Bringing Futures Thinking to Organizations Big and Small
Anticipating changes allows organizations to make smarter, more insightful decisions today. Stephen J. Dupont is an internationally recognized futurist who helps organizations identify and navigate future risks and opportunities.
We can’t predict the future, but we can actively anticipate change and shape the arc of the future.
Organizations all over the world — of all types and all sizes — are facing massive disruptions.
I apply my expertise in foresight and more than 30 years experience in communications to help organizations see beyond the horizon, make sense of the future, speak to the future they want and start taking action on it by making smart, strategic decisions today.
I help organizations build bridges to the future by:
Delivering insightful presentations about the signals of change and trends that may influence an organization’s future.
Conducting workshops for organizations to explore possible futures (their organization, industry or a specific issue).
Identifying issues and trends to facilitate thought leadership.
Conducting participatory foresight projects to explore specific issues.
Developing scenarios to inform strategic planning.
Advising organizations on their crisis communications planning with foresight.
Futures thinking and analysis that helps organizations address the pain points they’re feeling today…and tomorrow.
Stuck in the urgent. Leaders are so consumed by quarterly targets and daily firefighting that the long-term future gets pushed to “someday.” This present-paralysis leaves organizations reacting to change instead of shaping it.
Blindsided by change they could have seen coming. Shifts in technology, regulation, workforce expectations and customer behavior rarely arrive without warning. Without a habit of scanning for early signals, organizations miss the clues until those signals become crises.
Strategy built on a single assumed future. Most plans quietly bet on tomorrow looking like today. When conditions change, those plans break, and there’s no prepared alternative ready to guide decisions.
Uncertainty that freezes decisions. Faced with AI, volatility and competing priorities, teams either stall while waiting for clarity or chase every trend. Neither builds confidence or momentum.
Foresight that never reaches action. Even when organizations think about the future, insights often stay in a report or a single retreat — lost in an organization’s filing systems. Without shared language and a clear path from insight to action, good thinking never turns into decisions people own.
Foresight that Builds Stronger Bridges to the Future
Outcome #1:
Deeper Understanding
I help my clients identify and make sense of disruptions and trends that may affect their organization or industry.
Outcome #2: Possibilities that Matter
I work with organizations to identify possible futures (scenarios) and their implications for an organization and the industry in which it operates.
Outcome #3: Smarter Decision-making
I help identify strategic options and the smart decisions organizations can make today to obtain the quality future they desire most.
Thought provoking. Thoughtful. Practical. Creative. Futures thinking that transforms organizations.
Foresight Labs
Half-day, day-long and multi-day intensive workshops focused on helping leaders and teams explore the future of their organization, their industry or a specific issue.
Executive Advisory and Thought Leadership
Short- and long-term engagements focused on providing executive-level insights and analysis about immediate-, short-term, and long-term futures based on the Quality Futures framework with the aim of enhancing the thought leadership of senior leaders and organizations.
Foresight Analysis
Foresight analysis applied for traditional foresight projects at any or all stages of the process — signals scanning, driver identification, scenario development, futures implications, options development, communicating foresight.
Getting started…
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Schedule a Zoom call to discuss the your foresight needs and how I can assist you in reaching your goals.
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Based on the Fit Call, I provide a proposal offering various foresight consulting services to meet your project needs.
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After the proposal and estimate are approved, I work closely with you on your project, helping you see and sense the future, build stories about possibilities, and start taking action toward a quality future.
Foresight made practical
Based on my 30+ years working with businesses big and small, I make foresight a practical process that can be interwoven into an organization’s near-term and long-term strategy. To me, it’s all about driving higher levels of quality for the organization — today and tomorrow.
Frequently asked questions about the consulting and advisory services I offer:
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• Futures thinking workshops that introduce and build futures literacy throughout an organization.
• Foresight projects that explore the future of your industry, your organization, or a key issue.
• Facilitated retreats for boards of directors and leadership teams to explore the future of their organization, industry or specific issues.
• Thought Leadership for senior leaders to help them better express their viewpoints about the future.
• Trend Reports for organizations customized to their greatest concerns and hopes.
• Advisory services for leaders on introducing futures thinking into their work processes, such as communications, marketing, HR, legal, risk management, etc.
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Most engagements follow the four pillars of my framework. We begin by defining your strategic question and decision timeline. Then we See — scan for signals of change; Sense — make meaning of those signals together in workshops; Speak — develop scenarios and stories of possible futures and explore their implications; and Start — translate what we learn into actions and strategic priorities.
For example, my UNDP work with the government of Brazil spanned about eight months, explored 16 themes, included eight training workshops, and produced a 140-page report the government now uses as a model for thinking about the future.
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My methodology is derived from the University of Houston’s foresight framework. Alone, trend reports tell you what's happening. Foresight asks what it means for you — and what you'll do about it. My approach combines the four pillars of See, Sense, Speak, and Start with systems thinking and more than 30 years of experience in strategy and communications. It's participatory, it challenges assumptions rather than confirming them, and it connects directly to your strategy.
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It depends on your needs. Deliverables can include a written report, facilitated workshops, scenarios, and a roadmap of actions tied to your strategy. Because of my communications background, I can also help package the findings — executive summaries, fact sheets, key messages, presentations — so your leaders can share them with the people who need to hear them.
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Every project begins with conversations to understand your industry, the strategic questions you're facing, and when decisions need to be made. My experience across more than a dozen industries helps me get up to speed quickly, and I'm always looking for the metaphor that will make the future feel personal to your people. I feel very strongly about interviewing experts both within your organization and outside, who can help us See beyond the obvious.
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I scan widely for signals of change — news, research, and data from many fields. As editor of Compass, I also have a front-row seat to the work of futurists around the world, which gives me perspectives that most trend sources miss. I also believe its important to interview experts and use other proven research methods, including surveys, site visits, and workshops.
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Yes, I would be happy to share examples of my futures work. Two examples: At GMAC, our avian flu task force explored what a pandemic would mean for the business, which led me to completely rewrite the company's crisis communications plans — nearly 15 years before COVID-19. For UNDP, the team on which I worked helped the government of Brazil explore 16 themes over eight months, producing a 140-page report that is now a foundation for national conversations about Brazil's future.
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I work with organizations of all types: corporations; nonprofits; not-for-profit institutions in education, healthcare, faith, and more; industry and professional associations; federal, state, and local governments; cities and communities; NGOs; professional service firms; and cause-related organizations. Basically, any organization whose leadership is open to thinking beyond the next one to three years and wants to explore futures 5, 10, 20, or even 100 years from now.
And it isn't just the C-suite and the boardroom. I believe everyone should be literate in futures thinking. I want everyone in an organization thinking about how their daily decisions can enhance the quality of the organization — and the bridges it builds with all of its stakeholder communities.
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Over my career, I've worked with clients in more than a dozen industries. My deepest experience is in construction and engineering, trucking and transportation, manufacturing, processing (chemical and oil & gas), and outdoor recreation — fitting, since I love skiing, biking, and fishing. I've also worked in consumer goods and retail, financial services and wealth management, healthcare, information technology, mining, government services, legal and architecture firms, and the construction trades.
Working across so many industries showed me how interconnected they all are. I help clients and audiences see how what happens in their industry connects to everything else.
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Foresight works best when it's participatory. I don't come in with all the answers; I come in with questions. Your people help identify signals, make sense of them, and build the stories of the future together, so the insights — and the commitment to act on them — belong to them.
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At GMAC, foresight led to completely revised crisis communications plans. In Brazil, our work gave the government a model for foresight and a starting point for conversations that lead to public policy, regulation, and investment.
Other examples to consider: for Maxim Cranes, we added two pages to their annual SDG report that invited the reader to think about the future of the crane rental industry 10 years from now; for Ulteig engineering, we turned the annual report to clients into a report focusing on the future of infrastructure engineering; for a corporate history about L&M Radiator, we invited the company’s owners to not just reflect on the past, but to offer their thoughts on the future.
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I prefer to partner with them. The CEO is the chief strategist, and foresight's job is to make your strategy more effective — not to replace the people and processes you already have. I bring the unexpected, and your team brings deep knowledge of your organization. Together, that's powerful.