Blowing the Cobwebs Off Your Mind Event - 22 January 2014

Robust decisions in uncertain times

SAMI Consulting

1

Welcome to the

last

Blowing The Cobwebs Off Your Mind

with friends of Laurie Young

The Royal Society

22nd January 2014

www.samiconsulting.co.uk


The Cobwebs team

www.samiconsulting.co.uk 2


Laurie Young


Died suddenly and shockingly

18th September 2013

We are missing him, and

hope that this event captures

some of his voice and ideas.

http://laurieyoungmemorial.wordpress.com/

http://laurieyoungmemorial.wordpress.com/


Remembering Laurie

• Laurie Young prize,

• Summit,

• Essay competition,

• 1% club,

• Funding vehicle for consultancies and business schools

to conduct original research into Thought Leadership.

• Richard Chaplin is the architect, has more details, and

would be delighted to talk about it in the break ------


Where this came from

• Laurie and Gill's book

• Interest in futures & investment

• “Cobwebs” meetings to develop the ideas

• The cards & advisory work

• Impetus to the Thought Leadership book

from last years’ Royal Society event



What we have covered

• Futures trends

• Dialogue about the forces

• Cognitive bias

• Three Horizons

• Scenarios

• VERGE


In the future, we will all fly organic.

The three horizons framework for layering change life-

cycles


Agenda for today

• Thought leadership

– Looking back, models of Thought Leadership

• Three Horizons

• Some Forces for Change

– Choosing a few

• Future models of Thought Leadership

– Feedback

• Just in case you are not convinced of the challenges

ahead

– Briefing on technology driven opportunities



SAMI Consulting

8 www.samiconsulting.co.uk

Thought Leadership

Dr Chris Yapp


Laurie’s Last Book



The Cynical View



Why Now?

• Difficult economic times

• Shortening product lifecycles

• Commodification of services

• Short-termism

• Globalisation, BRICs, MINT…

• Complexity of change



The Challenge

• Individuals and organisations

• What is Thought Leadership?

• Where does it come from?

• How is it done?

• Who does it well?

• What is the value of Thought Leadership?



My Discussions with Laurie

• It’s often done badly in IT and professional

services

• It’s often scoped wrongly

• Communicating internally and externally needs

to be improved

• Once ideas are out there…

• It’s all about context



The Value of Thought Leadership

• To individuals

– identity

• To organisations

– attracting & keeping talent

• To stakeholders

– story builds the relationship

• To governments

– ability to embrace the future



Over to You----

• At the table

• Share some examples of Thought

Leadership



SAMI Consulting

16 www.samiconsulting.co.uk

Three Horizons

Dr Wendy Schultz


Three Horizons Framework for Layering Change Life-cycles B Sharp, T Hodgson, A Curry

The Three Horizons Framework



• Bill Sharpe, International Futures Forum:

– Technology roadmapping - inadequate

– UK Foresight: Intelligent Infrastructures

– Emerging practice

– Reflection

Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope

• Curry and Hodgson, cases and article

• Growing community of practice

Origins of the Three Horizons


Three Horizons



Horizon ONE


• Today’s dominant pattern(s) –

accumulations of past decisions & designs

• H1 systems are fully integrated with

surrounding culture – ‘locked in’

• Well-established ways of dealing with

problems frame approaches to new

challenges

• Dominated by quantitative sense of time

as a limited resource

MANAGERIAL


Horizon THREE


• Imagined futures and emerging changes –

transformative shifts from the present

• Explores the ‘full range of possible social

settlements and systems that could be

brought into being’

• Surfaces and questions underlying cultural

assumptions

• Dominated by qualitative awareness of

time as a defining moment of decision

VISIONARY


Horizon TWO


• Looks both ways – past and future –

to respond to limitations of H1 and

opportunities of H3

• Creates a zone of innovation and turbulence

• Danger: “H1 capture” – too mired in the past

• Dominated by feelings of opportunity,

engagement and a sense of opportunity cost

– trade-offs that must be made

ENTREPRENEURIAL


MANAGER VISIONARY ENTREPRENEUR

Eg,

MUSIC,

MOVIES,

CDs,

DVDs

Eg., MUSIC, MOVIES –

transformational disruptor

- iTunes

Eg, MUSIC, MOVIES

– paradigm buster -

Napster

Three Horizons: Mindsets


Three Horizons: Questions

• What are the current working assumptions and systems of production and marketing? What are you taking for granted when you make management decisions (horizon 1)?

• What changes are emerging as completely new paradigms and means to understand and undertake various human activities (horizon 3)? What are visionary leaders saying?

• Which of the immediate changes you see represent a transition or accommodation for evolving tensions as current assumptions and work patterns obsolesce, and transformative changes erupt into possibility (horizon 2)? What opportunities do you see? What are entrepreneurs building?


Three Horizons Insights


“Instead of seeing a world of stability to which

change and uncertainty ‘happen,’ we instead

become aware that everything that seems

fixed and stable is just part of a slow process

of change, embedded in other processes that

extend out as far as we want to explore.”


Horizon One Questions

• Discuss Chris Yapp’s overview of thought leadership

models:

– What additional leadership models from the past would you add

to the list? What are traditional approaches to innovation?

– What current approaches to leadership and thought leadership

do most people take for granted?

– How do most businesspeople and managers assume innovation

will happen?

• Note each past & current model on a post-it, and add

them onto the Horizon One space on your table map.



Horizon Three Questions


• Please review the 15 challenging changes we’ve

provided as a card deck at your table.

• Which of the changes significantly challenge traditional

and current models of thought leadership, either for the

good or ill? Place them on the Third Horizon.

• Are there challenging changes or visions that you would

add? Jot each addition down on a post it, and add those

to the Third Horizon as well.

• Look at your First Horizon thought leadership models.

• Which are the most challenged by change? Star those.

• Which changes challenge the most thought leadership models?

Star those.


SAMI Consulting

28

Emerging models?

Dr Chris Yapp

www.samiconsulting.co.uk


Why Do We Need New Models?

• Deep uncertainties

• Influencing agendas

• Demographics – skills

– New disciplines: interdisciplinarity

• West to East

– Changing world order

• Environment

– Sustainability

• Technology

– Global networks



Pro-Am



Wiki



Wisdom of Crowds



Big Data

• Government Open Data

• Large Corporate Data sets

• Internet of Things

• BUT how to use to generate insight?



Open Innovation

• Open vs Closed models

• Co-design, co-delivery

• Clusters, supply-chains and ecosystems

• “Open Source”



Overcoming the hype

• "We can't solve problems

by using the same kind of

thinking we used when

we created them."

• "Any intelligent fool can

make things bigger, more

complex, and more

violent. It takes a touch of

genius -- and a lot of

courage -- to move in the

opposite direction."



Potential Models

• Pro-Am:

– co-operation with known rules

• Wiki

– experts edit the rules

• Wisdom of Crowds

– diversity on complex problems

• Big data

– so what? How to make sense?

• Open Innovation

– eco-system of experts



Horizon Two Questions


• Discuss Chris Yapp’s introduction of new thought

leadership models:

– Do these replace older models completely?

– Do any of the new models address or overcome the challenges

you’ve just identified as most significant?

– Can you look at the emerging changes and imagine any

additional, transformative, novel models of thought leadership?

• Identify to report back:

– The most significant, challenging change to thought leadership;

– The most profound new model of thought leadership emerging;

– The most surprising new need for thought leadership emerging.


Your group’s summary

• Before reporting:

– Review the highlights of your discussion

– What one change presents the greatest

challenge?

– What was the most profound new model

for thought leadership that emerged?

– What was the most surprising new need

for thought leadership?

• Report back: three bullet points only!



In Closing


• Laurie was Chairman of the Strategic Planning Society

– He suggested the formation of Special Interest Groups, SIGs

– We are planning to launch the Futures & Strategy SIG with a

series of events

– 30th April, 23rd July, 22nd October

• We are also planning Futures Bootcamps at Wolfson

College, Oxford

– Details from Wendy Schultz

• Watch for the announcements of the Laurie Young

Memorial Prize, the summit, the 1% Club, ----

• And perhaps we may all meet again next year at The

Royal Society


Thank You


Blowing the Cobwebs Off Your Mind Event - 22 January 2014

Business

Transcript of Blowing the Cobwebs Off Your Mind Event - 22 January 2014