PPB August 2018

FEATURE | Strategic Foresight needs. The best of us have systems for making that learning happen. That’s where the idea for this playbook was born. As I have worked with over 100 CEOs and leaders of companies large and small, I have had the chance to see up close and personal what makes the difference between those whose businesses go up and down, rocked by trends, and those who are able to take any wind and turn it to their advantage. It all comes down to regularly talking to smart people, scanning the environment, connecting the dots, trying new things, and learning from both successes and failures. And that’s what this book is about, providing you with easy-to-execute plays to make that happen. You might ask, can you really take any change in the environment and use it to your advantage? The answer is always, Yes! In fact, when things change for the worse, a window opens that I call the opportunity window . Every time your customers are dissatisfied, no matter what the reason, there is a short time when you can help them before others start generating solutions—that is your opportunity window. I have seen it happen often. When customers are disgruntled, they desperately want things to be better—that is the definition of being disgruntled. This desire of theirs is a force you can harness. That is why I call it the opportunity window. If you see the window coming, you can be ready for it and it can take your business forward in leaps and bounds. That’s where strategic foresight comes in. The plays in this book all lead to the same place: the territory of advantage for you and your business’s growth. Strategic Foresight and Operational Excellence Strategic foresight and operational excellence are two mutually reinforcing capabilities that every organization has at its disposal. It is worth investigating your organization’s synthesis of these two attributes. Imagine strategic foresight and operational excellence in a yin-yang relationship. Your organization must be high- performing in its operations for you to find value in making strategic foresight a priority. Likewise, mastery of strategic foresight will increase your organization’s operational excellence. How would you evaluate your operational excellence today? Do you have a solid foundation from which to seek opportunities for innovation? Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to gauge your strength: • Is your organization able to sustain itself? • Are you maintaining your profitability? • Are you growing? • Is your organization pooling together more and more resources? Perpetuating this kind of operational excellence allows you to branch out and set your sights on the future. At this stage of productivity, operational excellence transforms into more than simple sustainability. It becomes your vehicle for strategic foresight— proactively innovating to influence or respond to an evolving market. Because the two build on one another, it is important to gauge how you and your team are performing on both. What does it look like to be strong in one area and not the other? A team or business with powerful strategic foresight but no operational excellence can be idealistic, unproductive and lacking in financial reward. A high- performing group with operational excellence but no strategic foresight can grow stagnant, and will begin to flounder as the market evolves. An organization lacking in operational excellence and strategic foresight is likely to be a train wreck . A team or organization that is strong in both areas has the potential to do great things. Strategic foresight must be balanced OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE STRATEGIC FORESIGHT HIGH LOW HIGH Stagnant, eventually will flounder Train wreck Potential to do great things Idealistic, but lacking in financial reward H 28 | AUGUST 2018 |