The ‘kitchen crew’ behind government planning

Government foresight planning can often be a thankless job; your recommendation shapes policy, but the credit rarely follows. 

Malaysian Industry Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT)’s President and CEO, Rushdi Rahim, likened the role of foresight planners to the “kitchen crew” of the government. 

They work behind the scenes to prepare the right ingredients, so that decision-makers can take the dish to the table. 

“The work rewards itself when your recommendations get adopted and suddenly things change because of your proposal,” he said. 

Rahim was speaking at a fireside chat titled The Anticipatory State: Moving Beyond the Urgent at GovInsider’s recent Festival of Innovation (FOI) 2026 event. The chat was moderated by Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP)’s Executive Education Senior Fellow, Cheryl Chung. 

Rahim noted that in an era of rapid political shifts and technological disruptions, public sectors across ASEAN grapple with the challenge of moving beyond immediate, reactive policymaking to build long-term national resilience. 

In this context, he suggested that foresight planners should not blindly follow what’s been done elsewhere, rather they should adapt a strategy to fit’s the requirements of their departments as well as country. 

“Context matters, and where you are matters,” Rahim noted, stressing that his sharing on Malaysia’s approach was not meant as a model to be lifted and adopted wholesale. 

Take the example of the food culture in Malaysia, he said.  

Noting that Malaysia does not have a survey culture, it might make more sense to meet citizens where they are at — over free food on the table — to get public inputs. 

Rahim noted that MIGHT had used long‑range political and societal scenarios that might happen in 2020, to direct Malaysia’s national Research & Development (R&D) framework in 2010. 

It was this kind of anticipation that took the reactive pressure off policymakers, enabling them to derisk the decisions. 

Working around their limited mandate 

“Foresight planning is almost like giving policymakers permission to think the unthinkable,” noted LKYSPP’s Chung. 

But while foresight agencies do plan based on concrete data and have “persuasive levers”, the fact remained that they do not possess the mandate to compel governments to follow their advice, as Chung said.  

Sharing how MIGHT worked around this limited mandate, Rahim shared that one of the ways was to start by mapping stakeholders on the power interest grid.

The grid plots how much different stakeholders care about a topic or an issue, against how much influence they have to drive change.  

MIGHT would then tailor suitable strategies to reach out to various stakeholders. 

The agency also rarely delivered its message directly. 

Its outreach work has been designed to feed the right information to the right people to advance a particular cause. 

“Get the sponsors or the champions to speak on your behalf, so it makes pushing the envelope much, much easier,” Rahim suggested.  

For those doing foresight work, his advice was to learn to be comfortable being in the background without getting the recognition. 

Chung noted the importance of the trust-building aspect of foresight work, referring to the ability to engage stakeholders and provide them a space to openly discuss issues.  

This was particularly important to sensitive discussions concerning race, religion and royalty, Rahim added.  

While delicate, these topics still need to be raised in foresight discussions, he said. 

Futures planning as a safeguard against becoming indifferent 

In an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven era, both Rahim and Chung cautioned against the temptation to let AI do the thinking, which could result in complacency and treating the tech as a substitute for genuine effort. 

Using the “garbage in, garbage out” principle in AI usage, Rahim explained that if decision-makers were indifferent to certain issues or perspectives, that indifference would also be baked into the data and AI models. 

He grounded the warning in something more familiar — the Spotify algorithm. Ignore an artist long enough, and the artist or genre disappears from your music recommendations. 

If one was indifferent towards people, issues, or values in favour of AI usage, AI would learn to ignore them too, which amplifies blind spots in future decisions, he warned. 

Chung then positioned foresight work to play a key role in the scenario that Rahim discussed. 

“Because I think the fundamental operating principle of foresight is that with intervention, with intention, with effort, with deep thought... we can actually make a difference in this future,” she said. 

You can watch the on-demand recording of the fireside chat here.