By Jonathan H. Westover, PhD
Abstract: This article discusses the concept of “practicing your future self” as a way for leaders to develop strategic foresight and visionary leadership skills needed to navigate disruption. Practicing one's future self involves purposefully adopting the perspective of an advanced, evolved version of oneself equipped to lead through uncertainty. The article explores specific techniques leaders can use to start practicing their future self, including scenario planning, building a network of "future advisors," experientially immersing in emerging technologies, mindfulness practices, and storytelling one's envisioned future and strategic path. Regular application of these practices helps build mental flexibility, intuition, and wisdom to identify opportunities amid change. It prepares leaders and their organizations to act proactively in shaping preferred futures aligned with their values and purpose. Practicing the future self is presented as a key exercise for cultivating the foresight muscle and adaptive leadership capabilities demanded in today’s volatile business environment.
As a longtime management consultant and researcher specializing in leadership development and organizational change, I have seen firsthand the immense challenges leaders face in today’s rapidly evolving business environment. Whether navigating disruptive technologies, shifting consumer demands, political upheaval, or crises like the ongoing pandemic—leaders must constantly adapt to uncertainty while charting a clear vision and direction for their organizations. However, true adaptability and visionary leadership require something deeper: developing a skill I call “practicing your future self.”
Today we will explore how leaders can cultivate strategic foresight by learning to see from the vantage point of their future evolved self.
What Does It Mean to "Practice Your Future Self"?
Adopting the perspective of one’s future or evolved self is a concept gaining traction in fields like leadership development, psychology, and futures studies (Schwarz, 2021; Lowe, 2021). At its core, it recognizes that to effectively lead organizations through disruption and shape the future, leaders must cultivate an imaginative capacity to see beyond narrow present constraints or past patterns (Schwarz, 2021). They must gain the skill and mindfulness to tap into nascent possibilities for self and system evolution.
In essence, practicing your future self means purposefully stepping outside your current mindset and habits to try on a more advanced version of yourself—one equipped to navigate the complexities of an uncertain future and actualize a bold vision (Schwarz, 2021). It’s a way to consciously evolve one’s leadership capabilities, perspectives, and approaches through thoughtful preparation and rehearsal (Schwarz, 2021; Lowe, 2021). Like method actors who deeply research roles, leaders practicing their future selves carefully consider driving forces of change, potential trajectories, and leverage points to proactively shape outcomes aligned with their purpose and values.
Regular practice helps build strategic foresight muscle memory—preparing leaders’ minds and networks to more nimbly sense, seize and actualize opportunities as they emerge. In turn, this develops the practical wisdom, courageous optimism and inspired action needed to mobilize teams through disruptive transformation (Waddell, 2022). The rest of this essay explores specific techniques leaders can use to start practicing their future selves.
Stretch Your Thinking with Scenario Planning
Scenario planning is a proven foresight tool that invites leaders to vividly imagine and narrate different likely and unlikely futures (Schwartz, 1996). By constructing alternative scenarios, leaders can systematically stretch the boundaries of their mental models and assumptions (Schwartz, 1996). Regular scenario practice cultivates an open and curious mindset better attuned to weak signals and black swans on the horizon (Lowe, 2021).
When done collaboratively with cross-functional teams, scenario planning also fosters systems thinking by surfacing interconnections across variables and perspectives (Lowe, 2021). For example, at Nokia in the late 1990s, top executives used scenario planning to imaginatively explore the potential of internet-based mobile devices (Cao, Hwang, Li, & Wei, 2019). While the exact trajectory Nokia envisioned did not fully materialize, scenario planning primed the leaders’ mental frameworks to recognize new opportunities emerging in the mobile space (Cao et al., 2019).
Today, scenario techniques can help leaders practicing future selves envision a range of plausible futures in their industry 5-10 years out regarding issues like technological shifts, sustainability demands, workforce trends and geopolitical risks. This stretches their strategic thinking beyond known patterns and familiar responses—preparing minds for the flexible, innovative leadership needed ahead.
Build Your Network of "Future Advisors"
Surrounding oneself with diverse advisers is a time-tested way for leaders to gain strategic perspective and spot weak signals earlier (Schwarz, 2021). However, when practicing our future selves, we must thoughtfully curate networks tuned into emergent forces of change versus solely advisers steeped in the status quo (Voros, 2022).
One approach is to build an inner circle of "future advisors"—individuals adept at sensing shifts on the horizon across technical, social and environmental domains relevant to one's industry or mission (Voros, 2022). Look for network members attuned to peripheries versus core issues—people with cross-disciplinary or outside perspectives who can identify and illuminate weak signals leaders may miss (Voros, 2022).
Make time for regular "future conversations" with these advisors where blue-sky exploration is encouraged over analysis of the present (Waddell, 2022). These discussions nurture intuition about opportunities ahead while grounding imaginings in drivers of change. The aim is to stretch mental frameworks, not just validate current thinking. Over time, future advisors can become a backbone support system, helping leaders practicing future selves translate foresights into strategic priorities and innovation initiatives.
Immerse Yourself in Emerging Technologies Experientially
To lead emerging technology adoption strategically, one must develop intimate familiarity—not just conceptual understanding (Schwarz, 2021). However, surface-level exposure through reports or conferences yields limited insights compared to firsthand experiences of prototypes and grassroots innovations (Schwarz, 2021).
Leaders practicing future selves would benefit from rolling up their sleeves and directly experimenting with blossoming technologies like AI, IoT, augmented reality and blockchain through hackathons, meetups and pilot partnerships (Berg, 2022). Getting hands-on exposes one to limitations, unexpected applications, and grassroots user behaviors that inform prudent development of capabilities (Thabane, 2020).
For example, the former CEO of Telstra proactively led hackathons focused on 5G exploration, directly coding prototypes alongside startups (Telstra, 2022). This experiential approach expanded his mindset beyond short-term ROI calculus, helping visualize ripe opportunities for 5G-enabled strategic transformations across industries like energy, transportation and health (Telstra, 2022). Firsthand immersion in emergent technologies develops intuitive sensemaking capacities crucial for the disruptive leadership needed ahead.
Develop Mindfulness Practices for Strategic Foresight
Adopting the perspectives needed for far-sighted leadership requires mindfulness of habitual patterns that may obscure one’s view (Schwarz, 2021; Berg, 2022). For example, overreliance on past data can make future uncertainties feel threatening versus full of promise (Schwarz, 2021). Negative biases also distort intuitive sensemaking, causing “unthinkable” scenarios to go unexplored (Schwartz, 1996).
Research finds mindfulness meditation heightens focus, creativity and open-mindedness—core strengths for practicing future selves (Lowe, 2021). Leaders can cultivate these benefits through regular mindfulness practices like meditation, yoga, forest bathing or keeping a daily gratitude journal (Berg, 2022). The goal is cultivating presence and detachment from anxiety/ego-driven reactions, opening space for intuition, wisdom and inspiration (Berg, 2022).
Mindfulness also fuels self-awareness—helping identify knowledge and experience gaps blocking future-fit perspectives (Berg, 2022). With this metacognitive insight, leaders can consciously shape developmental experiences like those described earlier to continually evolve strategic foresight capacities over a career. Regular mindfulness ensures one’s future self practice remains an ongoing process versus a checked box activity.
Practice Storytelling Your Vision and Path Ahead
Storytelling brings visions to life, stirring passion and alignment needed to mobilize change (Denning, 2011). Yet, visions risk falling flat without credibility forged through pragmatic strategies, milestones and resources embedded within compelling narratives (Denning, 2011). Practicing storytelling one's vision of the future organization, industry and leadership journey cultivates precisely this integrative skill.
Leaders can develop their narrative voice and prowess by routinely crafting short stories depicting organizational transformations a few years hence as made real through teams' efforts today. Stories should integrate insights drawn from future self practices like scenarios, advisor discussions and technology immersions to rings true (Denning, 2011). Refining these living stories with future advisors ensures coherence across envisioned future states and strategic approaches unfolding presently.
Regular story practice also readies leaders to deliver inspiring yet substantive communications rallying others through disruptive change. It embeds vision and strategy within humanizing accounts of challenges overcome and shared purpose actualized—powerfully activating purpose and innovation across wider organizational systems.
Conclusion
Cultivating strategic foresight muscle through future self practices equips today’s leaders to successfully navigate complexity and realize visionary change amid uncertainty. Regular experimentation with techniques like scenario planning, experiential technology discovery, cultivating future networks and developing narration skills expands perspectives and develops wisdom fit for the disruptions ahead. Most importantly, it prepares minds and organizations to act proactively and seize opportunities emerging at the boundaries, not just react to events. Future self practices embed foresight as an ongoing habit, not a one-off task, ensuring we continually evolve our leadership capacities to realize preferred futures aligned with our highest values and purpose. In an VUCA world demanding visionary adaptability, practicing our future selves may be the most impactful leadership exercise of all.
References
Berg, L. (2022, February 7). How CEOs cultivate mindfulness for strategic foresight. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/02/how-ceos-cultivate-mindfulness-for-strategic-foresight
Cao, M., Hwang, T., Li, T., & Wei, F. (2019). Nokia's strategic shift from the mobile communication business: A scenario planning approach. Long Range Planning, 52(3), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2019.03.001
Denning, S. (2011). The leader's guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. Jossey-Bass.
Lowe, A. (2021). Practicing your future self: Using imagination to shape change in uncertain times. Foresight, 23(1), 119-135. https://doi.org/10.1108/FS-06-2020-0058
Schwarz, R. M. (2021). The Skills of our Future Selves. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/04/the-skills-of-our-future-selves
Schwartz, P. (1996). The art of the long view: Planning for the future in an uncertain world. Currency Doubleday.
Telstra. (2022, March 21). Andy Penn: A CEO’s role in technology disruption. Telstra Exchange. https://exchange.telstra.com.au/andy-penn-a-ceos-role-in-technology-disruption/
Thabane, M. (2020). Exploring emerging technologies experientially. Research-Technology Management, 63(6), 57-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/08956308.2020.1820385
Voros, J. (2022, May 2). The future advisor: A new type of strategic role to guide organizations. Foresight. https://www.foresightguide.com/future-advisor-guide-organizations/
Waddell, S. (2022, February 25). Developing strategic foresight through future conversations. The Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/developing-strategic-foresight-through-future-conversations-11645806200
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
Suggested Citation: Westover, J. H. (2024).Practicing Your Future Self: Developing Strategic Foresight for Organizational Leadership. Human Capital Leadership Review, 11(2). doi.org/10.70175/hclreview.2020.11.2.13
