Patricia Lustig, Author, Strategic Foresight Learning from the Future; New Shoots
Patricia is a foresight, strategy, and change consultant, and author. She is an internationally recognized practitioner in foresight and strategy development, future thinking, scenario planning, and innovation and she advises at all levels, working from factory floor to boardroom.
Podcast
Overview
A well-defined strategy supports a business vision and mission. With the rapidly changing business environment, it is important to have sharp foresight. It helps in better planning, execution, and monitoring to achieve the goals.
However, critical thinking and imagination are key to having a foresight strategy. In today’s episode, we have Patricia Lustig, a practitioner in Strategic Foresight and Strategy Building. She is also the author who educates the masses through academic and storytelling writing.
About Patricia Lustig
Patricia Lustig is a foresight, strategy, and change consultant. She is also an author who has written a book titled “Strategic Foresight Learning from the Future” and has co-authored “New Shoots.” Both the books are about the importance of future thinking and scenario planning.
Let’s dive into the episode to understand the importance of futuristic thinking.
DISCUSSION
Patricia talks about discovering her niche of foresight strategy as she worked in organizational change. She says, “You can’t change it without looking at potential futures and deciding what to do in different cases. In that case, it is just plan A and won’t turn out as you think.”
Talking about her book, she calls it an effort to educate people who do not understand the value of foresight strategy. She talks at length about the power of being a futurist. However, it requires skills, time, and practice. She says, “Futurists think differently and need imagination.” Her book has several interesting case studies to back up her beliefs.
Futurist & Strategy
Patricia explains that one has to develop foresight muscles by thinking and arranging for both good and bad. She explains, “It is about thinking what to do to be successful in that future and have multiple plans. One needs to craft a roadmap.” Patricia feels that being a futurist gives us more opportunities. She also draws a comparison between strategy and tactics.
Pulling Together Multiple Strategies
To achieve a wider strategic goal, one needs to include every stakeholder group. Patricia emphasizes the same. She explains, “If everybody understands the direction and context, and the why of a strategy, then one group strategy will support the other.”
This also includes the importance of understanding an organization’s value system.
More About Patricia
Patrica has co-authored another book, “New Shoots.” She tells that they had to rewrite the entire thing again as the COVID hit, and their viewpoints changed and developed. She calls her book catered to millennials and Gen Zs, which aims to help individuals develop futuristic thinking.
Patricia also talks about COVID playing differently in different regions and acting as a disruptor. She talks about energy choices and technology trends.
She makes a powerful remark on technology as a disruptor, “Technology is never good or bad, how it is used is good or bad.”
She advises young individuals to have curiosity coupled with courage as a key to growing forward.
Profile
Patricia is a foresight, strategy, and change consultant, and author. She is an internationally recognized practitioner in foresight and strategy development, future thinking, scenario planning, and innovation and she advises at all levels, working from factory floor to boardroom. She is also a keynote speaker in Strategic Foresight and Megatrends.
Patricia helps organizations develop insight into emerging trends, develop a successful strategy based on this insight and then implement the changes needed to carry the strategy out. She has worked in Europe, EMEA, Asia, and the USA. She is multilingual.
She is a board member of the Association of Professional Futurists and facilitates their Emerging Fellows program.
