How to create a strategy that is fit for the future
Keeping Strategy Relevant in a Changing World
Too often, strategy starts by looking inwards: What do we do and what are we good at? Tools like SWOT analysis have their place, but on their own, they risk narrowing the lens. But a strong strategy isn’t about your internal capabilities, it’s linked to your purpose and your value proposition (who do you exist for and what value do you offer them).
Frameworks like the Business Model Canvas remind us that value comes from the people you serve, not just the strengths you already have. A strategy fit for the future asks:
Why do we exist?
Who do we serve?
How do we create value now and in the future?
Strategy should be agile
Strategy isn’t a business plan you draft once, file away, and revisit in three years. A strategy that works is a living document: it needs to be:
Understood: people across the organisation know what it means for them.
Acted on daily: it shapes decisions and behaviours, not just slides.
Agile: it adapts as the environment shifts.
Reviewed regularly: it’s tested, refined, and re-energised.
Leadership teams often stumble when strategy is treated as an event, not a practice. A two-day retreat might spark alignment, but if it isn’t embedded into rhythms, rituals, and conversations, it fades. Strategy has to live in the everyday — in what leaders talk about, measure, celebrate, and role-model.
That requires a broader lens. To be truly fit for the future, strategy must look outwards to the people and systems you serve, and forwards to the future you want to create.
A strategy that’s truly fit for the future requires two critical shifts:
Future-back thinking: imagining the future you want to shape, then working backwards.
Outside-in perspective: considering what your stakeholders need and expect, not just what matters internally.
This combined approach is a discipline developed by Professor Peter Hawkins. His work reminds us that leadership teams exist not for themselves, but to create value for their stakeholders: customers, employees, investors, communities, and society at large.
I’ve seen first-hand how powerful this shift can be. The turning point comes when leaders stop asking “What do we need to fix today?” and start asking “What future do we want to create, and what value must we deliver to those who depend on us?”
Why Strategy Needs More Than Business-as-Usual
Research shows that organisations that look beyond five years significantly outperform those focused only on short-term horizons. Yet many leadership teams struggle to make this leap. The urgent squeezes out the important. Operational pressures dominate. And strategy sessions risk becoming little more than fire-fighting.
There’s another trap: focusing solely on internal ambitions. Growth targets, margin goals, and market share objectives are all valid, but have risks. A strategy that ignores stakeholder needs is unlikely to succeed.
Future-back and outside-in thinking provide a wider field of vision. They encourage leaders to step back from the now, expand their perspective, and build strategies that are both ambitious and relevant.
The Future-Back Lens
One powerful way to stretch leadership thinking is through a future-back strategy. Rather than building forwards from today’s problems, future-back starts by imagining the long-term future you want to help create — then works backwards to identify what needs to happen along the way. A useful framework comes from Bill Sharpe’s Three Horizons model:
Horizon One: focused on ‘business as usual,’ managing today, and incremental improvements in efficiency and effectiveness. He describes this as the managerial mindset.
Horizon Two: innovating for tomorrow, looking at the short to medium-term future, and encompasses the sphere of new opportunities and innovation.
Horizon Three: future foresight, considers what is emerging over the future horizon and might become commonplace in the near to medium term future.
Sharpe’s insight, is that you need to work in the sequence 1 - 3 - 2, starting with reviewing today, what is working well and not working, then think from the ‘future-back’ using horizon three strategic foresight tools and thinking, and only then try and innovate tomorrow. Otherwise, you are trying to innovate tomorrow out of the frame of yesterday’s mindset and assumptions
In practice, future-back conversations often include:
Visioning exercises: “If it’s 2030 and we’ve succeeded, what are our stakeholders saying about us? What impact are we having?”
Scenario planning: exploring multiple plausible futures, not just one “plan.”
Wild cards and black swans: considering disruptive events and how the organisation would respond.
In one recent off-site I facilitated, a leadership team initially focused on immediate operational issues. By using a future-back exercise, they realised that the real question wasn’t “How do we hit next year’s targets?” but “What capabilities do we need to be building now to thrive in a radically different marketplace five years from now?” That conversation shifted their priorities in powerful ways.
The Outside-In Lens
A strategy is only as strong as the value it creates. That means looking outward, not just to customers and shareholders, but to the full ecosystem: employees, partners, regulators, communities, and future generations.
Peter Hawkins, in his Systemic Team Coaching model, calls this commissioning: defining a team’s purpose by looking through the eyes of its stakeholders. Leadership teams don’t exist for themselves; they exist to create value for others.
Asking, Listening, Testing
High-performing teams build strategy through enquiry: asking questions, gathering feedback, and testing assumptions. This can include:
Structured interviews or surveys with key stakeholders.
Reviewing customer data, employee engagement scores, or market research.
Inviting diverse voices into the room — not just the usual suspects.
The aim isn’t to tick the “consultation” box. It’s to test whether the organisation is prioritising the right things, and whether its ambitions resonate with those who matter most.
In one client session, leaders were surprised to learn that what customers valued most wasn’t speed, but partnership and trust. That single insight reshaped their strategy from chasing efficiency to building stronger, more collaborative relationships. How could we improve the way we partner with you?
Considering What You Might Have Missed
It’s easy to focus only on visible stakeholders: customers, investors, and employees. But a resilient strategy also considers those less obvious:
Local communities.
Supply chain partners.
Policymakers and regulators.
Future generations who will inherit the outcomes of today’s choices.
Teams often discover blind spots here, groups they hadn’t thought about, but whose expectations could make or break the strategy.
Looking Ahead with a PESTLE Lens
Stakeholder needs don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re shaped by broader forces. A PESTLE analysis helps teams anticipate how change will affect what stakeholders value.
Political: regulatory shifts in ESG reporting.
Economic: rising cost pressures and shifting investor priorities.
Social: new expectations for flexible work or wellbeing.
Technological: the rapid spread of AI and automation.
Legal: compliance and data privacy demands.
Environmental: growing urgency on climate resilience.
When leaders connect these trends with stakeholder needs, they create a strategy that’s not just reactive but future-ready.
Bringing Future-Back and Outside-In Together
Future-back stretches your time horizon. Outside-in broadens your field of vision. Combined, they create strategies that are ambitious and relevant. The practical sequence looks like this:
Start with today: What’s working, what’s breaking down, and where are the gaps?
Look outwards: Map your stakeholders and gather their perspectives. What do stakeholders value now? What will they need in the future?
Look forward: Where do we want to be in five years? What’s changed in your environment? What will success look like?
Bridge the gap: What shifts are needed to move from today to tomorrow while creating value for stakeholders?
Test priorities: Do these priorities deliver value for stakeholders and move us towards our long-term vision?
This sequence works in any sector and energises people far more than abstract targets.. For one client, it meant realising their strategy wasn’t about chasing market share, but about building trust with regulators to secure their licence to grow. For another, it was about shifting investment from short-term profit to long-term talent capability.
Practical Tools That Help
Horizon Scanning and PESTLE - Looking at political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental changes gives a structured way to consider what might shape your context in the years ahead.
Stakeholder Mapping - Create personas for your key stakeholders — customers, investors, employees, and communities. Test your priorities against their needs.
Scenario Planning - Don’t bet on one future. Explore a range of plausible outcomes and consider how your strategy would hold up in each.
Strategic Narrative - Turn your strategy into a human story that every leader can share consistently. As one client put it: “If someone stopped you in the lift tomorrow and asked where we’re going, could you answer in 30 seconds?” That’s the level of clarity you’re aiming for.
Reflection Questions for Leadership Teams
If you stood in the future and looked back, what would you be most proud of?
Whose voices are missing from your current strategy conversations?
Which of today’s priorities will still matter in three years? Which won’t?
How do your goals create value beyond your walls?
What assumptions might you need to unlearn?
Final Thought
A strategy fit for the future isn’t just a growth plan. It’s a commitment to your vision, to your people, and to the wider ecosystem you serve.
When leadership teams look outward to stakeholders and ahead to the future, they stop firefighting and start shaping. They create strategies that are resilient, relevant, and energising.
That’s the essence of systemic team coaching: helping leadership teams expand their field of vision, align around purpose, and co-create a future worth working towards.
Do you need help with building your strategy?
We help leadership teams across the UK create future-fit strategies through facilitation, systemic team coaching, and leadership off-sites. If you’d like to explore how I could support your team, get in touch
Or get in touch to start a conversation about what might be possible for your team.
Email: hello@growth-space.co.uk or call 07966 475195.
