# Thinking About the Future By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2024-03-14 Organizations spend time engaged in strategic planning. These efforts can be informative and consequential. Often, they amount to a brief organizational distraction as they perpetuate the status quo. At the core of strategic planning resides the art of thinking about the future. To the degree that organizations think about the future as part of their strategic planning, it is imagining where they want to be. Envisioning the future in this way is aspirational. Whereas there is nothing wrong with such an activity, it contains only part of the story at best. Strategic planning benefits from the work of futurists. The contribution of futurists is distinct from imagining an alternative future organization. Instead, a futurist, in the context of strategic organizational planning, is focused on describing how developing parts of the current society will blossom in the future and then how the organization should position itself in that future society. A futurist benefits from being able to see the potential of these transformations as well as their darker consequences. Every silver lining has its own cloud. Organizations tend to be narrowly focused on themselves and their clients. These aspects constrain most strategic planning, so there is little room and no attention given to the critical contribution potential of futurists. If an organization spends any time trying to expand into this realm, it will likely do so in a well-meaning but foolish way. It will likely collect a group of employees and ask them to think of the future and how it could shape and constrain the organization. This exercise will provide something. It might be entertaining, and it could be informative. It is doubtful that such an approach will generate what is needed. The work of futurists is different from the creative fancy of artists. It’s a real thing. If organizations want to benefit from the perspective of futurists, they should take the required work seriously. Otherwise, they will simply be playing around and replicating the status quo. #### Related Items [[Future]] [[Strategy]] [[Organization]] [[Planning]] [[Teams]] [[Futurists]] [[Status Quo]] [[Society]]