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The Current State: Good Intentions, Poor Results Having spent the majority of my career as a finance professional for large, multi-national firms, I know intimately the herculean (and often fruitless) task of strategic and financial planning.

We’ve done the heavy lifting of experimenting with several tools and complied our reviews below. While not an exhaustive list, this article ranks top platforms based on effectiveness based on an environmental scanning use case.

Foresight Lessons from Disney’s Encanto Surely by now you’ve watched or at least heard of the new Disney animated film, “Encanto.” Having been quarantined over Christmas with my 14-year old, I had the pleasure of experiencing the tale of the Madrigals, an enchanted family from Colombia, more times than I care to admit. Due to my repeated viewings as I sheltered in-place on the precipice of COVID’s two-year anniversary, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between one of the movie’s…

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. Elliot A growing body of research suggests that our playgrounds are too safe. Apparently, giving children the ability to fail and recover builds not only resilience, but creativity and overall health. It may seem counterintuitive, but consider that if we don’t allow kids the opportunity to push the boundaries on their abilities (to “test the fences,” if you will), then when they…

We are operating in an increasingly complex environment, where linear and mechanistic processes do not work. To overcome this issue, The Futures School leverages a process that mimics natural growth curves.

How can we effectively use research to improve organizational decision making?

A failure of imagination is the undoing of many great design strategies. With Strategic Foresight, you scan to identify trends, analyze and identify patterns, create multiple future scenarios, and test strategies against these scenarios and adjust to make them adaptable.

In a recent Forbes article, Industrial and Organizational Psychologist, Sesil Pir, toutes why foresight is a critical skill set for all 21st century leaders. “We never experienced the volatility, ambiguity and complexity in managing all of our tasks. It is no secret we all struggle to find the capacity to meet different demands in our roles and have a growing need to be able to think and decide more holistically.” We could not agree more with Pir’s statement. We need…

The ideas that have historically guided us — hierarchical structures of society and organizations, top-down governance, segmented industries, intellectual property, personal ownership — are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

We know what you’re probably thinking: “Wow! Quite the title for a post. They went for it,” or “These guys have finally lost it… they’re nuts!” Well, we might be nuts. But that’s not the point. The point is that it’s time to f_____ culture. Of course, we’re not referring to any group’s national or societal culture. Rather, we’re talking about the system of shared values, beliefs and assumptions that governs how people behave within a company. You know, the…