Stage 1: Strategic Inquiry
An organisation that intends to employ futures thinking should be clear about its strategic priorities and concerns. The Athenians had to consider the threat to them, their own strengths and weaknesses and their objectives. This calculation allowed them to arrive at a decision to temporarily sacrifice their city for the greater strategic result of decisively defeating the Persians. Management must have some normative sense of direction for the organisation. Through a process of strategic inquiry, an organisation’s futures team should be given clear questions to consider. Muddy or ambiguous scoping will almost certainly lead to vague or irrelevant futures products.

Stage 2: Strategic Debate
Organisations sometimes expect their futures teams to deliver "turnkey" solutions or recommendations. This is tantamount to futurists telling management what to do, which is not their appropriate role. Their processes can lead to rethinking, strategic reframing or fresh insights, but not prescriptions for action. Instead, the task of interpreting and analysing futures products is the job of management. The Athenians struggled to interpret Delphi’s pronouncements, but ultimately, it was by reframing their analysis through debate and lateral thinking that they arrived at a more promising strategic perspective than the bleak outlook they had originally confronted.

Stage 3: Strategic Decision
By combining the Delphic pronouncement and Themistocles’ strategic thinking, the Athenians reframed their perspective from one of despair to one of initiative. But the Athenians also followed through this strategic process with decisive action. Decision encompasses action, but management needs to also take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The longevity of the Delphi oracle was not because her prophecies always led to positive results, but because her clients accepted that they were owners of the eventual outcomes.

~ Devadas Krishnadas