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It's the ultimate paradox for leaders: you can't predict the future, but you must make sense of it in order to thrive. To be successful, leaders need to sort out what's important, devise strategies based on their own point of view, and get there ahead of the crowd. But most leaders today are just concerned about getting there in time. Many are even willing to settle for getting there fashionably late. They focus on quick-fix problems, avoiding the kinds long-term of dilemmas that will characterize the future. But as Institute for the Future's ten-year forecast-which is included in the book-makes clear, today's leaders face more and more dilemmas: recurring, complex, messy, and puzzling.

Bob Johansen shares techniques refined over nearly forty years by the Institute of the Future to help you navigate your own organization's road to the future. He details real-world examples of how organizations like Procter & Gamble, Disney, Reuters, UPS, and the Centers for Disease Control have put these approaches into practice. Through fascinating and illustrative examples-including the Toyota Prius, the iPod, Crest Toothpaste, and many more-he shows that getting there early means finding new markets, new customers, and new products ahead of your competitors. It means anticipating the needs of your stakeholders. It means you'll be able to establish a position before your late-arriving competitors even have a chance to organize. It helps you think through what might happen and what should happen. It gives you time to consider alternative strategies. Ultimately, getting there early helps you see beyond the problems of the present and recognize possible futures before others do.

Get There Early lays out the Institute's three-step Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle that allows you to sense, make sense of, and win when faced with dilemmas. Johansen offers hope for leaders facing the constant tension-a dilemma in itself-between judging too soon and deciding too late.

Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present

Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments
Foreword, W. Stanton Smith,
Stan Smith is the senior partner at Deloitte who studies the future and plans for generational differences and workforce shifts. He frames the book with a practical futures perspective: how can the study of the future lead to better decisions in the present? He has already employed the ideas in this book in a variety of settings.
Preface
Introduction
Foresight to Insight to Action
This is a personal introduction to the context for Get There Early, concluding with the Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle that is the underlying structure of the book.

Part One FORESIGHT: Sensing Provocative Futures
Foresight is listening for, sensing, and characterizing possible futures without trying to predict what will happen. Foresight stimulates leaders to develop their own vision and get there early. Foresight is provocative. Part One begins to unfold the Foresight to Insight to Action Cycle with more detail on the Foresight zone.
Chapter 1: Thinking Ten Years Ahead to Benefit Today
Getting there early requires foresight and vision; this chapter gives leaders grounding for your own vision-stimulated by a ten-year view of the future.
Chapter 2: Institute for the Future's Ten-Year Forecast
This chapter is a text summary of the visual map to the next decade that is inside the book jacket. In more than 30 years of doing ten-year forecasting, this is IFTF's darkest forecast--but there are also many opportunities. This forecast is a specific chunk of foresight that leaders can build on to stimulate your own vision.
Chapter 3: The VUCA World: Both Danger and Opportunity
The world is loaded with VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) and it is likely to get worse. VUCA opportunities abound, however, and they are grounded in the vision, understanding, clarity, and agility of leaders. This chapter explores examples of VUCA dangers and opportunities in military, health, education, and business settings.
Chapter 4: What's Different About Dilemmas?
The VUCA World is laced with dilemmas, many of which look like problems at first, except they cannot be solved and they don't go away. This chapter introduces the key differences and lays the groundwork for learning to win with dilemmas and avoid the temptations of certainty. There are still many problems, but problem solving won't be enough.

Part Two INSIGHT: Sense Making to Inspire Strategy
How can leaders use foresight--whether or not they agree with it--to gain insight and inspire it in others? Using stories, immersion experiences, and workshops, leaders can use the provocation of foresight to help create a clear, compelling, and productive way. Leaders must make sense out of the future, as well as what's going on around them, as input to strategy. Part Two is focused on using foresight to inspire strategy. It emphasizes the Foresight to Insight zone on the Cycle.
Chapter 5: It Takes a Story to Understand a Dilemma
Making sense out of the dilemma-packed future is extremely difficult. While problems can be described with data and solved with analytics, these methods are not enough to reveal the truths and opportunities imbedded in dilemmas. The dilemma story is not just a story: it's a mystery. Stories help leaders figure out what's going on and what's possible, as well as to communicate your strategy with clarity.
Chapter 6: Immersion: The Best Way to Learn in the VUCA World
Immersion brings stories to life. The more leaders can immerse themselves in provocative environments, the more they are likely to understand their options for innovation. Chapter 6 introduces a range of immersion experiences, including simulation and alternate reality gaming, as first-person low-risk learning media ideally suited for a world of great uncertainty. Immersion experiences allow leaders to practice without getting hurt.
Chapter 7: Sensing and Sense Making
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