We offer each of our themes in a variety of formats, from one hour presentations, through four hour seminars,
to one- and even two-day workshops. These are offered both publicly and personalized for individual companies.
We continually update and revise each theme to take into account the latest events and research in every area.
Therefore, every presentation is unique, adapted to a lesser or greater degree for each context. New themes
are released every six months.
Thriving on Turbulence New!
The future's so bright, you've got to wear shades!
This may seem a strange thought in these turbulent times: Are you sure you want the world to be more predictable?
We believe that uncertainty is that moment of perfect (business) freedom. The cycle will turn positive – and Black Swans wait for no one.
You must be ready for the upturn and its radical new opportunities, before your future competitors are.
Now is the perfect time to think and act radically, and to build new optimism into the executive & management team. To think about the new paradigms the future will demand and what it will take to succeed in 'the real world' future.
The basic choice facing the executive team is this:
Will you manage your way out of 'The Current Mess' or choose to lead the way up the next wave?
"We're not going to tell you where this is going to end – we're going to tell you where your future is going to begin!"
Thriving on Turbulence, is on TV! Click here to view the episodes from the Summit TV series.
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The Future of Markets & Brands
Brave New World or Bar-room Brawl?
The ongoing digital revolution is remaking our entire world. Social networks, blogs and new consumer choices are re-shaping technology, business models, advertising, marketing, branding - and consumers themselves. The very future of markets and brands is being re-defined in every business sector.
But the reality is much like a bar-room brawl – very messy! On one hand, we're in the golden age of information! Never before has there been a higher level of communication and interaction. Never before have more people been connected, more information shared, a greater level of transparency.
On the other, the traditional industries are in meltdown as digital disrupters rewrite the rules, threaten massive companies and trample long-established business models. Could this happen to your industry? Newsflash: it already is!
As the Net Generation becomes more powerful and pervasive, you require a new understanding of what it takes to design your business from the outside in…around the whims of ever-changing markets. It will require new pro-active leadership in technology, marketing and branding – in the process shaping totally new industries. What lessons can be learned? Who will be the winners - and losers?
The Future of Markets and Brands draws out new insights that point to a new and very different market-space for all businesses. These are new Business Lessons from the Future.
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Getting Elephants to Dance
Quantum Growth: Out of the box, straight to the bottom line
The key challenge for any successful organisation today is to sustainably achieve high growth in an environment where the rate of change is ever increasing, and competition is relentless (often from new and unexpected sources). The capital markets reward those who succeed handsomely, but punish those who fail to meet market expectations mercilessly – and the more successful your organisation is, the higher the market’s expectations. The only edge your organisation can have is agility. Carefully considered strategies no longer guarantee success and are often outdated as soon as implementation starts.
Every recent survey into what keeps CEOs awake at night reflects the need to innovate and to sustain growth as the key challenge: "What made us successful in the past will not hold true for the future" – FTSE 100 CEO, UK.
Can a large, complex, multinational organisation achieve sustainable quantum growth through a distinct innovation intervention? Absolutely! This theme covers the practical criteria that differentiate successful corporate step-change programs. Learn from the collective experience of winning organizations that succeeded, and from the practitioners who helped them drive this success.
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Business and the Environment
Climate change - your future in the balance!
It's time to go beyond Al Gore and Nicholas Stern in the debate on climate change. It's time to focus on what we can do about it, rather than debate whether or not there is a crisis.
And a critical part of that focus is: what does the environmental imperative mean for business?
The ‘environmental problem’ has moved from being a left-wing ‘tree-hugger’ cause to a hardcore business and political issue. Now, it’s about customer choices, costs and the bottom line - and businesses that don’t get that are being left behind.
FutureWorld’s new theme is a powerful and hard-nosed review of climate change – but from a pro-growth, pro-tech, pro-business and pro-balance viewpoint. It separates fact from fiction, asks hard questions and provides practical direction for individuals and companies alike on how to face the realities of climate change.
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Quantum Relationships
How to unleash the true power of relationships in a fragmented and chaotic world
“People are our most valuable asset” – that corporate platitude may turn out to have been one of the most powerful corporate delusions of the 20th century. In a fragmented and interconnected world it turns out that ‘relationships’, not people, are your most valuable asset – and will become the core differentiator.
Quantum Relationships explores new 21st century perspectives on business and personal relationships – how we are moving from HR to QR – and shows how to apply new thought leadership to create quantum value in your business and personal life.
In business, you are increasingly dependent on relationships within your organization to deliver exceptional customer service. The future of your business depends on effective relationships with your customers, current and new. The delivery of your service promise is increasingly dependent on relationships within a seamless network of business partners. Increasingly, these relationships will not be structured within hierarchies but as dynamic global networks. The implications for management and leadership will be profound.
This theme offers a powerful wide-ranging debate to show what we can learn from network science, quantum physics and Buddhist philosophy – and how to leverage the power of diversity to take the power of relationships up a quantum level. Taken together, these new principles are profound and inspirational – their application is both practical and immediate!
This topic is based on extracts from the book “The Future of the Corporation” by Wolfgang Grulke, currently in preparation.
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Life 2.0 v2
Evolution is dead. The future is ours to choose.
During the past 100 years science and technology have shaped life as-we-know-it, almost beyond comprehension. Today we stand in the foothills of a new revolution. Life extension, face transplants, gene therapy, designer molecules, stem cell organs and submarines in our veins!? The first person to live to 1000 may already have been born.
New science and an emerging set of 21st century technologies, embracing NanoTechnology and BioTechnology, are about to alter the way we live and work in fundamental ways that we cannot yet imagine. Technology is empowering us to shape our own direction.
There will be bewildering new choices in personal health and wealth. Opportunities for business will explode. Those who are prepared to see them as such will turn these opportunities into economic performance - at a personal and national level. The detractors will be many. Where do you stand?
The future is ours to choose. So, where do you want to go?
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China in the 21st Century
Dragon & Dilemma
Today, China is the pre-eminent growth economy, universally feared as a voracious competitor; inscrutable as a market and thoroughly misunderstood.
Based on practical insights from FutureWorld's global network, this theme is a powerful audio-visual exploration of China’s role in the world - the stark current realities of a roaring dragon, the challenging dilemmas and surprising alternate scenarios for the future.
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India in the 21st Century
Stumbling Elephant & Crouching Tiger
In 1990 India had the same GDP as China. Since then, India has stood in China's economic shadow. Democratic ideals and 'elephantine' political infighting have been blamed.
Today, India is the epicenter for industrial and IT outsourcing and is developing a massive IT services industry. It has become a leader in generic medicines and surgical tourism. A revolution in political attitudes seems to bubbling up.
What is in store for the world's largest democracy in the next two decades? This powerful audio visual exploration of India's alternate futures will add new insights into your business' strategic context.
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Ten Lessons from the Future
The future is a matter of choice, not chance
Consumer culture, technology and business models - we know what the world was like in the past, but what is the inevitable future in the coming decades?
This powerful audio-visual presentation is a roller-coaster ride from the culture of the sixties and seventies - and the attitudes, products and companies it spawned – to the potential scenarios of 2020 and beyond.
What could we have learnt about the future back then? Why did we miss some of the most important new developments such as the personal computer and the impact of the mobile phone? And learning from perfect hindsight, what can we realistically expect to hit us in the future? Which will be the winning and losing industries? What will be the winning nations? What lessons can we learn from this future that we can apply to our business thinking today?
In this warp-speed world it is no longer sufficient to learn from experience – we must learn to learn from the future!
This presentation is based on Wolfgang Grulke's best selling book "Ten Lessons from the Future".
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Radical Innovation
Out of the box, straight to the bottom line
Innovation is fast becoming the commercial religion of the 21st century. Everyone’s doing it, so how can you differentiate yourself? What’s makes the difference between evolutionary and breakthrough innovation?
Mankind has always used tools as a means to amplify the body and mind. Our success in this regard has made us the dominant species. Today, massively disruptive technologies provide the possibility to devastate the old business models.
Why does your past success hangs heavily on your shoulders? Why do great companies fail? Why does success tend to breed an inability to innovate, leading to ultimate failure?
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The Future of the Corporation
Fragmented, distributed and interconnected
For more than a hundred years, the corporation has been the primary structure for wealth-creation and wealth-distribution. The corporation was born of the Industrial Economy and modeled on the efficiencies of the machine. It’s hierarchical structure has been shaped and changed by the demands of shareholders and stakeholders to be more responsive to the environment in which it exists.
Today we live in unprecedented volatility and chaos. Most centrally-controlled structures are threatened by fast and nimble networked alternatives. Power is moving from governments and corporations to individuals in their roles as investors, employees and partners. Markets, consumers and individuals are interconnected like never before. Information and knowledge has become a commodity.
What creates value in a fractal and interconnected world? What is the future shape of the corporation? What are the business imperatives today?
This presentation and workshop is based on the upcoming book of the same title by Wolfgang Grulke, to be published in 2005/6.
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Business Lessons from Dinosaurs
Evolution, extinction & the fate of market leaders
Surely there is nothing we can learn about business from pre-history? Or is there? What can we learn about business sustainability from extinction? What always happens to those who dominate the food chain? What are the common principles that govern life as we know it? How can we apply these at home and in business?
We all know the value of learning from experience – we know we must build on the shoulders of giants. Wolfgang Grulke's bestselling book “Lessons from the Future” taught us that in this warp-speed world it is not enough to learn from experience – that we have to learn to learn from the future, and that the future is a matter of choice, not chance.
Now with these “Principles from Pre-history”, we expand the scope with new strategic lessons for personal and organizational development – new strategies for business, and the way we live our lives.
This theme covers the vast geological eras before Mankind and the profound lessons this long-view perspective teaches us. This keynote and workshop topic builds profound new insights into business and life strategies – it is full of striking audio-visual imagery, from wonders of the natural world to the astounding explorations of the fossil record – and leaves the audience with “Principles from Pre-history” – powerful lessons for your future.
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Swarm Creativity
The best way to gain power is to give it away!
As corporate models shift from hierarchical to networked, we need to shift our thinking from command and control to coordinate and cultivate. To survive in today's relentless business environment, businesses ought to be rushing to uncover, nurture, and apply the SwarmCreativity of their Collaborative Innovation Networks, or COINs.
This presentation, based on Peter Gloor’s book 'Swarm Creativity – Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks', brings a powerful and practical framework for unlocking and applying the Collaborative Innovation Networks within your organization.
This presentation (or workshop) will help you build organizations that are more creative, productive, and efficient. It promotes the establishment creative collaboration, knowledge sharing, and social networking.
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The Mobile Future
Information, skills, jobs, capital and technology - does mobility mean out-of-control chaos, or a plethora of opportunity
21st century markets are being characterized by mobility - of people and jobs; products and services; information and know-how; capital and consumers. As usual in Man's evolution on this planet, our tools and technologies are pushing us headlong into an increasingly mobile future. What are these tools and what impact could they have?
With open borders and interconnectedness come new challenges to organisations, power bases, patents, copyright and privacy. As businesses and individuals we are the both the beneficiaries and the victims of the consequences of these actively open markets. Governments too are being challenged by openness and mobility.....
This theme captures radical new thinking about our mobile future and provides sharp business synthesis for executive audiences, challenging your ideas about the future and providing practical links to today's business realities. Plus, some lessons from the mobile future, lessons that you can implement today!
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Personal Financial Destiny
Choosing your personal future
One’s personal financial destiny is the direct consequence of life-long attitudes and behavior. Today each and every one of us is faced with a multiplicity of choices. Yet, why do so few individuals succeed in achieving long term financial freedom? Why does inherited wealth frequently result in personal failure? What are the challenges that you face in your current life phase? What should you do to choose your future now?
We all know that with increased personal freedoms come vast new personal responsibilities. This powerful new presentation examines your personal balance sheet in a whole new way – and defines the rules for personal success. The message is underpinned by real life case studies - practical lessons applicable to individuals at any stage of life – to help define a clear personal strategy relevant to tomorrow’s reality.
Choose your personal financial destiny now – it’s the only time you have.
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The Fractal Individual
How to reconcile personal power and uncertainty
On the surface you’re...powerful, mobile and nomadic! Inside...you’re afraid, uncertain and chaotic!?
This is how the individual experiences life and work in the world economy – our context appears to be completely fragmented and chaotic – you’re a ‘fractal’ individual in a fractal world. With today's turbulence, if you're not scared then you truly have missed the point! We're surrounded by chaos and uncertainty - there's no time to catch your breath as everything around us changes.
Yet living in the centre of this hurricane...we realize that...never in the history of mankind has the individual had more personal power - as consumer, investor, learner and worker!
This topic is based on extracts from the book “The Future of the Corporation” by Wolfgang Grulke and Andy Andrews to be published end 2003.
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The Quantum Workplace
How to harness the power of individuals and relationships in a fractal world
How critical to your business are the fundamental shifts taking place in the workplace? How seriously are your people and business partners being affected by the new fractal networked world? Can you improve your competitive position and staff morale while increasing productivity and cutting costs?
The reality is that the next few years will further amplify the individual’s personal power, ever increasing turbulence! Technology connected by the world's digital skin will create massive new options.
So, how can you thrive in the new economy? And, how can your business capitalise on the fractal individual? Can you make your staff and customers resonate in chaotic markets?
How do you lead and motivate these new empowered employees? Can you herd all the cats to create alignment and synergy for your bottom line?
This topic takes a journey through the future scenario for knowledge-based organisations and the implications for business and employees. It discusses how companies may operate and interact with their stakeholders – in order to survive and grow.
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The Economics of Information
This presentation (or workshop) looks at the business implications of the chaotic marriage of information technology and the global de-regulating economy, and asks:
What did the Egyptian gods of order and chaos know that we have still to learn?
What are the challenges presented by the new economic context as we move from 'the economics of scarcity' to the 'economics of plenty'?
What are the implications for policymakers, governments, business and individuals?
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South Africa, How Are You?
Massive private initiative, radical innovation and inspirational leadership can elevate South Africa to a respected and successful country in the relatively short time span of ten years.
Louis Fourie and the Citadel team look at ten key questions related to life in SA to compile the Scorecard and rate each in terms of the country's performance in the particular field.
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All of our themes are available in formats of varying duration and level of interaction,
from one hour keynote addresses to two day workshops, according to your needs.
Although we know our presentations are inspiring, we are not motivational speakers.
Our goal is radical business and personal change. Even in keynote presentations,
where there is often minimal interactivity between speaker and audience, or where
the interaction is often once off, this level of change remains our goal. We aim
to achieve this through pioneering thought leadership and by creating the
right environments for real paradigm shifts to occur.