Foresight is rooted in deep understanding. It marks the ability to see through apparent confusion, to spot developments before they become trends, to see patterns before they fully emerge, and to grasp the relevant features of social currents that are likely to shape the direction of future events.

Changes in competition, legislation, costumer tastes and technology are some of the most important changes that make a market-based business environment truly unpredictable in the long term

How organazations deal with the future depends on how they answer the following two questions:

a. To what extent is there a knowledge base for anticipating important events?

b. To what extent is there a stock of knowledge on which to draw for undertaking action?

A foresightful organization is an organization that has sharpened his ability to see, to observe, to perceive what is going on both externally and internally, and to respond accordingly.

This is what gives organized systems predictability and efficiency

Organizational foresightfulness is fully developed when it becomes an institutionalized capacity of unobtrusively responding to an organization’s circumstances so that the organization may get around in the world

Re-education Attention:Re-education Attention:What is foresight and How is it CultivatedWhat is foresight and How is it Cultivated

Foresight is the “philosophic power of understanding the complex flux of the varieties of human societies”, an “unspecialized aptitude for eliciting generalizations from particulars and for seeing the divergent illustrations of generalities in diverse circumstances” (Whitehead, 1933, pp. 119-20)

It is a product of deep insight and understanding

Understood in this broader sense, foresight is a refined sensitivity for detecting and disclosing invisible, inarticulate or unconscious societal motives, aspirations and preferences and of articulating them in such a way as to create novel opportunities hitherto unthought and hence unavailable to a society or organization. Foresight is achieved through a re-education of attention.

Too many forces work against the possibility of getting the right forecast. The future is no longer stable; it has become a moving target. No single “right” projection can be deduced from past behavior (Wack, 1985, p.73)

Forecasts are not always wrong; more often than not, they can be reasonably accurate. And that is what makes them so dangerous. They are usually constructed on the assumption that tomorrow’s world will be much like today’s. They often work because the world does not always change. But sooner or later forecasts will fail when they are most needed.

The replacing of forecasting with scenario-planning is an important first step but one that does not go far enough analytically

Cultivating ForesightCultivating Foresight

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step (Old Chinese proverb)

Chaos and complexity theories now reveal the possibilities of what is popularly called the “butterfly effect” where small seemingly inconsequential events occurring often unnoticed at a periphery can trigger off major catastrophes

ConclusionsConclusions

Foresight is essentially about the re-education of attention

It celebrates the potentialities and possibilities that accompany vagueness, ambiguity and the fluidity of experience.

Invention and Navigation as Invention and Navigation as Contrasting Metaphors of the Pathways Contrasting Metaphors of the Pathways

to the Futureto the Future

Strategy is meaningful only with reference to the future

Time Traveling: Organizational Time Traveling: Organizational Foresight as Temporal ReflexivityForesight as Temporal Reflexivity

Past Past PresentPresent FutureFuture

PastPastPast-to-PastPast-to-Past

11

Past-to-PresentPast-to-Present

22

Past-to-FuturePast-to-Future

33

PresentPresentPresent-to-PastPresent-to-Past

44

Present-to-Present-to-PresentPresent

55

Present-to-FuturePresent-to-Future

66

FutureFutureFuture-to-PastFuture-to-Past

77

Future-to-PresentFuture-to-Present

88

Future-to-FutureFuture-to-Future

99

Time Traveling: Organizational Time Traveling: Organizational Foresight as Temporal ReflexivityForesight as Temporal Reflexivity

1. Some actions have taken place in the past and will not recur

Former Practices – Experiences Space

2. Some past behavior may be transferred to the present

Organizational Memory

3. Some knowledge used in the past may be valuable for use in the future

Organizational Retrieval

4. Some organizational practices may be taking place in the present having already started their journey to the past

Declining Practices

5. An action is pressing to tackle a problem’s solution while is occuring

Improvisation

Time Traveling: Organizational Time Traveling: Organizational Foresight as Temporal ReflexivityForesight as Temporal Reflexivity

6. An organization’s preparation for the future planning and strategic intent and thought

7. There is a pattern whose contours are recognizable in advancePattern Recognition, intuition

8. Imagination of the direction of an organization Scenario Planning

9. Some people are in the future looking for a more distant futureR+D

Time Traveling: Organizational Time Traveling: Organizational Foresight as Temporal ReflexivityForesight as Temporal Reflexivity

The foresight as time-to-travel perspectives suggest that, as recent development in the organizational science have pointed out, the path towards the future may be impossible to understand unless the exploration of the future is deeply rooted in past learning and present action.