‘Malaysia needs tomorrow’s leaders with strategic foresight’
KUALA LUMPUR: Leaders need the skills of strategic foresight in order to systematically anticipate a range of alternative, plausible futures and make better decisions.
This is important for Malaysia, which is a future-oriented society, with many ambitious shortand medium-term goals in place, says Yayasan Tun Ismail Professorial Chair in Futuristic Leadership at Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNIRAZAK) and director of the School of International Futures, Catarina Tully.
“In order to achieve its full potential, Malaysia needs to equip tomorrow’s leaders — today’s talented young people — with one key ingredient: the skill of strategic foresight. In the turbulent mid-21st century world, tomorrow’s chief executive officers will need more than ever to be fullyequipped to navigate future uncertainty,” she said.
“Today’s graduates will need the agility to respond quickly to the accelerating pace of change. They will need to lead futureready and alert organisations that can thrive in spite of uncertainty. A leader who is equipped with strategic foresight thinks and — crucially — acts differently”.
This topic will be discussed in the YTI Memorial Lecture,
“The Diverse Facets of Leadership”, jointly organised by PNB Research Institute and Yayasan Tun Ismail Mohamed Ali, which will be held on Nov 18.
Tully said Malaysia has recognised that it is facing a radically changed global marketplace for jobs and has developed futureminded policies for the skills and education that graduates will need as mid-career professionals.
“For example, the determined emphasis on equipping the next generation for the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution, with a renewed focus on the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects, and numerous university incubators supporting commercialisation of research and development outputs.
“But the missing piece is the transferrable skill of thinking systematically about the future – and adapting to take advantage of change in the external environment instead of being wrong-footed by it,” she added.
“Malaysia’s future leaders will need to be ‘future-fit’ to thrive. Whether we look at economics, demographics, climate or technology, the world will change and keep changing through to 2050 and beyond. We must equip the next generation of leaders with the skills to face this future with confidence,” she said.
“Foresight is both a science and an art. Specific tools and techniques, such as scenario planning and ‘critical gap analysis’ should be taught in higher education institutions.
“The ‘science’ of foresight offers a rigorous and systematic approach to mapping trends and constructing alternative, plausible scenarios for the future. But it is also a creative endeavour and a valuable way to teach expansive, creative thinking, encouraging future leaders to ‘see the big picture’ and to fully imagine possible futures.”
Tully said she is working to bring foresight practices into the higher education sector through her tenure at UNIRAZAK, where her mission is to develop foresight thinking among the next generation, and to boost awareness and consolidate the practice of strategic foresight within the higher education sector.
If sustained properly, making foresight a core skill for the next generation will also help Malaysia to become and remain a global leader in innovation.
“Just look at Silicon Valley’s ability to reinvent itself over and over. Continually sustaining innovation, and avoiding stagnation, requires a future-minded mentality and a nimble approach to organisational change. Future business leaders will need to bring this with them into the workplace,” she said.
Malaysia’s key underpinnings for future economic growth are evident — the high proportion of women in higher education, the concentration of knowledgebased industries, and a rising position on World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings.
Tully believes these factors could be converted into Malaysia’s ‘winning formula’ for the mid-21st century — a society with a strong knowledge economy, which uses its diversity as a source of strength, and values and cultivates its young people as its strongest asset.