communicating about the future

10 years of blogging about foresight

by

In October 2007, I started this blog. I had pent-up ideas to share about foresight. Over 10 years, I’ve posted 236 times. 

Has it been valuable? Plenty of readers benefited. But I know I gained the most. Thinking through and writing the posts let me to refine how I communicate about foresight. And I know that better communication fueled others’ interest and work.

Creating the posts also prepared me for teaching and advising organizations on foresight: its power, its essentialness, and how people can do it with the constraints they face in their organizations.

Foresightculture turned out to be about 95% about the processes of foresight and 5% about “what is the future?” The “how” was a natural fit for me and was where I had the most interest in sharing my thinking.

Blogging clarified for me how I think about foresight, and evolved in tandem with my sense of the role I play as a futurist. That role today is more about being the guide to how to change minds and understand change than it is foreseer of the future. When I sit with others to help them, I’m first and foremost there to help them change how they think.

Here are some insights from the ten years:

  1. In foresight, it is the journey that matters, not the forecast, report, or briefing at the end.
  2. Foresight is about changing minds. What you change them to may be critical for you, but the first order of business is unlocking people’s thinking.
  3. My readers are often alone in their quest for clarity on the future. They need allies and they need techniques.
  4. Foresight seems difficult and mysterious to people. People want grab-and-go tools and instructions, not theory. That has made my posts on environmental scanning, SWOTs analysis, and scenarios “best sellers” on my blog.
  5. People want to visualize what foresight is, what it means, and how it’s done. They gain from simple, draw-it-on-the-nearest-whiteboard doodles that give people an “ah ha!”. My favorite is “The Mother of All Futures Diagrams“.
  6. People like “listicles”. They know that they will get something pared down to essentials from posts like “6 Foresight Hacks” or “8 things leaders should know about strategic foresight“.
  7. There is no one-size-fits-all explanation or approach to foresight. I write about the same things again and again. Why? Because as I lead workshops, and have conversations, and read and ponder, I discover new angles to come at the same concepts. Someone who didn’t find the last one useful, may find the new one lights them up.

So I will keep going. If I learn and others learn too, it’s well worth what is pleasurable time spent.

Thank you for reading.

You can’t be what you can’t see

by

"If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way."
–Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and playwright

"You can't be what you can't see," attributed to Marian Wright Edelman, American civil rights activist, and others.

"To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it–well, that's a way of bringing the said thing into being" –Iff, the Water Genie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie

Seamus Heaney, Marian Wright Edelman, and Salman Rushdie's Water Genie, quoted above, remind us that until people have a name for something, understand the change it represents, and recognize it as desireable, they have trouble accepting it and taking steps to get there.

To be able to describe not just changes, but outcomes, is essential to progress. Too often, the visionaries among us understand, but the stakeholders we face do not, they can't see it, and don't have the words with which to talk about it.

In foresight, we use scenarios to describe potential futures and often to identify desired outcomes. The more specific and clear we can be about the potential future, the better we are able to communicate with others about it, and identify paths forward. The first step is to articulate the future: you can't be what you can't see.

5 foresight steps for dealing with community resistance to change

by

MainStreetNovelI recently met a couple who are leaders in their small Southern US town. They are not elected leaders. They are self-driven change makers. They are working hard and spending their own money to improve the town. They have planted thousands of flowers and created a festival to build town pride and draw visitors. They are planning new spaces for incubating creativity and businesses.

Their efforts reminded me of Carol Milford, the heroine in Sinclair Lewis' Main Street. She wanted to bring culture and sophistication to her adopted town. Like Carol Milford, my friends face tradition-minded, suspicious townspeople who don't understand their motives or vision for the community.

They are working for a better future for everyone, so why the pushback?

It's likely a combination of things. People are unsure or suspicious of the changes. Their instinct is it's better to have what you know than to chance it on unclear and outlandish new ideas. They don't know or share the vision of the couple who are leading change. So what do my friends need to do?

5 ways foresight can help

  1. Sell their vision better. This means bringing clarity to their ideas about change and their motivations for pressing for it. They do so while respecting and celebrating the town's legacies, and the people who are a part of those. Appreciative inquiry is a technique for working with groups that starts with acknowledging strengths and positive legacies. It offers a starting point for a community (or organization) seeking to move forward cooperatively.
  2. Join with stakeholders to explore a positive future. This means not claiming to have all the answers. Instead, invite community members to help forge plans. Community members with the strongest sense of "ownership" of the town should be allies, not opponents. Giving them participation in the process preserves their ownership. Some thoughts on dealing with people whose thinking is stuck in the present (or past) are here: "When only you see the future." Also, "difficult history" may be part of what my friends face in their town. See: "How to break free of difficult history."
  3. Start the conversation by sharing assumptions about the future. Have participants in visioning meetings share their thoughts on "In 2027, I believe that ______________" . That view is at least 10 years in the future. Why? because that will help people jump past their immediate concerns and "today" objections. Probing this question does two things. 1). It gets the juices flowing, getting everyone's head in the future. 2). It surfaces assumptions about the future that we all carry and operate on whether we've told each other them or not. Sometimes the inability to move forward will be rooted in unexamined assumptions about the future. See: "In 20xx I believe that ________"
  4. Do some unencumbered thinking. With stakeholders, explore the question: "What would we build today if none of this existed?" You don't do this because you plan to blot out everything and start over. This discussion allows people to imagine things not from the perspective of rigid, existing barriers that would make it hard to acheive them, but rather, from the point of view of what would be best. See also: "The clean slate scenario".  
  5. Build a clear vision of a desired future. Create 10- or 20-year views into the future. These scenarios could include stories about "what if we don't change" as well as views of positive futures. You can develop these scenarios with people from across the community. The scenarios will bring out clear and vivid images of the future. An artist's renderings of the future can further showcase the new ideas and enourage feedback. See also: "Why we need scenarios to be ready for the future".

Entering into processes like this is scary. But my new friends show only signs of excitement about it. They will make an even greater difference going forward, armed with some of the tools of foresight.

If you are working in a community or organization with these sorts of challenges, I can help you develop and lead a process to get further, more smoothly. Let me know if I can help: jbmahaffie@leadingfuturists.biz and 202-271-0444.

When only you see the future

by

You are intuitive, a trend-spotter, comfortable with conjecture, ready to explore something uncertain–the future. Right?

Other people you have to deal with are fact-minded, narrowly-focused, prefer what is knowable, and are focused on what they are doing right now. Sound familiar? Because you are talking about the future, maybe they think you are crazy and "just make things up."

So now you've got a problem. They don't get what you're saying or doing, or don't believe in it, or they fear it.

What can you do?

Knowing this problem exists is a big part of coping. It's not sufficient, nor useful to assume others are stupid, or actually tell them they are stupid. It's best to work with their perspectives and the reasons for their narrower focus. They are mired in the present, and not practiced at thinking about things that haven't yet happened.

Your goal should be to help people raise their eyes up to a further horizon, to open their thinking. Show them some new ways to understand things. Find ways to bring ideas about the future alive for them in images and words. Tell stories about what could be, but make sure they are vivid and show the changes that matter. Much of the work of helping people explore the future is simply doing this.

Scenarios are a great tool to use. See: Why we need scenarios to be ready for the future and much more at the tag "Scenarios".

I can help you! Let me know if you'd like to hear more, or if I can help build a program for you and your organization. Email Me or call 202-271-0444.

What people say when you ask them to think about the future

by

Here are four things I hear all the time from folks I am working with, their reactions to me pushing them to think about the future.

Frustration facepalm“Thinking ten years in the future is really hard” Yes, but the rewards are great in exploring the possibilities, as best as you can, and discovering a range of futures you might face. With more of the possibilities explored, you can begin to prepare for what may stay uncertain, but you will be better prepared. Then you can build strategies that are robust against the range of possibilities.

“This is way outside my comfort zone” That, I think, is the whole point. You cannot be sufficiently strategic, respond to, and even lead change, if you stay too comfortable. You have to think the scary thoughts, take some risks. They are only, in doing this, intellectual risks. Nothing’s really at stake when you explore new thoughts about your future, and the stakes are really high if you don’t.

“Nobody can predict the future” That’s absolutely true. But we don’t work to give singular predictions of the future, we work to understand the possibilities and prepare better for them. In fact, the goal is to shape the future, not predict it and then wait to see what happens. If you know what’s possible, you can 1). take action to shape at least part of your destiny, and 2). prepare for uncertainty by charting a course that leaves you ready and adaptable, at least within the range of the more likely possibilities.

“I’ll be retired and on a golf course by then” Not so fast! First, are you sure you’ll be able to retire when you think? And that you’ll want to? Then also, don’t you still have a stake in the future, e.g. of your organization? Are you a shareholder? Do you care about its legacy? And all this is part of the bigger picture, the one that leaves you adequately funded for your retirement, and ensures that the golf course will be in good shape for your hours on the links.

_____________

These are just some common reactions, and there are many more. I’d love to hear yours: your own reaction to being pushed to explore the future, or ones you’ve heard, please feel free to share in the comments section.

Image: silvain.collet via Flickr, Creative Commons attribution license

Don’t be a sheep in wolf’s clothing

by

That's the past, no the futureIf you say you are going to take a look at the future, you should mean it. Far too often, organizations put together a program called, "The future of ____________" But then they build something that is, at best, about what's going on today.

That's a missed opportunity and it's false advertising!

I have just been the victim of one of these frauds. At a big, well-funded, and well-attended seminar called "The Office of the Future," I was subjected to, merely, a pretty good run-down on the office of the present. At best it included a few big trends in commercial office space. But it was not what they said it would be. What a wasted opportunity. It could have delivered folks true insights on what is around the corner, just out of sight, and likely to shape their destiny in 10 and 20 years.

One speaker went so far as to ridicule some of the big trends in commercial offices and business, especially telework. By mocking it, he effectively negated anyone's motivation to consider what it means to office development, planning, and design. He set a key future force aside, preferring to talk about the present at the expense of the future.

What a wasted opportunity!

The event I attended was for the real estate sector. This is a sector that includes developers, who make investments and build projects that are to last and be profitable for decades. It's a sector that includes tenants who pay a lot of money to find, fit out, and move into real estate, and who sign leases for ten years, and usually hope to renew those leases for longer. It's a sector that is served by office furniture makers who sell complex and expensive fittings for offices that take them time to design and market–they want and need payoffs over years, if not decades. And its a sector with big technology players who make and service the networks, security, lighting, etc. that enliven and energize offices-They too make bets, launch product development efforts and market with the need and hope that they have years, maybe decades of profits from their efforts.

At today's conference, none of these players were served very well. They may have gotten a taste of what their competitors are doing, what vendors are offering, what tenants are looking for, but all those with the lens of right now.

Cutting edge, maybe, but future? No.

Image: www.history,navy.mil

Sam Adams and the art of persuasion

by

 

I am ever-more convinced that at the core of getting people to effectively explore their future is the ability to communicate and persuade people about change. So as I finished an excellent biography of Sam Adams this past week, I was struck by his approach to persuasion. It’s not hard to argue that he was critical to inspiring and launching the American Revolution—he was world-class at persuasion.

Here are, in brief, the techniques I’ve observed in learning about his political life.

Arm and Induce – enable people to discuss and learn more about, and understand the issues, rather than just telling them what they should believe. Thus Adams published pieces outlining the facts, ways the argument could be construed, points of view, and so on, and let people come to their own conclusions.

Draw implications – explore, non-judgmentally, what the outcomes of particular situations and changes could be. Lay out the possibilities, again, without suggesting a certain conclusion or a singular way of understanding the situation. This is like building a set of scenarios and offering as objectively as we can, a range of views of the future. Thus Adams opened up the questions at hand, broadened the views taken, and showed the possible meaning and implications of actions taken by the British Parliament and Crown.

Frame / Reframe – create new, better ways of understanding the issue, most often by opening up the question to a broader context and a deeper view into the future. Thus Adams didn’t only draft responses to the Stamp Act of 1765. He didn’t make it simply about an undue tax or cost burden on the colonists, he raised the issue to a fuller view of the colonies’ rights to self-government and implications of taxation without representation. This added a moral focus to a fiscal one. It inspired thoughts of self-government.

Build a network of allies and advocates – get more people first exploring the issue and then, presuming the merits of a particular point of view, aligning to support a cause or take a stand. Thus Adams got patriots in each colony to build “committees of correspondence” and ultimately legislative bodies independent of England to explore what people in the newly-emerging states wanted. This built a constituency in every colony for thoughts of greater self-government, and ultimately a home for talk of independence. It led directly to the formation of the Continental Congress.

Be patient – In all this work Adams restrained his natural impatience with a situation he was deeply unhappy about. He knew that patience was essential. As he started this process in the 1760s, few of his fellow colonists were ready to think about independence. They needed time to learn to think about profound change, and accept the scarier parts of it, but also gain comfort with a vision of life very different from what they were used to. He had to be patient.

We can draw lessons from this for foresight in society and in our organizations. Perhaps the core lesson is that it is not enough to simply insist you your view—opinions aren’t strong on their own. You have to bring people along.

Get comfortable with complexity

by

Last week I wrote a post about getting comfortable with uncertainty, and helping others do it too. This week, I'd like to turn the focus to complexity. 

When I was fourteen, my brother Jim and the McCarthy boys and I got hold of an old Briggs & Stratton, 2-stroke, lawn mower engine. We planned to use it to build a hovercraft (this did not work out). In tinkering and fiddling to see if we could get the engine to work, I discovered that there are two adjustment screws: the idle valve and the idle speed adjustment. One screw, I could manage: adjust up or down. But immediately, with two, we had a much more complex situation: the possible adjustment combinations grew exponentially, if I have my math concepts right. I learned something about complex systems, right then and there.

When people are trying to understand change, they can easily fall into the trap of assuming one thing is responsible for what has happened; one force or one incident changed things, like one of the two engine adjustments, up or down.

People want to latch on to the first "cause" they think of, and often assume that it caused the outcome or change. We get in this habit, and our news media reinforces it–so often they boil things down to a simple cause and effect story. But there are always other forces at play, and good foresight means acknowledging that, and trying to understand more about more of the factors involved.

So what to do about this? Some possibilities: 

  • Watch yourself and your colleagues: see if you are inclined to stop when you get to a (single) explanation, as with saying why today's Dow Jones went up or down. This isn't good enough. Keep the discussion going, and figure out more about what is going on. Keep saying, "what else?"
  • Raise awareness. Find stories you can share with colleagues that show why they need to understand the complexity at play, and illustrate how things don't have a single trigger or cause. Best of all are examples from your own organization or your sector, where it's clear that a range of forces and trends are at play
  • Go visual: draw diagrams, showing the multiple causes, effects, and relationships involved in a trend, or change, or issue. Your visual learner colleagues will really get it then

But don't worry, you don't have to become expert in complexity theory, or systems thinking. Just keep asking questions, and thinking, and discussing. You'll like what you get.

And by the way, I never did master the 2-stroke engine. I have a rechargeable electric mower now, with no adjustment screws at all. 

The short-term view and the long-term view

by

In working to get people to look out further into the future, we have to understand and work with people’s immediate concerns. Those concerns are an obstacle to long-term thinking until they get acknowledged, discussed, and put in a longer-term context. Most often, people have at least some fear about change and uncertainty, even if they don’t realize that motivation, and cannot express it.

But they can reflect on what’s on their minds, what they are unsure about, and what they think could be bad, versus good, as the future unfolds. What’s on most people’s minds includes global, national, and regional events and problems, and the big, immediate things facing their family or business.
 
For business people, with quarterly revenue targets, this year’s performance review, a new technology roll-out, on their minds, the long-view has trouble getting a purchase on their thinking. With a war, an election, a looming recession, and a lending crisis on their minds, the long-view fades from view too easily. But truly being prepared for the future means we have to look past the immediate situation.
 
When I present to groups on the future, I choose a set of broad forces of change to explore with them. Each of those forces is part of a long-term future—10 or 15 years into the future, at least. But each has to also be clearly understood from a perspective of today. Ultimately, my futures work is about the present and the future. The future starts momentarily and everything about it is built from what we have now. There is no disconnect between the future and the present.
 
For example, futurists generally agree that we will see rising prosperity in much of the world, over the next few decades (though most also explore potential discontinuities that could derail that growth). But facing a group of businesspeople and telling them that prosperity is rising is harder with a US recession and larger economic crises unfolding.
 
It’s essential to not allow an immediate situation drown out important messages about the future. We have to acknowledge what’s on people’s minds right now, and show them how it fits into a longer-term context. That means using ideas about the future to, for a time, set our thinking beyond the present situation, focusing on what could be true, in 10 or 20 years. 

Scenarios in five words or fewer

by
“Off-roading on the moon”
 
“Carbon fasting”
 
“Ocean-front property in Arizona” (chorus from a 1973 George Strait song by that name)
 
These are short phrases that evoke possibilities. Like the Framers’ phrasing in the United States Constitution or the language of Shakespeare or Cervantes, they are open to ongoing and varied interpretation. And that is their value and power.
 
I started to collect such headlines and phrases because they stand out and evoke new thoughts. Being able to put words together like this is a great boost to communicating about the future. This may be more true than ever in the age of soundbites and Twitter.
 
These phrases are scenarios. They evoke a future you can think and discuss much more about. What would it mean to go off-roading on the moon? It might be powerful enough to just sit down for a discussion of a phrase like the one’s above.
 
Perhaps Sir John Browne meant to start that when he declared at Stanford, in the late 1990s that BP now stood for “Beyond Petroleum.” BP people I met with at that time agreed that most of what that phrase meant was aspirational, and yet to be determined when Brown uttered it in a speech in 2000. It used to mean, after all, British Petroleum.
 
Our work in foresight shouldn’t be dumbed down, made too clever or too terse, but consider the power of a phrase, or a short headline. It may be the critical piece you need to get people to pay attention, to think, to discuss and share. 
Follow by Email
Instagram