When you’re looking for solutions and planning for the future, it’s tempting to look outward – to trends, consultants, or customer data – but some of your most valuable insights are already in the room. Tap into skills, perspectives, lived experience, and wisdom of everybody, even the most junior staff. Listen, reflect, learn, share and make sense of the future together.

https://swiy.co/go-internal-sensemaking

I’ve been working with the leadership team of an organisation that’s looking ahead to 2030 and beyond. They invited me to kick off their strategic leadership offsite with half a day getting them to expand their thinking and look bigger, broader, and wider.

I love working with groups like this, who know they need to do things differently. They were motivated, excited, and eagerly looking forward to understanding what’s happening outside their organisation and industry.

But I started with an exercise that wasn’t about the future.

In fact, it was very much about the past.

I call it “First Job”. In a nutshell, it goes like this:

1. Each person recalls their very first paid job – often a casual job they did after school to earn a bit of money. It could be a babysitter, working at a checkout in a supermarket, mowing the lawn for neighbours, or whatever.

2. They then identify the skills they learned from that job.

3. They then pair up, each share a real problem or challenge they’re facing right now, and the other person shares advice they learned from their first job that could help.

So, for example, person A says:

“One of the board members is constantly asking us to write unnecessary reports about XYZ, and it’s taking up way too much of my time.”

And B replies:

“Hmmm ... When I was a babysitter, I had one couple who kept phoning me every few minutes to check on their daughter. What I did was ...”

Try this with your team!

It’s a fun exercise, it gets people laughing, reminiscing about their career, thinking creatively, and often they find – to their surprise – some practical, useful ideas they can use in their job now.

But that’s not the real reason I do this exercise.

In fact, when I asked the group what value they got from the exercise, the CEO said,

“The thing I learned is that when I’m talking to ANYBODY in the organisation, I should listen more because they could have something valuable I could use.”

Yep, she nailed it!

All the other reasons are valid. But THAT’S my goal.

Because often, when people – especially senior leaders – are looking at the future, they look outside.

They ask customers.

They do scenario planning.

They (gasp!) engage a futurist.

All good things (especially the last, ha ha), but sometimes you’ll get the most valuable insights from people within your organisation.

That’s why diversity matters – with different generations, genders, ages, ethnicity, nationality, and more. Everybody brings their own experience, expertise, insights, and perspective.

So when you’re looking at the future, don’t only look outside.

This is all part of the skill of sense-making, which is an essential skill for the future. Join my online presentation to find out more, and invite others in your team and network as well.

I’ll see you in the future.

Register for the virtual masterclass:

https://swiy.co/go-internal-sensemaking

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