Rethinking Strategy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book shares my accumulated learning from the past decade and a half of studying and practising strategic foresight, both from within a large multinational company and from working with similar-sized organisations as an external consultant.

My exposure to futures studies began at the Australian Foresight Institute (AFI) at Swinburne University where I was lucky enough to come under the tutelage of Joseph Voros and Peter Hayward. Instantly I appreciated the space they created for thinking about the future and, in the process, opening up a whole new way of seeing the world. This was especially true of their focus on worldviews and values, the hidden drivers of social behaviour and an oft-overlooked component of strategy. I still regard the lifetime work of psychologist Clare Graves, summarised in Spiral Dynamics¹ by Don Beck and Chris Cowan, as offering one of the most powerful tools for understanding and anticipating social change.

It was at Swinburne that I met Marcus Barber, whose initial support with implementing organisational foresight assisted me greatly. In my early days as Foresight Manager at Foster’s, whenever I found myself asking ‘Where do I start?’ I turned to Marcus. His practical advice provided a handy counterbalance to the abundance of theories and models that exist within the futures community.

Through the AFI I was introduced to the thinking of Sohail Inayatullah, whose book Questioning the Future² continues to provide such clarity around ...