The Futureproofing Manifesto

11 Arguments for Painting (and polishing) a Future Beyond Innovation — Bigger, Better, Bolder & Simpler

Author: Sean Moffitt, Managing Director, Futureproofing

“The future started yesterday, and we’re already late”- John Legend

Every time I go on some outdoor-themed vacation, I am drawn to discovering new rocks. Be it an ocean trek, river run, outback adventure or mountain trek, it’s just one of my many mini-obsessions. Usually at the bottom of my carry-on bag returning home is weighted down by what made it into my rock hall of fame. These aren’t just any rocks. The tactile feeling and visual delight in finding smooth patterned rocks is a rock hound’s dream.

Geologists call this change process transport-induced abrasion, a fancy term to describe the rounding and smoothing process through repeated erosion and weathering, turning the rough jagged boulders into polished works of art. Aesthetically pleasing, yes — but also a reminder of the awe-inspiring power of repeated interaction of forces over time and space.

Similar to the repeated shaping of my favourite lustrous rocks, my “Futureproofing” argument to the world has been hewn, hacked and cleaved over the last decade to the point where it’s reaching a quartz-like level of smoothness. It’s simply a better way to change and innovate. Hundreds of people over the last decade have contributed to shaping its core arguments and features, wearing it down and burnishing it to the point of shiny consilience.

Taking a step back this past month on all of Futureproofing’s moving parts, has allowed me to also take pause on how I have brought some of these #Next30 worlds together into one cohesive argument for a future beyond innovation. Plenty of experiments, client experience, webcasts, coaching sessions and rounds of research have weathered and polished Futureproofing down to it essence. It’s ready to make it into your carry-on bags of practical use and application.

The Futureproofing Manifesto — a Hendecagon of 11 Arguments

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don’t know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.”— The movie Spinal Tap

Okay it’s tough to portray the serious work of improving how people ply their trade in change-related fields by invoking the inanity of the mockumentary Spinal Tap … but our change arguments do go to eleven.

We’ve distilled down to 11 theses the basis for what’s been missing from the 80,000 books written on innovation and the 50+ established schools of innovation we’ve curated and analyzed.

There is some amazing stuff out there. I’ve voraciously and assiduously read and experienced many of them. Somewhere between the reductionists who like an over-simplied one-to-three key phrases (think The Ultimate Question, Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, The Three Boxes of Life) and the complexity people who like fulsome lists (think The 22 Immutable Laws, 40 Chances, 128 Tips That Make you a More Effective Leader), lies a different hendecagonic change argument for the world.

Manifestos typically advance a set of ideas, opinions and views increasingly shared by the world. In 2022, our collective reality is innovation has let us down and fallen well short of expectations. Manifestos also mark the adoption of a new vision, approach, program, or genre, They criticize a present state of affairs and if constructive, announce its passing, proclaim the advent of a new movement and provide some tangible new wisdom and assets to support the ushering in of a new era. We’ve done so below.

Here are the 11 theses of our Futureproofing Manifesto. Long live it.

*Hendecagon — an 11 sided polygon (and given my Canadian roots, interesting also the same shape as a Canadian loonie — $1 coin).

Argument #1 — Futureproofing is about Winning the Actionable Future

A Sweetspot Outlook — Not Too Near, Not Too Far

Imperative: A Goldilocks, future exists for change & action — not too near to have already missed out on opportunity (usually within 2 years), and not too far so it never actually arrives (in most industries more than 5-6 years out). Futureproofing pursues this sweetspot in the middle, because so many executives are focused on and distracted by the nearer in, while artists and authors pursue the much further out. There is a chasm left in between. Certainty, stable progress, go-it-alone, kaizen and extrapolating the past, have been replaced by probability, speed, co-creation, bold ventures and scenario planning the future. Let’s go.

Elements & Features:

• Actionable & accountable future-driven mindset — we use multiple ways to spot and synthesize the weak signals, and turn them into action
• Elimination of innovation horizons— not too far out, not too short in — a balanced portfolio approach to innovation taking time into perspective, but not as handcuffs or smokescreens (see visual below)
• Innovation+ and futureproofing is action, not future prospects — tight integration of insights and foresights, with implications and actions

Indictment of:

• The wildly fanciful notions of Horizons advocates and Futurists — the future needs to brought forward to the now, not so far out that people in current positions are never there to realize them
• The manic & frenzied, here today, gone tomorrow Fashion scouts/Crisis Managers— surfacing derivative, extraordinarily niche, already overheated or focused only on what’s in front of their noses

Unique Futureproofing Assets:

• Cross-Industry Trendbank©, Metatrends©, Nine Elements of Future Frontiers©, Technology Innovation Inspiration©, Finding Signals to the Future — 65 Approaches©

Argument #2 — Futureproofing is for the Change 5.0 Era

A New Thirty Year Change Period is in Place, Let’s Recognize Its Differences

Imperative: Times change, and so should our thinking. Many schools of innovation have been en vogue for 60+ years and are showing their stale dates. Marketplace and supply chain speed, technology, unrelenting customer demand, cultural expectations, cross-industry domains and societal needs have all advanced so quickly. The half-life of an idea has shrunk to almost nothing. The risk of doing nothing is so much greater now, and the reward for moving early has immeasurably grown. The global COVID pandemic is a prescient case in point. Futureproofing is intended to help trailblazers plan, guide and align their innovation & transformation efforts for a barely recognizable marketplace, culture & society of tomorrow. Futureproofing is ushering in the Change 5.0 era (2020–2050) — see visual below.

Elements & Features:

• Exhaustive review — analysis and critique of 50 schools of popular historical innovation approaches and thinking from the last century
• New structural forces are at play — we profile 33 of them — The Wanings, Stalwarts and Risings from the last 120 years
• A historical perspective in context— Change 5.0 — designed for the fifth modern era of innovation (visualized below)

Indictment on:

• Non-techies — the speed and way we approach problems has a huge impact on what we eventually develop as outputs, technology abets this
• Non-integrated, gated, command-and-control innovation approaches from the Change 4.0 era

Unique Futureproofing Assets:

33 Forces©, Change 5.0©, Top 11 External Innovation Challenges, Top 11 Internal Barriers, 50 Curated Schools of Change©

Argument #3 — Futureproofing is Big Change

Real Company-wide Change & Ambition, Not More Innovation Theater

Imperative: Innovation needs to get out of the tiny little boxes it has put itself in. The aperture that people see their innovation agenda through is so impoverishly narrow, it can’t help but fail. To be credible it simply has to broaden. Innovation as a corporate function competency is ranked 17th out of 23, even though it is frequently mentioned as a top three organizational need. Dissonance. There is a widening gap between the talk about change and the action about change year over year. Meanwhile, the winning organizations demonstrating impact are not just creating new stuff, they are configuring entirely new experiences, business models & ecosystems of value. Traditional launch thinking is so inadequate we had to create new vernacular for what we are describing in this new world (i.e. Futureproofing has its own lexicon of 132 words). It’s not okay anymore to sit on an executive team or board, and not exhibit fluency and understanding today and tomorrow’s change levers at play.

Elements & Features:

• Graduating innovation & change from the business function kid’s table, to the executive level discussion adult’s table — championing change efforts as a senior leadership competency
• Bridging gaps between aspiration and reality and demanding and empowering real structural and systemic change for companies beyond the startup phase of their lives
• Little box innovation vs. big box innovation+ — flipping four historical competencies on their head - R&D, Innovation, Commercialization Launches and Change Management (see visual below)

Indictment on:

• Lip service — the lack of executive value, literacy and focus placed how change happens effectively
• Innovation theater, permanent project betas and superficial casual interest in fast-rising phenomenons (e.g. NFTs, Metaverse, DeFi, Generative AI)

Unique Futureproofing Assets:

Innovation+©, Transformation+©, Growth+©, Culture+©, Futureproofing for CxOs©, Futureproofing Leadership Skills Inventory©, Personal Future Readiness Assessment©, Futureproofing Lexicon©— the new dictionary of change

Argument #4 —Futureproofing is Bespoke Guidance, Not Hard Rules

Customizable Enablers, Not Prescriptive Formulas

Imperative: Innovation and change approaches that demand strict adherence to step-by-step approaches, almost invariably always fail. They frequently operate out of sync with the organizational environment they are trying to service. Even if they are able to generate company-wide alignment and training (which is a big if), they frequently stifle the very innovation they are trying to produce by forcing all change through the same prism. Futureproofing is designed for the tailor-made demands & realities of change agents, leaders and innovators of this decade and beyond.

Elements & Features:

• Understanding the many ways to be effective, we explore core sixteen archetypical company change personality types, patterns and comfort zones
• Over 100+Futureproofing change, innovation and transformation tools, assets and landscapes to be repurposed, mashed up and deployed; individually, in phases or full stack
• A canvas-based approach facilitates alignment across work and leadership teams, so ideas and alignment come together, quicker, cleaner and comparatively

Indictment on:

• Elegant, handcuffing models that ask companies to capitulate to them (e.g. Agile,. Six Sigma)
• Chaos — throw it on the wall and see what sticks, or approaches that try to explain options but never get to a decision

Unique Futureproofing Features:

Sixteen Corporate Innovation Archetypes©, Futureproofing Hangar Sprints©, 21 Strategic Management Futureproofing Canvases, 49 Innovation+ Landscapes©

Argument #5 — Futureproofing is Multidisciplinary & Neutral Ground

Overcoming Functional Bias & Narrow Inspiration

Imperative: We are the Shackletons of the corporate future. Futureproofing travels to the change poles. We tap all our transformation senses. We peer around industry corners. We look closely in company culture mirrors. We notice future patterns. We take stakeholder notes. We love technology, but aren’t married to it. We exalt customers, but aren’t prescribed by them. We prize talent, but don’t just listen to its loudest voices. We never stop exploring, particularly across six different spheres and 30 various facets of change — not one of them more important than the other. We are not a completely foreign argument to the world, but an alchemy of tools and ideas, some new, and some borrowed from other schools of innovation (e.g. agile, lean, business model generation, design thinking, backcasting, foresight planning )— taking the wheat, and leaving the chaff behind that does not work very well in organizational settings.

Elements & Features:

Applying six ‘scopes of active change intelligence:

• talent & culture — our stethoscope
• company & strategy — our microscope
• technology & operations — our gyroscope
• customer & marketplace — our kaleidoscope
• cross-industry & innovation- our periscope
• futures & trends — our telescope

Next 30 Facets — a further breakdown of our universe form where we draw inspiration (see visual below)

Future-Readiness Audits that evaluate and benchmark the top factors correlated to change success, across all functional and company-wide disciplines

Indictment on:

• Specialist innovation schools that have many blindspots
• Solo practitioners and thought leaders who claim neutrality but show biases in their thinking, decisions, actions and pedagogies

Unique Futureproofing Features::

Six Scopes of Exploration©, #Next 30 Futureproofing Universe©, Future-Readiuness Comprehensive Audit©, The Futureproofing Refinery©

Argument #6 — Futureproofing is Better, Bigger, Bolder & Simpler Futures

Authentic Impact & Outputs, Not Just More Ideas

Imperative: In agriculture, the goal is the crop, not the seed. The end game is very clear for a farmer — output. In innovation circles, where value gets placed is frequently distorted. To be worth anything, innovation needs to be focused on getting ideas to fruition. That little piggie does actually have to get to market. However, many of today’s companies are overvaluing innovation ideas vs. market delivery, in love with their own explanations vs. applications, way too anchored to previous successes, and way too wedded to the how things have always been done. We are on a mission to get these organizations unstuck. Futureproofing declares a credible and provocative new path to delivering better, bigger, bolder and simpler change and impact.

Elements & Features:

• Better Futures — real benefits, real outcomes, real value, real learnings
• Bigger Futures- outgrow, outthink, outdeliver, outperform
• Bolder Futures- ambition, breakthrough, what matters, sustainability
• Simpler Futures — faster, clearer, leaner, streamlined

Scaling Innovation — the majority of conversation of scale has been focused on startups, instead, we have focused on how corporate innovation scales

Indictment on:

• Consultancies, advisories and “Mad Men” creatives, who deliver great powerpoint deck of storyboards and ideas, but not much else
• Explanatory concepts — the 90% hindsight driven and descriptive schools of innovation e.g. Blue Ocean, Radical Innovation (vs. causation, forward looking and prescriptively focused approaches)

Unique Futureproofing Assets::

Bigger, Better, Bolder & Simpler Futures orientation, Future Readiness 27 Factor Audit© (incl. outcomes/output), Futureproofing Scale Monitor© (12 aspects and 3 stages)

Argument #7— Futureproofing is Future Oriented & Ready, not Clairvoyant

Consideration, Preparedness, Action & Agency over Uncertain Futures

Imperative: Short of Nostradamus, nobody gets to predict things. It’s the reason why casinos, insurance companies and economists stay in business — the uncertainty of future outcomes. So let’s set matters straight — we do not map the stars or serve up tarot cards with Futureproofing. We do however apply two unique future practices. The first is future orientation — a fraction of the world can actually imagine beyond current context s— we push past linear extrapolation of existing industry mindsets and mainstream customer observations to incorporate the future signals into our work. The second is future readiness — we have a superior battery of tools, networks and dynamic process to get and keep the future on your radar, and move towards it.

Elements & Features:

• Riding the Six Horsemen of the Future-lypse— factoring in the best approaches to Anticipate, Explore, Consider, Quantify, Act On and Share Futures, something many innovation approaches (particularly Design Thinking) fail to do
• A Futureproofing Hangar Sprint expedited process and a Distillery venture building hub that allows organizations to quickly act on unforeseen bumps in the road and unexpected gift horses
• Informed by multiple editions of foresight studies on emerging technologies, customer life, the future of work, new business models and innovation to stay informed of the moving target of the future

Indictment on:

• Crystal Balling — the future is very predictable, can be estimated with certainty or can be extrapolated from the present
• Incrementalists — the world is going to look the same, plus or minus three percent every year

Unique Futureproofing Assets:

48 Signals to Actions©, The 30 Emerging Technologies©, The Customer Zeitgeist©, Global Crowd Industry Forces©

Argument #8 —Futureproofing is Front-to-Back Change Coverage

Includes All Seven Phases of Front, Middle & Back End Innovation

Imperative: Futureproofing is not an event, it is a continuous effort to confront the future that is perpetual to an organization’s existence. Many innovation approaches completely miss the bookends of change that lead to over half of innovation failure. In companies over 50 people, it’s not always clear who and how to start innovation? You don’t just magically have the authority to initiate change (even when you have a job title that might imply so).You also don’t (of shouldn’t) get rewarded for merely crafting a winning text concept or prototype (you can’t pay employees of shareholders based on good tests). How you introduce change, scale transformation and entrench innovation wins, as the last three phases of innovation rollout, is part of your job too. Futureproofing has an architecture that although simple in its outlook, is really what the best companies do across seven different phases. Supported comprehensively by a set of research, tools and assets — follow this path and you should be adopting the best practices for the 2020s

Elements & Features:

• SESVISE — Seven distinct phases of change initiatives — The Start, The Exploration, The Sprint, The Venturing, The Introduction, The Scaling, The Entrenchment (see visual below)
• Eleven change considerations examined for each one of seven phases, supported by new-to-the-world canvases, tool, landscapes, ranked listings, audits and exercises
• An ongoing bank of case studies and profiles of change agents successfully transforming themselves, their teams and their companies

Indictment on:

• Most innovation theories or schools who only deal with the start, middle or end of the innovation doughnut (see visual below)
• Innovation and change as an exchange and development of ideas, with very little consideration for organisational or commercial aspects

Unique Futureproofing Assets :: SESVISE© seven phase approach, The Futureproofing© Academy —masterclass training for all seven phases, Futureproofing — The Book (coming June’2022)

Argument #9 — Futureproofing is a Fight for Outside Fans & Inside Champions

Unlike Startups, the Rallying Cry for Winning is Both External & Internal

Imperative: As much as our approach, manifesto, tools and experience can positively affect everyone, it’s really for scaleups and larger organizations trying to steer their ships in the right direction. Startups have their own kayak-sized playbooks for success. We believe bigger can be beautiful again (and nimbler, and engaged, and ambitious, and world conscious). We do need to recognize the double-faced reality of companies larger than small startups. For us, startups have their own challenges frequently faced by founders, but corporate change and innovation really are the major leagues of change that are complex in nature, complicated in resolution and chaotic in managing time , people and resources. Discover how we get corporate and organizational growth into a higher gear & create bigger impact for good in the world.

Elements & Features:

• Winning hearts and minds through great narrative and storytelling, co-creation and change leadership sponsorship and interaction
• Building great innovation team DNA, resilience and overcoming core organization resistance (matters that startups don’t usually have to deal with)
• The power of challenge statements and innovation+ routes to galvanize outside-in participation and inside-out purpose-driven confidence

Indictment on:

• Startup culture and repurposing entrepreneurial methods as a cure all panacea
• Functional silo-led innovation ventures (e.g. marketing side hustles, tech hackathons, R&D pet projects)

Unique Futureproofing Assets:

Corporate Venturist©, SUCCESSFUL Storytelling© and Ninety Narratives©, Routes to Innovation+©

Argument #10 —Futureproofing is Value in Combination, Not in Invention

Configuring Value with Others (Versus Inventing It Alone)

Imperative: Getting organizational change agents out of the product & service sandbox and into the full playground of business model generation and ecosystem builds is paramount. There is a much bigger world out there than introducing a new flavour, an offshoot extension or next upgrade. With some exceptions, the greater return on change in this decade is not found in completely reinventing organizations but more in configuring its different parts. Too often the core teams assigned to keep the trains running on time, the growth teams assigned to maintain growth of the established core, and the teams exploring initiatives at the future edge, are placed at odds with each other. Corporate success, impact, growth, and sustainability have suffered because of silos that separate critically important functions and create different and often conflicting motivations & behaviors. Creating Futureproofing business model and ecosystem ventures is the shared watering hole where the core, growth and edge can meet.

Elements & Features:

• Focusing on value proposition, value generation and value capture in a larger company and scale up setting (not just startups)
• Building portfolios of different futures — small, mid and larger skunkworks, experiments, prototypes, pilots, ventures and misfit toys
• Mapping stakeholder universes that can lead to positive co-creation benefits, rapid scale, ecosystem innovation and building common understanding & easing of tension points between groups at the start, middle and end of projects

Indictment on:

• Reductionist schools who believe that innovation fits into 2x2 grids
• Unidimensional design schools who focus solely on product & service

Unique Futureproofing Assets:

Five Levels & Six Types of Innovation©, 52 Leading Business Models of the Future©, Portfolio Future Canvas©, The Futureproofing Hatchery©

Argument #11— Futureproofing is a Field Guide for Practitioners

Built For, and by, Change Practitioners

Imperative: More than three-quarters of leaders believe they are being out-innovated. With Futureproofing, our goal to make sure they never feel that way again. We are in the midst of making all of our work accessible through a well-designed playbook supported by a nexus of online resources, the Futureproofing Vault© newsletter and database of resources, The Futureprooffng Forums© and Awards© efforts that recognizes the best change agents and actions in the world.

Elements & Features:

• Focusing on what works in changing companies from organizations of fifty- to-five million employees, ongoing discovery of new efforts through an awards program
• Real innovation+ help and change path options for the workplace, marketplace, technosphere and society of this decade
• Save time, resources, credibility and energy by including the most comprehensive suite of project team and organizational leadership innovation assets we wish we had if we were clients again

Indictment on:

• Glib thoughtleaders who make innovation appear easy & distilled down to a few essentials for all , it isn’t and it shouldn’t be (it’s damn tough & complex)
• Academic explanations of why innovation works, without practical applications

Unique Futureproofing Assets:

The Corporate Innovation Playbook©, 21 Proprietary Canvases, 35 Unique Tools, 88 Sparks Lines of Enquiry©, The Futureproofing Awards©

Recapping — The Futureproofing Manifesto 11:

#1 The Outlook — Futureproofing is about Winning the Actionable Future

#2 The World in Context — Futureproofing is for the Change 5.0 Era

#3 The Importance Level — Futureproofing is Big Change

#4 The Flexibility — Futureproofing is Bespoke Guidance, Not Hard Rules

#5 The Inspiration — Futureproofing is Multidisciplinary & Neutral Ground

#6 The Mission— Futureproofing is Output-Driven, Not Idea-Driven

#7 The Influence — Futureproofing is Future Oriented & Ready, not Clairvoyant

#8 The Process — Futureproofing is Front-to-Back Change Coverage

#9 The Beyond-Startup Obstacle — Futureproofing is a Fight for Outside Fans & Inside Champions

#10 The Expanded Mandate — Futureproofing is Value in Combination, Not in Invention

#11 The Key Audience — Futureproofing is a Field Guide for Practitioners

Add to and Polish our Mannifesto — Vote and Add To Its Points:

What Next:

If any of the above intrigues you, get in touch with us.

Futureproofing — The Future Beyond Innovation

Futureproofing operates as a hub for the future beyond innovation. We conduct 4+ large research intelligence ventures every year.

We believe to be truly effective, helpful and to get companies, teams and people unstuck, we have built out 11 facets to our business operation:

• The Gallery — a full range of 55 change-related keynotes, briefings & workshops ready to inspire and take the first steps
• The Hangar — delivery of the work, selective or end-to-end sprints, experiments and CoLabs which get teams through key hurdles
• The Hatchery — optimizing for better & bolder organization value via business model, value proposition and ecosystem pivots & expansions
• The Academy — creating a training & learning experience to improve the skills, acumen and certification of futureproofers everywhere
• The Refinery — through over a decade of understanding and mapping the drivers of change, expert audits of org., team & personal future-readiness
• Futureproofing Labs — fresh content and expert intelligence for a fast approaching future — reports and research that navigates what’s ahead
• The Distillery — bridging the distance between unthinkable and possible through corporate ventures, partnerships and incubation
• Futureproofing Forums — open & executive-only conversations with the world’s top change voices through webcasts, events & masterminds
• Futureproofing 66° — our front row of innovation+ & change champions, leading executives, passionate collaborators and practitioner innovators
• The Vault — a comprehensive directory of resources designed to actually help change agents via online resources, tools and enewsletters
• The Futureproofing Awards — global role models for a future-ready change and innovation+ across twenty+ different categories

The organization is led by Sean Moffitt, and is supported by a number of leading change agents from around the world.

Interested? Curious? Get in touch with us here.