o d d you like successful futures for existingfacilities includes meeting rooms, conferencing yourself and the organisations that

equipment, flip charts, wipe boards, projector screens, you are involved with? Perhaps computer monitors, e n a b h g softwareand printmg palm futures that include environmental At the conclusion of the article, some new types of sustainability, lots of delighted facilities are described. customers and mountains of cash? If successful fi~turw your preferred option, it is u e u to MFTA-FORESIGHT are sfl have foresight. The capability to see underlying trends in technologies, This article explains why enhancing the foresight of products and markets can be described as meta-foresight. individualsand organisations requires specialfacilities. There is much information available to help us achieve it. First of all, three types of foresight are defined, followed Often, such information is presented in business by the limitations of existing facilities. Here, the term intelligence reports or books about the future of

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CompetitioL Such itformation can be useful,but it can also be misleading, Consider,for example, books and reports that claim there is an irresistible trend towards consumem becoming 'CoQ-eatorS of value' in a 'experience economy', n There may be something in this idea. Nonetheless, there are significant factors that can limit the 'experience economy'. Alreadx companies offering consumers the opportunitY to personalise products, such as coffee,via the internet have failed, More fundamentailJrthen? is evidence indicating that having too much choice can make consumers unhappy Such failures to address important evidence and fundamental issues can make information about underlying trends very misleading. As well as information, there are also methodologiesto help us to see underlying trends and their potential consequences. Scenario planning,for example, involves exploring different possible Futures, These alternative futuresmay cover best, worse and 'somethmg i between' n scenarios. Thus, scenario planning avoids the need to gamble on one potential future,This is good - but scenarios can be extremely difficult to translatei n u plans for action.

MACRO-FORESIGHT
The capability to see concepts that would lead to the s u m exploitation or adaptation of underlying trends can be described as macro-foresight, for example, the capability to envisage new business models and/or new product types. There is plenty of information available to help us envisage concepts- there mmany books available about strategic planning but again these resources can have someserious limitations. Consider, for example, the challenge of just trying to figure out what strategic planning is. There are at least 10Merent schools of thought -these have been described as environmena cl pmeq learnin&ccgni* design, u m planning, positioning and entrepreneurial. Each of these carries with it a point of view - a point of view that has its own partlm limitations. U ~ o ~ t e ~ l q limitations these : are s l o stated explicitly It may seem unrealistic to expect edm management scientists to set out thelimitationsof their

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Altogether, the limitations outlined above mean that existing types of information and methodologies can do a s much to impair foresight as to enhance it. A compounding problem is that the facilities that are available to us today also have some limiting effects on foresight. Consider the meb-foresight challenge of trying to see underlying trends in technologies,products, markets, etc. At present, it i s very difficult for severalpeople to look at, and to understand, numerous differenttypes o information f in the same way at the same time. Currently, we have MICRO-FORESIGHT The capability to see which actions can take you from your documents, spreadsheets and diagrams that we look at in present situation to the successful future that you have sequence. Each person looks at the words and numbers envisaged can be described a s micreforeslght;for example, presented. Then, each forms their own individual mental il the capability to see how you wl obtain funding for your representations. Diagram tend to comprise of numbered new concept without surrendering your intellectual shapes,together with numerous crossing lines. Often,each property rights. Once again, there are plenty of resources person will lock onto the part of the diagram that fits best to draw upon -there is an abundance of literature about with what they a h a d y know Thus,it is very difmdt to see strategy implementation, innovation management and risk trends and scenarios. It also makes it difficult to identify assessment. However, once again, such information has issues and evidence that can revealthe limitations of those serious limitations. In particulx, much of the literatureis trends and scenarios. based on quasi-scientificprinciples of often doubtful merit. The macro-foresight challenge of trying to envisage Consider the book, InSearch of Excellence:lessons fi concepts that would lead to the successful exploitation or Americas best run companies by Thomas J. Peters and adaptation of underlying trends is also made difficult by Robert H. Waterman. This work contained a definition of existing facilitiesIn parti&, n t being able to look at many o elght characteristicsfor success which included simpleform factors simultaneously radically reduces the chances of lean staff and simultaneouslmtight [Link] h k serendipity This is when people stumble across somethmg was published in 1982 and sold t r e million copies. Yet, by they were not looking for and immediately recognise its he 1984,BusinessWeek had published a cover story about the significanca Recent research shows that innovationsarising serious failings of the book entitled, Oops!.Then, in 2001, from serendipitous discoveries are more likely to be Peters stated in an interview that the data upon which the s u m s f u l t a other typesof innovation.A further problem hn book w s based had been falsified!This is just one case, but is that many successful concepts are the combination of a

own theories. However, Albert Einstein took care to define the limitations of his theories, and he was dealing with subjects a lot more challengingthan strategicp l a n n i . In addition to information and methodologies that help us envisage our own concepts, there are lots of methodologies telling us exactly w a concepts to envisage. ht Generic concepts such as lean and agile have been especially widely promoted. The fundamental problem with these generic concepts is that, in competitive terms, they are qualifiers not winners. Also, it is important to recognise that such concepts are often based on outsiders interpretations of what successful organisations have already been doing. A good example of this is the definition of lean concepts by outsiders investigatingthe insides of Toyota. Given the relentless success of Toyota, copying Toyota seems like a great idea. Howeve&there is considerabledebate about how Toyota is so [Link], as Ibyota is so willing to let outsiders inside, it may be that Toyota is fairly confident that the key to its success cannot be copied. Indeed, have any senior personnel from Toyota ever said that their organisation is lean?

it is a w y worth remembering that authors like Tom Peters las cannot be held accountable if you or your organisation suffer as a result of followingtheir advice. In addition to reading matter, there are methodologies to help you on your way to successful futures. One c m n t l y hlgh profile methodology is mad mapping. Sad1 one need look no further than the Performance-based Roadmap to a Permanent Tw@StateSolution to the IsraeliPalestinian Crisis to see the limitations of this methodology. Roadmaps can look good but they can be superficial statements that ignore the powerful influence of culture and emotion over human decisions and actions.

IMPAIRED FORESIGHT

Business strategy

severaltechnology trends. For example, Gutenbergsprinting press involved advancesin paper, movable type, metallurgy presses, inks and scripts. Again, if many technology trends cannot be viewed simultaneously, it is difficult to see, serendipitouslyor otherwise,how they can be combined. A further problem is that envisagingnew concepts is,to a greater or lesser extent, a creative process, and existing facilities do little to enable creativity Indeed, average meebng rooms and conferencing facilities provide bland environments that can stitle the visceralprocess of creativity Existing facilities also do little to enable the microforesightchallenge of trying to see which actions can take you from your present situationto the successm futurethat you have envisaged, For example, data warehousing and ecommerce has led to a situation where some organisations arebecoming swamped by unprecedentedamounts of d t . aa A more common problem is the growing use of computer software. In p a r t i c w , when methodologies for strategic planning, innovationmanagement and risk assessment a e r presented in software, it can be doubly difficult to understand the thinking behind the methodology Thus, identifying biases and flaws can be almost impossible. Also, results that a-re produced by &ware a e extremely Micult r to question and, as a result, individuals and organisations can become slavesto software. The use of general purpose software can do much to reduce micro-foresight. For example, there are survey results that indicate some businesses believe they are drowning in a sea of word processed documents. Moreover, the visual elegance of word processed documents can make them appear a lot more accurate than they actually are.A well-knownexample of t i is the British governments2003 hs intelligence report on Iraq that turned out to be a cutand paste job and seriously flawed. General-purposesoftware can also be used to pump out tables filled with numbers shown to several decimal places. As numbers shown to several decimal places are precise, it is easy to assume that they are a lot more accurate than they actually are. However, there is a big difference between accuracy and precision. Consider, for example, national economic forecasts. Economists use forecastingtechniques correctly and produce precise numeric forecasts for inflation, employment, and so on. Nonetheless, we are used to

hearing that quarterly forecasts for inflation and employment have proved to be inaccurate. Altogether the increasing use of software can lead to a situation where organisations have a lot more data and Mormation but a lot less understanding of how well they are progressing towards the future that they have envisaged. This brief assessment of information, methodologies and facilities reveals a number of serious limitations which are s inTable 1 .

ENHANCED FORESIGHT
Enhanced foresight can be described a meta-foresightplus s mawforesight plus [Link] question is how cart we achieve enhanced foresght? There is probably not much we can do about the limitations of information and hn methodologies- other t a to be aware of them. However, it may be possible for individuals and organisations to develop specialfacilities for enhancing foresight. [Link], new types of Facilities are not needed for every [Link], there aresomesituationswhere special facilities are certainly needed (see Table 2). Already, the limitations of existing facilities are becoming more widely [Link] a result, new types of facilities are being developed. These are both high-tech and low-tech. A high-tech approach is being taken at the RAND Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. There, a team is developing news ways of using computersto help h m e strategies that could woFk well over a wide range of plausible futures. By contrasit, the UniM Nations has developed a low-techboard game to enhance foresight of natural disasters. The board game is called Risklandand it can be adapted to reflect local copsiderations. This board game has proven to be much more effective than previous information and methodologies presented using conventionalfacilities. New types of low-tech facilities are more likely to be economically viable for most individuals and organisations. They may also prove to be a lot more fun, especially if you develop them yourself. 0

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