Foresight in Business & Society

Wrap Up, Takeaways, Final Thoughts© 2013 University of Notre Dame. All rights reserved. This PowerPoint

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Where it all began…

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is.

A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

Wayne Gretzky

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Envisioning YOUR Future…Envision your profession 10 years

out1. What current career paths have been

disrupted by Creative Destruction?

2. What new career options have been created by these same disruptions?

3. Backcast the journey to your ideal job▪ Have you gone back to college?▪ Have you worked in China or India?▪ Are you Fortune 100 or Entrepreneurial?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jan/09/jobs-of-the-future

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What are your takeaways from Foresight?

© 2013 University of Notre Dame. All rights reserved.

My Takeaways…

1. Markets, Industries, Technologies and Business Models

follow S-Curve shaped life cycles, with

declining returns as sectors mature.

Innovation (being Different) provides a means to break this pattern by creating new S-Curves.

Time© 2013 University of Notre Dame. All rights reserved.

My Takeaways…

2. Businesses tend to cling to their current S-Curvesas they strive to be BETTER.

Being DIFFERENT

requires jumping to a new

curve which involves risk.

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My Takeaways…

3. Disruptive Change is coming on several fronts: Sustainability Demography Emerging Middle Class Global Challenges

Change creates opportunity and is usually preceded by

weak signals that are often overlooked or misinterpreted.

Scanning can help us spot weak signals and Get There Early.

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My Takeaways…

4. Cognitive Constraints can distort our perception of change

• Trapping us in close Cognitive Proximity to the status quo

• Defer Judgment• Invert Figure-Ground• Look Through “Alien Eyes”• Use your Peripheral Vision

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My Takeaways…

5.Resiliency requires anticipation of multiple scenarios

Foresight tools can help add structure to this process and enable decision makers to:

• Embrace uncertainty• Envision implications of change• Make Foresight ACTIONABLE• Get There Early…

And Win Anyway

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A Couple of Final Thoughts...

Strive to be Different. (There is no shortage of tactical thinkers)

Develop a Scanning Core Competency - Scan Relentlessly (even when your boss thinks you are being unproductive)

Master the use of Imperfect Evidence

Imagine (and Suggest) Non-obvious Implications(seek collisions of hunches)

Be a Champion of Creative Destruction(create your own obsolescence)

1998 2002© 2013 University of Notre Dame. All rights reserved.

One Final Quote...

Discovery “consists of seeing whateveryone else has seen and thinking what no one has thought.”

Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi (1893 – 1986)Nobel Prize in Physiology (Medicine)

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