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p.4 This book... is about one of the most important ingredients for success in today's world - Strategic Foresight - with which you can prepare for the future, navigating the uncertainty and change around you.
p.5 An avid learner and incurably curious, I worked my way from a science and mathematical background through to systems thinking and complexity theory. I stumbled on Strategic Foresight and tools in my strategy work and my experience is that this is the most important set of skills and tools in any leader's tool set.
p.9 Everyone needs foresight... if they want to be consistently successful.
p.10 Strategic foresight tools enable you to discover which potential futures are possible... And then to decide which one(s) you would prefer. Further work on these preferred potential futures points to where you can influence them and how you can co-create those futures that you collectively would rather see happen.
p.10 If you've had success in your life, you've probably used foresight to get there.
p.11 Strategic Foresight is needed in organizations so that they flourish, remain viable and endure.
p.12 Strategic foresight is open to alternative futures, that is, you work with several futures... because you know that you can't predict the future... It can evolve in different directions and, using Strategic Foresight, you can determine which are possible, which are probable, and from that you can figure out what you can influence.
[JLJ - In this case the bold font is the choice of the author, rather than my own for identifying what I find interesting. What is missed here, in my opinion, is that in many cases where we are limited in what we can influence, we can still adopt a posture with the capacity to adapt to any future that emerges, whatever that is. Scenario planning is then essentially part of a diagnostic test of that ability to adapt, in the unknown future.]
p.14 Strategic Foresight can help you to manage uncertainty, improve your decision-making, your implementation of strategy and your ability to adapt to and cope with future change and challenge... Practising Strategic Foresight helps you begin to see what you can influence, what you can control and what you can't.
p.19 The reason that you develop a strategy is to make sure that you/your business remains continuously relevant to the unfolding future so that you can flourish and endure not just today but also tomorrow.
[JLJ - Yes, but this strategy almost certainly needs to have elements that resemble more or less an effective scheme - it needs to be able to handle any future that arises, any counter-scheme, and it needs to be able to work when executed by people who do not hold the entire picture in their minds, but only a part. A practical scheme is a library of potential actions - only some of which become activated now, and the rest only when called for by conditions. The scheme is based on practical, experienced tricks that usually work, and which always can be done over and over again. Call it a strategy if you like. Practical people often prefer to operate a successful scheme, which allows them to 'go on' in an uncertain future, in a competitive world.]
p.21 When you use Strategic Foresight you are... identifying what is possible and, most importantly, what you can influence, which puts you in a position of ability (you are ABLE to do something about a given situation). This makes it easy for you to take responsibility.
p.34 Strategic Foresight is about action, so explore how willing you are to act on what you discover.
[JLJ - Well no, Strategic Foresight is about disciplined thought regarding decisions regarding how to 'go on,' which at times involves action and the coordinating of actions, and at times a positioning or a delaying of action until a later/better time. It is all about intelligently and strategically forming a posture in the present with a certain capacity for action - the circumstances will dictate whether we actually act or not. It is a positioning of us (individual or collective) against the them - the driving forces, some of which seek to tear down what has been carefully built up, and an investing of resources, with an expected payback at a later time. This posture can - like automobiles traveling side-by-side at highway speeds - result in actions with absolute physical motion, but relatively no change in position.]
p.35 One of the valuable outcomes of Strategic Foresight is that you will learn from the future. You can do this by experimenting with Strategic Foresight and experiencing a set of futures in your mind... This gives you a starting point in the learning journey towards understanding and using Strategic Foresight.
[JLJ - My own view is that there is only the present moment - it emerges from the present of a moment ago, as played out by the elements and driving forces clashing in the way that they do. This present moment contains our memories of past-presents, some of which are deemed relevant by our subconscious and we are made aware of in our consciousness, as well as premonitions of future-presents. The 'future' always exists as a premonition - an intuition, which can be shaped or disciplined by the use of Strategic Foresight tools of various kinds, and the results of which we are free to ignore or attend to, as we intelligently see fit.]
p.39 People often feel uncomfortable with ambiguity and complexity... Rather than ignoring the ambiguity, Strategic Foresight encourages you to play with it and see what is possible... It enables you to see exactly where you have some control and influence and where you don't.
p.42 When you are exploring different potential futures you need to learn how to imagine the continuum unfolding in a probable way. You need to quickly recognise patterns and when things are beginning to change... and integrate what you notice and see into what yo do
p.52 As human beings, we make sense of the world around us through stories.
[JLJ - Alternatively, by reading or listening to stories deemed relevant by our news sources, coworkers or family members, we come to understand the driving forces of the world, as well as the values held by the storyteller.]
p.63 Strategic Foresight is all about identifying the changes you need to make in order to sustain your organisation and help it succeed or be relevant or useful in the future. And once you've identified them, to actually make the changes - to really engage and 'make it so'
p.78 Good Environmental Scanning is a habit you need to develop for the practice of successful Strategic Foresight
p.80 The STEEPLE framework is used to search for trends. It stands for:
- Social
- Technology
- Economic
- Environment
- Political
- Legal
- Ethical
[JLJ - Curiously, Loveridge, Foresight, 2009, uses a similar framework, and also fails to cite the origins: p.18 Wilson sets out an approach to thinking with concepts (Wilson 1971), an important aspect of any act of anticipation and of systems thinking... An important adjunct to Wilson's ideas is the use of six themes (Social, Technological, Economic, Ecological, Political and Values - acronym STEEPV) that pervade foresight and systems, and place their concepts, facts and values in context.]
p.86 Mapping is one of the tools you can use to help you to recognize patterns of change and relationships between different aspects of what you notice so that you can see how these influence each other, how to make sense of it all. This helps you to see where to change effectively.
p.88 Filling in the map happens when you do Horizon Scanning or Environmental Scanning... You look for emerging trends and pockets of the future that you see happening today... For the initial map, it's enough to create a visual representation of what you see, the trends you notice emerging and the relationships you see. On a second pass, try to come up with interconnections, dependencies and cause and effect.
p.90 Next, start the 'mapping as you go' part. Link the emerging trends and weak signals you've noted to what is happening today... It is foggy out there... So you explore to find out all that you can.
p.94 The systems that you are mapping are made up of wicked problems and messes... and are constantly changing, so mapping what is there is a continuous process; you need to keep filling in (and rubbing things out) on the map as you go. Nothing 'out there' stands still, change is endemic and fast-paced and whatever intervention you are thinking of making will have knock-on effects that you can't fully imagine.
p.96 Start by mapping where the multiple changes interact. How might they amplify or accelerate other changes? How might they constrain other changes? These interactions will become the building blocks - through... deeper exploration - for developing narratives and building scenarios that provide a true stretch from today's reality.
p.97 Each future began with a set of trends which are pockets of the future that are occurring today.
p.99 Valve [JLJ - a successful gaming company] quickly got good at creating things that hadn't yet existed... Its structure is always open to redesign - if a better way can be found, it will be taken advantage of.
p.102 Mapping helps you to begin to understand what you can and cannot control... sometimes you have to go forward even without having sufficient control, and that is when you take it into account and at least acknowledge an area of uncertainty.
p.102 You may come across different frameworks and tools to 'deal' with systems.
p.102 A system is any group of interacting, interrelated or inter-dependent parts that form a complex and unified whole which has a specific purpose. Interdependency of parts put together for a purpose is key here
p.103-104 Systems thinking uses the model of an iceberg to help see systems in their context. Events are things that occur every day; things happen. If you ask the question "What happened?" you have an event... Patterns are what you might notice if you look at all the events together. The tool of mapping helps you see patterns by giving you the ability to connect the events you experience and make sense of them... Finally systemic structures are what cause the patterns and events you notice; it is the way the system is organised and put together.
p.105 David Snowden, with his Cynefin Framework... has a useful model that helps to define the different operational contexts in which you may find yourself... Obvious and complicated contexts assume that the universe is ordered, that you can see cause and effect relationships and there will be a right answer or answers... Complex and chaotic contexts assume an unordered universe with no apparent relationship between cause and effect. These would be messes... In these contexts there is no right answer.
p.105-106 Snowden differentiates between complex contexts where cause and effect are difficult to see and perhaps can only be seen in retrospect and chaotic contexts where cause and effect are constantly shifting. In the complex context the leader probes first, then makes sense and finally responds. In the chaotic context, the leader acts first, then makes sense of how that worked and then responds.
p.106 Most of what you encounter - what you face at work - isn't actually a simple (also called tame) problem, one which usually has a clear definition and a solution, even if that solution is difficult to find and implement. Rather, it is what is termed a wicked problem, one which cannot be completely defined, nor the definition agreed upon between stakeholders, nor can it be completely 'solved'.
p.107 Russell Ackoff used the term mess to refer to a system of inter-related problems that are to inextricably intertwined that they cannot be separated... In terms of Strategic Foresight, messes are obstacles in your path to a preferred future... The behavior of a mess depends more on how the different parts/problems within it interact than on how they act independently of one another. This means that you can't really solve a mess, but you can manage it... Messes are exacerbated by complexity.
p.108 The maps you have developed will help you to see the linkages between different elements of the larger system(s) and through this you begin to get an idea of how changing any particular bit of the system impacts on the various parts of the system... the map you have drawn always contains some assumptions... and these will influence how you think about the particular system, challenge or obstacle you are exploring
p.109 Another frequently made assumption is that a single discipline or expertise will be sufficient to solve a problem.
p.110 What you and I encounter today... isn't clearly defined... What you have is a set of undefined, unclear problems which, when you look into it, is actually part of a mess. Any intervention applied to a particular problem or leverage point will have a knock-on effect which may well be hard to predict. In any event, it is necessary to think about how it will affect the mess - or the whole system - to try and uncover any unintended consequences and mitigate them (or perhaps make a different intervention). The maps you have developed will enable you to better see where the impacts are and how they may ripple out across a system.
p.111 Once you solve a simple problem (or exercise) it remains solved. It doesn't suddenly unsolve itself... Wicked problems and messes do not really have a solution... You can't solve messes; but they can be coped with or managed.. Messes need to be managed systemically... Any potential solutions will of necessity be a property of the whole system. They can only be good or bad because they are improving things in the system/situation or not.
p.112 If you can't solve a mess, you can manage it, by... exploring the trade-offs and working to improve the situation. If it improves the situation, do more of it; if the situation gets worse, try something else. There is no template or structured method to follow that will work in all cases... So you need to make things up as you go, trying things out as you work towards generating a shared understanding of the problem/mess and use your maps to help you when working with emerging messes and systems. Accept and learn from experimentation, rather than thinking about 'failure' when emergent outcomes are unexpected, and you are well on your way to successfully managing the mess.
p.138 VERGE is a framework which helps you to think robustly and thoroughly about the impacts of a particular change from a personal/human viewpoint... VERGE focuses on how change ripples across the various segments of our experience.
p.139 Define... Relate... Connect... Create... Consume... Destroy
p.151 Appreciative Inquiry first explores what you are good at, then what you could do with that... before focusing on what you choose to do and how you tackle any obstacles you might meet.
p.152 Define... Discover... Dream... Design... Deliver/Destiny... [repeat]
p.155 Change - especially change based on Strategic Foresight... is always part of an ongoing process working with what you are able to influence so that you get to a preferred, agreed future. You can co-create it as you go. And you can keep adjusting to make sure it stays fit for purpose. Appreciative inquiry gives you the iterative process that will do this
p.157 At the beginning of the book, I talked about using Strategic Foresight being like preparing to run a marathon. You wouldn't consider running a marathon without preparation!
[JLJ - I do not fully understand Lustig's reasons for choosing this particular example. A marathon will always be 26.2 miles, and will always be competed by individuals running on solid pavement of some kind, without any kind of assistance other than simple refreshments offered along the way, and interval timing displayed to the contestants. This is all a given - a traditional marathon will never suddenly change to 40 miles, say, or require you to hop on one foot, or tie one leg together with another runner, or use a sack to jump in, or to have to run blindfolded (or without air) for part of the way, etc. Since this is the case, what you need to successfully finish such a race is a preparation or training scheme that usually works - such as one suggested by Runner's World, where you get your weekly mileage to total 50 miles or more, use proper diet and taper you runs in preparation for the race. Running 6 days a week for 8.33 miles a day, a marathon is *only* 3.1 times your daily run distance - something that is certainly achievable. This preparation *trick*, if properly executed, usually *works* over and over again, and really requires only that you execute a certain training schedule. I suppose this is a kind of foresight, but true strategic foresight involves a shifting playing field, the equivalent of the finish line changing to 40 miles, or a 2 mile swim appearing in the race. Now what? Foresight involves looking for signs of change and adapting to the possibilities ahead of time. All I am saying here is that I personally think that a better example could have been chosen.]
p.165 Strategic Foresight is exercised with the intent to do something... with the information you uncover and develop into knowledge.
p.166 Systems Thinking - recognising systems and how things link together and are interconnected - is a key skill for the practice of Strategic Foresight.
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