A Luxury We Have to Afford
Ever since I started working as a foresight practitioner, I grew increasingly curious about where we sit in most organizations, or if we even truly have a seat at the table. Considering my function and the network I cultivate, I have been fortunate to have this conversation with friends across both the public and private sectors, within and outside Singapore, where I am based.
While there is no single standard answer (some industries, organizations, and countries value futures and foresight more than others), one observation surfaced repeatedly: many organizations implicitly treat futures as a “luxury function”.
This is perhaps less surprising when we consider the ambit of work futures teams take on compared to what dominates day-to-day operations. It is far easier to prioritize an immediate operational disruption due tomorrow than a long-horizon risk that may unfold over the next five years. Having worked in operational roles myself, I can empathize with why the former consistently feels more pressing.
What I also learned is that for many knowledge workers, their day-to-day is already saturated with urgent and important tasks. Expecting them to carve out mental whitespace for signal scanning, scenario exploration, and long-term reflection can be unrealistic without structural support. In such environments, foresight becomes episodic rather than embedded.
That said, most organizations do possess some form of future-oriented function, even if it is not explicitly labelled as foresight. Strategy, planning, transformation, and innovation units often exist, and senior leadership can usually articulate where they believe the organization is heading. Yet, dedicated foresight capabilities usually remain peripheral.
Futures Friction
A former colleague once remarked that “futures should be tolerated, never embraced.” At first, this sounded disheartening. It suggested that futures would never have true allies.
However, with time and further conversations, I began to interpret this differently. It speaks to tolerated independence, which can allow foresight practitioners to think beyond immediate constraints without being overly bound by short-term operational logic. It also guards against overconfidence in assuming certainty about inherently uncertain futures.
This friction, I have come to realize, is largely structural. It reflects a misalignment between the nature of foresight and the operating logic of organizations.
We see this duality in several forms:
- Uncertainty vs decision timelines
- Exploratory work vs clear deliverables
- Long-term risk vs short-term evaluation
Both perspectives are valid, but they operate on different time horizons within the same system.
If Not Luxury, Why Luxury-Shaped?
It is useful to clarify what is meant by a “luxury function.” Here, I define luxury not as unnecessary, but as non-core to immediate operational survival. Such functions are valuable, yet often deprioritized under pressure and activated selectively rather than embedded structurally.
In volatile environments, this dynamic becomes even more pronounced. Ironically, periods of uncertainty are precisely when foresight could be most useful. Yet, they are also periods when organizations tighten resources and focus on immediate stability.
Of course, it is easy to advocate for long-term thinking when one is not directly accountable for operational continuity. Keeping an organization afloat in uncertain conditions requires difficult trade-offs. Understanding foresight’s position therefore requires less moral judgment and more systems awareness.
This manifests itself through several common structural blockers that organizations usually contend with when it comes to having a foresight function.
Structural Blockers
Accountability Cycles vs Long-Term Uncertainty
Organizations typically operate within defined cycles - quarterly, annual, or even electoral. Many risks surfaced through foresight extend well beyond these horizons. Acting early on uncertain risks can carry reputational costs if those risks do not materialize, which creates a rational incentive to deprioritize low-certainty, long-horizon issues.
Metrics That Reward Outputs Over Preparedness
Preparedness is inherently difficult to quantify. Avoided crises rarely produce visible KPIs, and early warnings often appear speculative until validated by events (by then it'll be too late). By contrast, reactive work is measurable and immediately legible within performance frameworks. Anticipatory work, on the other hand, remains epistemically ambiguous.
Ambiguity as Politically and Organizationally Expensive
Foresight surfaces signals, drivers, and scenarios rather than definitive answers. This creates scaffolding for informed decision-making, but it also introduces ambiguity if stakeholders are expecting answers. Consensus-building becomes harder when the inputs are exploratory rather than conclusive. Human and organizational tendencies often favor actionable clarity over uncertain possibilities, making it easier to frame foresight as a function with uncertain returns.
So Why Even Have a Futures Function
From a systems perspective, organizations are not designed to ignore the future. Most aim for longevity and continuity. What they are designed to do, however, is minimize risks within accountability constraints. The marginalization of foresight is therefore less a reflection of ignorance and more a byproduct of institutional design.
This operating logic may have served organizations well in more stable environments. Yet, in increasingly complex and volatile landscapes, the cost of being unprepared can be nonlinear and disproportionate.
Perhaps the question is not whether organizations value the future, but how they operationalize preparedness within systems optimized for short-term accountability. What would change if organizations fear being surprised more than being wrong?