Stay Curious, Stay Ready: The Power of Future Focus
Societies move through cycles. Right now, uncertainty is everywhere, with a disrupted climate, and increasingly strained resources, where trust in governments, institutions, economic systems, and media is eroding and when technology is reshaping how we live, work, and connect.
In this era of disruption, we’re facing challenges we’ve never encountered before. While no one knows what the future holds, adopting a future focus helps us navigate the unknown for managing risks but also for defining new pathways to value creation and resilience.
How you can apply a future focus
By taking the long view and staying curious, we can forge healthy discussions about what a changing future means for our company and what priorities should guide us in change.
Here are a couple of ways you can apply a future focus:
Put a stake in the ground like to 2035 or 2040, gather data and research on economic cycles, demographic and technological shifts, resource scarcity, and environmental disruptions that are relevant to your industry and have conversations with your experts on how these megatrends can possibly affect your company and value chain.
Engage your leadership team in conversation on the challenges of a changing society as a way of using your DMA to future-proof your business strategy and business models.
Enhance your double materiality assessment (DMA) by putting your risks and opportunities into a broader medium-, and long-term context.
Take the time to be a step ahead of how customer and stakeholder expectations can shift, giving you a competitive edge.
Developing plausible future scenarios is hard work. It requires tough, multidimensional discussions. There is no clear right or wrong answer; these conversations are guaranteed to be subjective. But without them, we risk short-term thinking and unrealistic solutions to complex problems.
Are you ready to tackle what’s coming around the corner? At The Pivot, we believe in anchoring future-focused insights into your strategy cycle. We’ve developed a method to integrate these future-focused insights and ensure your DMA informs your annual strategy review. Let's talk!