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Build the Strategic Leadership Skills
Executives Never Learned
Think Like a Futurist (TLAF) is a 5-module executive program that moves leaders out of the day-to-day and into the future — giving them the tools, mindset, and confidence to anticipate what's coming and shape it.
Is TLAF Right for Your Team?
Think Like a Futurist is for organizations whose leaders are excellent at what their jobs demand today — and need to rethink how their organization works to meet the needs of tomorrow.
Senior Executives
Want to shift your leadership team from reactive and tactical to forward-looking and strategic?
Emerging Leaders
Want to prepare up-and-comers to see the whole enterprise and gain exposure beyond their current role?
HR and Learning & Development Leaders
Looking for a rigorous, proven executive development program with measurable results?
Strategy Leaders
Facing a major inflection point? A new long-range plan, a market shift, or a leadership transition — and need your whole team thinking at the same level?
If your team is strong tactically but needs to think longer-term, this is your program.
Trusted by leaders across industries and sectors.
What Is Think Like a Futurist?
Strategic foresight — the disciplined practice of scanning for change, imagining multiple futures, and building strategy that holds up under uncertainty — is used by NATO, the World Bank, the U.S. military, Disney, and Fortune 500 companies. While 95% of leaders agree they’re responsible for strategy, fewer than 3% spend meaningful time thinking strategically about the future.
Think Like a Futurist closes that gap. In five immersive modules over four to five months, your leaders learn the futurist's mindset and toolkit — not as abstract theory, but applied directly to your organization's real strategic challenges.
By the time your team graduates, they won't just understand foresight. They'll use it — in board meetings, in planning sessions, in every conversation about where your organization is headed.
What Your Leaders Walk Away With
Fluency in the tools and techniques of professional strategic foresight
The ability to spot early signals of change — before they become crises
A shared language and framework for cross-functional strategic conversations
A high-level, foresight-driven plan for your organization's domain, built during the program, to anchor your long-range strategy
The confidence to lead in uncertainty — not just manage through it
By the Numbers
Over 150 leaders have completed Futurist Camp or Think Like a Futurist. The results are clear:
0 → 86% — the jump in participants who rate themselves extremely or very confident in strategic foresight, from before to after the program
95% say the content is extremely or very relevant to their work
95% feel more empowered to serve in a leadership capacity
95%+ would recommend TLAF to a colleague
Five Modules.
One Transformative Arc.
TLAF is built on best practices in adult and accelerated learning — including gamification, learn-practice-reflect cycles, and Bloom's Taxonomy's higher-order thinking skills. Every module follows a consistent rhythm (pre-work, quiz, Signals & Sensemaking, learn-practice-reflect) so participants build fluency over time, not just in the room.
TLAF can be delivered in-person, hybrid, or fully remote — whatever works best for your team. Modules 1 and 5 are co-facilitated by Ty Lewis and Rebecca Ryan. Modules 2, 3, and 4 are led by Ty.
Module 1: You, Futurist
What is foresight, and how does it change the way I lead?
Leaders explore the difference between strategic planning and strategic foresight, confront the cognitive biases that keep leaders stuck in the past, and begin practicing the foundational skill of weak signal detection — spotting early indicators of change before they become obvious trends.
Module 2: Sensing the Future
How do we widen our aperture and perceive what's coming?
Participants learn to distinguish short-term from long-term thinking, practice Red Teaming (a structured technique for challenging assumptions and defeating groupthink), and play the Big Sort — an engaging tabletop activity that helps teams evaluate dozens of societal, technological, economic, environmental, political, and regulatory trends shaping their future.
Module 3: Imagining & Defining the Future
What is the path to outrageous success?
Leaders learn why planning for a single future is a liability, and instead develop four plausible futures for their organization — visionary, expectable, and challenging. They identify Crossover Levers: the strategies that create advantage in any scenario, no matter how the future unfolds.
Module 4: Defining & Doing
What do we need to start, stop, and keep doing?
Using backcasting — working backwards from a bold future vision to today — participants build concrete implementation roadmaps. They assess the organization's capacity for change and make specific commitments about what to accelerate, what to stop, and what to protect.
Module 5: The Future Starts Now
The TED talk. The commitment. And graduation!
Each participant delivers a short TED-style talk — one thing they learned that changed how they think, and one big idea for their organization's future. They make a public commitment to lead with foresight, and celebrate completing a program that fewer than 3% of leaders ever experience.
The Details
Format: In-person, hybrid, or fully remote depending on your preference and capability
Length: 5 modules over 4–5 months (~20–25 hours of instruction)
Group Size: Minimum 10 participants; contact us for groups over 40
Location: We come to you for in-person modules, and use Zoom for hybrid or fully remote options.
What's Included:
Expert facilitation by Ty Lewis and Rebecca Ryan
A comprehensive 180+ page custom workbook
All concepts applied directly to your organization's real strategic challenges
Monthly office hours for any questions or assistance between modules
Small group practice with immediate feedback
Progress assessments throughout
Six months of post-training access to your facilitators for follow-up questions, clarifications, or training support
How does TLAF compare?
Program | Typical Investment | Format |
Executive MBA (per course) | $75,000–$100,000 | 18–24 months |
Corporate leadership program | $3,500–$8,000 | 3–5 days |
Executive coaching | $15,000–$25,000 | 6 months |
Think Like a Futurist | $2,700/person | 20–25 hours, 5 modules |
Your Think Like a Futurist Facilitators
Ty Lewis
Lead Facilitator
Ty Lewis is a certified Think Like a Futurist trainer and Gallup-certified StrengthsFinder coach who guides leaders through transformative foresight development. With a background spanning banking, real estate investment, and nonprofit leadership — including securing six-figure investments in equity initiatives at United Way — Ty's superpower is translating futures thinking into actionable strategy. He helps leaders move from insight to impact, and he does it with the kind of energy that makes people forget they're in a training program.
Rebecca Ryan, APF, FRSA
Program Designer & Co-Facilitator
Rebecca Ryan designed the Think Like a Futurist curriculum and co-facilitates the program's opening and closing sessions. A top-50 professional futurist, economist, and author, Rebecca has guided executive teams and regional leaders across North America in building futures literacy. Her firm, NEXT Generation Consulting, has delivered award-winning strategic foresight work that has shaped planning for over 21 million Americans. She holds a professional certificate in Strategic Foresight from the University of Houston and fellowships from the Association of Professional Futurists and the Royal Society of Arts.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Who should participate in TLAF?
TLAF works best with a cohort of 10–40 current and emerging leaders from across your organization. The cross-functional mix is intentional — one of the program's most powerful outcomes is a shared language and strategic framework that breaks down silos and builds your leadership bench. Most clients send a blend of senior staff and high-potential leaders they're developing for greater responsibility. - How is TLAF different from executive coaching or other professional development?
Most executive development focuses on who your leaders are today — their strengths, communication styles, and management skills. TLAF focuses on what your leaders need to navigate tomorrow. Unlike coaching, which develops individuals one at a time, TLAF builds a shared language and strategic framework across your entire leadership cohort — so your team leaves thinking and planning in the same direction, with a foresight-driven plan for your domain built together during the program. - Can we customize the content for our industry or domain?
Yes — that's a core design feature, not an add-on. Every tool and exercise in TLAF is applied directly to your organization's real strategic challenges. Participants leave with a high-level, foresight-driven plan for your domain. - How much time will this require from participants?
Each module runs between half a day and a full day, spread over four to five months. There is no group work outside of class. Participants are asked to do two things between classes: one reading assignment and one “noticing” exercise that will take 10-20 minutes. We also offer optional office hours between sessions for participants who want to go deeper or have questions. - What if someone misses a module?
We strongly encourage full attendance — each module builds on the last, and the cohort dynamic is part of what makes the learning stick. That said, life happens, and participants should plan to attend office hours following the module they missed, to catch up and be ready for the next session.Not ready for the full series? We also offer half-day and full-day TLAF training. Ty can share that information with you if you’re interested. - Not ready for the full series?
We also offer half-day and full-day TLAF training. Ty can share that information with you if you’re interested. - How do we get started?
Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Ty. He'll help you figure out whether TLAF is the right fit, talk through timing and logistics, and answer any questions your leadership team has before you commit. Not ready for the full series? We also offer half-day and full-day TLAF training. Ty can share that information with you if you’re interested.
YOUR TEAM'S FUTURE IS TOO IMPORTANT TO LEAVE TO CHANCE.
Give your leaders the skills, tools, and confidence to shape it.
Book a Discovery Call with Ty Email Ty Directly
