Sustain · 19 / 24
Preparing for more than one future
Foresight and Scenario Planning is the discipline of widening attention beyond present performance, testing direction against several plausible futures, and keeping strategic choices alive as conditions shift rather than treating them as settled.
The trade-off between optimizing today's model and staying prepared for futures that have not yet arrived.
Organizations that execute well often mistake operational strength for future readiness, since a smoothly running model can quietly become a poor fit for where the environment is heading. The failure is rarely a lack of intelligence; it is a habit of treating the current model's success as evidence that it will keep working.
In practice, this competency requires a standing system for noticing weak signals, forums that separate near-term reliability from longer-horizon interpretation, and a small number of scenarios sharp enough to change real decisions. It only counts when a plausible future actually shifts an investment, a partnership, or a threshold for action.
This competency has its own chapter in the second edition.
Second Edition — available now
Twenty-four competencies, read through the DOES cycle and the Levels of Work. The full architecture, chapter by chapter.
Available in paperback and Kindle.