If there’s one thing that the last two years (and a close brush with COVID-19's economic impact) have taught meeting and event planners, it’s that the unexpected is now the only thing that modern professionals can now expect. With in-person events returning faster than anticipated, hybrid meetings here to stay and travel suddenly rebounding, it’s also becoming increasingly clear that an environment of constant change is the new status quo. Luckily, as we share with thousands each year keynote and workshop programs such as Think Like a Futurist: How to See Tomorrow Today, you don’t have to be especially brilliant or talented to successfully navigate through all this ongoing chaos—or stay one step ahead of the curve.
Better still for industry vets who may be reeling from months of constant disruption: Anyone can learn to more effectively spot and adapt to rising trends just by asking more pointed questions and exercising a little bit more critical thinking to boot.
Having spent 20 years serving as a futurist and trends expert for today’s largest household brands, here’s a simple three-step system that you can use to more effectively plan for whatever the future brings, and adapt to any unforeseen curveballs it throws your way.
“Futurism” is the practice of actively contemplating how events and trends may transpire in the future, and how they promise to impact your business, and it’s increasingly becoming a vital skill to employ. Luckily, anyone can practice using it the same way we pros do: Just by studying the current state of the market and society, tracking emerging trends, and challenging yourself to think about how resulting developments might impact your organization.
You can become more of anticipatory leader just by staying better attuned to what’s happening in the marketplace and making a point to actively plan ahead by creating concrete action plans for addressing any scenarios you might face.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to challenge staffers to routinely pause and consider what’s coming next for your field, and then craft sample scenarios that you and your colleagues can simulate working through to solve problems long before they ever become pressing issues.
For example, simple exercises we often use at workshops and retreats to help partners think more strategically include:
Engaging in these exercises—essentially playing a constant game of asking yourself what if?—can help you determine which way the future is trending, and the best plan of action to adopt going forward.
Better yet, the more you make a point to role play through possible scenarios and exercise your problem-solving skills, the more you’ll discover that the type of critical thinking that futurists use is a skill that can be strengthened through repeated exercise.
Planning for tomorrow not only encourages one to get in the habit of being more proactive in the face of impending shifts, but also more purposeful when it comes to doing our research and making smart decisions.
But perhaps best of all, it also gets us in the habit of exercising strong, but weakly held, opinions, i.e. making decisions using the best information at-hand and taking action, but not becoming so married to our strategies that we can’t change course in the face of new (or even contradictory) information and business intelligence.
As you go about this process, and consider new business strategies, don’t forget to take a long-term approach to planning either, and recognize that there are many ways to win in business besides boosting your company’s profits.
For example: Although it may begin as a loss leader at first, if starting a new conference or event series introduces you to new industries or partners, or provides crucial business insights and learnings, it may be worth more than a short-term boost to revenues in the end.
So, as you consider which business choices to pursue, don’t forget to factor in the opportunity cost associated with any decision as well.
Happily, asking yourself a few simple questions can help here, such as:
As corporate leaders can tell you, it pays to apply a structured approach to innovation. Noting this, you can get better about determining which way the wind is blowing by engaging in a few simple forward-thinking activities that indicate how tomorrow’s world is trending.
In the end, it helps to remember that getting better about planning for tomorrow isn’t necessarily about having to get better about predicting the future as much as it is about asking more pointed questions. The more you stay attuned to market signals, work to weave them together to spot emerging patterns, and strive to put new ideas in motion, the more successful you’ll ultimately be.
Better yet, the more you practice using these talents, the more you’ll also find that tomorrow is often simply what you choose to make of it—and the better equipped to adapt to changing times that you’ll be.
Guest Blogger: Scott Steinberg
Hailed as the World’s Leading Business Strategist, award-winning professional speaker Scott Steinberg is among today’s best-known trends experts and futurists, and the bestselling author of Think Like a Futurist; Make Change Work for You: 10 Ways to Future-Proof Yourself, Fearlessly Innovate, and Succeed Despite Uncertainty; and Fast >> Forward: How to Turbo-Charge Business, Sales, and Career Growth.