A Futurist Reveals How To Easily Plan For 2032
Female professional with brown hair and eyes imagines her company 10 years from now.
By Lisa Bodell for Forbes
A decade from now, what new products or services will your company offer? What skillset will your teams need to possess? What aspects of your workday will be less relevant or no longer apply? If your organization doesn’t have confident answers to all these questions, you’re in good company. Only 17% of executives reported that their organizations are actually planning for multiple versions of the future, according to Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report.
As a futurist who’s helped organizations like Fidelity, HBO and Novartis anticipate tomorrow, my go-to technique for long-term planning is called Picture the Future. It helps people strengthen their skills of visualization and learn how to effectively communicate innovative ideas. Start by gathering senior leaders as well as your innovation team for a 90-minute session.
Open with the following question: “The year is 2032 and our organization is a leading innovator. We’ve achieved a position of dominance in our industry, but how did we get here? As in, what specific decisions and actions enabled us to reach this level of success?”
To focus the creative process, direct participants to capture their answers individually or as a team to the following questions:
• What new things will we be selling or doing?