No one ever imagined about the paradigm change that this pandemic has brought in the way we live and work. Leaders at various organisations have to chart out their growth path and guide their teams in these tumultuous times. 

In the midst of the global pandemic, leaders have an urgent need to prepare for the future but the core question that they are facing in these uncertain time is How can we formulate a strategy in the face of uncertainty?

Leadership was already facing uncertain challenges in terms of rapid technological changes, economic interdependence, glocal political scenarios, etc. VUCA – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity or TUNA – Turbulent, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity, matrices were developed to capture the dimensions arising from the above issues.

In 2019, Leaders adopted short-term mechanisms in coping with uncertainty often affecting innovation for favouring the more predictable present at the cost of the future.

The year 2020 arrives with the COVID !!

Survival in the present takes precedence over planning for the future. The stakes are high and the decisions made today shall have its ramifications for years, if not decades as leaders who manage their way through the crisis, need a way to link current moves with the future outcomes.

Whats is the best way to proceed?

Strategic foresight helps leaders to imagine multiple futures in many creative ways that heighten their ability to sense, shape, and adapt to what happens in the years to come. The most recognizable tool of strategic foresight is Scenario Planning.

It involves several stages: identifying forces that will shape future market and operating conditions; exploring how those drivers may interact; imagining a variety of plausible futures; revising mental models of the present on the basis of those futures; and then using those new models to devise strategies that prepare organisations for whatever the future actually brings.

If companies want to make an effective strategy in the face of uncertainty, they need to set up a process of constant exploration—one that allows top managers to build permanent but flexible bridges between their actions in the present and their thinking about the future.

Limitations of our past experiences

Uncertainty stems from our inability to compare the present to anything we’ve previously experienced. When situations lack analogies to the past, we have trouble envisioning how they will play out in the future. In situations of uncertainty -most business decisions taken during these times, we can only guess what might happen.  We lack the experience to gauge the most likely outcome. In fact, we might not even be able to imagine the range of potential outcomes.

Leaders use their intuition and base their decisions on judgments which may or may not run out to be correct.  In times of uncertainty, we run up against the limits of experience, so we must look elsewhere for judgment.

That’s where strategic foresight comes in. In order to survive and thrive over time, organizations need to both exploit existing competencies and explore new ones. They need to be “ambidextrous.”

Getting Started

The prospect of organising a scenario exercise can intimidate the uninitiated. There are distinct benefits to enlisting one of the individuals, boutique consultancies, or even large firms that specialize in scenarios to provide helpful direction. However, regardless of who runs the process, managers should follow these key guidelines:

Invite the right people to participate.

One of the chief purposes of a scenario exercise is to challenge mental models of how the world works. To create the conditions for success, you’ll need to bring together participants who have significantly different organizational roles, points of view, and personal experiences. You’ll also need people who represent the three powers necessary for any effective conversation about strategy: the power to perceive, the power to think, and the power to act.

Identify assumptions, drivers, and uncertainties.

It’s important to explicitly articulate the assumptions in your current strategy and what future you expect will result from its implementation. Think of this scenario as your projected scenario—but recognize that it’s just one of many possible futures, and focus on determining which assumptions it would be helpful to revisit. In doing this you disaggregate transactional actors, which you can influence or control, from environmental forces, which you cannot. How might those forces combine to create different possible futures?

Imagine plausible, but dramatically different, futures.

This can be the most difficult part of the exercise, particularly for those used to more analytical modes of thinking. Push yourself to imagine what the future will look like in five, 10, or even 20 years—without simply extrapolating from trends in the present. This takes a high degree of creativity and also requires the judgment to distinguish a scenario – an inherently subjective task. Good facilitators can both prime the imagination and maintain the guardrails of reality.

Inhabit those futures.

Scenario planning is most effective when it’s an immersive experience. Creating “artefacts from the future,” such as fictional newspaper articles or even video clips, often helps challenge existing mental models. It’s also a good idea to disconnect participants from the present, so hold workshops off-site and discourage the use of phones at them.

Isolate strategies that will be useful across multiple possible futures.

Form teams to inhabit each of your far-future worlds, and give them this challenge: What should we be doing now that would enable us to operate better in that particular future? Create an atmosphere in which even junior participants can put forward ideas without hesitation. Once the groups develop strategies for their worlds, bring them together to compare notes. Look for commonalities, single them out, and identify plans and investments that will make sense across a range of futures.

Implement those strategies.

This may sound obvious, but it is the place where most companies fall down. Using scenario planning to devise strategies isn’t resource-intensive, but implementing them requires commitment. To couple foresight with action, leaders should set up a formal system in which managers have to explain explicitly how their plans will advance the firm’s new strategies.

Realistically, foresight will not drive every initiative, but scenario exercises can still be valuable in several ways. First, they can provide participants with a common language to talk about the future. Second, they can build support for an idea within an organization so that when the need for implementation becomes clear, it can move faster. Finally, they can enable participants to act at the unit level, even if the organisation as a whole fails to link the present and future as tightly as it should.

Ingrain the process.

In the long run, you’ll reap the greatest value from scenario exercises by establishing an iterative cycle—that is, a process that continually orients your organization toward the future while keeping an eye on the present, and vice versa. This ambidexterity will allow you to thrive under the best of conditions—and it’s essential for survival under the worst. Moving in a loop between the present and multiple imagined futures helps you to adjust and update your strategies continually.

Conclusion

As the current pandemic has made clear, needs and assumptions can change quickly and unpredictably. Preparing for future demands constant reappraisal. Strategic foresight—the capacity to sense, shape, and adapt to what happens—requires iterative exploration, whether through scenario planning or another method.

Of course, strategic foresight also enables companies to identify opportunities and amplifies their ability to seize them. Organizations don’t just prepare for the future. They make it. Moments of uncertainty hold great entrepreneurial potential.

It takes strength to stand up against the tyranny of the present and invest in imagination. Strategic foresight makes both possible—and offers leaders a chance for legacy.

After all, they will be judged not only by what they do today but by how well they chart a course toward tomorrow.