7 Questions to Build Foresight in Your Organization

Solving problems is great. Predicting them is better.

There are many skills a CEO generally wants their employees to have. Creativity, taste, resilience, curiosity, emotional intelligence, etc. etc.

But there’s one skill I find under-discussed and under-valued. That skill is foresight: the employee’s ability to think ahead as they pursue objectives at work.

The mediocre employee is constantly dealing with a new crisis, something they never saw coming.

But the exceptional employee has developed the habit of orienting themselves to the future. They understand the big-picture vision and are always on the lookout for upcoming roadblocks.

Like a nimble skier, the foresight-having employee keeps their eyes on what's ahead, fluidly navigating through trees, rocks, and whatever else might rear up in their path.

Problem Solvers Aren't the Real Heroes. Problem Predictors Are.

Having foresight means switching to a different mode than the default one most of us operate in daily. Instead of being fully immersed in the onrush of work, we have to learn to look ahead to predict and prevent problems, instead of solving them after they happen.

Problem solvers usually get most of the attention in the organization. Their heroics appear to save projects at the last minute.

Yet even more valuable are your problem predictors, who can spot issues ahead of time. Once your employees become problem predictors rather than problem solvers, your business will be far less likely to veer into one of the many icebergs that loom on either side of your path ahead.

“Always keep your eyes on the horizon, trying to look around the corner, so that you have a set of accountabilities on the things that are the present, but you don’t let the present drown out what you ought to be trying to accomplish over the long term.” —Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy

This is a cultural change that will take consistent effort from the top. As always, questions are one of the best tools in the leader's toolkit. Whether you're CEO or a frontline manager, use these seven questions to develop the habit of foresight in your team (and yourself!).

Weekly 1-on-1s are a great time to ask them.

1. "How likely are you to achieve your critical goals on time?"

Instead of asking how far along the employee is on their goals, use this wording to activate the predicting part of their mind. Asking for a forecast on the likelihood of an outcome is fundamentally different from asking for a history of the progress up to now. That history cannot always be extrapolated into a reliable picture of the future on its own. Often you need the employee to stop and think about what lies ahead.

For example, the first 80% of the project may have been smooth sailing, but that final 20% holds a gnarly stretch of rapids the employee isn’t sure how to get through. A backwards view of this situation tells you that the employee is almost there. Only the forward-looking view reveals the obstacle, and offers you an opportunity to assist and coach and help them prepare.