Mark Johnson: “Future-back” strategizing for beyond-the-core growth

Abstract

Purpose Interview with Mark W. Johnson, Innosight co-founder and former consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton,an authority on the application of disruption theory. ]His latest book, Lead From the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking into Breakthrough Growth, co-authored with Innosight partner Josh Suskewicz, addresses the challenge of how to strategize for the beyond-the-core breakthrough initiatives which will be key to sustaining future growth. Design/methodology/approach His interviewer is Brian Leavy, emeritus professor of strategy at Dublin City University Business School and a Strategy & Leadership contributing editor. The interview focuses on Future-back thinking and a set of allied processes that can help leaders think further out than the three to five years that most set as their planning horizons. Then they can identify the threats and opportunities that await them and envision their best path forward. Findings Future-back thinking and planning begins with exploring and envisioning–actively, intensively and imaginatively immersing yourself in your organization’s likely future and then determining what you must do to not only fit into that environment but to actively shape your enterprise to thrive in it. Practical implications Future-back thinking is geared to discovery, so it is…what you use when you need to develop a market-creating innovation or new business model to fill a projected gap–to explore, envision and then chart out a new path. Originality/value The lesson for leaders: when programming a breakthrough strategy, you need to formalize the roles and responsibilities of the senior leadership team as its champions and overseers, set up an organizational model that will protect those teams from the countervailing influences of the core and ensure that the initiative is managed with an explore, envision and discover approach.