When uncertainty becomes a management condition

Most leaders I meet today are not faced with a problem that requires better analysis. They are faced with a reality that is moving faster than strategies can be finalized. Artificial intelligence is changing the nature of work, geopolitics is creating new risks, and sustainability is imposing demands that cannot be met with simple trade-offs. The direction is often clear enough—but the path to get there rarely is.

This creates a special type of management task. Not one where you can point to a solution and implement it, but one where you have to navigate uncertainty, conflicting considerations, and open questions. And where what is missing is not answers, but the ability to think and act together while things are still in flux.

This is precisely where foresight and anticipatory leadership become relevant.

Over the past five years, I have been fortunate enough to work closely with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS) and lead training courses in Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight. At the same time, I have facilitated longer courses and management training for organizations such as Google, Rambøll, and BNP Paribas. Across industries and contexts, I have seen the same patterns repeat themselves.

One of the clearest patterns is how strong the desire for predictability still is. Leaders look for answers, even when they know full well that no one has them. For me, this is precisely where foresight has its greatest value: not by providing peace of mind through certainty, but by providing peace of mind through a shared understanding of uncertainty.

This point is also reflected in recent thinking on strategic foresight. An article in Harvard Business Review points out that many organizations have become very skilled at optimizing known strategies, even though the basic assumptions behind them no longer hold true. The problem is not a lack of plans, but that the world has changed faster than the plans.

A related point is made in another HBR article about “learning from the future.” Here, foresight is described not as a way of predicting what is to come, but as a way of opening oneself up to multiple possible futures—and thus becoming better at acting today and responding when something unexpected happens.

It has been exciting to see management teams let go of their ambition to have all the answers in advance – and to experience how this changes the nature of the conversation. There is now room to talk more openly about doubts, dilemmas, and disagreements. And it becomes clearer what assumptions people are actually basing their decisions on.

My role has never been to present answers about the future. Rather, it has been to create space for conversations that groups otherwise don't have time for in their busy everyday lives – and to help them give shape to their uncertainty so that it can be worked with instead of becoming something they try to push away.

In the processes where foresight really makes a difference, it is rarely the finished strategies that are strongest afterwards. It is the shared references, language, and experience of thinking together in uncertain times. Once that experience is there, it becomes easier to adjust course, experiment, and take responsibility—even when the next wave hits.

That's what working with the future is all about for me.

Not predicting it – but becoming better at dealing with it.