Attention to Business Scenarios

Hindsight plus Insight plus Foresight

 

Background For Management and Boards

Near the top of most Management and Governance concerns in today’s business world is the nature of uncertainty in macro terms. We keep a framework of technical, market, political, social, and economic factors that are contributing to business uncertainty. We also keep a more specific check list for organizations that choose to explore what the future holds for their customers, their operating models, their business models, and their investors. In other words, what does all this uncertainty really mean for the company’s stakeholders? What does it mean for competitive advantage? For growth, performance, and change? For business models, scope/scale, and value streams? To answer these questions, companies need a practical Scenario Analysis and Planning approach that matches their strategic agenda, culture, platforms, talent, and structure.

 

Matching for Perspective, Mission Command

Assume that the most important work of strategic leadership involves taking care of today and getting ready for tomorrow. This suggests that leadership needs a picture of tomorrow that considers future challenges, risks, and opportunities. This is what Scenario Analysis and Planning means and what it provides. Building a critical, prospective view of how the future of the business could unfold, from the world of the present — and the norms of the past. For better or worse.

Scenario Thinking & Activity

From experience with larger and smaller organizations, we believe that there are three key elements of Scenario Analysis and Planning. The everyday thought and behavior that supports Scenario Thinking includes the “Triple A” of Anticipation, Appropriation, and Adaptation. These are at the heart of Strategic Leadership as the Influence of Attention, to near-term and long-term challenges and opportunities.

  1. Anticipation …
    starts with perspective, understanding, and open curiosity. There is room in every organization for a culture of anticipation … of what could be, of evolving trends and forces, of dependencies, and disruptions, of everything from demand streams to supply streams and value chains. Major assumptions need to be tested. Blind spots need to be checked.
  2. Appropriation …
    starts with assumptions about priorities and resources, and the management of organizational capacity and development efforts. Appropriation is almost always about investment options/choices, and where and how investment decisions shape strategic and economic value, manage risks, and solve problems over time. For today and tomorrow.
  3. Adaptation …
    starts with measures of some possibility — or probability. The prospects for something that could shape the sustenance and success of the organization. This reflects a vision of what the company could do and should do given the unfolding challenges and choices to be generated and executed in the future. Looking ahead, thinking ahead, moving ahead, staying ahead.
    Perspective is Everything.
Scenario Thinking is consequential for companies large and small, because it shapes the way management and boards can discern business planning, decision making, risk management, and problem solving. Scenario Thinking is one-part Strategy Direction, one part Strategy Integration, and one part Readiness in Strategy Execution. Scenarios, for Looking Ahead + Planning Ahead + Moving Ahead + Staying Ahead.

How Organizations Can Prosper with Scenario Thinking.

When Leadership Shapes the Strategic Agenda for the Future.

Who Contributes to Scenario Planning, plus How to Make the Time?

What this Means for Business Stakeholders at Every Level?

Why Strategic Leadership is the Effective Influence of Attention?

What Scenario Thinking Means for Talent Development?

Challenges of Today – Options for Tomorrow

Opening the Conversations that Matter

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