Developed by Out of Area B.V.
Organisational health, the capacity to change and well-founded development choices. For boards, leadership teams, HR and L&D who want to understand what their organisation needs first.
Go straight to the platform: futureproofscan.com · futureproofscan.nl
An organisation can have a compelling strategy and still struggle to change. The question then is not only what needs to happen, but also whether the way people collaborate, lead and organise makes that movement possible.
FPS brings eight dimensions together: culture, collective leadership, change strategy, alignment, resilience, readiness for change, engagement and psychological safety. Each dimension receives a score: a Future Proof Index (FPI). Together, the eight indices form a single organisational picture that guides development choices.
What should this organisation invest in to collaborate, learn and change more effectively?
That is the central question. FPS helps you see strengths and obstacles in relation to one another, and choose priorities that fit the challenge.
Within FPS, future-ready means the capacity to adapt the work, collaborate and keep learning as circumstances change. It is about the conditions for dealing with the future.
FPS looks at culture, leadership, behaviour, alignment and the capacity to change. Financial performance, market position, technology and the content of the strategy fall outside the scan. FPS therefore complements a business and strategic analysis.
This approach reflects the distinction Patrick Lencioni makes between the ‘smart side’ and the ‘healthy side’ of organisations. The smart side is what you can draw and measure. The healthy side is how it really works: trust, collaboration and leadership.
According to Lencioni, around 95 per cent of executive attention goes to the smart side: strategy, structure and figures. As a result, the greatest leverage often lies on the healthy side. Trust, safety, collaboration and morale widen an organisation’s internal bandwidth, and that carries through to results, quality and delivery. Because you cannot steer by what you cannot see, FPS makes precisely this side measurable.
The healthy side is not a soft extra. Large-scale research shows time and again that trust, collaboration, leadership and engagement are closely linked to the hard figures on the smart side.
Over the long term, organisations in the healthiest quartile of McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index deliver around three times the total shareholder returns of those in the least healthy quartile, regardless of industry. This is borne out by more than twenty years of research.
In an evaluation of 1,500 companies in 100 countries, McKinsey found that organisations that improved their health achieved 18 per cent higher EBITDA one year later.
Gallup’s meta-analysis of 112,312 teams and business units shows that the most engaged quartile is 23 per cent more profitable than the least engaged, with 18 per cent higher sales productivity and 18 to 43 per cent lower staff turnover.
During the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, healthy organisations were 59 per cent less likely than unhealthy ones to show signs of financial distress. Health also acts as a shock absorber for the smart-side figures.
The hard figures are closely tied to the health of the organisation.
That is why FPS measures the healthy side: so you can see where the leverage lies in your organisation, and invest with purpose.
Imagine a board that wants more ownership. A training programme follows, action owners are appointed and the message goes round once more. But what if employees do want to take responsibility, while their decisions are reversed elsewhere? Training helps when people lack skills. If it is unclear who decides what, or people do not feel able to speak up, something else is needed.
The direction is clear, but concrete decisions and actions fail to follow.
Responsibilities have been assigned, but authority, accountability or room to act is missing.
The same tensions keep returning, despite earlier conversations or training.
The approach does not match what people understand, want or are able to do.
Existing working agreements and leadership habits need revisiting.
The board, managers and employees each describe a different organisation.
Training works. Targeted training works even better.
A meta-analysis of 335 studies shows that leadership training affects learning, application and results, and that a sound needs analysis is among the features that strengthen that effect (Lacerenza et al., 2017). The work environment matters too: support from colleagues, managers and the organisation together explains around a third of the differences in how well people apply what they have learnt (Hughes, Zajac & Salas, 2019). Research findings describe average effects and do not predict outcomes in any specific organisation.
The dimensions overlap deliberately. A question about initiative can also concern leadership, safety and decision-making authority. That is why we always read them together. Each dimension builds on a researched questionnaire or an established organisational model.
Which habits help or hinder?
FPS looks at whether the culture fits what the organisation needs to do. Is collaboration valued, while mainly individual results are rewarded? Does the challenge call for experimentation, while day-to-day practice mainly rewards control?
What you see: the gap between the current and the desired culture, and which behaviour is needed to bridge it.
Basis: Cameron & Quinn’s OCAI (Competing Values Framework)What can the team do as a collective?
FPS explores the shared repertoire: developing ideas, weighing them critically, connecting, deciding, implementing and completing. Role balance does not require a separate team member for every role. Where available, Insights Discovery enriches the conversation about working and communication preferences.
What you see: which team roles are strongly represented in the leadership, which are missing or underused, and what that means for decision-making and innovation.
Basis: Belbin Team RolesDoes the approach to change fit the challenge?
Five colours represent different views of change: yellow for interests and coalitions, blue for design and planning, red for motivation, green for learning and white for self-organisation. A technical implementation calls for different emphases than restoring trust.
What you see: which approach to change the organisation naturally chooses, which one the challenge requires, and where the two diverge.
Basis: De Caluwé & Vermaak’s colour model of changeDo the parts of the organisation support one another?
FPS looks for the places where intention and practice drift apart. Think of a strategy that calls for collaboration, while processes, reports and responsibilities remain organised by department. Does the friction lie in decision-making, handovers, skills, systems or role modelling?
What you see: which of the seven elements are out of step, and how the hard and soft sides of the organisation relate to each other.
Basis: McKinsey 7-SHow does the team deal with disruption?
Three phases: limiting risks beforehand, acting well under pressure, and recovering and learning afterwards. FPS looks at what the team organises together, alongside the resilience of individuals. How does the team pick up signals, how does it share the load, and what happens after a busy period?
What you see: in which phase the team is strong and where it becomes vulnerable: before, during or after a disruption.
Basis: team resilience model by Alliger et al. (2015)Do people want to, need to and are they able to change?
This distinction replaces the general label of ‘resistance’ with more focused questions. Do people see the point of the change? What necessity do they experience? Do they have enough time, information, skills and room? That is why we always measure against a specific change.
What you see: whether the main gap lies in wanting, needing or being able to, and therefore whether to start with meaning, necessity or feasibility.
Basis: Metselaar’s DINAMOHow much energy is available for the work?
Vigour, dedication and absorption: energy, commitment and immersion in the work. Low energy is a reason to examine the circumstances before launching a motivation programme. A favourable profile also needs context: high commitment does not show whether workload and recovery are in balance.
What you see: how much energy, dedication and commitment people experience, and how this relates to alignment and resilience.
Basis: Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-17)Can the necessary conversation take place?
Can people ask for help, raise different ideas and name problems? What happens when someone makes a mistake visible? Psychological safety also means room to hold each other to account; openness pays off most when combined with clear agreements and shared responsibility.
What you see: how free people feel to share questions, doubts, mistakes and ideas, and where that room narrows.
Basis: Amy Edmondson’s seven-item scaleFPS turns the responses into eight Future Proof Indices (FPIs) and a combined Future Proof Score. The overall score gives an overview; the individual indices show where strengths and development questions lie. The dashboard shows the scores per index, with colour coding and explanations.
An average should never hide a vulnerability.
A favourable overall picture can go hand in hand with an important point of attention around safety or alignment. Equally, one low dimension does not mean the organisation as a whole is not functioning. That is why we always look at the pattern. High engagement alongside weak alignment, for example, may suggest that employees are compensating for a lack of clarity with extra effort. We test such an explanation through conversations and examples, and your organisation can always add to or challenge the analysis.
Three fictional examples show how we think. They are hypotheses to be tested, not fixed explanations.
“People don’t take enough ownership.”
“We hear very few new ideas.”
“The change never gets off the ground.”
The board of a technical services provider wanted to understand why decisions were so slow to be implemented. Almost all board members completed the scan. The picture: a team that is strong at organising, setting direction and collaborating, but makes less room for innovation and challenge. Leadership, culture and alignment turned out to be closely linked.
The team therefore chose two working sessions rather than a one-off training, and used them to set concrete agreements on mandate, ownership and progress, with a short weekly progress check.
Anonymised example. Outcomes differ from one organisation to the next.
Our approach
Together we decide which decision or issue the scan should support, who takes part, how we report and which conclusions the design can support.
After the measurement, we check how complete and usable the responses are: the number of participants and who is or isn’t represented.
The feedback takes the form of a working session. Participants test recognition, differences and real-life examples. We also name what is strong and worth keeping.
Together we choose the next steps: which behaviour, working agreement or organisational condition needs to change.
Agreements are given an owner, a mandate and review points. A follow-up measurement shows what has changed.
| Time per participant | Around 48 minutes for eight short questionnaires, completed online on a laptop or phone, one topic at a time, at your own pace. |
|---|---|
| Lead time | Around three weeks from intake to working session, depending on the number of participants. |
| What you receive | A dashboard with the Future Proof Score and the eight indices, with colour coding and explanations; a working session with your leadership team; advice on the next step. |
| Formats | Leadership team scan with working session · organisation-wide scan · scan with follow-up programme and re-measurement. |
| Languages | Dutch and English. |
| Investment | After an introductory conversation, you will receive a tailored proposal. |
A leadership or board team of five to eight participants already gives a useful picture of how the leadership experiences the organisation. The measurement is followed by a half-day working session, after which you decide whether to involve teams and employees. Please note: the leadership’s picture is not yet an organisation-wide employee picture.
Think of growth, integration, a change of leadership, cultural development, stalled implementation or recurring collaboration problems. FPS works best in organisations of around a hundred employees or more, as that is where follow-up steps have the greatest effect. This is not a strict limit, and there is no cap on the number of participants.
The outcome does not need to confirm a decision that has already been made.
Differences between the board, managers and employees may become visible.
There is room to make choices and take responsibility for what comes next.
FPS is less suitable when the scan is mainly meant to legitimise a decision, or when the expectation is that a dashboard will bring about change on its own. Diagnosis, dialogue and follow-up make the difference.
FPS is built on researched questionnaires such as the UWES, Edmondson’s scale, DINAMO and the OCAI, complemented by established organisational models such as McKinsey 7-S, De Caluwé and Vermaak’s colour model, Alliger’s team resilience model and Belbin Team Roles. The evidence base differs per instrument: these are not eight comparable psychometric tests. The added value lies in how they fit together.
| FPS is | FPS is not |
|---|---|
| An organisational picture that guides conversation and choices | A final verdict or a prediction of future success |
| A picture of patterns in culture, leadership and collaboration | A ranking of good and bad cultures or leaders |
| A signal about energy and engagement | A burnout diagnosis or individual assessment |
| Colour coding that supports priorities and attention | A hard scientific line between healthy and unhealthy |
| A starting point for exploring how things connect | Proof of cause and effect |
| An overall score that provides an overview | A validated measure in its own right: the validation of the underlying instruments does not automatically carry over to the overall score |
How we use the results. Conclusions apply to the question, period and group of participants studied. Where needed, we supplement the scan with interviews, observations and examples. For each programme, we make the versions, scales and reports used explicit.
FPS supports development. The scan is not intended to assess individuals indirectly. We make the privacy statement and the data processing agreement available to your data protection officer or IT department.
You choose more explicitly which issues need attention now and which can wait.
You can show whether the challenge lies mainly with people, teams, leadership or organisational design.
Perspectives sit side by side, without immediately turning into questions of blame.
You see how culture, leadership, energy and alignment influence one another.
Agreements are given an owner, a mandate and review points.
A follow-up measurement lets you reassess the choices you have made.
Whether that value materialises also depends on the quality of the programme and the willingness to act. A report is a beginning; change gains meaning in everyday work.
Building future-readiness starts with understanding how people collaborate, learn, make decisions and deal with change. We would be glad to explore with you, in a one-hour conversation, whether and how FPS fits your organisation.
Already using the scan and have a question about the platform? Email support@futureproofscan.com.
Out of Area trains experienced Kenneth Smit trainers and consultants to become FPS experts. They guide the intake, working session and follow-up, and use the scan with care in their own practice. In addition, Out of Area has worked with Inner Compass Dynamics for more than 15 years on team and leadership programmes and the FPS.