
things happening
Analysis
Interpretation
?what seems to be happening?? ?what‘s really happening??
Foresight
Prospection
Outputs
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
?what might happen??
?what might we need to do??
Strategy
?what will we do?? ?how will we do it??
FUTURES: WHY FUTURES?
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
All our knowledge is about the past, but all our decisions are about the future.
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know
What we know Most of what we need to know to make good decisions today is outside our comprehension: we don?t even know it?s there.
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
?
“Inventions
have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for future development”: Roman
engineer Sextus Julius Frontinus, 1st Century AD
? ? ? ? ?
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.“: Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 “Heavier than air flying machines are not possible”: Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1895 "There is no likehood man can ever tap the power of the atom." Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923 “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau”: Irving Fisher, Professor of
Economics, Yale University, 1929
“Space flight is hokum”: Astronomer Royal, 1956
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
?
?
?
?
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out”: Decca Recording Co. rejecting The Beatles, 1962. “I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers”: Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”: Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment, 1977 “640K [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody”: Bill
Gates, 1981
?
“The fact that conflicts with other countries [producing civilian casualties] have been conducted away from the U.S. homeland can be considered one of the more fortunate aspects of the American experience”:
Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) for the US Dept of Defence, 2001
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
?
?We live in a time of clashing conflict and massive institutional failures, a time of endings and of beginnings. A time that feels as if something profound is shifting and dying while something else … wants to be born … The crisis of our time is about the dying of an old social structure, an old way of institutionalizing and enacting collective social forms.?
C Otto Scharmer, 2005
www.ottoscharmer.com
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
?
At a time when human societies are altering the fundamental conditions of life on planet earth, the dominant outlook remains a focus on short term thinking.
Short term thinking is a major systemic defect within the industrial worldview. The world we are creating leads to Dystopian futures.
Richard Slaughter, 2003 www.foresightinternational.com.au
?
?
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
?
Because:
?
it is largely unknown, unpredictable, unpredictable and non-determined, so we need to:
?
?
try and understand that uncertainty to make sense of what is going on today, and find ways of understanding possible futures that are only just emerging,
?
it helps to assess the potential future risk of action we are considering today
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
?
And because:
?
we create the future through our actions and decisions today, individually and collectively, so we need to pay attention to it we are responsible for future generations as well as ourselves
and … you want to avoid saying something that sounds really smart at the time but which ends up as a quote in a presentation like this 20 years later ?
?
?
WORLDVIEWS…
?
Humans do not make rational, logical decisions based on information input, instead they pattern match with either their own experience, or collective experience expressed as stories. It isn‘t even a best fit pattern match, but a first fit pattern match … The human brain is also subject to habituation, things that we do frequently create habitual patterns which both enable rapid decision making, but also entrain behaviour in such a manner that we literally do not see things that fail to match the patterns of our expectations.
Dave Snowden 2003: 1
WORLDVIEWS…
?
The majority is not always right, the conventional wisdom is not always wise, and the accepted doctrine could well be flawed. The more fashionable an idea, the more it is likely to be exempt from critical evaluation. Breakthrough thinking sometimes calls for contradicting the most widely held assumptions and beliefs.
Karl Albrecht
Corporate Radar, Tracking the Forces That Are Shaping Your Business, 1999.
WORLDVIEWS (THE INNER PERSPECTIVE)
?
Being aware of our particular worldviews, our expectations, and how we see the world. Understanding what our blind spots are – what is it that we don‘t see because of who we are. Being open to accepting different worldviews – not better or worse, just different. And, it‘s okay (or it should be) to say ?No, I don‘t see the world in the way that you do.?
?
?
REFLECTION: WORLDVIEWS (THE INNER PERSPECTIVE)
?
Can you identify assumptions underpinning your worldview?
FUTURES: INTEGRAL FUTURES
INTEGRAL FUTURES
?
Integral Futures ? Ken Wilber‘s four quadrants (www.kenwilber.com) SDI using the four quadrants Understanding your role in the process
?
?
INTEGRAL FUTURES
?
A holistic view of all phenomenon, not just the empirically observable or quantitative. Integrating Eastern and Western traditions, philosophies, sciences and approaches. Recognises that there are many ways of knowing, and that no one way is dominant.
?
?
WILBER‘S FOUR QUADRANTS
Interior Exterior
Intentional “I” Upper Left
Behavioural “It”
Upper Right Individual
Collective
Cultural “We” Lower Left Social “Its” Lower Right
THE SCARY VERSION OF WILBER
FOUR QUADRANTS: INDIVIDUAL
Interior Exterior
Individual values, beliefs attitudes and meaning
Intentional “I”
Observed Behaviour
Behavioural “It” Social “Its” Individual Collective
Cultural “We”
Cultural context of the individual, creates shared context
The collective external world
FOUR QUADRANTS: ORGANISATION
Interior Exterior
Staff
Organisational Behaviour
Individual Collective
Organisational Culture
External Positioning and Relationships
FOUR QUADRANTS: SDI
Interior
Views of Staff: Focus Groups, Interviews
Exterior
Inclusive Planning and Decision Making Processes: Strategic Planning Workshops, Strategic Plans Individual Collective Understanding the External Environment: Scanning, Delphi, SWOT, Scenario Planning etc.
Understanding the Internal Environment: Casual Layered Analysis, Slaughter’s Transformative Cycle, Anthropological approaches
FOUR QUADRANTS: SDI
Interior
Staff Business as Usual
We don?t get rewarded for how well we think or understand culture, so we don?t spend much time here
We get rewarded for our performance here, so we spend most time here
Exterior
Visible and measurable
Individual Collective
Organisational Culture
Strategy and „Fit”
Invisible & not measurable
UNDERSTANDING YOUR ROLE
Interior Exterior
Individual values, beliefs attitudes – your perspective and worldview, your meaning
Observed Behaviour
Individual
Collective
Cultural
External
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
All our knowledge is about the past, but all our decisions are about the future.
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know
What we know Most of what we need to know to make good decisions today is outside our comprehension: we don?t even know it?s there.
Interior
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
Exterior
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
Individual
Collective
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
What we don?t know we don?t know
What we know we don?t know What we know
INTEGRAL FUTURES
?
The future is not just ?out there‘, but ?in here‘ as well.
REFLECTION: INTEGRAL FUTURES
?
How is information about staff views of the future collected at your institution?
FUTURES IN STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT & IMPLEMENTATION
THE HOME OF FUTURES IN SDI
Futures Approaches and Methods Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen? Options
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Action
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL Inputs
things happening
Analysis
Interpretation
?what seems to be happening?? ?what‘s really happening??
Foresight
Prospection
Outputs
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
?what might happen??
?what might we need to do??
Strategy
?what will we do?? ?how will we do it??
What‘s happening?
What seems to be happening? What‘s really happening? What might happen?
Strategic Thinking Generating Options What might happen?
FUTURES AND SDI
Options
Foresight
What might we need to do?
What will we do?
Strategic Decision Making Making choices What will we do?
Decisions
How will we do it?
Strategic Planning Taking Action How will we do it?
Action
FUTURES AND SDI
Input
What’s happening?
Right hand quadrants
Gathering
Analysis
What seems to be happening?
Categorising
Interpretation
Contextualising Sense Making Innovation Left hand quadrants
What’s really happening? Prospection What might happen?
FUTURES AND SDI: INPUT
Input
Information Gathering
Focus on past, present and future. Collect qualitative and quantitative information.
?
Delphi
Genius based – sampling of expert opinions, reducing divergence over a series of surveys (Japan‘s futures program does this well)
?
Environmental Scanning
?
Voros - 4Q/11L scanning – taking into account both the worldview of the scanner and the worldviews of the users of the information. Integrating spiral dynamics into the equation. Aims to merge upper left and lower right quadrant activity. Choo (1998) – different levels: competitor intelligence, competitive intelligence, business intelligence, environmental scanning, social scanning (at level of country)
?
FUTURES AND SDI: ANALYSIS
Current approaches at this level are largely quantitative in nature.
Analysis
What seems to be happening?
Forecasting – extrapolates trends out, useful for short-term work.
Categorising
Cross Impact Analysis – how trends interact and impact on each other.
Trend Analysis – data over time, underpinned by assumptions about how data is behaving – those assumptions condition what we see in the data. Emerging Issues Analysis – looks earlier in the trend cycle to identify issues before they emerge in the mainstream. Moving beyond quantitative data focus.
FUTURES AND SDI: ANALYSIS
Global, multiple dispersed cases, trends and megatrends
Number of cases; degree of public awareness
Look on the fringe (weird and whacky!)
Government Institutions Newspapers, magazines, websites, journals
Late Majority Laggards
Scientists, artists, radicals, mystics
Mainstream Trends
Late Adopters
Emerging Issues
Few cases, local focus
Today
Innovators
Time
Early adopters
Worldview issues will affect uptake at this stage – “I don’t believe that!”
Future
Adapted from the work of Graham Molitor, Wendy Schultz and Everett Rogers
FUTURES AND SDI: Interpreting the analysis for the INTERPRETATION organisation’s context. Making sense of
the data for the organisation.
Contextualising Sense Making
Interpretation What’s really happening?
Most strategy work stops at this step. Decisions are made once interpretation has occurred.
FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
Levels of Structure
News Items
Recurring Themes Underlying ?Drivers?
Events
Patterns, Trends System Structure Mental Models Thinking Systems
Mindsets, Worldviews, Metaphors, Myths
?Core? Human Intelligences
Copyright © 2001 Joseph Voros
? What‘s really happening????? FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
?
Aim to challenge categories of analysis in the previous step – what does it mean? There are layers of reality, and layers of depth – how deeply do we want to go in interpretation? What is appropriate for my organisation?
?
? Macrohistory – SDI: cyclesINTERPRETATION of large scale change over FUTURES AND
time; how social systems change; grand unifying principles are sought.
?
Causal Layered Analysis (Sohail Inayatullah):
? ? ? ?
Litany Social causes Worldview Myth/metaphor
Particularly good for digging deep to find those valued assumptions
?
How do you challenge the prevailing worldview and assumptions underpinning it? What will your organisation be comfortable with?
FUTURES AND SDI: PROSPECTION
Focus on the future. Deriving a broader range of strategy options from the analysis: what options are available to us in the longterm? What might be the impact of those options in the longterm? What will influence those options? What are potential obstacles? Scenarios, visioning, futures workshops.
Prospection
Innovation What might happen?
FUTURES AND SDI: PROSPECTION
Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 1 Scenario 2
Scenario 3
Inductive
Scenario 4
Deductive Vision
Alternative scenario Official Future
Incremental
Normative
Adapted from Ged Davis, Scenarios as aTool for the 21st Century, Shell International, 2002
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL @ VU Inputs
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
Analysis
Interpretation
TREND/EMERGING ISSUES ANALYSIS
CAUSAL LAYERED ANALYSIS
Foresight
Prospection
Outputs
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
SCENARIO PLANNING
BROADER STRATEGIC OPTIONS
Strategy
DECISIONS IMPLEMENTATION
REFLECTION: FUTURES AND SDI
?
What methods would you use to establish strategy processes underpinned by futures input at your institution?
FUTURES: BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
Foresight: an often unconscious individual capacity to think about the future. Strategic Foresight: an organisational foresight capacity.
?
?
Foresight is the capacity to think systematically about the future to inform today's decision making. It is a capacity that we need to develop as individuals, as organisations, and as a society.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
Planning happens only after a decision has been made – you plan how you will implement the decision and keep track of achieving your goal.
?
A decision is made only after some strategic thinking has taken place.
?
How do you think strategically? How does an organisation ?think‘ strategically?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
Strategic thinking is about systematically and routinely:
?
using a wide range of information and data from the past and the present, including that held by individuals, using that information and data to consider a range of alternative and plausible scenarios about what might happen in the future, thinking about how the organisation might respond in terms of risks and opportunities if those scenarios came true – Van der Heijden‘s ?strategic conversations‘, and
?
?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
Without explorations of what the future might hold, strategic planning as we know it today creates a default scenario:
?
A future that validates the plan, and this view of the future dominates … decision making (Hodgson, 2004).
?
This is sometimes called the ?official‘ future - the one that‘s written in our vision and mission statements.
?
Not thinking about the future risks depending on a business-as-usual approach, or the ?official‘ future (also known as ?let‘s bet the farm cos I know best? sometimes espoused by some Vice-Chancellors).
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
Strategic thinking involves exploring:
?
Lower Left and Lower Right Quadrant factors in the internal and external environment that are critical uncertainties for the organisation, and recognises their interconnections and interdependencies, and Upper Left Quadrant hopes, dreams and images of the future held by individuals in the organisation.
?
?
Successful strategy development deals with both -
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
There will be many, many competing images of the future. Only when those images are articulated can the possibility of a shared view of the future – and a shared strategy - begin to emerge. You need overt organisational processes to be able to articulate images of the future. Because images reside in the Upper Left Quadrant, you need processes that engage people as individuals.
?
?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
All individuals have the capacity for foresight – we use that capacity every day. The aim is to move that individual capacity to a shared, organisational capacity.
?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
Individual foresight is: Strategic Foresight is:
unconscious implicit
Individuals recognise and build their foresight capacity
conscious explicit
Individuals begin to talk about and use futures approaches in their work
Individual capacities generate organisational capacity (through structures & processes)
solitary
Adapted from the work of Joseph Voros and Richard Slaughter
collective
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
Generates a challenge: strategic foresight takes time to develop because:
?
we are dealing with how people think, we are asking people to question their thinking and to surface the assumptions upon which their thinking is based – this is often scary and uncomfortable.
?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
And, in today‘s ?business‘ environment, it is easy to dismiss the need to think about the future.
?
?I am too busy dealing with the here and now to think about the future? (University Council member).
?
?I think about the future every day, and it‘s an insult that you are here to teach me how to think? (Deputy ViceChancellor).
?I don‘t get paid to think about the future, I get paid to produce results? (Corporate Director).
?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
In our jobs, we are rewarded not for thinking about the future, but for results in the present. We are rewarded for certainty in the present, not uncertainty about the future. We can speak confidently about the past and the present (or seem like we are), but it is difficult to speak confidently about the future.
?
?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
But, strategy is about the future.
?
Thinking about the future is thinking about uncertainty. How do we incorporate thinking about uncertainty, and hence, thinking about the future, into our decision making processes?
How do we demonstrate the value of taking time out in the present to consider long term issues to inform decision making today?
?
?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
1927 2007 2027
Past
Present
Future
Strategy Decisions
We start in the present, wanting to make strategy for the future.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
1927 2007 2027
Past
Present
Future
Strategy Decisions
Strategic Hindsight
With the power of strategic hindsight, we add in the past, and focus on trends over time, maybe taking those trends a few years into the future.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
1927 2007 2027
Past
Present
Future
Strategy Decisions
Strategic Hindsight
Strategic Foresight
To enhance your future strategy and make wiser decisions, you need to use the power of strategic foresight to explore the future – just as you explore the past and the present.
REFLECTION: BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
?
How will you convince whoever needs to be convinced of the value of strategic thinking using a futures approach?
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
? ? ?
?
? ? ? ? ?
Language Maintaining Support at the Top Organisational Positioning Organisational Context and Politics Thinking is Work Too People Implementation Worldviews and Assumptions – the ?glazed eye‘ syndrome Knowledge
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
?
Language
?
Get used to crystal ball jokes Choose terms that will be understood Develop clear and unequivocal messages about what you are doing, and why you are doing it Stay strong!
?
?
?
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
?
Maintaining Support at the Top
?
Obvious, but critical Need to ensure futures work is not dependent on an individual Need a CEO who will support you and follow through Not only CEO, but executive group
?
?
?
?
in my experience, it is this group that has the real influence on the degree to which futures work is accepted
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
?
Organisational Positioning
?
Setting up an organisational futures program is different to using futures approaches in your work.
?
At organisational level, needs clear mandate and support. The Viable Systems Model (VSM) is useful here. In your work, will depend on your job and your boss!
?
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
?
Organisational Context and Politics
? ? ?
This is the one I misread badly. Who needs to be involved? Who can derail your work? Futures work competes with the power of people‘s egos and personal positionings, animosities and ambitions. You need to understand these.
?
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
?
Thinking is Work Too
?
Convincing people to take time out to participate in futures work will be difficult. How many of you have commented along the lines of … ?if only I had time to think?? And, how many think planning workshops and retreats are usually a waste of time? We need to schedule in time to think.
? ?
?
?
We need to start viewing thinking as work too.
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
?
People
?
People doing futures work need established credibility and goodwill, because this work will strain working relationships:
?
?you were well respected when you worked in the teaching divisions, but once you started this foresight work, things went downhill‘ (said a DVC to me)
?
While you need to maintain support at the top, you will probably find that people at the ?grass roots‘ are more open to futures.
?
Feedback to my work suggests they like and see value in the
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
?
Implementation
?
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Conceptual framework Strong methodology Clear project plan – purpose and structure, roles and responsibilities Communication strategy – explain why there is value Differentiate between content and process
If we are to find out what staff think about the future, we need to let them tell us, not present them with prepackaged views of where the university should be going. Long term – this will take time.
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Worldviews
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Watch out for the ?glazed eye syndrome‘ (you are hitting a strong worldview when this happens).
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Challenging deeply held assumptions is critical but very, very difficult. Watch out for your own worldview – develop a strong, reflective understanding of how you see the world – what you look for, and what you miss altogether.
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Knowledge
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Need to have a firm grounding in the futures field and concepts.
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Reading a book is not enough (and deluded!)
If you are serious about this work, get a qualification in it, or use a futures consultant who specialises in knowledge transfer as part of the deal.
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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Doing futures work is both challenging and very hard work, but it will also be some of the most rewarding and exciting work you have ever done.
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It will change the way you think, and it will change the way you see the world.
STRATEGIC PLANNING REVISITED: SOME KEY MESSAGES
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Terminology: SDI Three steps (thinking, deciding, doing) Responsibility for future generations Past, present and future Integral approach – consider both inner and outer worlds/perspectives Understand your worldview and accept the worldviews of others Generic foresight model (input, analysis, interpretation, prospection) Strategic thinking and strategic foresight
PITCH MESSAGE HERE
BACK TO WORK
Have good organisational diagnostics: can smell the cheese, but will jump ship. Get it, and can use the system – very rare.
Don?t bother – they are waiting for you to fail!
They will follow you blindly – just like lemmings!
THANK YOU
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