Five tips on how to run a great meeting on future trends
Every year, thousands of organizations look toward the future at conferences, seminars, and executive retreats. They talk about trends, fads, news events, and dream toward what’s next. Some events inspire participants to have a mindshift, to burst forth with creativity and to leave the event changed for the better. Other events simply reinforce old assumptions and leave the future unexplored. It looks like foresight, but provides none of the value.
If you want to produce an event that gives your participants an inspiring, profitable view of what’s next, I would like to offer a few insights about making sure you get the most out of your effort.
Tip #1: Make the meeting about the outside world – not your company or current products and problems
A meeting about the future may be the one time a year you are permitted to think about something other than your day-to-day obligations. It’s a wonderful moment to reconsider your cherished assumptions, check your philosophy, pause and think. What a gift that can be in a world that moves with relentless speed!
This is why it is critical to make the meeting about trends and forecasts about the broader world. As food for thought, you need to be considering reliable trends and what they mean.
The danger here is to be dragged into discussions about the current business situation, using the same jargon and assumptions that brought you to this moment. The future of your organization isn’t usually a question of efficiency, price pressure, or your usual competitors – much more oen it’s about a transformative change that you can’t even imagine.
For these reasons, forget your competitors and even your customers for a moment (!) – and think about the drivers that will create your customers and competitors of tomorrow. Make sure your meeting is about changes in the outside world. Listen for numbers. Look for some interesting trend lines. Consider the fascinating evolution of the world and its impact on you in ways you don’t even yet imagine.
WRONG: By 2020, customers will be even more price-sensitive, so we’ll need to sell the total solution!
RIGHT: With Mexico and Saudi Arabia dropping off oil production amidst surging demand, the price of traveling by car or truck will be expensive and unpredictable by 2020 – discuss.
