Foresight is a necessity

I recently delivered a talk to MicDrop members. The challenge? 3 minutes spotlighting interesting examples to make your argument. Here’s what I chose:

Sam Altman, the CEO behind ChatGPT and one of the most powerful voices in AI was once asked “can anyone compete with you?” He replied “totally hopeless”.

But just a few months ago a Chinese startup DeepSeek emerged doing things better, faster, and cheaper.

Altman couldn’t imagine a world where rivals from emerging markets could do things differently.

Now think about WeightWatchers.

A company that was once a household name, defined an entire category, and has a 60-year legacy.
Today there are rumours that they’re preparing for bankruptcy, are over £1 billion in debt, their share price trading below $1.
Weak signals like new weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy that were in development for years, but were ignored until they became existential threats.

They failed to anticipate the impact of weak signals – like Ozempic and Wegovy will have on the future of their business, even though they had been in development for years.

What do both of those stories have in common?

A lack of foresight. Leadership teams that didn’t make the time to imagine, anticipate and prepare for different futures.

Time and time again, we see corporate giants fall behind not because not because they lack money, not because they lack talent, but because they lack imagination about the future.

In a world filled with urgent problems, it’s easy to put the future last.
But leaders who only focus on the urgent wake up one day to find they’re leading a company no one needs anymore.

And as the WeightWatchers example shows, foresight isn’t just a nice to have.

It’s the difference between staying relevant — and becoming the next case study in business failure.