About This Resource

This session was part of the 2025 Navigating the Now, Leading the Future CE Week series

Series Overview

This Continuing Education Week is designed to support employment social enterprise leaders in building resilience, clarity, and strategic direction in a rapidly evolving world.

Over the course of 3 sessions we reflected on where we are as a community, explore tools for leading through uncertainty, and expand a vision for the future. Each session blended thoughtful reflection with practical takeaways offering grounding insights, leadership tools, and strategic planning to strengthen both your programmatic and organizational capacity.

This series is designed for employment social enterprise leaders and staff—particularly those navigating complexity, leading through change, or shaping the future of their organizations. It’s ideal for team leads, program designers, strategists, and anyone looking to strengthen their leadership practice, support their teams with greater clarity and resilience, and build capacity to anticipate and shape what comes next.

Session Description

SMALLIFY Lab-Futures Thinking: How to Scan, Sense, and Shape What’s Ahead
In a world marked by accelerating change and persistent uncertainty, it’s more important than ever for leaders and teams to move beyond reactive planning—and toward intentional, future-focused design. This session introduces Futures Thinking as a powerful method for navigating uncertainty with agency, creativity, and clarity. Rooted in strategic foresight and systems thinking, Futures Thinking helps organizations scan the horizon, anticipate emerging shifts, and shape proactive strategies for what’s next.

In this hands-on lab, participants will learn how to explore multiple time horizons, identify early signals of change, and map possible futures—so they can better prepare for disruptions, amplify opportunities, and align action with long-term vision. Using real-time examples and collaborative exercises, attendees will leave equipped with tools to imagine bold possibilities and take small, strategic steps toward preferred futures.

This session included facilitated group discussion, reflective exercises, and applied tools. It also featured testimonials from the ESE community, integrating their experience with futures thinking, strategic design, and leadership development to help organizations create adaptive, resilient cultures. 

Session Goals & Key Takeaways:
By the end of the session you will have:

• Learned core principles of futures thinking, including scanning, signals, and scenario development
• Practiced identifying relevant signals of change for your field, community, or organization
• Mapped alternative futures—exploring what might be possible and what you most want to influence
• Developed  a “small bet” or experiment to begin activating a preferred future in your current context

This session is ideal for:

• ESE leaders and teams navigating rapid change or long-term planning
• Program designers and strategists seeking innovative tools for visioning and alignment
• Anyone interested in expanding their capacity to anticipate, adapt, and influence what comes next

Speaker:
This session was facilitated by Dave Viotti the Founder of SMALLIFY,  a global innovation methodology and community of practice. Dave has been a close partner and friend of REDF for over a decade.

Below is the session recording and accompanying materials

About SMALLIFY

SMALLIFY is a rapid innovation firm and method based in Silicon Valley, practiced around the world. We help leaders, organizations and communities break their big goals into smaller, more actionable pieces, so they can take action and get results. Fast. We do this through our SMALLIFY Labs.

SMALLIFY is built around a set of practical problem solving and rapid innovation tools. Like “Lego” pieces, SMALLIFY tools are modular and can be tapped at any time, for any duration, in situational leadership.