FIT For the Future

I love the magic that happens when we work with a concept over a period of time, we explore the philosophy of it, and one day we discover deeper depths to the work that we're doing. One of the taglines I use is that I help leaders develop thinking that is fit for the future. Someone asked me, what, what does that mean? There's lots of different ways to think, you know, creative ways and strategic ways, and some of those thinking styles apply to particular functions or maybe certain times in world history. But if we're looking at how we think about the future, then we need to develop certain ways of thinking that will allow us to manage to cope with the complexity and pace of the future. Our thinking needs to be fit for the function, fit for the future. And then I discovered that the word FIT actually stands for foresight, insight, and transformation. And those are the fundamental things we need to develop for futures thinking. Foresight is the ability to not just anticipate what happens next, but be able to manage the large range of possible futures and to find ways to prepare for that. The insight means that we need to understand what those potential futures mean for the decisions we're making, the people that we're working with, or the organizations we're working with. We need that insight so that we can respond. And transformation is what is necessary. We cannot face any kind of change without being transformed. But if we are intentionally looking for transformation, then we do so in a way that honors the work that we do and the work that we— the people that we work with. So foresight, insight, transformation, that is developing thinking that is fit for the future.