Democratizing the future means a one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t do. Instead, we offer customized engagements and capacity-building programs to foster innovation, strengthen strategy development and transform organizational culture.
In our customized client engagements, we focus on creating positive futures through transformation, mapping a range of possible futures and emphasizing how to take advantage of untapped opportunities. We like to think of ourselves as the “optimistic futurists,” because we believe that — together — we have the power to make the future a better place.
At the heart of all of our offerings is our “Kedging Philosophy.”
A kedge is an anchor used on ancient sailing vessels. When there was no wind to fill the sails, members of the crew would get in a rowboat and drop the kedge far from the ship. Those remaining on the ship would pull themselves in the direction they wanted to travel.
When thinking about the future, we should imagine a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum are the trends and events that will push us into the future whether we like it or not. However, we prefer to focus on the other end of the spectrum, where it’s possible (and more desirable) to pull yourself toward the future you want. But that’s not all: if we purposefully and intentionally act on the future, we can pull its possibilities and opportunities to us. You might even say that we can “kedge” the future into the present.
With this metaphor in mind, we partner with organizations and individuals to “democratize the future,” helping them navigate a world of increasing complexity and empowering them to pull the future into their organizations, initiatives and lives.
Tell us about your goals and aspirations and we’ll design an engagement that addresses the needs of your organization. It’s our desire to partner with you to create the future and “teach you how to fish,” so that you can thrive independently far beyond the instructional focus we provide. We are experts at developing foresight capacity; building breakthrough strategy; solving long-standing problems; transforming organizations; seizing opportunities, and more!
Impact
CUSTOMIZATION
Our custom offerings span a continuum of customization – from off-the-shelf training experiences to guided, co-created scenario projects….
TFSX has years of experience delivering inspiring, engaging and provocative keynotes at conferences across the world. From topics such as the future of the workforce, to 21st century leadership skills, to foresight-empowered scenarios, we can provide the perfect speech tailored for your audience’s needs. Contact us to discuss your specific needs.
Any TFSX program can be hosted on-location (or live-online) as exclusive training for your leaders, foresight division, corporate university, educational institution, students, or employee development. Contact us to discuss your specific needs.
It is critical that an organization’s foresight literacy, capacity and skills are properly developed and multiplied. We are proud to be the only foresight firm with a documented case study in the establishment of a foresight competency in a Fortune 100 multi-national, and it’s this unique expertise we will bring to your internal foresight capacity building efforts. Contact us to learn more.
Crafting quantitative and qualitative scenarios around the short and long-range future of an industry will help a business to build robust decisions, priorities and strategies that shape contexts and markets by anticipating the interaction between social, technological and economic forces. TFSX utilizes an integral and multi-layered scenario development approach, ensuring that organizations are given a tool that will help them to stay on course year after year.
“By mastering Futures Thinking, we are no longer trapped in chasing our own tail by forecasting based on outdated historical data; we begin to unlock the opportunities before they become widely available to other market players. By doing this, our company begins to pioneer the market changes and becomes a true industry innovator.”
Evgeny Lavrov, The Walt Disney Company CIS
Foresight-Fueled Integration: Walt Disney International
Facing aggressive growth targets coupled with a need to significantly increase its workforce, Walt Disney International (WDI) decided to launch an effort to prepare for the future.
Walt Disney International spearheaded a foresight effort, specifically following the Natural Foresight® Framework, that included fifteen Futures Teams established in 10 geographic regions. Through this multi-year engagement, hundreds of new futurists were trained and dozens of advanced practitioners were identified to lead the integration of sustainable foresight across its markets. Some of tangible outcomes resulting from this organization-wide competency development include:
• More than 500 leaders around the globe were trained in the Natural Foresight® approach and immediately began applying the standard toolkit.
• Traditional strategic planning processes have been revamped to include futures intelligence and scenario planning, and the organization has pursued specific business strategies as a direct result of its foresight efforts.
• To support change management efforts, advanced practitioners were selected to receive additional training and became foresight trainers.
• Broader company leadership has taken notice, declaring Strategic Foresight as one of the top enterprise-wide leadership competencies.
Foresight-Fueled Strategy: Orlando Economic Partnership
After a successful merger, the Orlando Economic Partnership (OEP) was embarking on an ambitious plan to reconceptualize economic development to achieve broad-based prosperity. OEP was seeking to sequence its strategic priorities with an immersive, participatory and future-focused approach that ensured stakeholder ownership.
Building upon OEP’s transformative strategic framework and its vision for “a regional approach to broad-based prosperity,” Kedge assisted the organization by leading a collective effort which engaged leadership, staff and stakeholders in creating the future today. This ambitious plan to reconceptualize economic development through participatory engagement to achieve broad-based prosperity kicked-off in May 2018 with a goal to inform the Fiscal Year 2019 plan.
After an immersion phase which included: targeted interviews, a Delphi survey administered to over 300 individuals and extensive trend research; Kedge lead OEP and its stakeholders through the process of discovering, exploring, mapping, and creating strategic transformations with a series of face-to-face foresight-fueled work sessions. The result was Launch to Tomorrow, an ambitious three-year plan that has established an updated modality for the development, validation, and implementation of regional priorities.
“We are prepared for, and dedicated to, shaping tomorrow. This manifesto is reflected in the myriad of regional initiatives underway from substantial investment in our infrastructure, business-friendly governance and collaborative educational ecosystem to our accelerated implementation of sustainable solutions and commitment to inclusivity. The spirit of innovation through technology propels Orlando forward.”
The Orlando Economic Partnership
“TFSX makes the art and science of Strategic Foresight not only more approachable and actionable, they make it a joy to tackle. In our current environment, Strategic Foresight is a necessity but it can be hard to apply the theory to a corporate environment. With the suite of tools and the different approaches they shared, we can begin to create the operating system we need to prepare our organization for the future.”
“This is one of the most engaging projects and concrete self-empowerment tools that I’ve experienced in my whole career, and I’m firmly convinced it could become more than just a training experience in Disney. And I’m not the only one to have this feeling in the team!”
