FUTURES UPDATE - ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE
Futures Update No. 3 'Anticipating the Future' is posted here.
Futures thinking in a leadership context is less about predicting the future and more about creating your preferred future. So although prediction is not the aim, anticipation is. This is because by anticipating the future, using futures methodologies such as emerging issues analysis (EIA), is a powerful scanning methodology to give us pre information, so we can prepare not just to survive in the future but to thrive in it.
The three main attributes of leadership, as proposed by Ron Heifetz, is to provide direction, protection and order. Futures thinking, in my view, offers us one of the best ways of doing this leadership function effectively. Anticipating the future through EIA is a powerful tool in providing protection.