1. Foresight: Your Hidden Superpower!
Better Future Thinking for Individuals and Teams
Science, Technology and the Future
Friday, 4 March, 2022
John Smart
CEO, Foresight University | Lecturer, NPS
john@foresightU.com | @johnmsmart

2. Who Am I?
Education:
BA, Business, Haas School, UC Berkeley
MS, Strategic Foresight, School of Technology, U. Houston
MS Eq., Physiology & Medicine, School of Medicine, UC San Diego
Director, EDU Complexity Research Community (Since 2008).
JohnMSmart.com
Top Clients:
– Defense & Intelligence
– Law Enforcement
– Corporate Teams
– Entrepreneurs
ForesightU.com
Georgiev, Smart,
et al. 2019
1. Educator
2. Entrepreneur
3. Foresight Coach
4. Complexity Researcher
5. Husband & Dad

3. The Foresight Guide:
ITF: Foresight Practices; BPF: 21st Century Futures Stories
Pub Date: Nov 2021 Est. Pub Date: Apr 2022
Free Draft PDFs at: foresightu.com/books

4. • Self foresight, self-knowledge, emotional
intelligence, self-acceptance, and self-leadership;
• Team foresight, relationships, social intelligence,
family, and team foresight and action;
• Organizational foresight, improving our
managerial and leadership foresight and action.
• Societal foresight, improving our economic,
political, and cultural foresight and action;
• Global foresight, improving the ability of all our
societies to cooperate, ethically compete, and
sustain our nurturing environment; and
• Universal foresight, or our science, philosophy,
and complex systems thinking and models for
universal change.
Comprehensive (“Full-Spectrum”) Foresight:
The Six Domains of Foresight Practice
 Which of these six domains do you think about most?
 Which do you most need to improve?
All six are important, in many life contexts.

5. Comprehensive Foresight:
The Four Horizons and the Power Law of Future Thinking
1. Benjamin Libet, Mind Time, 2005.
Most future thinking is <24 hours, and unconscious1
Key Takeaways:
1. Getting better at Today’s Foresight is the fastest way to
improve Short-Term Foresight and Mid-Term Foresight.
2. The middle two are our main evaluation horizons.

6. The Classic Foresight Pyramid:
A Good Model for Evo-Devo Complexity
“Three Ps”
Alvin & Heidi Toffler 1970
Smart, John M., Humanity Rising: Why Evolutionary Developmentalism Will Inherit the Future,
World Future Review, Nov 2015:116-130. doi:10.1177/1946756715601647

7. The “Three Ps”:
Three Future Thinking Skills, Three Management Groups
Leadership, Strategy, Analysis, Planning
Innovation, Ideation, KM
Design, Entrepreneurship
Forecasting, Financial,
Risk Mgmt, Law & Security
Seeing
“Trees”
Future Oriented
Seeing
“Funnels”
Past Oriented
Seeing
“Landscapes”
Present Oriented
Are you and your
team strong in each
thinking skill?

8. The Three Sentiments of Foresight
 Where Are You, Most of the Time?
Defensive Pessimism
Strategic Optimism Actively Contrasting
Sumathi Reddy, A Perfect Dose of Pessimism, WSJ, 2014.
Jeste 2020

9. Sentiment Contrasting:
A ~1:1 Optimism:Pessimism Ratio is Best for Daily Plans
Oettingen 2015
In Random Clinical Trials,
Sentiment Contrasting
Delivers Three Key Benefits:
 50-100% less Prediction
Error
 30-150% more Productivity
 Greater Motivation to
overcome Obstacles
Strategic
Optimist
Defensive
Pessimist
~1:1 Optimism:Pessimism (on Average)
Helps Create the Best Plans.
Other Ratios Are Better for Other Contexts

10. ● Advantage
● Disruption
● Opportunity
● Risk (“Threat”)
ADOR Analysis (A Better SWOT):
Four Strategic Assessments
Q2. What could harm or disrupt us?
• Burning Platforms
• Worst Case Scenarios
• Black Swans (Negative)
Q1. How can we adapt and advance?
• Pain Point Solutions
• Best Case Scenarios
• Black Swans (Positive)
“Promise
and
Peril”
Internal
External
ADOR is a sequential variant of SWOT that assesses:
• First External (Environmental), then Internal Perspectives
• First Positive, then Negative Potentials
Balanced Foresight

11. ● Disruption
● Risk
● Opportunity
● Advantage
Negativity Bias (DROA Bias):
In Our Media, In Some of Our Orgs, Teams, and Individuals
Q1. What could harm or disrupt us?
• Burning Platforms
• Worst Case Scenarios
• Black Swans (Negative)
Q2. How can we adapt and advance?
• Solutions to Pain Points
• Best Case Scenarios
• Black Swans (Positive)
“Peril
First.
Promise
Later”
Negative
Positive
Unbalanced Foresight
This reversal degrades our foresight capacity by 50%!1
1. Gabriele Oettingen, Rethinking Positive Thinking: The New Science of Motivation, 2014.

12. ADOR vs DROA Thinking
DROA-focused
• Distracted By Drama & Details
• Easily Offended, Disempowered
• Reactive, Fearful
• Unrealistic Scenarios
ADOR-focused
• Big-Picture Oriented
• Self-Determined (Efficacy)
• Focused, Prioritized
• Realistic Scenarios
Tierney & Baumeister 2021

13. GRASP (aka WOOP) Thinking:
Maximizes Predictive Accuracy, Performance and Motivation
• Goal (Worthy, difficult, short-term?)
• Reality (How far to go? How to measure?)
• Advantages (What happens at the goal?)
• Setbacks (How might you fail? What Obstacles?)
• Plan (Which “Key Resources”? What “If-Then” conditions?)
Alex Honnold, Free Solo, 2018
“How do you climb a mountain?
One GRASP at a time.”
Clinically tested in:
 Academic Performance
 Relationships
 Behavior Change (Weight Loss, Diet)
 High-Stress Work
GRASP is 1970’s GROW (Goal, Reality, Obstacles, Way forward) plus Sentiment Contrasting.
Gabrielle Oettingen, Rethinking Positive Thinking, 2015.
WOOP:
Wish (Goal)
Outcome (Positive)
Obstacles (Negative)
Plan
WoopMyLife.org

14. The Modern Foresight Pyramid:
Two Conflicts, Three Skills, Four Ps
2. Create Strategy,
with Sentiment
Contrasting
1. Assess the
Environment,
with Predictive
Contrasting
Q: Are You Doing Each of These Assessments (“Four Ps”)?
Q: Are You Managing them as a Productive Conflict?
Art Shostak (2020)

15. The Two Foresight Conflicts:
Anticipators vs. Innovators, Optimists vs. Pessimists
Strategy
vs.
vs.

16. Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI):
Conflict Management Diagnostic
Conflict Reduction Potential
(Goldberg & Urey, 1994)
Covey 2006
Q: What Is Your Conflict Management Style?
Q: Are You Promoting Trusted Conflict?
Q: Which Conflicts Should You See and Manage?
Edmondson, 2018

17. Google’s research found an emotional factor,
Psychological Safety, was the most critical group
norm for their top performing teams.
How To Provide It:
1. Create a culture where it’s “safe”
to express ideas, debate, ask
questions, and admit mistakes.
2. Root out ridicule, sarcasm,
snark, and intimidation.
3. Reward a continuous influx of
new ideas, challenges, and
critical thought.
4. Don’t make too much of
mistakes. Get folks to own them
and correct them. Praise
corrective action.
To Empower Trusted Conflict,
Leaders Must Ensure Psychological Safety (“Top Cover”)
Edmondson, 2018
Q: Are You Doing These with Your Team?
If Not, “Stop Blaming Your Culture”

18. The KAI and the Three Foresight Skills
3. Bridgers (Strategists)
(Managers, Facilitators, Planners)
Preferable and Preventable Futures
2. Innovators
(Creatives, Designers, Entrepreneurs, R&D)
Possible Futures
1. Anticipators
(Security, Forecasters, Finance, Compliance)
Probable Futures
Q: Where are you on this Normal Curve? Your Team?
The Kirton Adaptor-
Innovator (KAI)
assessment sorts
people into three
decisionmaking types:
Adaptors, Innovators,
and Bridgers
(KAICentre.com)

19. Keirsey’s Four Personality Temperaments:
A Diagnostic for the Foresight Conflict Groups
Q: Which Temperament(s) Best Describe You, on Teams?
Q: Can You Work With and Lead the Other Temperaments?

20. The Leadership Pyramid:
Hedgehogs, Foxes, Eagles (and Ostriches)
Steenkamp 2020
Eagles are a combination of
hedgehog and fox. They take a
big picture, integrative view and
seek tactical agility.
Foxes see many options and
pursue many ends, often
related to no clearly defined
overarching goal.
Hedgehogs are leaders who
relate everything to a single
central vision, and often, find
optimal processes for it.
Ostriches are reactive,
unforesighted, and
unpredictable in conflict.
Q: What Is Your Type? In What Contexts? Can You Lead Other Types?

21. Foresight Methods:
Balancing Them Across the Pyramid
Q: Is Your Team Using All Three Corners? Any Deficits to Fix?
Stretch Goals, Status Checks, Premortems
Simulations, Wargames, Debates, Delphi
Intel, Trends, Forecasts,
Risk Assessments,
Prediction Markets
Scenarios, Wildcards,
Design Thinking,
Experiments, Startups

22. How Do We Do Foresight?
Then, we Create Strategy, with Sentiment Contrasting (Conflict)
1. What Do We Want? Preferable “Optimistic” Future vs.
2. What Must We Prevent? Preventable “Pessimistic” Future
First, we Assess the Environment, with Predictive Contrasting (Conflict)
1. What Is Likely to Happen? Probable “Expected” Future vs.
2. What Could Happen? Possible “Uncertain” Future
Q: Which Of These Two Conflicts Do We Value More?

23. Superstar/Unicorn Stocks Are Seeing Astonishing Gains
In 2017…
▪ Google gained 33%. Apple 49%. Facebook 53%. Netflix 55%. Amazon 56%
▪ Boeing rose 90% (nearly 1X). (Profits, Politics, Air Taxis)
▪ Nvidia rose 90% (nearly 1X). (Profits, AI)
Last 12 Months…
▪ Google gained 97%. Apple 33%. Facebook 47%. Netflix 21%. Amazon 17%
▪ Boeing up 37%. Nvidia rose 75% (AI).
Nvidia’s AI Platforms
Boeing’s Aurora (Air Taxis)

24. Harness Exponentials (“The Snowball”)
 Open a Custodial Roth IRA for Your Kids at Age 8. (Fidelity, Schwab)
 Pay them $100/week for Chores, $5K Yr. Track their Labor (for IRS auditing).
 Invest in Growth Stocks. Ten Yr Trailing Market Return is Now 15% (Prev. 9%)
 Motley Fool Stock Advisor: Avg. 20%/yr Return for 27 yrs. Assume 15% Return.
 At 30, Your Kid’s Roth is Growing $300K/Yr. At 43, $1M/Yr. At 57, $4M/Yr.
 At 59, they’ll have >$36M (tax free). “The Snowball” – Warren Buffett
 Lesson: Psychologically, we always underestimate the 2nd half of this curve.
nerdwallet.com/investing/roth-ira-calculator
Only 10% of Americans are
Substantially (>30% of Assets)
Invested in the Stock Market.
Australians do Better, via
Superannuation Funds.
They Retire Much Less Poor.
We Can Teach Financial
Literacy and Investing to our
Kids, Teams, and Our Sailors.
Schroeder 2009

25. Urban Transportation
Air Taxis, Self-Driving Cars, Urban High Speed Rail
Has Joby Aviation (NYSE: JOBY) Solved Urban Gridlock?
Will Air Taxi Networks Dominate 21st Century Mobility?

26. Thank You!
john@foresightU.com
Free Draft PDFs at
foresightu.com/books