uncertainty

What is and What if

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In organizations, knowing what’s going on today across the business landscape (”what is”), is essential. Too often the press of daily work keeps an executive from knowing enough.

But understanding how things are changing and the emerging challenges and opportunities in front of you (”what if”) needs attention too. Nearly always, the press of business and immediate demands shut down attention to “what if”.

Here is what is involved:  

“What is” — the operating environment:

  • Due diligence — care and attention to the organization’s interests
  • Industry focus — sector and market knowlege
  • The state of the art — best practices and the latest technology, systems, processes
  • What’s going on — the competitive landscape

“What if” — the future:

  • Leading edge change — emerging change in the market, technology, society, that will impact the organization
  • Emerging and future possibilities — identification of specific opportunities and challenges and potential responses to them

For both, we can’t help but stand in today as we think and work to understand. But we must try to think forward to better anticipate the future.

“What is” functions poorly without “what if.” Taking action in response to conditions today, without thoughts toward the future, is risky. But the reverse is true too. You need to know enough about current conditions to fully explore potential change. 

What to do about it

Broaden your view of “what is” by exploring the environment more broadly, beyond the specific marketplace niche, or issue, or geography you focus on.

Deepen your view of “what if” into the future by: Explicitly testing out ideas about 5 or 10 or more years from now. Ask the “what ifs” questions. Build stories (scenarios) of future possibilities. Draw implications of those “what ifs”.  Attention to both questions will make you stronger and more limber as you face challenges and meet new opportunities.

For more insight on this and a related illustration, see: Management, strategy, and foresight, compared

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

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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.

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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

The unrecognized present

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Foggy sceneFuturists, by definition, are supposed to talk about the future. So this is a little embarrassing. I’ve recognized, for some time now, that a lot of my work is about showing people what’s already going on. That’s about today! Yet, it’s enough to blow their minds, sometimes, though I’ve not even begun to tell the about the future.

The lesson in this is to make your efforts in exploring change about any change that matters to the people and situations in front of you, whether people are behind the times, and catching up, or pretty much up to date, and needing to understand what they can about what’s next. So don’t worry about the differences, or force distinctions between what’s true now versus what might be in the future.

In fact, you can use the “unrecognized present,” pointed out and explained, to get people to more fully understand what lies ahead. Doing that could be as simple as showing them the leading edge of change, the early adoption of a technology, the first examples and experiments on things, a leading place that is a bellwether for change, and so on. Your advantage: you may be able to bring forth a witness, a video, or pictures of that poorly-understood present, and make it real to them. It’s like showing people the future–almost!

Tip of the pen here to my colleague Katherine Green, an expert in workforce futures. She made me capture and write down the phrase I’ve taken here as my title, and promise to write about it.

Image: sumidiot, via Flickr, creative commons attribution license

What to expect when you go futuring

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Perplexity, among colleagues, family, they may think you’ve gone ’round the bend!
Complexity, behind most anything you explore, since you are opening up questions, digging deeper
Uncertainty, more than you had! More than answering questions, you’ll be raising new questions
Fear, if you do a good job. If there’s none, you probably haven’t asked big enough questions
Fun, if you let it happen. There should be laughter, even if it comes out of serious questions
Ah ha’s, breakthroughs in your thinking, new insights
Empowerment, you’ll discover new things to know about your future, to act on, to believe
A new mindset, you won’t look at things the same way, and you’ll see forces and trends everywhere
Addiction, for you and colleagues, you’ll not want to stop! (I hope)

Get comfortable with uncertainty

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Foresight gives us grey areas, lots of them. And almost nothing significant we want to figure out about the future is definable or predictable enough to sharpen things to a clear black and white. So exploring the future of anything means you have to tolerate uncertainty.

If you’ve found your way to this blog, you may not suffer from discomfort with uncertainty—I hope you don’t. But chances are, some of the people you work with do, and so will others you will encounter along the way. They will (I predict!) either be opposed to the “squishiness” of what you are doing, or they will feel so certain themselves about things, that they won’t like the grey. Quite likely, both those things will be true.
 
You can't let these folks win the arguments: your foresight work can't produce certainty, nor can you let folks tell you that unless you pin things down, what you are doing isn’t valid.
 
So what can you do about this?
 
First, there’s a simple lesson you need to teach and re-teach:
  • We cannot predict the future with certainty
  • There is a range of possibility for any big question or large system you need to explore
  • Exploring that range is what foresight is about, and it’s what makes us able to be ready for uncertain outcomes. We should not pick a future and aim for it–that's too risky, we have to keep our sense of alternative futures open

Second, set expectations early, and remind people about them along the way. Keep your folks aware that you are exploring an uncertain thing, but that they can get value and ultimately be able to make better decisions by understanding more about the future.

Third, in workgroups, discussions, electronic communications, and so on, keep a watch out for “shut down” comments or actions that look to either provide a clear “answer” to the future you’re exploring, or that looks to invalidate your efforts. You will need to respond, in whatever way fits the culture and politics of your organization, but in a way that counters the negative push back you are getting.
 
Fourth, if you can avoid collaborating with folks who want black and white, sharp-line answers, consider doing so, but remember Machiavelli's advice: “keep your friends close, your enemies closer.” Or, put more bluntly by Lyndon Johnson, "
 
"It’s probably better to have [your enemy] inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in."
 
It may be better to have these folks on board, where you can try to build their understanding.
 
For more on the grey areas, and alternative futures, see:
 
 
Image: PetroleumJeliffe, via Flickr, cc attribution license
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