Abstract
Faced with ambitious growth targets and a challenging global labor market, The Walt Disney Company turned to a field initiative, Strategic Foresight, to create a more adaptive, resilient and transformative organizational culture. Over the course of four years, Walt Disney International (a segment of the company) established a culture of future thinkers through a multi-phased change management effort. This effort included recurring learning and development programs based on the Natural Foresight® Framework, the establishment of regional Futures Teams across the globe, and a dedicated project management lead. As a result of the effort, the following three organizational outcomes were realized: (a) organizational processes have been updated to include Strategic Foresight; (b) revenue-leading futures intelligence has led to innovative new product offerings; and (c) success within the International division has inspired other segments within the organization to follow suit. Recognizing the importance of Strategic Foresight, international leadership has declared futures thinking to be one of the organization’s top leadership competencies.
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Salvatico, Y.M., Spencer IV, F.W. (2019). Disney’s Workforce of the Future: From HR Initiative to Organizational Culture. In: Schreiber, D.A., Berge, Z.L. (eds) Futures Thinking and Organizational Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94923-9_17
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