Why strategic foresight must evolve beyond the ivory tower

A recent study of 400 senior executives from Forbes Global 2000 companies reveals a troubling pattern: 64% of major firms plan no further than five years ahead, while only 1.2% extend their strategic view beyond a decade.

The numbers point to a deeper problem. Strategic foresight, the practice of thinking long-term to navigate uncertainty, remains confined to a narrow set of voices. Dominated by senior leaders in Western institutions, it often excludes those most exposed to long-term consequences: younger generations who will inherit these decisions, communities in the Majority World whose realities will define coming decades, and Indigenous peoples whose knowledge systems have sustained societies across millennia.

This isn’t just an equity issue; it’s a strategic blind spot that costs organizations insight, legitimacy and resilience.

Intergenerational foresight brings multiple generations together to merge institutional memory with emerging perspectives. This isn’t a youth engagement exercise or a diversity initiative; it’s a fundamental redesign of how organizations think about the future, transforming participation into shared authority and more robust governance.

The approach tackles two structural failures: our collective confinement to the temporal logic of careers and electoral cycles, and our persistent exclusion of breadth in perspectives in imagining what comes next.

Research and practice reveal four strategic advantages:

Different generations hold distinct mental models shaped by formative experiences – whether the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011 uprisings (also known as the Arab Spring) or the COVID-19 pandemic. When these perspectives combine, teams detect weak signals earlier and generate more robust scenarios. This breadth acts as a strategic buffer, reducing blind spots created by homogenous leadership cultures.

Behavioural economists call it temporal or time discounting: we systematically undervalue future outcomes relative to present gains. This bias intensifies when leaders approach the end of their tenures, creating structural incentives to prioritize immediate results. Intergenerational practice disrupts this by embedding those with the greatest stakes in the future directly within decision-making environments.

For the first time in history, five generations are simultaneously active in the workforce. Organizations that engage this internal diversity gain real-time insight into how markets and societies are evolving.

As pressure grows for corporate accountability on climate, inequality and social impact, organizations face scrutiny over whose interests drive long-term strategy. Demonstrable participation of those who will inherit consequences, both within organizations and in affected communities, strengthens credibility when navigating difficult trade-offs.

Generational inclusion strengthens foresight, but its full value emerges only when organizations also expand whose knowledge counts. Futures thinking concentrated in Western institutions reproduces inherited blind spots, overlooking the regions, functions and knowledge systems where demographic growth, innovation and risk are accelerating fastest.

Geographic diversity corrects this distortion. Organizations that build foresight capacity across the Majority World gain earlier visibility into systemic pressures, from public health and climate exposure to infrastructure strain. What appears distant from headquarters often registers as immediate reality in these contexts.

Functional diversity further sharpens foresight by elevating insight from those closest to operations. People embedded in daily systems routinely detect weak signals long before they surface in executive metrics, revealing how change unfolds on the ground.

Indigenous and traditional knowledge systems add another essential layer. Their governance frameworks embed intergenerational responsibility, stewardship and continuity, expanding how risk, value and resilience are understood over time.

The Future50 Initiative, a collaboration between the Global Foresight Network and the Global Shapers Community, shows what intergenerational foresight looks like when it is designed into decision-making rather than added at the margins. The programme brings 50 emerging leaders from across regions into sustained work with seasoned foresight practitioners to co-create regionally grounded provocations that interrogate real policy and corporate challenges. Authority is shared, and expertise flows in both directions.

These provocations now inform policy and organizational foresight agendas. They surface tensions that conventional foresight often misses, including conflicts between short-term performance and long-term responsibility, assumptions embedded in dominant policy models, and forms of knowledge that are routinely treated as peripheral despite their strategic value.

Future50 also demonstrates how foresight capability can be built at scale. Through structured mentorship, applied projects and shared analytical frameworks, participants develop practical skills in systems thinking, scenario development and anticipatory governance. At the same time, senior practitioners gain direct exposure to how long-term risks and opportunities are perceived across regions and generations.

The lessons are practical. Intergenerational foresight does not require new departments or speculative exercises. It requires changing how we make everyday decisions.

Anchor foresight in real decisions. Start with one investment, infrastructure commitment or policy choice with 10- to 30-year implications. Require structured input from those who will live with the consequences. Make explicit which assumptions, timelines or risk assessments changed as a result.

Embed foresight into existing routines. The strongest results come when long-term considerations are built into quarterly reviews, product stage gates and portfolio decisions. Teams should be expected to state downstream impacts, irreversible trade-offs and long-term dependencies alongside short-term performance metrics.

Build practical capability across management. Rather than limiting foresight to specialists, leading organizations train managers in specific tools such as horizon scanning, systems mapping and scenario testing. This allows long-term risks and opportunities to surface early, before options narrow and costs escalate.

Ensure foresight has consequences. Advisory groups and consultations only matter when leadership is accountable for using them. Organizations that benefit most set clear mandates for how futures input informs decisions, publish rationales for accepted or rejected recommendations, and review outcomes over time.

Long-term outcomes are the result of repeated choices about investment, design and governance. Those choices reflect who participates and whose time horizons are treated as legitimate.

When foresight remains concentrated among senior leaders in a narrow set of institutions, predictable risks go unseen. When it includes those with long-term exposure, operational insight and diverse lived experience, organizations see constraints earlier and options expand.

Strategic foresight delivers its greatest value when authority is connected to consequence. Expanding who gets to design the future is therefore a practical shift that improves decision quality, strengthens legitimacy and supports timely course correction before the costs of delay become irreversible.