Lessons from Research

In a February 2004 opinion column in the Wall Street Journal, Carly Fiorina, Hewlett Packard's chair and CEO, urged leaders to maintain the US lead as "the most competitive and creative of all nations." Her argument was that we should not hide behind a protectionist policy in an attempt to run away from the "reality of a global economy." Instead, leaders need to keep pushing their organizations to find new and different ways of creating and delivering products and services.

One way for leaders to stay on the competitive edge is to stay tuned to the future. How do you do this? According to Global Foresight Associates, a Waltham, Massachusetts futures research and consulting firm (www.globalforesightinc.com), you practice "360° scanning." You stay abreast of trends and changes in:

	society (demographics, culture, leisure and entertainment),
	technology (life sciences, communications, computing and energy),
	the economy (your industry, work and business practices, monetary systems),
	the environment (ecology and natural resources), and
	politics (at the local, state and national levels.)

How much time do you and your team spend studying how future trends and changes in these and other areas can affect your business and your employees? While current crises must be balanced against future concerns, it is still important to spend time pondering the future. It is important to stay flexible and adaptable and even more so today. But you can't avoid some planning for the future as well. You and your managers needs to be sure you are asking some tough questions, like:

	How will the industry evolve and change over the next 3 to 7 years? Could these same events happen this year or next?
	What trends globally will affect the business — in any of the areas defined in a "360*deg; scan?"
	With the sky as the limit, what new approaches could we take?
	What can we do that's new and different?
	What business are we really in? What business should we be in?
	Who are our customers, what do they want?
	How will all the new technologies affect us?
	What might the competition do over the same time frame? What should we do?
	If we were the competition, how would we counter our moves?
	What is our competitive edge? Why?
	Why are we doing what we're doing? Should we rethink that strategy?

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