See the Future First

Not everyone is an Artist, but there are ways that anyone can become more creative when the moment demands a new way of seeing things. You don’t have to wait for an Artist to join your team—or wait for inspiration to miraculously strike—in order to gain the benefits or insights of an Artist.

Artists try to see the future first because they aspire to create new things in new ways. Because there is no data on the future, we can only look for those forces that drive the future in a particular way: money, relationships, employment, health, and so on. It’s important that we look only at those drivers that relate to our plans and aspirations. Otherwise, it’s easy to get lost in all the complexity.

Scenario making simply means developing a collection of stories about what could happen in the future. This will give us some clues as to what we will see along the way so that we can navigate our way through potential barriers toward our vision. We make scenarios routinely when we consider the best and worst case of a decision. What we are assessing is the relative probability that something will actually happen and the relative impact of it.

To learn more about becoming more creative and for a detailed step-by-step exercise to plan for the future, read my book The Innovation Code.

Learn More