People have always been concerned with what they could do to be well prepared for future events and uncertainties. One of the skills of a successful entrepreneur is foresight, the ability to make the right decisions for an uncertain time ahead. The technical and biotechnical developments of the last 25 years, and the resulting possibilities of their use, are immense. They have changed working and thinking. The time periods between introduction and widespread usage are getting shorter and shorter, whilst networks and interdependencies are getting larger and larger. Not only multinational corporations, but also small companies with 50 to 100 employees now have core markets all over the world.
How can we recognize the future when we encounter only its latent (and largely undefined) phenomena in the present? Which skills, processes and structures do we need for this? In response to these questions, I present as a case study our consulting approach and experience of a strategy development and change process in a medium-sized European company. For this project, our team was comprised of three consultants from the Institute of Organizational Learning and Dialogue, Frankfurt: Richard Timel, Othmar Sutrich and me. Each of us had a special expertise in strategy development, organisational development, group dynamic and dialogue.
In this change process, large-group dialogues play an important role.