Meet the Future Readiness Award Advisors: Noboru Konno

New for 2025, the Thinkers50 Future Readiness Award recognises an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the understanding and practice of future readiness.

Created in partnership with the Royal Academy of Management, Oman, the Award celebrates a piece of thought leadership that illuminates how leaders can build forward-looking capabilities into their organisations; how they can focus simultaneously on innovation in the long term and adaptability in the short term.

Nominations for the Award are assessed by an expert Panel of Advisors, selected for their expertise in futures thinking. One of the Advisors is Professor Noboru Konno, President of the Japan Innovation Network.

Professor Konno explains: “Future readiness is extremely important. It is not a simple future-oriented vision of management that envisages a single future and works towards it. That is delusional management. In today’s world, future readiness means the ability to respond flexibly to emergent situations in reality, while maintaining a deep understanding of realistic possibilities based on a major common good in an ever-uncertain world.” 

Thinkers50 co-founder, Des Dearlove, asked Professor Konno to expand on his insights into future readiness. 

How can an organisation be prepared for the future?

Des Dearlove: Professor Konno, your own research focuses on the fields of knowledge creation and innovation management, developing theories and practices that help organisations create and manage knowledge effectively. How does your work influence how you think about the future and future readiness?

Noboru Konno: In our era, innovation is no longer seen as the result of individual entrepreneurship, but rather as a form of organisational knowledge creation. This perspective is reflected in systematic innovation management systems (IMS/ISO 56000). Preparedness for the future reflects an organisation’s ability to do this.

Des Dearlove: What do you believe are the most significant trends shaping the future in the next five and ten years? Given your research area, what do you see as the biggest threats and opportunities?

Noboru Konno: AI is currently a popular theme, but over the next five to ten years, human aspects such as humanisation and ethicalisation of management will become more important. This is not human-centred thinking, but rather a reflection on the mechanistic and technologically rational worldview.

Des Dearlove: What skills do you think will be most important for organisations and nations to develop to be future ready? 

Noboru Konno: An ecosystem perspective. On a macro level, the ability to discuss knowledge creation, sharing, and utilisation in terms of policy. On a micro level, the ability to design ecosystems based on concepts and objectives.

What does future ready leadership look like?

Des Dearlove: What are the most important qualities or characteristics that future ready leaders require? And how can they best develop them?

Noboru Konno: A mindset that transcends bias. To achieve this, dialogue skills and sensitivity to the ‘place’ where phenomena occur, such as access to the scene, are essential.

Des Dearlove: What advice would you offer leaders who want to be proactive in creating future ready organisations? How can they create a culture that is resilient, and future ready? 

Noboru Konno: Simply aiming for the future will lead to conflict with existing systems. Therefore, Aristotle’s concept of prudence is essential. Agility in acting toward the future, historical imagination – that is, a perspective from the past to the future – and the vision to realise it. Vision is not fantasy. It is a synthesis of historical imagination, mutual subjectivity (not egoism but altruistic intent), and systematic knowledge for practical application.

Des Dearlove: Thank you Professor Konno.

Future Readiness Award

Nominations for the Future Readiness Award close on 30 June 2025. The shortlist will be announced 4 August and the Award will be presented by the President of the Royal Academy of Management at the Thinkers50 2025 Awards Gala in London’s historic Guildhall.

READ MORE ABOUT THE FUTURE READINESS AWARD