Organizations increasingly are having some sort of ‘Futurist’ roles. These individuals are typically tasked with anticipating future trends and create long-term strategies.
However, I believe, rather than having specialised role of a ‘futurist’, every leader must be somewhat of a futurist.
As encyclopedia defines, Futuring is the field of using a systematic process for thinking about, picturing possible outcomes.
Futuring is not necessarily only long-term planning but more about dealing with uncertainty and in a fast-changing world, uncertain situations can also be in short-term.
Futuring is a skill and can be developed. Couple of things leaders or perspective futurists can do:
- Learn to deal with uncertainties rather than planning solely for time horizon (strategic planning)
- Be idealistic, rather than realistic. Idealism brings optimism.
- Use Futuring to fire your imagination rather than predictions.
Thinking Space 