Have you heard of The Futures School™? I hadn’t until a few short weeks ago when I received a call from the school’s CEO inviting me to attend their three-day Strategic Foresight Certification Programme. For the first time, I heard someone describe a framework for the type of thinking I believe we urgently need in order to answer the really tough questions we’re facing in business and society.
Owned by Kedge Futures, the global foresight, innovation, creativity and strategic design consultancy, the school operates in the US, Canada, Germany, Australia and South Africa. I attended in breathtakingly beautiful Stellenbosch, South Africa with a broad array of business people, academics, entrepreneurs, investors and students.
Traditionally, Strategic Foresight has lived in the realms of academia and theory. The school brings the discipline and thinking to life through a tangible, replicable framework and process. If you want to stop depending on hindsight and start developing the skills of identifying emerging issues, building alternative scenarios, and creating transformational futures, this is well worth exploring.
Stellenbosch: 22nd – 24th November
The good news is that there is still one public programme open this year in Stellenbosch, South Africa and if you’re quick you may well get a seat. If you are based in Europe, the US or Australia, keep an eye out for dates early in 2018. I can tell you that it was, without doubt, the best three days in distant memory.
I’m excited…
To see the 10th annual Conscious Capitalism Conference, Dallas, 30th April – 2nd May 2018, is now open for registration. I attended the 4th annual conference in Boston in 2012 as a newly minted Conscious Leadership Coach and it was a game changer. The conference is for CEOs and executive teams, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and others who are committed to elevating humanity through business.
I’m delivering…
Really thought-provoking workshops around what it means to build our businesses in our human/sharing/knowledge economy with a focus on values and unconscious bias. I found this three-minute animation from The Royal Society titled Understanding Unconscious Bias to be really useful and in Kristen Pressner’s TEDxBasel talk titled Are you biased? I am, she suggests that we “flip it to test it”…
I’m listening…
To Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie’s book Designing For Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers, on Audible (in hindsight this would be better in paper format). When we explore both Design Thinking (DT) and Systems Thinking (ST), which is an essential element of conscious leadership and business, it’s easy to appreciate they are hugely complementary for problem-solving and innovation (DT) in the broader context of the whole ecosystem (ST).
I’m being electrocuted…
A touch dramatic perhaps. I’m referring to Electro Muscular Stimulation (EMS), which is a whole new experience in working out. This short video from XBody offers an appealing overview without revealing the confusing feeling of willingly allowing oneself to be zapped, or the instructors’ seemingly merciless penchant for inflicting torture, which must be part of the job spec. It’s a love/hate thing and the jury is still out.
The Big Q I’m asking…
“And what else?” This conscious Q is reminding me to stay curious and to keep the context of I don’t yet know what I don’t know yet…