Foresight Is "My" 2020
Nov 30, 2020
2020 for me has nothing to do with hindsight and everything to do with foresight. At no other time in recent history have we needed foresight more than we do now. I began a journey in June that has elevated and transformed my perspective on the world and what is possible, plausible, probable, provocative, and preferable in the future. Over the past six months I have studied and practiced strategic foresight through The Futures School in both their Activator and Accelerator programs.
I have always looked to the future because making changes for the better is one of my personal core values. Now, I see the possibilities of the future in a whole new light and consider myself to be futures literate. The future should not be built on the ideas and trends of today, but on the imagination of what is possible and even on what might seem impossible. I hope to inspire others to join me so we can all make decisions today that will lead us to our preferable futures.
In the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world we live in, futures literacy is critical. Futures literacy is knowing that because the future doesn’t yet exist, we can imagine it in multiple ways using our human creativity and anticipatory skills. Creativity and anticipation are natural for humans, but in our efforts to control the world we have dumbed ourselves out of fostering and effectively utilizing these skills. We teach the creativity and imagination out of children as early as kindergarten with preference on memorization and what we consider “hard skills.” Reading, writing, and arithmetic are certainly necessary, but they can no longer be the only focus of our educational systems if we hope to develop generations of humans who can navigate VUCA environments.
Anticipation of what’s to come allows us as humans to make sense of the world by imagining and envisioning different scenarios of the future. It is this natural ability that should be fostered. Anticipation creates a scale of emotions from elation to hope to fear that are all valuable because it allows us to imagine vastly different possibilities for the future. Then we can choose the future that is preferable and make decisions today that will lead us in that direction.
For myself, I think of futures literacy as the ability to see multiple versions of the future using a combination of skills including creativity, adaptability, resiliency, broad based knowledge, open mindedness, and a transformational mindset. The past six-months I have built up a range of strategic foresight knowledge, tools, and techniques I can use to guide others towards integrating futures literacy for themselves and their organizations.
So, what if instead of envisioning a future that looks like today or trying to control the complexity of the world we learned envision with more creativity and open mindedness and to embrace complexity and use it to build futures you haven’t even imagined yet. Would the world be a better place, would your organization be more successful, would you be more joyful…I think so!
Learn more by visiting these resources:
Cone of Possibilities from Kedge
What is Futures Literacy and Why is it Important https://medium.com/copenhagen-institute-for-futures-studies/what-is-futures-literacy-and-why-is-it-important-a27f24b983d8
How do We Think Better about the Future(s)?
Futures Literacy-a 21st-century skill for young people
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