Kurt Nick is here from Ideacast. I want to tell you about the Big Take

podcast from Bloomberg News. Each weekday they bring you one important story

from their global newsroom like how AI will upend your life and why China's

targeting the US dollar. Check out the big take from Bloomberg wherever you listen. Welcome to the HBO Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard. We live in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times.

Vuka is the acronym we've all volatile uncertain, complex, and ambiguous times.

Vuka is the acronym we've all learned to use, and it's a really tough environment

in which to make business decisions.

Technology is advancing rapidly, geopolitics are unstable, and we're so interconnected

that it's truly impossible to predict the future. Sometimes world-changing events

like 9-11, a global financial crisis, or a world-spaning pandemic, take us by complete surprise.

So how do we plan and prepare anyway?

How do we make sure we're ready for the next emergency. Today's guest says that leaders and

organizations need to develop strategic foresight and that involves inclusive, in-depth

and ongoing scenario planning. Peter Skoblich is co-founder and principal of the consultancy Event Horizon Strategies and a senior

fellow at the International Security Program at New America.

He wrote the HBO article, Learning from the Future,

how to make robust strategy in times of deep uncertainty.

Peter, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me. So scenario planning has been around for quite some time. What's different about how organizations should be using it now?

Well I think that the difference between the way that organizations often use it and the way that

it should be used is that it's sometimes seen as a one-off

exercise at moments of perhaps extreme crisis or in moments where leadership is trying to determine a particular strategy

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