75. Future, TBD
Update: 2025-02-04
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Description
What happens when industrial design meets strategic foresight?
Lucy Ziegler, founder of TBD Futures and former McKinsey design strategist, reveals how leaders can transform business uncertainty into opportunity. Through scenario planning and design thinking, she demonstrates why the future isn't something to predict—it's something to design.
Highlights:
- Why traditional forecasting falls short in today's complex business landscape
- How design thinking unlocks strategic foresight for better decision-making
- Breaking free from quarterly pressures to build long-term vision
- Turning your worst-case scenarios into competitive advantages
- Case study: How an EV company in Latin America transformed market uncertainty into strategy
Guest
Lucy Ziegler, Founder, TBD Futures
Host:
Marco Annunziata, Co-Founder, Annunziata + Desai Partners
Series Hosts:
Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center
Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works
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Transcript
00:00:00
[Music]
00:00:05
Hello and welcome to the ecosystemic futures podcast presented by NASA Conversion Tornotic Solutions Project, the in collaboration with Shoshin Works, a global firm helping organizations and nations navigate ecosystemic transformation.
00:00:19
As our world is increasingly digital and interconnected, ecosystemic models are reshaping society, industry, the economy and policy, and they are reframing how we build for resilient futures.
00:00:31
Today, we're examining the ways that dynamic systems of information, incentives and interaction are reshaping societal systems of governance and network orchestration.
00:00:40
Traditional boundaries and operating norms are being updated.
00:00:44
They are being replaced with ecosystemic models, are new economic engines for the digital era.
00:00:50
I'm your host today, I'm Marco Nunzeta, co-founder of Anunzeta and DesiAdvisors.
00:00:54
I'm an economics PhD, the former chief economist and head of business innovation strategy, a general electric, and prior to that, I worked in policy and then in finance.
00:01:04
My expertise lies at the intersection of global economic and financial trends with technology and innovation.
00:01:11
And today, I'm delighted to welcome our podcaster, Lucie Ziegler.
00:01:15
Lucie is a certified futurist with over 20 years of experience in design, innovation and business strategy.
00:01:22
She co-founded and led McKinsey and companies DesignX4Side practice, bringing the combined power of creativity of design and the rigor of strategic foresight to leaders from startups to fortune-on-hundred companies for tangible business impact.
00:01:39
She founded the TBD Futures, a boutique futures consulting firm, continuing her services for leaders and those with a leader's mindset across multiple industries.
00:01:50
She gives keynote speeches and workshops globally on the practice of futures for sustained growth.
00:01:57
She has a master's in industrial design from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and a BS in industrial design from the Beijing Institute of Technology in Beijing, China.
00:02:07
And she's a fantastic thinker on innovation and strategy.
00:02:11
So I'm sure we will have a fantastic conversation today.
00:02:14
Lucie, welcome to the podcaster.
00:02:16
Thank you for being with us.
00:02:17
Thank you, Marco.
00:02:18
Thank you for the introduction.
00:02:20
I'm really excited.
00:02:21
Have I forgotten anything in the introduction?
00:02:23
Is there anything more our audience should know about you before we get into the flow?
00:02:27
No, I think you covered everything and there's one thing I want to add is that I'm also a nerd.
00:02:34
Emma, I love science fiction.
00:02:36
That's probably why I ended up getting into futures.
00:02:38
But we'll talk about that later.
00:02:42
All right, I'm sure we'll get to it.
00:02:42
In fact, to start, I still want to talk more about your journey.
00:02:45
Why don't you tell us a bit more about how having started off as an industrial designer, you then decided to move into design thinking and strategy?
00:02:56
Yeah, that's a great question.
00:02:59
Well, I started more than 20 years ago before digital experience design and design thinking design strategy were prominent.
00:03:09
Back in the days, industrial design was the thing that creative/engineering type of creative people would get into.
00:03:17
And so over the years, it was a natural progression to expand.
00:03:22
In my case, as I explored how to apply creativity, which is my innatability and drive for myself, how to apply that in different ways.
00:03:32
And so I started to design physical product at the very beginning of my career.
00:03:38
And then slowly, I started design products with digital interfaces.
00:03:44
And then when I joined McKinsey in 2019, I worked on projects that are digital experience and service design and projects that are using design as a way of thinking for business strategies.
00:03:57
I also, like you mentioned, I created design by four sides, which is pushing design's role a bit further into strategy, combining with strategic four side to help business leaders make longer term decisions into the future.
00:04:12
And I'm wearing my own thing really, my consulting firm to cover all three of them, the design, the design strategy, and then futures.
00:04:21
In my mind, it's a process of migrating from executional function of design to strategic decision-making, using design as a way of thinking.
00:04:32
So on the spectrum from execution to strategy, the creative thinking skills, the human centrality, the user research, the divergent ideation,
00:04:42
all of those great skills can be used to decide which color to use on one side of the spectrum, very executional, the color to use the size of the button, where to place the call to action,
00:04:54
and all those great things.
00:04:56
And then to move to the middle a little bit to decide what features to build and then what market to go into maybe for a business, all the way to what we want the business to be in many years.
00:05:10
So it's a tool still less familiar to a lot of business people.
00:05:14
Many thing design is an artistic art activity and very much not what they can touch.
00:05:21
Could feel a little scary.
00:05:23
So sometimes there's even fear and apprehension around creativity.
00:05:27
And I feel that when I engage with these leaders to show the whole range of things, the spectrum where design can touch and can help them,
00:05:37
it's always like a light bulb moment.
00:05:40
It's very interesting.
00:05:43
For many of us there is an element of serendipity in the way that our careers evolve.
00:05:48
But you've expressed and articulated very well how in your case there is a natural progression and how you can see from your progression what sort of sets of skills can be extremely useful in leadership and strategy,
00:06:04
especially in the current world with the digital technology evolving faster.
00:06:09
I will also say I'm a very good friend who also grew up in industrial design and I see in him the same things that you're talking about that I see in you.
00:06:19
So it's a way of thinking about the world that then applies and carries over to decision-making to strategy in a very interesting way.
00:06:28
Now your specialty Lucy is your ability to combine design thinking with strategic foresight.
00:06:36
So let's get a bit into the reads and let's take it one step at a time.
00:06:40
Can you tell our audience first of all what is design thinking and what is strategic foresight?
00:06:45
Yeah, absolutely.
00:06:47
So design thinking is a thinking and problem-solving style originated from the classic ways how designers handle problems.
00:06:57
So it has a few distinct features.
00:07:00
Human centricity the process of diversion exploration before conversion decision-making and this iterative improvement with rounds and rounds of prototyping and testing rather than trying to build the perfect product in the half the perfect solutions right away.
00:07:19
So you ask different people they can describe design thinking differently but to me those are the three key components of design thinking.
00:07:29
So in the past 15 years it's been used in business settings as an effective tool complementary to the typical linear ways of analytical thinking,
00:07:40
especially when we're trying to generate and execute on innovative product-centric solutions.
00:07:47
So recent years I think we're facing some kind of question about design thinking how effective it is and how to measure the ROI of design thinking.
00:07:57
So that's another topic but it's interesting to look back especially this is almost my entire career from design to design thinking and now we're thinking what's next.
00:08:09
Let me stop you there to ask you one more question here which is you started by describing design thinking as being a human centric was the first objective you used and then you talked about product centric challenges.
00:08:25
So what do we mean by human centric as opposed to product centric?
00:08:30
It's you are very sharp at pointing out my words.
00:08:36
So when we say in design thinking human centric we meant that we consider human users, customers, consumers, people who are using the products or services at the center of our problem solving.
00:08:50
So instead of saying hey let's build this product because we have these technologies in our bags.
00:08:56
So let's just piece it together into a product and ship it.
00:09:00
We're saying hey let's go and figure out what the users or potential users might actually need.
00:09:08
We go interview them, we go observe how they how they use them up to mop their floor, what the staffs they take to even prepare the mop, clean them up after and how they swipe the mop across floor every day.
00:09:22
This is just an example right in the digital setting their steps of downloading the app and opening the app, registering and all those things and I'll even recommend the app to their friends.
00:09:35
So we put the users experience in the center to identify what they really need, what they really want, what they really expect.
00:09:43
And a lot of that discovery process would tell us things that are obvious and things that are not obvious.
00:09:50
Things that users would not tell you that they want because they are not designers, they are not a startup founders, they're not product people.
00:09:57
They sometimes would tell you I just want to achieve this goal, they don't tell you the exact features we need to decipher their answer.
00:10:07
Very famous example we use in a lot of a conversations and workshops is that if you asked, this is from Henry for back in the days, one he said,
00:10:17
well, if you asked people what they really wanted, they would have told you they wanted a faster horse instead of a car because all they knew was the horse.
00:10:28
Yeah, all they wanted is to go from one place to the other place fast and safe.
00:10:33
They wouldn't have you they want a car.
00:10:35
So that is to say the difference between human centricity versus either business centricity.
00:10:42
How do we make a lot of money?
00:10:44
We're technology centricity.
00:10:47
It's a balance.
00:10:48
We need all three.
00:10:49
But as designers, we play the role to advocate for users for a human.
00:10:55
When I said product centric, I think it's more in the context of a business setting.
00:11:01
If your business is trying to innovate a new product, a new experience, a new service, that's where I would say design thinking is leveraged in more effective ways.
00:11:14
Design thinking can be also leveraged for operational optimization and the cost cutting, but that's not design thinking's natural arena.
00:11:24
So that's the difference I was trying to make.
00:11:28
Excellent.
00:11:29
Very clear.
00:11:29
And I apologize for you.
00:11:31
I've interrupted your flow.
00:11:32
You were still talking about the system thinking or are we moving on to strategic foresight?
00:11:38
Yeah.
00:11:39
We can talk about strategic foresight.
00:11:42
So it is a discipline in simple terms of studying the futures.
00:11:46
So if a historian's job is to study the history, a futurist job is to study the futures.
00:11:54
And we say futures as plural because there's no single future yet.
00:11:59
It's still unfolding.
00:12:01
There's still possibilities of multiple future potential outcomes.
00:12:07
So strategic foresight is part of the broader futures practice.
00:12:14
It has its own strategic foresight framework and process and there are several very interesting elements in there.
00:12:25
I would like to point out one is that it's very much research-based, is based on trend research in a very methodical, their rigorous way.
00:12:35
And it doesn't just limit to our typical research of our competitors of today.
00:12:43
It actually researches bigger micro trends across the spectrum from societal, technological, economic,
00:12:54
environmental, sometimes ethical and political.
00:12:57
So there's a much broader range of trends to be scanned.
00:13:01
And on the depth dimension, it also covers trend research from the obvious current strong trends to the smaller weaker signals that are tiny today but might become bigger trends in the next few years.
00:13:19
So that is how we can capture from what we can see today to project out what might happen in a few years in the future.
00:13:30
And then in strategic foresight, it's also very typical to build multiple future scenarios.
00:13:38
Instead of saying there's one future into focus on it actually plays out multiple future outcomes based on the trend research, based on the uncertainties that we discover,
00:13:49
based on the understandings and implications of these uncertainties, will build so many different future scenarios.
00:13:55
And there are so many different ways to build those scenarios in my future strategic foresight training.
00:14:01
The professors told us and I remember number they're known today.
00:14:06
There are 23 different ways to build those of each scenario.
00:14:10
In my practice, I have been using certain ways to build scenarios to be more practical.
00:14:17
But then what's really great is that then you see a range of possibilities.
00:14:21
This is a range of probabilities.
00:14:24
And then you can really figure out which ones you want to focus on instead of just one in future.
00:14:30
You're focusing on a larger range based on your business needs.
00:14:33
So it's really, it's a powerful tool.
00:14:35
It's very interesting because just to dwell on this for a moment and then I come from economics and economics is essentially the I've been brought up in the world of forecasts.
00:14:47
And even today when you look around, we're surrounded by forecasts, the International Monetary Fund will give you forecasts on global growth.
00:14:55
The Fed has forecast some inflation.
00:14:57
And at best, too, as a goodwill effort to capture the uncertainty what economists will do is give you a confidence range around the forecast.
00:15:07
So they will say, well, growth in the economic growth in the US next year will be 3%, but in a good scenario, it might be 2.5.
00:15:15
Sorry, in a bad scenario, it might be 2.5% better scenario, 3.5.
00:15:21
So you have a range of probabilities and range of confidence around the central forecast.
00:15:27
But then when you do it that way, inevitably the attention focuses on the central forecast, like there is uncertainty, but you're looking at that central forecast.
00:15:37
And so you end up preparing for this.
00:15:40
What you are describing leads to a very different decision making process, right?
00:15:46
Because the way you describe it is you're looking at different states of the world.
00:15:51
So there is a probability associated with them, but you're analyzing almost each and every one of these possible states of the world in themselves.
00:16:02
So how do you think this kind of decision-making differs and is probably superior to the one just based on forecasts?
00:16:10
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's superior.
00:16:13
I think forecasts are still needed.
00:16:14
I think this is a very different approach.
00:16:16
And then the goal is not to be right.
00:16:19
It's not to be accurate and precise.
00:16:23
There is a balance between being divergence and covering a range and being general and being somewhat specific.
00:16:32
So there are things that we can act on.
00:16:35
So every time we do a project with clients, we need to strive for that balance.
00:16:41
So it's very actionable by the end, but it's also opening people's mind.
00:16:46
I don't...
00:16:47
I can...
00:16:48
How about I share a case study, a story?
00:16:52
Excellent.
00:16:53
Yeah, about how this approach of multiple future scenarios really was helpful.
00:17:01
So we were serving a client in a major city in Latin America.
00:17:07
The company is still in this sort of startup stage and they're in the electric vehicle market.
00:17:15
And they wanted to know what's going to happen the next three to five years in their market, in their country.
00:17:22
And then they're very confused because there are so many moving parts.
00:17:25
There are so many external factors affecting that market.
00:17:28
So we went in, we did the research and we looked at all those micro trends that could impact their industry, right, from the technological investments of electric vehicle to battery size and then the capacity and all those great things to geo-politically between,
00:17:46
say, U.S.
00:17:48
China where they import a lot of the parts and sometimes their vehicles from and their country.
00:17:55
If the international trade policy is changed in the next three to five years, which is not likely.
00:18:00
It sounds very unlikely now.
00:18:03
Things could change hugely in their market.
00:18:06
There's also the infrastructure development in their market, their government was not on the trajectory to increase investment in infrastructure building.
00:18:17
But what's going to happen with the private sector investment in that area and many of these are just examples of those trends and then those signals that we're scanning for.
00:18:28
And so we came up with several huge uncertainties that could be pivotal to their business.
00:18:34
What if the trade policy changes?
00:18:37
What if it doesn't change?
00:18:38
What if it changes to their favor?
00:18:40
What if the consumer sentiment towards electric vehicles in the next few years change towards a certain direction?
00:18:48
What if it doesn't?
00:18:50
What if that sentiment about car ownership changes in the country, in the culture where car ownership is a big indicator of success and family value?
00:19:00
So all of those complex things we looked at and we analyzed, we came up with uncertainties and then built eight different future scenarios for them based on uncertainties.
00:19:10
We brought the eight scenarios into the workshop with their leadership team, very cross-disciplinary team of brilliant people.
00:19:19
We asked them to read through the stories that we put on big boards with illustrations.
00:19:25
They really bring to life five years from now, your market might look like this, your consumers might want this, the government, the infrastructure and three policies might look like these.
00:19:36
So eight very distinct scenarios.
00:19:38
We asked them to vote on the spot the most probable, the most interesting, the most exciting I think and then the last one is the most risky.
00:19:50
The most risky scenario is something for them to be dreadful.
00:19:54
So it has the infrastructure slowing down.
00:19:58
It has a trait policy against them.
00:20:00
It has the consumer sentiment not ready to embrace a lot of electric vehicles, all of those factors.
00:20:07
Typically if we didn't do this exercise, that risky scenario would have been swept under the carpet, maybe on the back of their head,
00:20:19
not wanting to look at it.
00:20:21
But in that workshop setting, we made it so immersive.
00:20:25
So it's very believable.
00:20:27
We made it so playful and safe for them to feel okay to really think about it and immerse themselves into that scenario and give themselves an hour or two to come up with business solutions.
00:20:44
And they did.
00:20:45
So they divided into four groups and each group is assigned randomly to one of these scenarios.
00:20:51
The risky scenario team then spend the next an hour and a half coming up with business solutions that none of them thought of none of us thought of.
00:21:00
They came up with a brilliant business solution that would set them up for success in so many different ways.
00:21:09
They would even know the market would be developed slower.
00:21:12
They would be first into the market.
00:21:14
They would be ahead of their competitors.
00:21:17
They would start to cultivate a culture to embrace environmentally friendly solutions.
00:21:23
They would have really carved out a giant piece of market for themselves for future success.
00:21:29
One, the infrastructure is more built out when the market is more ready.
00:21:35
So they are so excited about that solution.
00:21:37
Even more so than the most probable scenario.
00:21:41
So they were almost wishing, almost hoping for the worst case scenario at that point.
00:21:45
Yes.
00:21:46
Well, because they were not surprised by the solutions they came up with in the most probable because they thought about that.
00:21:52
They never thought about this.
00:21:54
This is new.
00:21:54
They got excited and this is also something they can act on right away because it's very similar to where they are right now.
00:22:01
So they don't have to worry about waiting for conditions to mature.
00:22:06
They can do so.
00:22:07
They decided during the workshop that they're going to pilot some of these ideas on a smaller scale in their city.
00:22:15
And so that's the moment when I got goosebumps as a facilitator, as a futurist because it's such a good, empowering way to help people think through their fear and to really face reality and to go above and beyond that.
00:22:35
So at that point, Lucy, it's very, it's an excellent way of bringing it to life.
00:22:41
And I imagine once the company, the client reaches that stage so you've helped them paint different scenarios.
00:22:48
They fought through different scenarios and what kind of business strategies they could implement.
00:22:54
Then I imagine is the point where some interesting trade-offs might come up, right?
00:23:00
Because if I'm looking at four different scenarios, I might be lucky enough that there is a business strategy which is optimal for all four scenarios.
00:23:10
But otherwise, they probably face a trade-off between implementing a strategy that will work out best in one specific scenario versus building some flexibility and some optionality in my choices so that I can adapt and switch more easily if the situation changes.
00:23:30
How does that choice work?
00:23:33
Yeah, that's such an excellent question.
00:23:37
Yes, so that's also part of why design thinking and the whole framework and approach of design thinking can help because, as I mentioned earlier, design thinking has this iterative approach to come up with ideas and then prototype with some of the top ideas that you know 100% sure about,
00:23:57
but you can start on in smaller ways and then you test it in the market with your customers, with the users and you can come back and then iterate.
00:24:05
So that's how design thinking can really help with this kind of tough decision making and to get us to act on things fast and also in strategic foresight there is a very useful tool called guide posting.
00:24:19
So after we have all those future scenarios and then the future solutions mean to the future maybe five years, ten years from now we backcast instead of forecast, we backcast to today and we build a roadmap and then all of this as we're choosing a certain path to go on we continue to monitor signals and indicators.
00:24:40
For example, we can say while we don't know what's going to happen after the US election as of last year.
00:24:48
So we're going to go on this path, but if someone is going to be elected versus the other person policies might change economy might change so we can then switch to a slightly different path.
00:25:03
So the whole roadmap is not meant to be set in stone, but is supposed to be evolving as we see the future unfolds.
00:25:12
No, that is excellent and I think it really brings highlights the value of combining design thinking with the strategic foresight.
00:25:21
It's really very interesting.
00:25:23
Lucy, we focus immediately on how you can sit down with companies and with these analytical instruments kept and to think differently about the future,
00:25:34
but I feel like we've glossed over a basic challenge which is getting leaders to think about the future in the first place, right?
00:25:42
Because I've also been in the corporate world and especially for listed companies, the pressure to focus on the short term to deliver the quarterly result is overwhelming.
00:25:55
So have you also found that there is a basic challenge in trying to get people leaders to shift from the short term to a longer term?
00:26:05
Yes, absolutely.
00:26:06
So I will tell you first that all these leaders want to think more strategically for the long term.
00:26:12
If you ask them, they're going to tell you exactly that's what they want to do.
00:26:17
However, they're facing so much pressure.
00:26:19
As you mentioned, they are under the pressure of delivering quarterly, they cover their bottom line and they're also facing shorter tenure in general.
00:26:29
The average C-suite tenure has been shrinking.
00:26:35
If I got on my position as the CEO of the company knowing that most likely I won't be there for more than two and a half,
00:26:46
three years, then why would I want to plan ahead for more than five years?
00:26:50
And I think there is also this fear at prevention about the future because there's so many uncertainties going on affecting our businesses.
00:27:01
So it's very difficult when the decision makers are trying to think a longer term knowing so many things could change and they don't know how to parse all these uncertainty and understand their implications and how to really move forward.
00:27:19
So both the push are forcing them to stay more focused on their every day and every month, which is very sad.
00:27:28
On the other hand, when we somehow get them to think about the longer-term vision, it's very interesting across the board, across all the industries that I've served in all those leaders,
00:27:41
they all think about bigger, more important things that are similar.
00:27:48
They think about your environmental responsibility, they think about societal responsibility, they think about more about inclusion and equity.
00:27:57
All of those longer-term, better things for everyone in the society and for our planet would come up.
00:28:06
So I feel that there is such an opportunity and it's such an important thing to help these leaders and allow them and give them tools and empower them to think in the long-term,
00:28:19
it's going to be beneficial for all of us.
00:28:21
It's a very interesting point.
00:28:23
There is another element of it which I thought about in the past which is the, it's always an issue of trade-offs, right?
00:28:31
Now we're now in a situation where companies need to move faster.
00:28:35
You've pointed out that the average tenure of CEOs has shortened.
00:28:39
There seems to be a bit more churning to employees who are no longer in the world where people join a company and stay there for their entire lives, but that world also gave companies an incentive to invest more in the workforce because they knew that employees would most likely stay with them.
00:28:59
So fostering their careers and their skill-building was more important.
00:29:02
So it's an interesting, very interesting change.
00:29:05
There's another aspect that you mentioned both now and when we were giving the example of the company involved in Latin America, you mentioned the whole range of different uncertainties from the geopolitical and uncertainty,
00:29:22
economic, technological.
00:29:25
So is it fair to say that business leaders now operate in a world with higher uncertainty compared to say 20, 30 years ago or is it just our impression?
00:29:36
It is such an interesting debate that I've seen a lot of people had.
00:29:42
We would, there was a global uncertainty index basically pulling the keyword uncertainty or similar words on the internet and analyzing,
00:29:54
put them together as a graph to show how much the anxiety and concerns of uncertainty is changing over the years, over the month,
00:30:04
really.
00:30:05
And you can see a going way up during the global pandemic and all that and recently with political changes throughout the world and the wars.
00:30:15
However, there is an argument about uncertainties where today are not more than let's say 500 years ago.
00:30:24
We used to have a very uncertain world throughout human history where it's very easy to get wiped out by major flood and major illness,
00:30:36
pandemic.
00:30:38
It's a human life used to be a lot more fragile compared with today with the power of the modern medicine and information and technologies.
00:30:49
But I think it's fair to say that the perceived uncertainty level is quite high due to many factors, right, because a lot of our businesses are operating globally.
00:31:02
We're more affected by not just what's happening in our own village anymore, but so many more factors are impacting our businesses.
00:31:12
There are also more interconnectedness between different sectors and businesses and regions that bring more complexity to the mix.
00:31:24
So our businesses are also operating with a smaller margin of error in a way that something happens with the supply chain overnight.
00:31:36
It can really derail our operations versus maybe in back in the days when things are moving slower in general.
00:31:45
We can deal with two days of delay.
00:31:47
So yes, I think it's hard.
00:31:50
I don't think anyone can actually measure the true level of uncertainty today compared with that in history, but the perceived uncertainty is definitely very high.
00:32:02
It's a very good point and especially the last point you made, which is it's partly the perception, partly the fact that because companies are operating at higher speed and often in more competitive industries and therefore with the smaller margins,
00:32:17
the room for error is smaller.
00:32:18
There is something else you said, which I think is very interesting, which is and to me it highlights the importance of the analytical approach to strategic foresight that you are pushing,
00:32:28
which is the issue of perception in the case of uncertainty.
00:32:33
You mentioned this global uncertainty index.
00:32:35
I'll give you an example that I found striking years ago in the economics literature that had developed an economic policy uncertainty index, which was again supposed to measure how much uncertainty were businesses facing in terms of what the economic environment would look like.
00:32:54
I looked at some point because it looked strange to me because we got into a phase around 2017 where the index looked,
00:33:05
it's signaled enormously higher uncertainty than during the global financial crisis.
00:33:11
I thought this makes absolutely no sense.
00:33:14
So I went and looked at why and I realized the index was heavily weighted towards keyword searches in the press.
00:33:23
Now, of course, once you enter a more polarized political environment, then uncertainty in the press becomes more prominent and then you get into this vicious loop where you actually had newspaper articles saying that there was a big increase in uncertainty and that claim was based on previous newspaper articles which were feeding into this uncertainty index.
00:33:49
So how we measured the uncertainty in the perception of it?
00:33:53
I think it's very important, which again highlights the value of exercises, like the ones that you are guiding, which are okay, let's sit down and let's analyze all the data we have and let's have a structured exercise to think through all these issues.
00:34:08
It's a how do you get the corporate leaders to shift their perspective from the short term to the longer term?
00:34:21
Is it more a fair motivation?
00:34:23
Now, for example, with the artificial intelligence revolution, I see a lot of business leaders who are fearful that if they miss the boat, if they don't move fast enough, they will be wiped out of the market or is it more a sense of opportunity,
00:34:36
a sense that by looking at the future more seriously, I can be disruptive and I can become a market leader.
00:34:43
What do you see as the key to shifting perceptions?
00:34:47
That's a great question.
00:34:49
I think there are, what I'm using, there are several ways that I help with these conversations with leaders.
00:34:58
So number one, the whole approach is very much research based is with a lot of rigorous analysis.
00:35:05
So it's very believable, it's very followable, it's very logical.
00:35:10
You can go into the research and change a number or choose different uncertainties to focus on and you will come up with different results.
00:35:18
So it's definitely not a small camera.
00:35:20
Something had a future with the crystal ball is just telling you these things that survives.
00:35:27
So definitely very fact-based.
00:35:30
And then the creative part that came with design thinking makes the scenario building very immersive and very believable.
00:35:40
It opens up almost like a future forward science fiction world where you have your dystopia maybe, you have your utopia,
00:35:52
you have this in between.
00:35:53
So there are so many different things that are very relatable and a lot of times we build these scenarios even with the future customers' voice.
00:36:02
We talk about a single father who is trying to struggle between his busy work and trial-raring and in that scenario as a consumer he needs this type of technologies to support him and to have his refrigerator filled with milk on time and the next size of diapers.
00:36:25
So we make it very tangible, very relatable and then we always land on solutions.
00:36:31
We don't just leave you with three future scenarios to ponder.
00:36:36
We facilitate ideation sessions to go divergent together in a safe space.
00:36:42
We come up with those business solutions and then we look at those solutions and we say okay if we only ideated in one scenario then we might have 100 solutions,
00:36:54
100 ideas but now we ideated in three different scenarios and now we have 300 ideas and then let's look at all 300 ideas and we see patterns.
00:37:03
We see that no matter what happens in these three future scenarios we need to change our talent strategy so we then know it's very tangible that's very clear that we need to act on certain things no matter what the future brings and then we also see potentially that one of those scenarios are more preferable,
00:37:24
more desirable for our business.
00:37:26
In that scenario we can really maximize on the effect our own competitive advantage over our competitors.
00:37:32
We really want that scenario to happen and then we can say well can we do something today to make that scenario happen?
00:37:40
Can we not our consumers, can we reward them with certain behaviors?
00:37:46
Can we change our M&A strategy to acquire certain technologies and certain startups where can we start our own innovation pipelines in certain way?
00:37:57
So there are very tangible steps to help us think about how to build towards that scenario and the whole process is to create and help these leaders gain greater clarity about what they really want in the future,
00:38:13
what the future might bring and what they can create into the future and agility which is that they can have these nimble solutions they can try out and agency which means that they have the confidence to actually proactively build the future they really want.
00:38:32
So it's really not I hate to say this because I'm in consulting business, I want all business to be my find, but it's not for every business.
00:38:40
If you're in the business of following others and you're okay with that for the moment, you're fine, you probably don't need this, but if you are a leader in your industry where you have a leader's mindset that you want to disrupt,
00:38:54
you want to lead, you want to make changes, you want the future to happen in the way that you prefer, this is a really great tool.
00:39:03
So I think it's a combination, it's a very long way to answer your question.
00:39:07
The combination of these angles that will bring to the client, that will get them to think.
00:39:16
I'm a believer of fear is not an option.
00:39:20
It's a, say, it's a line from one of my early clients, Diane Montgomery, who was mother was Holocaust survivor and she has this amazing life,
00:39:30
she's a fashion designer.
00:39:32
But it resonated with me so much that fear is always going to be there because the world is a little scary and it's not to say that fear is bad,
00:39:42
but what else can we do besides being afraid?
00:39:47
Can we take some proactive actions?
00:39:49
Can we be more strategic?
00:39:52
Can we search for more clarity and do something about the future?
00:39:56
That's something I want to empower leaders to do.
00:39:59
It's actually an excellent way to answer the question.
00:40:03
Lucy, you've left McKinsey to set up your own practice, which is TBD.
00:40:08
So first question is why TBD?
00:40:11
And the second is the, I'm curious to hear some of your impressions because you've worked through with a very wide range of clients,
00:40:21
both with McKinsey and now in your own practice.
00:40:25
What are some of your observations or maybe differences across industries, maybe differences across type of clients or the, and I guess also the difference of moving from a big established consultancy like McKinsey to the more flexible and customizable world of having your own practice.
00:40:45
TBD futures, I was very excited about this name because I'm sure I left McKinsey.
00:40:50
I thought, if I continue to do this, I need a good name that I really have my hat on and I feel excited about.
00:40:57
So TBD means to be determined, to be designed and to be developed.
00:41:03
It captures the three key things in my services.
00:41:06
So to be determined means the future is not set in stone.
00:41:10
It's not the future, but the futures.
00:41:13
It's not defined yet and it's here for us to define it.
00:41:17
To be designed means we're going to use creativity.
00:41:20
We're going to come up with solutions.
00:41:22
We're going to shape it.
00:41:23
And then to be developed means we also need to take actions.
00:41:27
We don't just stop there.
00:41:28
We don't just stop at ideas and visions.
00:41:31
We actually have a plan to make it happen.
00:41:33
So that's why TBD futures because our futures are TBD.
00:41:38
And then the differences between working at McKinsey and having my own saying are huge.
00:41:45
So on one hand is very freeing.
00:41:48
It gives me access to clients that are typically not at the McKinsey or big four level.
00:41:56
They might not have a very deep pocket.
00:41:59
They're not Fortune 100 or even Fortune 500.
00:42:02
But like I said, they might, they all of them have a leader's mentality.
00:42:08
They are either leaders in a much smaller, but they're own industry, their own field, where they want to be leaders.
00:42:15
And they can really benefit from what I bring.
00:42:18
So I feel like there is wide world out there where people can use my service.
00:42:24
And that makes me feel very privileged and and then these companies are also in many ways more nimble, more open-minded than some of the bigger ones.
00:42:36
Not to say that the bigger corporations are not.
00:42:38
They're all excellent people, great leaders.
00:42:41
But just because of the sheer size of them, it's harder to implement something.
00:42:47
It's harder to make a change versus the smaller guys tend to be more willing to test, to try something faster.
00:42:56
So it also gives me a sense of accomplishment.
00:43:00
So when I see that the client is ready to act and then we're doing something together.
00:43:06
So those are great.
00:43:06
I mean, the downside, of course, I don't have a huge platform with a lot of resources.
00:43:12
So I also need to learn how to be nimble, how to be more adaptable and more resourceful and figuring out how to do my research,
00:43:24
talk to experts without signing up with a bigger platform that has $80,000 a year fee.
00:43:33
I need to start in a smaller way, which is a great exercise for me too.
00:43:37
Awesome.
00:43:38
And I can sympathize.
00:43:41
Having left a huge organization to be on my own.
00:43:44
I fully sympathize with the perspective.
00:43:46
Lucy, this has been a fantastic conversation.
00:43:48
I think we've covered the so much ground.
00:43:50
Is there anything that we've left out and we should have covered or any final message that you really want our audience to take away?
00:43:57
Well, I think it's this whole futures approach.
00:44:01
Obviously, I'm applying it to business settings, helping leaders of organizations.
00:44:07
But I just want to mention that it's actually a really good tool on the personal level.
00:44:13
I have been eating my own dog food for a couple of years, and I've been seeing a lot of benefits about it.
00:44:21
For example, when I was being very anxious right before the U.S.
00:44:26
election, I did instead of just sitting here and soaking myself in fear and worries, I just started to research and try to understand the implications of either outcomes and then I wrote it down on my newsletter and in a very organized way,
00:44:42
it gives me more of a grounded feeling of the future in either future outcomes before the outcome.
00:44:51
The result came out.
00:44:53
So it's very calming and very awful.
00:44:56
I think we all face a lot of decisions in our lives and a lot of uncertainty because of the external factors.
00:45:03
It's a really good practice.
00:45:05
It's almost meditative.
00:45:06
Actually, it could not agree more.
00:45:08
So where do we find your newsletter?
00:45:10
But it's a sub-stack so you can find it, TBD futures.
00:45:15
Excellent.
00:45:16
Let's go.
00:45:17
Excellent.
00:45:19
Excellent.
00:45:19
I will definitely subscribe.
00:45:21
I'm sure that many of our listeners will as well and then they will be very intrigued by your consulting services which sound extremely powerful.
00:45:30
Lucy, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
00:45:32
It was such a pleasure.
00:45:34
Thank you, Marco.
00:45:35
It's my pleasure.
00:45:36
Thank you so much.
00:45:37
And thanks everyone for joining us today.
00:45:40
Please do check out the season's new episodes as we continue to explore the convergence of innovation, technology and refactor business models and how these convergence is reshaping industry and what it means for our ecosystemic futures.
00:45:54
Follow us, subscribe on Apple podcasts or whatever your favorite place for podcasts might be and you can always learn more or reply to be a guest speaker at ShoshinWorks.com.
00:46:05
Thank you again.
00:46:13
[Music]
00:46:20
