Donna Dupont: How Future-Ready Leaders Think: Turning Weak Signals into Strategy Before Disruption Hits

About Donna Dupont:

Donna Dupont, Founder and Chief Strategist of Purple Compass, is an award-winning designer and futurist with over 25 years of experience collaborating with leaders. She helps organizations build future literacy, navigate uncertainty, and drive impactful change. Combining systems thinking with strategic foresight, she empowers leaders to mitigate risks, enhance preparedness, and seize opportunities for innovation, transformation, and resilience. Recognized with seven government awards, Donna’s work spans critical areas like climate change, health security, and emergency management, with her futures research earning accolades from the Canadian Defence and Security Network and the Association of Professional Futurists.

In this episode, Dean Newlund and Donna Dupont discuss:

• Short-term problem solving versus long-term foresight
• Weak signals and emerging issues before disruption hits
• Ambidextrous leadership balancing now and next
• Using disruption as fuel for innovation
• Mental models shaping how leaders respond to uncertainty

Key Takeaways:

• Schedule recurring leadership conversations that explore five- to ten-year future scenarios alongside quarterly planning.
• Actively identify weak signals by asking teams what new patterns they are seeing that they have never seen before.
• Create ambidextrous structures that protect business as usual while allowing innovation to be tested safely.
• Build psychological safety so teams feel comfortable sharing unconventional ideas and intuitive hunches.

"When you are working with a future-oriented mindset, you're usually starting not from a management mindset, but more of an innovator or visionary.” — Donna Dupont

Connect with Donna Dupont:  

Website: https://www.purplecompass.ca/

Email: donna@purplecompass.ca

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/donna-dupont

FutureMinds Coaching Collective (free/monthly) - https://www.purplecompass.ca/coaching/

See Dean’s TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I

Connect with Dean:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkw

Website: https://www.mfileadership.com/

The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/

X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deannewlund

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/

Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.com

Phone: 1-800-926-7370

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