The canary in the coal mine: listen before the silence falls.

Miners used to take a canary into the mine: if the little bird stopped singing, it was a sign to leave quickly. In strategy, the canary stands for early warning signals, small shifts in customer behaviour, technology, regulation or talent that can point to bigger change. Often they are not yet hard enough for a business case and not yet big enough for a KPI dashboard, and that is exactly why they are strategically interesting. Because once the canary is lying at the bottom of the cage, you are usually too late.

Many organisations have become good at measuring performance. But that mainly tells you how well your current model is running today, not whether the world beneath it is shifting. In this article you will read how to deliberately organise the picking up of early signals and make someone responsible for it.

This is part three of Jeroen Toet's blog series Strategic bird guide: bird language in the boardroom.

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Jeroen Toet is a senior strategist at Jester Strategy and co-author of the book Scenario Planning in Practice. For over 10 years he has helped organisations in the private and public sector make future-proof choices using foresight methods, including scenario planning.

Questions about the article? Get in touch with Jeroen: j.toet@jester.nl or +31 6 11 45 13 11.