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4 benefits of strategic foresight
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Transform your enterprise with the scalable mindsets, skills, & behavior change that drive performance.
Explore how BetterUp connects to your core business systems.
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Unlock performance potential at scale with AI-powered curated growth journeys.
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We live in a fast-changing world.
Often, it feels like rapid change. Unplanned. And perhaps, even chaotic. Now more than ever, the social, political, and economic environments shape organizational responses.
Think of all our world has experienced in just the past two years. A global pandemic, social and political unrest, war, the rise of remote work, grief, loss, uncertainty, and more.
And while it may feel like so many circumstances and events are out of your control, it’s possible to build future-mindedness. It’s possible to be strategic. And it’s possible that your organization can navigate uncertainty with confidence. That’s where strategic foresight comes into play.
In fact, according to our research, adopting a future-minded mindset works. Future-minded leaders who practice pragmatism and optimism and envision future events have higher-performing teams. Combine future-minded leaders with strategic foresight. The result? Your business — and people — come out on top.
In this article, you’ll learn about strategic foresight. You’ll also learn why strategic foresight is beneficial to your organization — and how to use it to keep a step ahead.
First, let’s define what strategic foresight means.
Strategic foresight is the ability to look ahead and provide insight into what might happen in the future. This future-minded decision-making is based on various methods, processes, and tools.
When we think about what strategic foresight means, it’s about iterative exploration. An organization can assess, shape, and adapt to what happens in the world around us.
Strategic foresight is also called future studies. It’s a foresight process that adopts a futures thinking that looks at possible futures and scenario planning. Futurists are often able to think through alternative futures.
At BetterUp, we like to think future-mindedness and strategic foresight go hand-in-hand. It’s a symbiotic relationship of sorts. For an organization to practice strategic foresight, its leaders need to be future-minded.
If you’re looking for a magic crystal ball into the future, let’s take a pause. Strategic foresight does not predict the future. It’s essential to understand what strategic foresight isn’t, especially as you plan for your organizational performance.
It’s not definitive. It’s not set in stone. It’s not bound to a specific result or desired outcome. Strategic foresight should be treated as a living, breathing organism. It’s a malleable, evolving, and iterative strategic process.
And strategic foresight alone won’t help to plan strategically. If you think about strategic foresight as a whole pie, there are ingredients needed to plan holistically. We’ll talk about the differences between strategic foresight and strategic planning later.
So, you might be wondering why it’s important to use strategic foresight for your organization. On its face, strategic foresight can seem nebulous. Does it actually work? What’s the point of strategic foresight? What are the benefits?
We’ve compiled four benefits of strategic foresight to consider.
It’s common that strategic foresight and strategic planning are coupled together. But these two phrases and practices aren’t synonymous. Here are some key differences to note.
Let’s think of strategic planning as a tool in the toolbox that is strategic foresight. Here are some key characteristics of strategic planning.
I like to think about strategic planning as a pillar of strategic foresight. For example, let’s say you run a restaurant. Before COVID-19, you did not have an online ordering system or curbside pickup.
But as part of your strategic foresight, you’ve selected a software system that has the capacity to do online orders. You might not have planned for a global pandemic. But thinking about the future, you know that things like DoorDash and other online ordering were on the rise. You considered the possibility of earning revenue from online ordering.
As COVID-19 unfolded across the globe, you decided to pull this lever. You put together a strategic plan to execute your online ordering and curbside pickup system.
You evaluated competitors and other restaurants who are doing the same in response to the pandemic. You took a closer look at your workforce management and staffing needs. You evaluated your budget, forecasted for the future, and determined where your financial resources were needed most.
As a result of your strategic foresight, you were able to put into place a strategic plan. The plan itself is different from your strategic foresight. The plan is a thread and actionable goal that results from strategic foresight.
Strategic foresight can be used to stay competitive in the marketplace. Here are four ways you can use strategic foresight to keep your business a step ahead.
The preferred future often doesn’t happen. And there are plenty of methodologies to adopt that can help predict probable futures. But even the best planners need to adopt horizon scanning to help put strategic foresight into practice.
Different futures and different outcomes require drivers of change. Without decision-makers who are drivers of change, strategic foresight dissolves into strategic planning. It takes a long-term look at what the future holds, not a short term.
How are you fostering future-minded leaders in your organization? What biases can you break around change and uncertainty? How are you gathering inputs and metrics around foresight methods?
With BetterUp, your workforce can thrive in change and uncertainty. Consider the role personalized coaching can have in your strategic foresight plans.
Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change. She holds a bachelor's in English Creative Writing and Communication Studies and lives in Denver, Colorado. In her spare time, she's usually somewhere outside (preferably in the mountains) — and enjoys poetry and fiction.
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