The OG of Scenario Planning
The Change Signal with Jeremy Bentham
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If you lead change in a large organization, you already know the future refuses to behave. Jeremy Bentham —who led Shell’s scenario planning team for sixteen years and helped shape how one of the world’s most sophisticated organizations thinks about uncertainty — joins me to explore how to work with that reality rather than fight it. His core idea is simple but demanding: the future is shaped by competing forces, and multiple outcomes are always plausible. If you’re only planning for one version, you’re not being strategic — you’re being optimistic.
We talk about how scenario thinking isn’t about producing reports, but about building a mindset that helps you make better decisions under uncertainty. Jeremy walks through how to identify what’s steady, what’s uncertain, and what actually matters — so your strategy can hold up across different possible futures.
And then we get into influence. Because even the smartest thinking fails if it doesn’t land. Jeremy shares why senior leaders resist being taught — and how change really happens when people discover insights for themselves.
Here are three questions that sit underneath this Change Signal conversation with Jeremy Bentham:
What future are you not exploring?
Where is your strategy getting lazy?
Are you helping people learn — or making them resist?
ABOUT JEREMY:
Jeremy Bentham is a strategist, scenario planner, and former leader of Shell’s scenarios team, where he led the function for sixteen years. He is known for helping organizations think more clearly about uncertainty, strategy, energy transition, and the long view — and for translating scenario thinking into better decisions, not just better documents.
Music Credits: Rest in the Garden - SackJo22 ft Duckett & The Stubble Field Break (Mana Mixed) - Mana Junkie ft Apoxode
