The future will be different, right? We all know that. But HOW will it be different? That’s the critical question you need to answer if you’re responsible for the future success of a company, or a product being launched in a market, or any particular mission that you might be on – in business or otherwise.
That’s because the decisions you make today will all play out, determining whether you are successful or not, in some future “landscape,” not necessarily in the one that is all around you today.
So as managers and leaders, thinking about the future is a must. Unfortunately, when many people try to visualize the future, they see it more or less as a continuation of the present. Maybe a little more of this and a little less of that, but essentially a very similar landscape to today’s terrain. It’s as if they see the journey into the future like traveling on a long straight road, and at the end of this road, on the horizon, the “future” is already clearly visible.
And the big mistake they make is that they make plans according to this misconception.
In reality, the road isn’t straight, and there’s a good chance that instead of leading you to the horizon that you believed you were heading for, it takes you instead into a totally different terrain. In other words, you find yourself in a business environment in which many important factors may be dramatically different from today’s – from customer behaviors and economic conditions to new technologies, new political frameworks, and new competitors.
How can you correct this misleading mindset? The best antidote for this way of thinking is to make use of a foresight technique called scenario planning.
Scenario planning shows you that not just one landscape could materialize in the future, but several alternative landscapes, depending on how the big uncertainties in your strategic environment turn out. We call these different landscapes “scenarios.” Scenario planning allows you to visualize these futures relatively clearly and even identify specific opportunities and challenges that you would probably encounter in these different futures – which in turn allows you to make better plans and strategies today.
So it has immense practical value.
In this presentation, you will learn how this powerful methodology works. You’ll grasp the structured logic of its approach to the future, and from several real-life examples, you’ll see for yourselves what it can do for you.
Despite its forward-looking orientation, scenario planning is not a tool for predicting the future, but for exploring it. And understanding its implications for your strategy. In business, this is a superpower!
Join internationally recognized scenario planning expert and author Woody Wade for this unique opportunity to add a new tool to your strategic toolkit.
