Incorporating Foresight Into Corporate: The Future of Work

I have a scholarship to Urgent Optimists, a community built around Jane McGonigal's book Imaginable. It's run by Institute of the Future where I completed my futures thinking certification last year. I found this video very applicable to the hybrid/remote work futurist consulting business I've been building. Here are my insights.

A Case Study: A Summary

According to BetterUp Labs, teams with future-minded leadership are 18 percent higher in innovation, 18 percent higher in performance, and 15 percent more resilient. However, even the most cutting-edge companies need help systematically thinking about the future.

Tessa Finlev, Head of Foresight at audio and visual technologies pioneer Dolby Labs, shares her journey building foresight capacity at a large organization from scratch. She describes her engagement approach with different stakeholders and how she created a Futures Council to incorporate a long-term, systems view of the world into Dolby’s work. See how one person is working to change a company culture, and you can too!

Takeaways

The first takeaway from this conversation about incorporating foresight into a role within an organization was that her role functions very much like a consultant working on the inside. The role that I'm creating could function either as an external consultant or as an internal employee - hybrid/remote work is a change management process at heart and most estimates indicate that it takes a good 12-18 months to successfully embed hybrid or remote into ongoing operations (when we are not implementing emergency procedures due to a pandemic).

These are the actions she says she took initially when she first took the role:

• conversation with the goal of building social capital
• listening
• communication
• developing relationships across the org chart

Key to Tessa's success in the role is a high level sponsor who gets and supports the vision. The foresight role sits in HR as this gives access and insight into the skills people in various areas of the organization have and could develop. She also created strategic matix reporting with technology and corporate strategy. Normally these types of roles sit in an innovation team but she finds it less of a silo to work at the intersection between HR, technology and corporate strategy.

Tessa is focusing on building a foresight practice within the organization that is:

• collaborative
• inclusive
• incorporating a range of perspectives and mindsets from all different roles across the organization

Tessa's goal is not to be the "sage on the stage" who knows everything . She wants to create foresight practice within the organization that is collaborative in order to avoid bias.

The Futures Council

Tessa is creating a hand chosen cohort of time travellers who participate in an initial 3 day workshop but the ongoing time commitment is only 1 day a month along with other volunteer opportunities throughout the year depending on workload.

The Time Traveller

An ideal time traveller is someone who is already:

• thinking long term
• thinking critically
• thinking about the human impact
• questioning things
• looking to grow and learn

Ideally time travellers have flexibility in their schedule.

The long term goal is to seed foresight capability around the company. She is targeting everyone because these are foundational, transferable skills that will be useful as people move roles and get promoted.

The Strategists

The second role in the futures counsel is the foresight strategist. These people tend to be in higher level roles as they have a better understanding of the company and the future strategy.

• strategists join in the flow of the work
• the goal is to design their involvement to make good use of their time
• they join a 3 hour workshop once a year

The Voter

The time travellers will be tracking and inputting the future trends the council gathers.

The voting process is a rating mechanism that will involve more people across the organization with a minimal time commitment. The voter is devoting the least amount of time to the foresight practice within the futures council.

Insights I Can Apply To My Hybrid/Remote Work Futurist Consulting

1. Develop relationships with C Suite Executives, especially those in HR, Technology and Corporate Strategy so I can locate a sponsor for the work.
2. Once hired, focus on building relationships and establishing social capital by listening and having conversations with people from all areas of the organization. Jump around the org chart.
3. Build a group of advocates to facilitate the changes, respecting workloads.
4. Focus on encouraging inclusion, collaboration and incorporating a range of perspectives and skills.
5. Consider working internally as a consultant for a large forward thinking organization who is willing to commit to ongoing support (ie Head of Hybrid or Remote Services) or acting as a fractional Head of Remote for multiple organizations.

Recently I completed the GitLab course "How to Manage a Remote Team" to underscore my credentials for serving as a head of hybrid/remote (whether internal or external). It's an excellent open source resource available on Coursera.

My work is powered by referrals so if you know someone who is looking for help creating future-focused strategies for hybrid or remote work that work effectively right now but also 5-10 years from now, I'd really appreciate it if you could introduce me to my next sponsor.

After you watch this video, what insights do you have about incorporating futures thinking into your organization?

If you'd like to join me in the Urgent Optimist community, here's an invitation to join.

I'm a top member and I'd love to be in community with you.

#foresight #FuturesThinking #Strategy #HybridRemoteWorkFuturist #Consulting