Strategic Foresight : Learning from the Future
Patricia Lustig

Reviews ~~Reviews~~Reviews~~Reviews~~Reviews~~Reviews

"This book articulates the importance of strategic foresight and its contribution to an organisation's success. The author explains lucidly the strategies that can assist during a complex business environment and introduces tools to help address future scenarios. Robust and proven strategies are discussed with case studies, allowing the reader to gain a better insight into how the strategies can be implemented pragmatically.

The 'three horizons framework', for example, can help readers connect the present and the future. The book contains practical information to help identify different environmental changes in terms of crises, global system challenges, and austerity, as well as how an organisation can adapt to them quickly This book is beneficial to both novices and those at an advanced level as the tools presented, such as causal layered analysis, help readers become better systematic thinkers. Readers will learn how they can identify and influence their organisation in any given situation, enabling them to make better decisions with regards to shaping the future.

This is a worthy book, packed with modern skills that can be practised by any leader who would like to master strategic foresight and face the future with certainty."
Suresh Suprarnamian, quality assurance engineer at TASNEE Petrochemical Complex writing in Quality World, June 2017
"Patricia Lustig has woven a fascinating tapestry of diverse resources to create an integrated framework for practising strategic foresight. The author makes a powerful case that the art and science of discovering the future is an emergent process and requires a creative combination of thinking and sensemaking like a hedgehog, fox and eagle as part of a unified continuum to the past, present and future (“tomorrow++”). The author presents a 10–point logic of the “futures toolbox” to help any individual or organisation dynamically practise strategic foresight.

...The strategic foresight toolkit also includes a checklist of questions to sharpen the thinking process to identify and envision the envisioned future.

There are several case studies in the book that clearly describe how to learn from the future and engage in change. Recognising that the future has neither any boundaries nor is it organised and defined, the author encourages us to examine both existing and emerging paradigms, exercise our strategic foresight muscles, reframe our fundamental assumptions that are often taken for granted and improve the quality of the
narrative and decision-making.

Strategic Foresight is a timely publication that I would strongly recommend as a valuable addition to every practitioner’s bookshelf."
Ramu Iyer in InterAction - The Journal of Solution Focus in Organisations, Vol. 7, No. 2  Read the full review
To quote the author: “You can’t influence the past – it has happened. You can perhaps learn from it, but too much focus on the past leads to feelings of helplessness precisely because you can’t change what has already happened. If you focus on potential, possible futures, and what you might learn from them, you rekindle your sense of wonder and love of possibility; you uncover energy for change.“

That is the key premise of this readable and practical book by Patricia Lustig, “Strategic Foresight“. Patricia suggest that there are 3 basic tenets in how we should think about Strategic Foresight

First, it is action-oriented. We should be actively working to shape and bring about a potential future or set of futures that we have identified as something we want to see happen. Purely analytical studies of possible futures are called “Futures Studies” and are not what is meant by “foresight”.

Second, Strategic Foresight is open to alternative futures: that is, we work with several futures because we can’t predict the future – and it most certainly won’t be an extrapolation from the past. The future can of course evolve in different directions, and the idea is to determine which are possible, which are probable, and from that we can figure out what we can best influence.

Third, it is participatory. While individuals can apply the principles of Strategic Foresight to their personal “future”, if a larger group or organisation is involved, the practice of Strategic Foresight must include ALL stakeholders. A broad range of people must work together to build and co-create the future. They must have “skin in the game”, in order to define the best choices to base decisions on. Successful Strategic Foresight is thus totally multidisciplinary in nature.
Mick Yates, Global Exec and Leadership Strategist. Read the full review.
“Strategic Foresight is not some kind of mystical ability! It is simply the most important set of skills and tools in any leader’s tool set. Patricia Lustig writes about these on the basis of her 35 years of experience in organisations from different sectors, and of all sizes. Puzzled about things such as paradigms, systems thinking, horizon scanning, and stakeholder engagement? Want to know how to identify exactly where there is energy for change in your organisation, and then how to harness that energy to make change happen? Wonder whether it is possible to develop and implement a strategic plan in view of the discontinuities, vulnerabilities and volatility that is around us? To survive and even flourish in the vastly tangled terrain in which we all live now, here is a simply-written guide”. 
Prabhu Guptara, Chairman, Relational Thinking Network, Geneva, Switzerland
"Strategic Foresight: Learning from the Future informs the reader to action. Written by business veteran Patricia Lustig, this book does not tell the future, but shows the reader how to develop strategy to thrive in the future.
      ...the author starts with basic concepts and guides the reader to tools which aid in understanding and help develop perspectives that others might miss using traditional forecasting methods.
      This book is an excellent how to manual that not only helps the reader assess the present environment, and develop strategy, but also to understand the knock-on effects of trends and weak signals and then communicate them into an organization to change it – make it strategically ready for the what the world is throwing at it.
     From basic terminology, to emergent behaviors, from gathering information to putting a strategy in place, this book covers strategic foresight in a practical, easy to read, and actionable manner suitable for the C suite to front-line management."
Jim Breaux, MSF, APF Director
"Strategic Foresight paves the way to prepare your organization for the future. Every business, government, education, and nonprofit leader should read this book."
Herb Rubenstein, Lecturer in Strategic Management, UC Denver
“Tricia writes from her experience of using strategic foresight effectively  in organisations – and unlike many people who write about a methodology or perspective, she is very clear when it is not appropriate -  if you judge the conditions are right then she will guide you through using strategic foresight to steer  through today’s’ choppy waters .”
Gill Ringland, CEO and Fellow, SAMI Consulting and Chairman, Knowledge Insights
“Charting the future course of an organisation is increasingly problematic in a world where the normal, uncertainty and unthinkable change are synonymous.
Patricia Lustig’s advocacy of strategic foresight and her elegantly simple explanations of how to turn theory into practice, is the voice of a wise navigator who has deep experience and intimacy with the corporate soul.” 
Michael McAllum, Founder, Global Foresight Network 
"Increasing demand, rising customer expectations, the speed of technological change and pressure on budgets all combine to present a significant challenge for the Public Sector. If we are to meet the demands society places on us then we need to learn to think and act very differently. Whilst preserving the values so crucial to the delivery of excellent public service. 
Strategic Foresight offers a coherent framework to help strategic leaders think differently. Providing practical processes, tools and techniques to help leaders seize the initiative and shape the future of their organisations. Helping them to imagine possible futures and learn from them, to develop robust, stress-tested strategies, improve their decision-making and the ability to deliver change. For strategic leaders in the Public Sector looking to meet the challenges of tomorrow++, the practice of strategic foresight strikes me as one of the most important, relevant and necessary practices that the they can have and develop today."
Chris Bradley, Senior Commercial Manager, Surrey County Council
"In the opening line of his 1953 novel, The Go-Between, L P Hartley wrote "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."  So too it will be for the future.  We cannot know what will happen but we can prepare ourselves for success by developing the ability to recognise the future as it unfolds in the present: the only place we can make decisions and take action.  In this short and easy to read book Patricia Lustig gives the reader tools to exercise what she refers to as their foresight muscles and illustrates each with her personal experiences as a strategist and foresight thinker.   Building on shared knowledge and insights leaders should be able to address the fundamental risk management questions: What might happen? How will I know it is happening? What will I do if it happens? What can I do now to put myself in a better position to exploit the future NOW? 
Strategy is often thought of as a lonely task for Chief Executives and Directors of Strategy.  The tools outlined in this book allow leaders to share the process, harvest the diversity of their teams by using foresight to build upon the collective wisdom of an organisation and make a better decision about direction and strategy.  And to do this while knowing that their people are aligned behind and with them. "
Martin Hazell, Director, Simplexity Ltd.
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“In most businesses, foresight is too often regarded as irrelevant  – either insipidly bland or too fanciful for seriously busy managers to bother with. Meanwhile strategic foresight is viewed rather like the quantum world - full of complicated theories that nobody really understands anyway. 
   But now there can be no excuse. Here at last is a book that (though scholarly) effortlessly avoids academic tedium.
   Patricia Lustig describes many useful tools and hands-on ways to use foresight as a way to futureproof any business and have fun at the same time. Written simply, in a confident conversational style, but with a profoundly down-to-earth appreciation of what leaders actually need, this compelling and hugely informative book will enlighten managers like no other book on the topic has managed to do.
   Get a copy. It will be your constant guide - helping you stay in business and avoiding the traps that the unwary are increasingly falling into because of a lack of foresight.”
Richard Hames, (Richard works as a strategic adviser to institutions and multinational corporations worldwide and advises governments on issues like whole system change, urban development, governance, security and alternative energy)
"If you are the type of leader that finds conventional books on forecasting, planning and development to be more than a little boring, here is an book on strategic foresight that may be just like mind candy for you to read—in large part because of the artful way that Patricia Lustig weaves together a narrative that is rich in “war story” anecdotes, both about others, and about her own rich experiences in different sectors of several cultures. It is definitely about finding and following your “bliss” in the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) operating environments that all leaders today must increasingly cope with."
Oliver Markley, Professor Emeritus and former Chair, Graduate Program in Studies of the Future University of Houston-Clear Lake
"In an increasingly complex business environment, strategic futures and foresight tools and techniques have much to offer businesses to help them improve both strategy and planning. But they are often poorly understood. In this practical introduction, Patricia Lustig draws on her experience of futures, learning and business transformation to help organisations design and create a better future for themselves."
Andrew Curry, The Futures Company