Introduction to Foresight, Executive Edition

Foresight is humanity’s top superpower. We all use it every day, consciously or unconsciously, well or poorly, in a foresight-action cycle, to anticipate, create, and manage the future. Foresight professionals are anyone tasked to think about probable, possible, preferable, or preventable futures for others, over any time horizon. Foresight is both a set of time-tested empirical practices, many in use since the 1950's, and emerging models of adaptiveness and values, grounded in psychology and complex systems research. Great foresight begins with the minutes and hours of Today, takes us into Tomorrow, then the next Quarter, then a Lifetime. We owe it to ourselves, our teams, and our world to apply the best practices, models, and worldviews in this vital, exciting, powerful field.

The two books of The Foresight Guide, written by our team at Foresight University, help executives and students become better foresight leaders, starting with self-leadership. Book 1 (this book), Introduction to Foresight, covers personal, team, and organizational foresight practices, biases and traps. Organizational foresight emerged in the mid-20th century, and spans twenty specialties in strategic management, yet it is still poorly practiced by many executives. Book 2, Big Picture Foresight (Nov 2023), covers key 21st century trends, issues, models, stories, opportunities, and problems, in our world of accelerating change. Each book is available in an abridged Executive Edition (this book) and as an expanded Student Edition, with additional coverage on the nature of the firm, and more advice on foresight practice. This Executive Edition is ideal for busy professionals seeking better foresight for themselves, their teams, and their organizations.

The focus of each book is not just strategic foresight, which makes us more effective in short-term strategy and actions, independent of our goals and values, but adaptive foresight, or the goals, values and practices that build our personal and group adaptiveness, in any environment, over the long term. Improving our foresight and action is the most satisfying journey each of us can take as we strive to live with greater meaning, purpose, and impact in the world. Come learn how.