The Leaders Who Make The Future
The market for futurists is strong and will grow stronger, according to Futuring Associates LLC founder Stephen Millett. He looks forward to more companies hiring more specialists in trend tracking, analysis, and strategic foresight to help them avoid repeats of the 2007-2008 recession. Demand will be especially great for predictive analytics—i.e., large-scale data mining, modeling and simulation, pattern recognition, and game theory—and in qualitative trend analyses and alternative futures, which convey stories about the possible and likely futures.
Companies will not necessarily hire more futurist consultants, however. Rather, they will expect their staff to possess the skills of foresight and visioning. Managers will increasingly need to be their own futurists, adept at forming sound expectations, anticipating new developments, and managing the future. They will need to be “visionary leaders,” who identify and actively create their own futures.
Role models of visionary leadership already exist, according to Millett: Bill Gates is a visionary leader, as were the two brothers-in-law who launched Procter & Gamble. Millett outlines the characteristics that set visionary leaders apart and that aspiring managers should emulate if they, too, want to take command of their and their organizations’ futures. He also describes activities and exercises that they can use to engage all organizational members in the vision and change processes.
Millett describes many of the future changes that may greatly impact both organizational leaders and futurists. Each camp will find much to discuss, ponder, and possibly act upon in Managing the Future.