George Burt

First Steps: Towards Purposeful Activities in Scenario Thinking and Future Studies

Abstract In this paper, we contribute to the understanding of the field of scenario development and future studies, which has been a key debate in Futures over the past three of four years. Our contribution is less on the philosophical issues surrounding future studies, but more on the hurdles faced by those interested in practising in the area of scenario planning and future studies. The issues presented and discussed in this article arise from a number of action learning research projects that we have conducted with small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Scotland, who have embraced scenario development for the first time as part of their strategic management and learning process. Our contribution is targeted at identifying and understanding the hurdles to be overcome when (such) organisations consider adopting scenario development or future studies. The contribution is designed to first, help those in the field of scenario development and future studies be mindful of these hurdles and to build a trusting relationship between the scenario practioner and the client, and secondly, help those managers willing to engage in such activities to better understand the purpose of such work. First we identify three key hurdles: (a) organisational culture (i.e. tacit assumptions on scenario development and future studies); (b) “client” state of mind; (c) fear of engaging with the outside/fear of the future. We argue that these hurdles are a serious threat to the relevance and effectiveness of futures work. We argue that these hurdles need to be better understood as a basis for improving the impact and contribution that scenario development and future studies can make. Later in this article we propose a framework to help understand the purpose of scenario development or future studies work. This framework can be used at the outset of any engagement or study, to help the “client” to identify the purpose of such work and to understand its role and scope. We argue that this framework contributes to more purposeful, relevant and actionable scenario development and future studies in the future. Unless you changed something in the minds of managers, a scenario project had failed (Harvard Bus. Rev. 63(6) (1985) 139). Going one-step further, we would argue that unless something tangible happens as the result of the scenario development and future studies work, we have wasted our time.

Relevance or ‘relevate’?: How university business schools can add value through reflexively learning from strategic partnerships with business

Much has been debated about the perceived relevance/irrelevance of business schools in addressing business needs with some suggesting that academic research is not applicable to practice. We contribute by claiming the debate is itself somewhat misplaced and the real task of business schools is to instil the art of ‘relevating’ the seemingly irrelevant in order to prepare managers for the challenges they face. Paradoxically, we contend that in relentlessly pursuing scholarship, academics can make a valuable contribution to practice by offering counterintuitive viewpoints that challenge business mindsets. Ironically, value-adding contributions to practice are best made when academia resists the seductive tendency to capitulate to the immediate demands of the client. For it is only by challenging conventional wisdom and expectations and thereby creating dissonance in the minds of managers, that new and unthought avenues of action may be opened up for consideration. We illustrate this by examining the experiences of a partnership between a multinational corporation and a university in the United Kingdom where the executive education programme was carried out using action learning techniques while encouraging reflexivity in practice.

Learning with scenarios: summary and critical issues

This issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources has discussed scenario planning as a contemporary business approach to support the strategic roles of human resource departments in organizations. Scenario planning is usually situated in the domain of strategic and business planning, yet it is increasingly considered a major organizational intervention approach to overcome organizational defensive routines and bring about learning and change in organizations.The articles in this issue bring together academics and practitioners discussing a wide range of issues concerning the theory, research, and practice of scenario planning, illuminating different applications of the method as well as some pitfalls that need to be acknowledged and considered by those wishing to use it in their organizations.

The Psychology of why organisations can be slow to adapt and change

This article discusses what can be done about bias in human decision making to make organizations adapt to change. In conclusion, individuals follow cognitive habits, seeing challenging situations through a singular frame of reference that makes assumptions about the nature of problems or opportunities that arise. Additionally, we feel that our judgment is good. Furthermore, this perception is reinforced by both the confirmation bias and the hindsight bias that underpin an inappropriate confidence in our judgment. Such over-confidence will lead to inappropriate best-guess thinking about the future--as illustrated in our earlier case studies of strategic inertia or business-as-usual thinking. Our analysis illustrated that the risks were perceived to be serious if the company did not change its current failing strategy and, also, that the risks were seen to be serious if the company did change the strategy. There was strong evidence that the senior management team attempted to shift responsibility for its adherence to the current strategy to the top level board of directors--that is, buck passing. Additionally, the management team also evidenced delay and procrastination--whilst bolstering the current failing strategy

Towards the Integration of System Modelling with Scenario Planning to Support Strategy: The Case of the UK Energy Industry

A key aspect of strategy is sense-making of the unfolding uncertainty in the business environment and responding appropriately to achieve organisational objectives. However, uncertainty means that there is more than one future open to an organisation. Sense-making is therefore problematic. Scenario planning is one approach to sense-making that helps to explore and understand uncertainty, aiming for the identification of potential predetermined elements in the business environment. In this paper we propose the integration of systems modelling with scenario planning to support the exploration of uncertainty, identify knowledge gaps that set a (subsequent) research agenda, understand the role and usefulness of historical data, and model research outcomes to help reveal potential predetermined elements. Specifically, scenario planning identifies potential predetermined elements in the business environment; system modelling in the form of behaviour-over-time graphs, causal mapping and feedback loops helps in structuring and linking variables and their interaction to provide an understanding of the systemic drivers of these predetermined elements. Methodological integration of this type enhances modellers’ ability to support strategy in organisations.

Strategic learning, foresight and hyperopia

Analogous to long-sightedness, hyperopia describes the condition of being able to grasp with acuity matters which are far removed from current experience (temporally, spatially or cognitively) while encountering difficulty in interpreting and acting on that which is close at hand. We examine data from a top management team’s activity in which they collectively display a hyperopic approach. A single in-depth field study is analysed retroductively to examine the plausibility of potential causal mechanisms that might explain the emergence of hyperopia. In the case examined, hyperopia appears to emerge from a strategic learning approach that emphasises foresightful learning mechanisms while neglecting experiential learning from direct exposure to operations. To avoid the emergence of pathologies of managerial approaches, such as hyperopia or myopia, practitioners are encouraged to engage with balanced strategic learning mechanisms of varying temporal, spatial and cognitive scope.

Researching the organisation-environment relationship

Offer and innovative and multi-disciplinary perspective on the past, present and future of management strategy formulation and foresight. This chapter looks at strategy innovation for the future in the organisataion-environment relationship.