Future skill #1: Strategic imagination
Today's employees are so mired in busywork that their ability to visualize the bigger picture has atrophied. But tomorrow's employees and leaders must learn to "dream with purpose," which means actively imagining future possibilities and creating scenarios to act on them.
To imagine how things can be done differently, we need to think differently. This means breaking our routine and introducing new sources of information. Take a different route to work. Go to a concert or show that's outside your usual repertoire. Get your information from a different news source. Invite unusual suspects to your next meeting.
Spur your employees toward strategic imagination by providing resources that fuel future thinking, such as Innovation Watch, Trend Watching, and TED Talks. Follow up by inviting them to envision their business unit in the year 2020. Ask them to draw their vision—create a magazine cover or an org chart, for example—and then lead a discussion about the myriad perspectives informing their collective vision.