Is your organization futures-aware or futures-resonant?

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Quiz Questions

1.
When your organization makes important decisions, how far ahead does your thinking naturally reach?
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- A.
  We focus mainly on what needs to happen in the next few weeks or months.
- B.
  We think about the next three months to a year ahead.
- C.
  We regularly plan one to two years out.
- D.
  Our planning horizon extends two to five years.
- E.
  We actively think about what the world will look like in five to ten years.
- F.
  We consider what kind of world today's children will inhabit — ten to twenty years from now.
- G.
  We think in generational terms, twenty to fifty years or beyond.
2.
How much of your organization's real resources — time, money, and people — are actively invested in understanding and preparing for the future?
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- A.
  Honestly, none. The present demands everything we have.
- B.
  A small but real amount of at least one resource — time, money, or people.
- C.
  A small but real amount of at least two of the three.
- D.
  A small but real amount of all three — time, money, and people.
- E.
  A moderate investment of at least one resource.
- F.
  A moderate investment of at least two of the three.
- G.
  A moderate investment of all three.
- H.
  A significant investment of at least one resource.
- I.
  A significant investment of at least two of the three.
- J.
  A significant investment of all three — time, money, and people.
3.
Which of the following most honestly describes how your organization approaches planning?
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- A.
  We respond to what is in front of us. Formal planning is not really part of how we operate.
- B.
  We manage through daily and weekly to-do lists.
- C.
  We capture broader priorities and goals that last a few months.
- D.
  We set annual goals and revisit them periodically.
- E.
  We create a full strategic plan every three years or so with specific, measurable goals.
- F.
  We work toward a longer-range vision with goals that evolve as we learn and as conditions change.
4.
When you scan for forces that could affect your organization's future — trends, disruptions, opportunities — how wide is your lens?
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- A.
  We are focused primarily on what is happening locally, within our immediate community or sector.
- B.
  We pay attention to regional dynamics and how they might affect us.
- C.
  We monitor national trends and developments in our field.
- D.
  We think globally and consider international forces that could shape our work.
5.
How does your organization stay aware of what is changing in the broader landscape that could affect your work?
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- A.
  We are mostly focused inward. We rarely look outside our own organization.
- B.
  We pay attention to what our peers and competitors are doing.
- C.
  We regularly follow trends within our own industry or sector.
- D.
  We follow and think about the likely impact of industry trends on our work.
- E.
  We occasionally track trends across other sectors and industries.
- F.
  We regularly scan across social, technological, economic, environmental, and political realms — the full landscape.
- G.
  We scan broadly across all realms and actively analyze how emerging shifts could affect our organization and mission.
6.
When change is introduced in your organization, how do people generally respond?
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- A.
  Resistance is the default. Change is met with discomfort or shutdown.
- B.
  People come around eventually, but it takes time and requires clear explanation.
- C.
  People are open to gradual change when the reasoning is transparent.
- D.
  People actively embrace opportunities to improve, rethink, and innovate.
7.
When it comes to emerging trends, new practices, or innovations relevant to your field, where does your organization typically fall on the adoption curve?
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- A.
  We tend to adopt well after something has become standard practice.
- B.
  We wait until something is mainstream before seriously considering it.
- C.
  We are usually in the middle of the pack — not first, not last.
- D.
  We are early adopters, moving before most of our peers.
- E.
  We are often among the first to recognize and act on emerging shifts.
8.
How are decisions about your organization's future direction typically made?
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- A.
  Direction comes from the top. Leadership decides and others follow.
- B.
  The leadership or executive team makes decisions with limited input from others.
- C.
  Department or team leaders are consulted during the planning process.
- D.
  Input is actively sought from across the organization before direction is set.

Quiz Outcomes

1.
Futures-Unaware
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You are futures-unaware.And that is a more honest and useful place to start than most organizations ever get to.Most organizations spend enormous energy managing the present without ever lifting their eyes to what is coming. If that describes you, you are not behind. You are exactly where a large number of mission-driven organizations find themselves right now — focused, committed, and stretched thin by the demands of today with little bandwidth left for tomorrow.What this means in practice is that your organization is making decisions largely based on what has worked before, responding to circumstances as they arise, and planning in relatively short cycles. The future feels less like something you navigate toward and more like something that keeps happening to you.The good news is that awareness of this pattern is itself the first move. You cannot develop a different relationship with the future while pretending you already have one. The fact that you took this quiz and answered honestly says something important about your readiness to change.There is a clear and meaningful path from where you are to where you want to be. It does not require a massive resource investment or a complete organizational overhaul. It starts with a shift in attention — and from there, everything else becomes possible.Want to know exactly where you stand and what your most meaningful next step looks like? Enter your name, email, and organization below and I will write you a personal assessment.
2.
Futures-Aware
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You are futures-aware.You are doing real work. The question now is whether it is going deep enough.Your organization is paying genuine attention to the future. You are tracking trends, building longer-range plans, and developing the vocabulary and habits of futures thinking. This puts you ahead of most organizations you work alongside — and it also means you are developed enough to feel the gap between where you are and where you sense you could be.Futures-aware organizations are doing the right things. The challenge at this stage is that futures thinking can remain a function — something the strategy team does, something that lives in the annual planning retreat — without becoming a culture. When it stays as a function, it is vulnerable. Leadership changes, budget pressures, and operational demands can sideline it. When it becomes a culture, it is resilient. It lives in how people think, not just what they plan.The futures-aware stage is also where the most interesting work happens. You have enough capacity to ask harder questions, enough language to name what you are experiencing, and enough momentum to go deeper. What you may be missing is a framework and a practice that takes you from knowing about the future to being genuinely in relationship with it.That is exactly the threshold between futures-aware and futures-resonant. And it is closer than you might think.Curious about where exactly you land within the futures-aware stage and what your specific next step looks like? Enter your name, email, and organization below and I will write you a personal assessment.
3.
Futures-Resonant
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You are futures-resonant.You are not just thinking about the future. You are in living relationship with it.Your organization has moved beyond futures thinking as a practice and into futures consciousness as a way of being. Decisions at every level are informed by a genuine awareness of what is emerging — not just in your sector or your landscape, but in the deeper shifts shaping the human experience itself. Your strategy is alive. Your culture is alive. The people inside your organization feel the connection between the work they do today and the world they are helping to build.Futures-resonant is not a destination. It is a practice — one that requires ongoing attention, genuine humility about what you do not yet know, and the willingness to keep asking questions that do not have easy answers. The organizations that sustain it are those that remain genuinely open to what wants to emerge rather than defaulting to what has already been proven.At this stage the most valuable thing you can do is both deepen the practice internally and share what you have built. The futures-resonant organization is not just navigating its own future well — it is modeling what is possible for the organizations and communities around it. That is a form of leadership that extends well beyond your strategy document.There is always more. The conversation at this level is not about what you need to fix — it is about what you are ready to build next.Want a personal reflection on where you stand within the futures-resonant stage and what your most meaningful edge looks like right now? Enter your name, email, and organization below and I will write you a personal assessment.