You should read this if… you are a CEO or board member facing uncertainty and noticing that traditional defensive responses—cutting investment, freezing hiring, or delaying decisions—are starting to limit growth and opportunity. This article explains the core business problems that foresight is designed to address, including indecision in volatile environments, over‑reliance on past data, missed emerging opportunities, and an inability to adapt strategy as conditions change. It shows how strategic foresight helps leaders move from reactive cost‑cutting to proactive decision‑making by using signals, trends, and alternative futures to make more confident, informed choices that support resilience, innovation, and long‑term success.

The futures of work are changing at a rapid pace, and it's hard not to be excited and curious about them! With the rise of robots, artificial intelligence, and smart technologies, it seems as though the possibilities are endless. What could happen next?

You should read this if… you are sensing that major change rarely arrives as a single shock, but still feel surprised when disruption suddenly becomes unavoidable. This article explains how the world tends to change slowly at first and then suddenly, using concepts such as exponential growth and tipping points to show why long periods of apparent stability can give way to rapid transformation. It highlights why linear thinking leaves leaders exposed, and how futures thinking helps organisations spot early signals of change, understand non‑linear dynamics, and prepare for multiple futures before sudden shifts reshape markets, industries, and operating models.

Key note presentation: 0900 Friday 24 March 2023, Local Government Association of South Australia Communications Conference, Adelaide, South Australia.

The world is becoming more complex and unpredictable, making it difficult for businesses to stay ahead of their competition. This is where strategic foresight comes into play. It allows businesses to identify potential risks and opportunities before they arise, allowing them to make informed decisions about how best to move forward.

Rather than solely striving for financial success, an increasing number of people recognise the importance of leisure time. How could this change in values alter our relationship to work and leisure? What role will AI and automation play? Its time to start thinking about this emerging change and its impact!

Foresight workshops: 18 & 19 January 2023, Leaders for IMPACT Network, Sydney, Australia.

You should read this if… you are a business leader considering how to embed foresight more deeply into your organisation rather than relying on ad‑hoc trend reports or individual insight. This article explains what foresight teams are, why they matter, and how the right mix of people, tools, and a futures‑focused culture enables organisations to turn emerging trends and signals into actionable insight. It shows how well‑supported foresight teams help leaders anticipate change, identify new opportunities, and make more confident strategic decisions—strengthening competitiveness and resilience in an increasingly complex and fast‑moving environment.

You should read this if… you are a leader who wants to explore how innovation can emerge from anywhere in your organisation, not just from R&D or specialist teams. This article introduces prospection—our innate human ability to imagine and anticipate futures—as a critical first step in innovation and future‑focused decision‑making. It explains how deliberately using prospection helps leaders and organisations spot opportunities, remain agile, and make more intentional choices that shape their futures, even amid uncertainty. By embracing prospection, organisations can unlock innovation across teams, industries, and contexts, building confidence, creativity, and long‑term impact rather than waiting for change to arrive. 

You should read this if… you are feeling that incremental change is no longer enough and are searching for a leadership approach better suited to today’s interconnected social, economic, and environmental challenges. This article introduces regenerative leadership as a pathway beyond short‑term fixes, explaining how it focuses on transforming systems rather than merely repairing them. It outlines how regenerative leaders think systemically, prioritise collaboration and collective intelligence, and consider the long‑term impacts of decisions on people, organisations, and the wider community—creating conditions for resilience, trust, and sustainable futures in times of deep uncertainty.

You should read this if… you are a leader who feels the pressure to always have the answers and wants a leadership approach better suited to complexity and change. This article introduces shoshin, or beginner’s mind, and explains why approaching decisions with curiosity, openness, and humility can be a powerful advantage for leaders. It shows how shoshin helps leaders escape rigid expert thinking, foster creativity, encourage experimentation, and remain open to new perspectives—enabling better learning, more innovative problem‑solving, and stronger decision‑making in uncertain environments where adaptability matters more than certainty.

You should read this if… you are in business and feeling jammed between responding to urgent, day‑to‑day pressures and preparing your organisation for what might come next. This article explores how leaders can make better business choices in a rapidly changing world by balancing short‑term risks with long‑term opportunity. It explains why anticipating change, adopting agile and flexible strategies, and taking a risk‑aware approach to decision‑making are essential when technology, markets, regulation, and customer expectations are all in flux. By applying foresight, leaders can move beyond reactive choices and make more confident, informed decisions that keep their organisations resilient and competitive amid ongoing uncertainty.

To truly create value for stakeholders requires reimagining what’s possible through creative thinking and questioning our own assumptions about what we know about business as usual.

To meet the challenges of tomorrow, we need to anticipate and prepare for the unknowns. This means understanding the systems and contexts that drive what is happening today in order to better understand what will happen next. It also requires a mindset shift towards embracing uncertainty instead of trying to eliminate it.

You should read this if… you are a CEO or board member exploring whether and how blockchain could create value beyond hype and cryptocurrency. This article explains what blockchain is—and isn’t—and outlines the key considerations when developing a blockchain strategy that aligns with your organisation’s purpose, operating model, and risk appetite. It highlights the characteristics and benefits of blockchain (such as transparency, security, and distributed trust), contrasts public and private blockchains, and explores how decentralised approaches like DAOs could enable new models—including payment‑by‑outcomes contracting in the social sector—helping leaders make informed, strategic decisions about if, where, and when blockchain makes sense.

You should read this if… you are a business leader who wants a simple but powerful way to strengthen strategic thinking and decision‑making under uncertainty. This article introduces “What if?” analysis as a foundational strategic question that helps leaders explore possible, probable, and preferred futures rather than relying on a single forecast. It explains how deliberately asking “What if?” surfaces hidden risks, challenges assumptions, and expands the range of strategic options available, enabling organisations to prepare more thoughtfully for what might happen next and to design strategies that support impact and future growth in a changing world.

You should read this if… you are curious and want to better understand the complexity of your operating environment and make more informed, confident decisions. This article explains the benefits of systems mapping as a way to visualise how different elements of a system interact, revealing relationships, feedback loops, and unintended consequences that are often invisible in linear thinking. It shows how systems mapping helps leaders step back from isolated problems, ask better strategic questions, and identify leverage points for change—supporting clearer sense‑making, stronger collaboration, and more resilient decisions in an increasingly interconnected and uncertain world.

Holacracy is a system of governance that seeks to replace the rigidity of a traditional command structure with a more flexible and adaptive system. Could it be the future of work?

Universal Basic Income is a system where all citizens of a country or state receive an income from the government to meet their basic needs. What could futures that include Universal Basic Income look like? How could it be funded?

As artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to evolve, so too will the role of robots in charity fundraising. Can we expect to see more human-robot teams in our futures?