The field of Foresight can constitute the future success or failure that the company or organization may experience, starting from processes as simple and routine as decision-making and execution.
When talking about Prospective and decision-making, there are fundamental elements that must be considered and not overlook some processes that entail the identification, choice, alternatives, difficulties, their feasibility for the growth and development of the company.
Sophocles said that "quick decisions are insecure decisions", years later we found a discipline that explains the reason for this statement, and not only that, the Prospective emphasizes how a decision should be carried out, taking into account aspects as the personality of the person who decides, the risks that exist when making a decision and the responsibility that one must acquire.
One of the current authors on the subject of Prospective in companies, Dr. Edgar Eslava Arnao (2010), refers to the fact that “the first serious studies on future scenarios began to be developed in the United States in the decade of the twenty". It is necessary to begin to contextualize how the issue of Foresight has been inserted into the organizational business agenda.
The labor field, for this purpose, must be observed as an integral system, where its impact, scope, structure, organization, hierarchy, dynamics, coexistence, that is, each of its complementary parts, will be correlated. In this way it is important to know that this system, the company / organization, must be endowed, supervised, directed by a firm structure.
By firm structure we mean the group or team that will create and build the development and growth of the organization and that will be the one that will have the ability to make decisions, as well as their execution.
For the purpose of generating and increasing efficiency in decision-making, specialized schools that offer a whole course aimed at understanding the importance of foresight within the business area, and specifically at the time of decision-making.
Examples of these institutions can be The EyE Network (Scenarios and Strategy) in Latin America is a specialized Think Tank with long experience in the construction and use of future scenarios for the design of strategic conceptions.
The Think Tank is an English expression - literally a deposit of thought - widely used in Spanish, and that has been tried to adapt with different expressions such as committee of experts, committee of scholars, research institute, strategic cabinet, think tank, laboratory ideas or ideas plant (Wikipedia).
Executives and managers lead growth, development, productivity, scope, risks, cohesion, functionality, in every line of the company. That is, through them, the goals and objectives can be communicated, promoted, monitored, or, in the worst case, canceled or failed.
In order for the company to have greater certainty, as well as for each member of the same, the executive command must have skills, discipline, mentality, creativity, common sense, responsibility, organizational capacity, intuition, logic, and even ability to have specialist advisers for issues that may arise.
Each of the features that have just been mentioned are not taken at random, much less disposable. The concrete plans, which is what will give shape, consistency, value and power to the organization, will be able to be carried out to a large extent by the correct decision making.
One way to ensure, or at least foresee, a good decision system is to raise awareness of the process, starting with managers or executives.
The way how to make teams, how to structure the way of working and the components of each function / operation will be the first step to contemplate in the task of prospecting and decision-making.
The explanation for this is that the functionality is closely related to the environment that can be generated in the workspace. Therefore, the environment is made up of each personality, functionality, dynamics and complementation that each department or management provides to the staff.
From the environment, the tasks that each member will carry out must be considered, for this it is necessary for the manager to know how to select, address and know what is being asked of the staff.
In many cases the work of identity creation is required. In other words, the staff have a full and direct identification with each member of their team, as well as the identification with the direct boss or the manager to whom it corresponds to address.
An important point, and perhaps with greater emphasis, is that the manager or executive manages to humanize his managerial task, as well as the productive work, so that in terms of human quality he does not see himself, or is imposed as far from his subordinate team, but be accessible and close.
Although this does not provide an increase in decision-making capacity, it does complement it because after making a decision, what is estimated is that the team collaborates in making this decision be executed or practiced. This is precisely the importance of proximity and accessibility with regard to decision-making.
What this will generate, or should generate, is the attention to creating mechanisms, dynamics, meetings and interactions that allow the operational and administrative groups of the organization to carry out to achieve a cohesion that promotes and guarantees the operation and development of each area of the company.
Otherwise, there will be cases such as “many are the companies that are affected in their operation, because they are not attentive when a conflict is manifested that involves human resources, the dynamics of groups, individuals, reflecting in unproductiveness, discontent, performance, demotivation ”.
“Control becomes a trivial exercise. Bad plans often affect the health of the entire organization. This is why scholars devote so much attention to organizational strategies, to the plans that top managers make to meet the overall goals of an organization. Its readers are shareholders who use this information to judge the current performance of the organization and its chances of future success. "
That is what can be analyzed about decision making, internally in the company.
It is necessary to address in the same way, how the prospect linked to the effectiveness in decision making is related to the external part of the company.
In this context, issues such as competition, productivity, the consumer, etc. arise. That is, those processes related to the growth of the company; the meeting of a greater number of clients, as well as their trust and loyalty; being able to achieve or maintain a certain number of sales; the objective of the profitability of the shares it owns and the reputation that the brand or company can obtain through the production, dissemination and identification processes.
In Mexico, both in business matters and in many others, we are in the process of understanding and generating dynamics.
Ana María Álvarez Nicolau explains that “Prospective has a long way to go in our country. All of us who have tried to do something in this field have been self-taught who have improvised what common sense told us. On the other hand, in other countries, the Prospectiva already has a body of doctrine, with true professionals dedicated to it and, what is more important, a true tradition ”.
Perhaps the bet would be centered on the growth of Prospective as an integral theme where work dynamics, theories, and alternative spaces that contain information are established, built and transformed.
Ultimately, the action accompanied by the knowledge and updating of issues like this, can be the key to the integral improvement of the collective life of the country, as well as the increase in the quality of life, which can spread, starting from the understanding of a a subject as extensive and proactive, as is the Prospective.
In conclusion, decision-making and foresight are the raw material that will shape, transform and empower a company.
Ultimately, to ensure the proper choice and execution of decisions, the leader in charge of each department or management must have specific characteristics that help implement a creative, rational and feasible work plan.
The team or Think Tank that complies will be essential for the growth and development of this plan and of all the goals and objectives that are established in the company or organization. He will be responsible for the motor action that he undertakes will condition the success or failure of specific projects.
The work dynamics and the type of environment that may be generated will also be part of the audacity of the executive at the time of having made certain decisions.
Each decision, no matter how small, will have a certain impact within its field of action and execution. Ideally, under no circumstances should the scope of these be underestimated, in order to be able to build a habit and cunning at the time of choice and decision-making.
