VANFUTURES STRATEGY SOLUTIONS

Dr Luke van der Laan vanfutures1@gmail.com

Tel: 0450091598 Director Professional Studies, USQ

Principle VANFUTURES Strategy Solutions Member: World Futures Studies Federation

Member: Association of Professional Futurists (USA) Member: Higher Education Research Development Society of Australasia

THE POSSIBLE is THE NEW PROBABLE

Unlocking Innovation

© Pictures courtesy of: 2013, thinkingfutures.net

‘Catch your Thinking’

It is meaningless to talk of strategy / innovation / change / transformation / invention ….

without engaging the future!

As we progress through this session, consider what changes you can make in what you think and do at work

K Teezy www.flickr.com cc

‘We now stand on the threshold of a new age – the age of

revolution. In our minds we know that the new age has already arrived. In

our bellies we are not sure we like it. For we know it is going to be an

age of upheaval, of tumult, of fortunes made and unmade at

head-snapping speed. For change has changed.

No longer does it move in a straight line … change is

discontinuous, abrupt, seditious’ Gary Hamel

Why have so few economists foreseen the credit crunch?

Her Majesty the Queen’ question to the London School of Economics, 2009

In recent years economics has turned virtually into a

branch of applied mathematics, and has

become detached from real-world institutions and

events … What has become scarce is a professional

wisdom informed by a rich knowledge of psychology,

institutional structures and historic precedence

Prof. G Hodgson et al. in a formal response to the Queen’s question,

22 July 2009 The Economist, Oct, 2008

‘Post-normal times’ Moving from the knowledge age to the conceptual age

• KNOWING TO THINKING

• International corporate workforce imperative:

• High need to develop higher-order intellectual skills and capabilities associated with the shift from the knowledge era to the conceptual era (EFMD, 2012).

• Reversing the cycle of ‘creativity-theft’ and ‘negative creativity’

The Problem

• Co-creative systems: consistently exercise creativity and provident care

BUT • Negative Creativity & Creativity

Theft reduces scope of possibility • It is likely that traditional

forecasting used only will get the future wrong

we have moved to the possible becoming the

probable!

Why the research?

“There is an ‘agony’ in being strategic” (van der Laan, 2011)

“you will realise that you cannot reduce your risk by simply letting the long term take care of itself … for in complex

systems, even doing nothing could have escalating consequences” (Stacey 1992, p. 18)

Leadership imperative to transcend dominant paradigms and open up the emergence of

innovation.

Strategy: Primary indicator of Performance

Strategy Organisational Performance

Valuable Strategy

Planning & Implementation

72%

Van der Laan, 2010

Foresight & Strategic Thinking

• Individual Foresight – human ability to creatively envision possible futures, understand

the complexity and ambiguity of systems

– provide input for the taking of provident care in detecting and avoiding hazards while seeking to achieve a preferred future.

(van der Laan, 2010)

• Strategic Thinking – strategic thinking is regarded as a synthesis of systematic

analysis and creative (generative) thought processes

– that seek to determine the longer-term direction of the organisation.

(van der Laan, 2010)

“A holistic understanding of the organisation and its environment, creativity and visioning” (Bonn, 2005)

Foresight

• Dominant orientation to time – Thinking in time or out of time (we need healthy orientation to the future and past and less to the present) PLUS

• Foresight styles promoting framing (Exploring) and exploiting trends

• Good to be an adapter but less so.

• Don’t want to be a reactor

Systems perspective

Intelligent opportunism

Hypothesis Driven

Thinking in Time

Intent focus

Strategic Thinking

creative and analytical thought 4

organisation’ longer-term

strategic direction

Output• Exploitative / Explorative Strategic problem solving

•Conceptualisation of the organisation’s longer-term preferred future•Disruption of alignment (creation of new options)

Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking

Analytical Hypothesis driven, Intent

focussed, Systems Perspective

Careful analysis Requires control

Problem solving Systems thinking

Uses considerable data

Creative / Generative Thinking in Time, Intelligent Opportunism

Creative / generates multiple alternatives Independent thinking / Tolerance for ambiguity

Future / Long-term orientated

Initiates new ideas

The TripleV Framework

Van der Laan, 2010

TripleV Research

• Investigation of relationship between individual foresight, strategic thinking and strategy.

• Structural Equation Modelling (SEM)

• 101 CEOs (34%), 110 Senior Managers (37%) of large enterprises.

• Senior Executives of all QLD Regional Universities – Model confirmation

• AUS4.5Billion (direct / indirect)

• Large SEA companies

Consequences

• Static strategy & innovation

• ‘Creativity Theft’ & Negative Creativity

• Limitation of innate human capabilities in organisations

• Inability to innovate beyond client imagination CCflickr.com

The TripleV Imperative

• Viable futures (more options and memories of

the future outside the probable)

• Visible strategic thinking (engaged and making clever choices)

• Valuable strategy (taking action, planning and implementing )

ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ENABLED BY LEADERS

Creating Probable Possibles (Disruptive Interventions)

• Intelligence = high-end of knowledge value chain

• Foresight core competence = futures intelligence

• Strategic Thinking core competence = intelligent ambidexterity (exploitative & explorative direction)

Intelligent Planning and Implementation

ENTERPRISE OF THE FUTURE

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LEADERSHIP

STRATEGY

Leadership Umbrella (van der Laan, 2011)

Strategy / Innovation

• Traditional / Top Down (61%)

• Influence on Strategy (6.6%)

• Active in innovation (23%)

• Not involved in innovation (41%)

• High influence on innovation (8.7%)

• Innovation done by senior managers (56%)

• Company is not / a little innovative (33%)

TripleV Model

• Foresight • Alternative

Futures

Viable

• Strategic Thinking

• Engaged, informed and creative

Visible • Strategy (&

Innovation) • Informed

Planning and Actioning

Valuable

Why Creativity?

Possible is the new Probable!

Divergent thinking saves companies!

Strategic ambidexterity!

Current practice??

TIME

UNCERTAINTY

Present Future

Low

High Planning Window (3 years)

PROBABLE FUTURE - Forecasting (based on assumptions and trend data. High-end technological knowledge processing and modelling – Big Data)

Preferred Future

TIME

UNCERTAINTY

Present Future

Low

High

Forecast

1. F

OR

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2. Strategic Thinking

3. Strategic Planning

• Default Future

• Used Future

• Disowned Future

• Alternative Future

• Alignment

Bjornmeansbear flickr.com

OBSTACLES

FUTURE PHOBIA

INFO-MANIA

PERSPECTIVE PARALYSIS

REVERSE PARANOIA

• Reductionist frameworks

• Technology- / data-driven paradigms are dominant

• Consequence: constrained futures - flatlands

The FUTURE IS NOT WHAT ‘IT’ SEEMS

or FUTURES?

‘THERE IS NO VOLITION WITHOUT AN OBJECT AND THE OBJECT OF A VOLITION IS THAT AN IMAGE OF THE MIND BECOMES A

FACT’ Bertrand de Jouvenal

‘We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’. Albert Einstein

Innovation???

Transformative Vision

Contact:

Dr Luke van der Laan Principle, VANFUTURES Strategy Solutions

vanfutures1@gmail.com

Tel: +61 450091598

Mobile: 0450091598