Futures Thinking

Futures thinking is a multidisciplinary methodology that activates the mental and emotional flexibility needed for long term strategic thinking, planning and design. It is far from some faddish, wishy washy, pie in the sky, mushroom trippin’ romp.

Intersecting multidisciplinary neuroscience, research mindedness, and design and systems thinking, our Futures programmes and services include a rich range of applications and modelling tools to help individuals and organisations to envision, evaluate, plan and foresee a range of possible future outcomes and effects.

_{MindRheo Futures Thinking Mindset: Model 1}

New developments in cognitive neuroscience and psychology have enriched our programmes and consultancy to better help our clients foster, support, and integrate Futures Thinking into their organisational design and mindset development.

The first step in Futures Thinking is to look beyond the immediate constraints. This is far easier said than done.

We repeatedly encounter leaders and organisations walking into the trap of believing they are practicing Futures Thinking because they are discussing the future. There’s a huge difference between Futures Thinking and thinking about the future.

If Futures Thinking is so important why don’t more organisations and people invest time and effort in it?

Futures Thinking as it is generally understood today, kicked off in the 1960s with scenario planning. It gained recognition and appreciation in organisational development 25-30 years ago when large corporations such as Royal Dutch/Shell, Walt Disney and OPEC began including it in their strategic planning. Even today it is poorly understood, applied and immensely underutilised in long-term planning and design.

Whilst the number of organisations investing in Futures Thinking have grown, very little expertise exists or attention paid to the context, i.e. the mindset and cognitive-emotion-behavioural axes development, that is necessary to expand and develop new models of Futures Thinking for the 4.0 world we live in.

Using “traditional” Futures Thinking models such as scenario planning and horizon scanning, we construct and design new models and approaches to Futures Thinking that are relevant to today’s global workplace. Our Future Memories and Future Episodes are two such models.

Don’t wait for the future to happen to you. Get in touch to find out more about our our full range of Future Thinking workshops, bespoke coaching and consultancy: admin@mindrheo.com.