Architecting the Future with Radha Mistry | Think Forward EP 150

One hundred and fifty episodes in, this is the conversation Think Forward was built for. Radha Mistry leads foresight at Arup, and before that she built a corporate foresight practice from a standing start inside a global design software company that did not know it wanted one. It began with an audit she invented on the spot: a hundred interviews that revealed people all over the organization already sensing the future, separately, in different languages, with no way to bring it together.

From there, we get into why placement within the org chart determines whether foresight feeds into real decisions or dies as a deck, why a good scenario should be interrogated like a financial model rather than received as an answer, and what it takes to rebuild futures fluency across 18,000 people. Radha also shares the signals she is watching right now, including one about where governments are starting to live online that genuinely surprised me.

If you have ever tried to make an organization take the future seriously, this hour is for you.

=============================
 This Week's Companion Issue

The companion Future Proof newsletter issue built on this conversation, When Everything is a Signal, lands Thursday. It opens a four-part series called Reading Yourself Like a System.
Read on Substack: https://befutureproof.substack.com/p/when-everything-is-a-signal?r=11ae&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Read on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/future-proof-7303526412311842816/

=============================
 Chapters

Timestamps are integrated in the episode.

0:00 Design As Future-Making 

2:40 Craft, Childhood, And Learning By Making 

10:20 Buildings As Long-Term Future Artifacts 

17:05 The Futures We Close Off 

23:25 Preferable For Whom, And Why

28:10 How A Foresight Practice Gets Built 

35:10 The Workshop That Changed The Plan

41:20 Where Foresight Belongs In The Org 

50:05 Scaling Foresight At A Global Firm

58:40 Global Context And Humble Sensemaking 

1:05:15 Signals To Watch And Final Takeaways

=============================
 About Radha Mistry

Radha Mistry leads the foresight practice at Arup, one of the longest running corporate foresight groups in the world, after building the foresight function at Autodesk from scratch. Her path runs from architecture through narrative environments into futures work.
 Connect with Radha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radha-mistry-63024440/

=============================
 Go Deeper

📬 Future Proof, my weekly newsletter on foresight and leadership, here on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/future-proof-7303526412311842816/ and in full on Substack: https://befutureproof.substack.com/
🌐 Join the Future Proof Community for conversations about the future: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/10084416/
📖 SuperShifts, my book on the forces reshaping business and society: https://www.supershiftsbook.com/
👤 My website: https://www.stevenfisher.io/ | My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenfisher/

=============================
 Think Forward Everywhere

🎧 All episodes: https://thinkforward.buzzsprout.com/
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/think-forward-conversations-with-futurists-innovators/id1736144515
🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IOn8PZCMMC04uixlATqoO
▶️ YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLionR73qBCQm3r2VwXAUnW0yy_8F8mrPR
💼 Follow the show on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/think-forward-show/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkfwdshow/ | X: https://x.com/ThinkFwdShow

=============================
 Presented By

PRESENTED BY THINK FORWARD NETWORK
 https://tfn.one/

SUPPORTED BY THE HUMAN FRONTIER INSTITUTE
 https://humanfrontier.org/

=============================
 Sponsor This Episode

Interested in sponsoring Think Forward or partnering as an affiliate? Email [email protected] to reach a growing audience of leaders and futurists thinking seriously about what's next.

Where in your organization is foresight already happening under another name? Tell me in the comments.

If you found something useful, subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

#ThinkForward #Foresight #StrategicForesight

ORDER SUPERSHIFTS! bit.ly/supershifts

🎧 Listen Now On: 

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/think-forward-conversations-with-futurists-innovators-and-big-thinkers/id1736144515

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IOn8PZCMMC04uixlATqoO

Web: https://thinkforward.buzzsprout.com/

Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.