Hailed as the World’s Leading Business Strategist, award-winning professional speaker, management consultant and business strategist Scott Steinberg is the creator of “What’s the Future of…?” — a new series of board games that can teach anyone to be more creative, innovative and resilient. Among today’s best-known trends experts and futurists, he’s been a strategic adviser to over 2000 brands, and is the bestselling author of “The New Rules of Business Development,” “Think Like a Futurist” and “Make Change Work for You.” He is also the president and CEO of BIZDEV: The International Association for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships™. His website is FuturistsSpeakers.com.

As meeting and event planners have become all too aware of in recent years, the unexpected is suddenly the only thing that business leaders can now expect, given the accelerating pace of change and disruption, and continuing advancement of new technologies and trends like automation and AI, going forward (like we point out in the new board game and training tool for meetings and events What’s the Future of…?), we won’t be dealing with “a new normal” so much as a series of next normals — each of which will only continue to come on faster in the future.

With in-person events booming, hybrid meetings remaining on the upswing, and travel continuing to skyrocket, an environment of constant change is now the new status quo. And if you’re still doing things the so-called “way they’ve always been done before,” guess what? Odds are, they’re not the right way to be doing them.

Luckily, as we share with thousands each year via keynote speeches and workshop programs such as Think Like a Futurist: How to See Tomorrow Today, you don’t have to be especially brilliant or talented to successfully navigate through all this ongoing chaos — or stay one step ahead of the curve. Better still, for industry vets who may be reeling after months of constant disruption, anyone can learn to more effectively spot and adapt to rising trends just by asking more pointed questions and exercising a little bit more critical thinking to boot.

Having spent 25 years serving as a futurist and trends expert for over 2000 of today’s largest household brands, here’s a simple three-step system that you can use to more effectively plan for whatever the future brings — and adapt to any unforeseen curveballs that it throws your way.

Focus on the Future

Futurism is the practice of actively contemplating future events and trends, and how they promise to impact your business — and it’s only becoming an increasingly vital skill to employ. Luckily, anyone can practice using it the same way we pros do: Just by studying the current state of the market and society, tracking emerging trends and challenging yourself to think about how resulting developments might impact your organization.

You can become more of an anticipatory leader by staying better attuned to what’s happening in the marketplace and making a point to actively plan ahead by creating concrete action plans for addressing any scenarios that you might face.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to challenge staffers to routinely pause and consider what’s coming next for your field — then craft sample scenarios that you and your colleagues can simulate working through to solve problems long before they ever become pressing issues. For example, simple exercises that we often use at workshops and retreats to help partners think more strategically include:

Brainstorming 10 unforeseen events and happenings that might impact your business in the future and discussing with peers how you might address them. For example, this might include asking yourself what if:

• A resurgence in travel or health-related concerns causes event attendance to shrink, industry calendars to shift and available labor to become even harder to come by?
• Audience spending and interest winds up pulling back in the wake of ongoing economic uncertainty?
• Geopolitical upheaval causes temporary or long-term hiccups to the event or travel planning process?

Thinking up 10 new trends or innovations that promise to reshape your field, and exploring which should be top of mind going forward by encouraging you to ask yourself pointed questions like:

• Which areas of your business are likeliest to be impacted by these new advancements, how and when?
• How are you preparing to greet these changes going forward, and where can you turn for help if needed while doing so?
• What simple shifts in business or operating strategy could you make to address impending changes in the market or pivot to new audiences or spaces as needed?

Engaging in these exercises — essentially playing a constant game of asking yourself what if? —can help you determine which way the future is trending, and the best plan of action to adopt going forward. Better yet, the more you make a point to role-play through possible scenarios and exercise your problem-solving skills, the more you’ll discover that the type of critical thinking that futurists use is a skill that can be strengthened through repeated exercise.

Make Strategic Planning Your Secret Weapon

Planning for tomorrow not only encourages us to get in the habit of being more proactive in the face of impending shifts, but also more purposeful when it comes to doing our research and making smart decisions. But perhaps best of all, it also gets us in the habit of exercising strong, but weakly held, opinions, i.e. making decisions using the best information at-hand and taking action, but not becoming so married to our strategies that we can’t change course in the face of new (or even contradictory) information and business intelligence.

As you go about this process, and consider new business strategies, don’t forget to take a long-term approach to planning either, and recognize that there are many ways to win in business besides boosting your company’s profits.

For example: Although it may begin as a loss leader at first, if starting a new conference or event series introduces you to new industries or partners, or provides crucial business insights and learnings, it may be worth more than a short-term boost to revenues in the end. So, as you consider which business choices to pursue, don’t forget to factor in the opportunity cost associated with any decision as well. Happily, asking yourself a few simple questions can help here, such as:

• Profits aside, how can you ensure you’re finding ways to win with every opportunity you pursue ?
• How adaptable are the business strategies that you’re considering implementing?
• How quickly can resources and learnings garnered from your efforts in any given area translate to other contexts, industries, or areas of business opportunity?

Apply a Measured Approach to Advancement

It pays to apply a structured approach to innovation. Noting this, you can get better about determining which way the wind is blowing by engaging in a few simple forward-thinking activities that indicate how tomorrow’s world is trending.

Seeing Tomorrow Today

In the end, it helps to remember that getting better about planning for tomorrow isn’t necessarily about having to get better about predicting the future so much as it is about asking more pointed questions.

The more you stay attuned to market signals, work to weave them together to spot emerging patterns, and strive to put new ideas in motion, the more successful you’ll ultimately be. Better yet, the more you practice using these talents, the more you’ll also find that tomorrow is often simply what you choose to make of it — and the better equipped to adapt to changing times that you’ll be. C&IT