Foresight Identities – a journey of transformation

Just like we are different people to different people Foresight Identities are different approaches for different needs…

I gave a talk on Foresight Identities and my journey through them at the ‘Futures Hot House’ at AMP building in Sydney last week, thank you Janine and thank you audience for the wonderful questions.

The NINE different ‘Foresight Identities’ respond to different foresight needs. Their drivers are different and so are the ways in which the foresight pulls us in, transforms us or the groups or societies where the foresight is applied.

I will start with Intuited Foresight.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” eloquently describes how intuition works and how we use it all the time.

The need to measure and the idea that better decisions are ‘rational’ decisions have led to decision-making being equated to 1/ load me with facts 2/ show the many research studies to prove it 3/ show me where it worked before.

All of these are fine qualities for those who make decisions based what others do. As we have to make decisions with less historical facts, then we need to go with what it is that our gut is telling us about the situation. Is it aligned with what and who we are or want to be? Does it feel right? Does it look right? Can we hear the cheers? Is this what we want our future to be?

You may have read Jonah Lehrer’s book: “Proust was a neuroscientist”.  In it Jonah Lehrer discusses how several artists in various fields intuited, understood, provided foresight for scientists to research and prove years later.  As an example Walt Whitman, the American poet, had insights into the inseparable nature of mind and body. As Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist said: “The mind is embodied”.

Is everyone’s every intuition useful in a business setting or as source for serious consideration? No! What makes the difference? Let me put it this way. An artist whose life work centres around understanding something fundamental about how the world works and expressing it through their art is as valuable to human knowledge of its own condition as a scientist who designs research methods and comes out with results from the research.

The timing of artistic intuition is what makes this Foresight Identity fascinating in business when we wish to draw true insights for differentiated vision.

The next Foresight Identity is Experienced Foresight.

Around the world there are hot spots [and despite being a Finn I am not referring to a sauna], which are a hub of focus for something specific. That focus creates a buzz and competitive as well as supportive environment, which urges for excellence and going beyond. Bay Area, US for Net, Milan for fashion, Nordics for mobile, Renaissance Florence. ……

These hot spots tend to live a step or two ahead of the rest in terms of the behavioural and societal impacts of the focus.  A matter of been there done that! You can take that a step further inside the businesses which are within the hot spot…..

William Gibson: “The future is already here it is just unevenly distributed”

We learn from different contexts which brings me to the next Foresight Identity which is Learned Foresight.

Eclectic reading, emulating our heroes or drawing from insights from scenarios are all examples of gaining foresight and inspiration in one’s own life.

These ‘book’ learners can be once removed from actually doing anything about it in a team, group, corporation, nation sense but they are a great source of inputs and insights on how the world works.

In Eric Hoffer’s words, “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”

A means to put transformation into the hearts, minds and bodies of companies, nations and other groups of people is Internalised Foresight.

Have you ever lived through an experience, which made you look at the world differently and changed you? It perhaps made you change the friends you hang out with. Perhaps it made you take some uncharacteristic steps in relation to some relatives or a job.

I have lived through many such foresight programs where the story line, the narrative of the world brought new context and meaning and the priorities were reset.

There is one caveat in this. You don’t get this from sitting in a boardroom being TOLD in 20 minutes or less what the future looks like. In order for the re-wiring to occur you need to be part of the process.

This mode has great potential for business transformation as long as the executive play ball.

An example of this is Martin Luther King “I have a dream”.

Sometimes this can be one person’s quest or a few people’s quest for the ideal shape they believe everyone should take or have and yet sometimes that model is not liked or followed due to ideology differences, cultural differences or era issues.

This leads to our fifth Foresight Identity, which is Opinionated Foresight.

Nothing wrong with firmly held opinions. Often they are steeped in facts and figures, feelings and experiences, knowledge and understanding, but they just tend to have one significant issue, the opinion is not shared by others as it flies in the face of firmly held beliefs, facts, knowledge, understanding in the other camp. Sound familiar? What can you think of as having been like this lately? [Climate change, Mind/Body, Sexuality, Abortion, Political systems].

The – oh dear – part about Opinionated Foresight is that it might play out well or not and so there could be much to lose. The way to deal with this in business context is to look for the higher ground. Look for the purpose and try to find the common ground above the argument.

The good thing about Opinionated Foresight is that you tend to have very devoted champions behind the activity or movement.

Ideologies – isms – tend to be in this camp. They are not practical philosophies of ways to live life but rather they are often an idealist view to how the society should function, even an extreme view as against the current way. So we go with pendulum swing to antagonism and back again.

Our institutions are based on neatly articulated opinions and judgments of right and wrong. This model is the only way.

Personalised Foresight is a source of transformation for those who proactively seek change or who are imposed change through a crisis. It could also be a person on a mission, who knows exactly what they wish to be and do in life and who are out to make it happen, sending the messages to the universe about their dreams and hopes.

A change is fundamentally a personal matter. If we are not fired up and passionate about it, how hard do you think the change is going to be? Or how effective? This is where many transformation programs fail miserably.

You know how we say Einstein was very intelligent and we assume that was what made him figure out the theory of relativity. When you look at Einstein’s life he was utterly focused on one thing, light and its relationship with time, figuring it out. Wife/wives, family, how he dressed or even whether he’d combed his hair that morning were of no consequence. He had several suits of the same to avoid making wardrobe decisions when time was of the essence. ☺

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman [1899-1981, philosopher, educator, Boston uni, author]

Actualised Foresight is a source of transformation for those, people and companies, who have lived through change from inception to conception to implementation.

Those of us who have had a long career in corporate foresight have been privy to this Foresight Identity. Depending on how the company arranges its strategic foresight input versus taking action and measuring value and follow-through, the engagement may be more or less end-to-end.

The beauty of this identity is that it does not become a story on a shelf but a living and breathing thing, which continuously increases its depth and gathers its own history and understanding as well as holds the red thread from inputs to outputs.

An enlightened organization does not need to prove its foresight program. It knows that without it the company would not have the eyes necessary to be in charge, to lead its own destiny.

To me the most powerful foresight identity from a big picture point of view is Co-created Foresight Identity.

When an organization has created a view of the future they will invariably realise that in order to get there they need to take a number of stakeholders there with them.

Some of these stakeholders may have nothing to do with their current situation and hence there is some tilling the soil that is necessary well before any products/services/experiences/other are being considered.

When this happens right it is an amazing shift and it feels great as all obstacles are taken away.

“The best way to activate your future is to co-create it” [Dominique adjusted from Alan Kay’s quote “The best way to predict the future is to create it”

When things don’t go so well there is a need for something else and this brings us to our final Foresight Identity, which is called SISU Foresight.

SISU is a Finnish word, which means having guts, perseverance and dedication when faced with hurdles. So far I have struggled to find its exact translation in the English language but these words get me close enough.

SISU Foresight is a source of transformation when faced with a crisis either in personal life, in organisations or nations. SISU demands that we dig deeper within our selves to find the strength, to change the situation which carries within itself a gloomy outcome. It is about finding positives from foresight matched with SISU in the make up of the team going after the change or relief.

When you find such a team or such individuals who are capable and willing – hold onto them. These types may be a dying breed, other than in entrepreneurial settings.

Finns fought against Soviet Union in WWII and held back an attempt of invasion leveraging some smarts and lots of SISU. Holding back an army of 50 from Soviet Union to 1 Finn.

Steve Jobs at Apple. He had disagreements with the board and left Apple only to come back and deliver the goods. He may not recognise the word but if he had no SISU would the past allowed him to go back?

Just like with us humans who carry around several identities the Foresight Identities may be a feature of a broader program. Use identity 1 when it is ok not to dive into a truckload of facts and figures but rather to hear what the experienced gut tells the artist, designer, visionary. Use identity 9 when things are gloomy and ‘the rallying the troops’ approach may fall flat on its face – instead focus around some robust SISU individuals and teams.

These NINE Foresight Identities lead to different approaches in the way in which a Foresight program, facilitation, mentoring might unfold. They are different because the need for Foresight is different and the outputs expected as a result are different.

Vignette ‘how to’ on foresight – nay sayers and cynics

CONSULT UNUSUAL SOURCES, PEOPLE, AND PLACES–INCLUDING OUTLIERS, COMPLAINERS, AND TROUBLEMAKERS

One important function of strategic foresight is the opening of the future. The inclusion of different perspectives is one way to assure this opening. Analysts should look for competent people inside and outside who bring a different way of thinking to the table.

Key steps

The selection of these participants should be done with care. Not every unusual or non-obvious individual qualifies. In the first place, they should be selected based on their authority in a particular domain. They should not bring “just another perspective,” but a well-studied and well-articulated different view. The other participants should feel challenged by the ideas they bring in. This sense of challenge can result either from a deeper view of closely related subjects or from a subject that functions by analogy.

The world of business and decision-making favors the rational and bottom-line approach to gathering information. Prusak ( 1998 ) suggests that the higher up in the organization a presentation goes, the blander it becomes. Consulting unusual sources is a way to refresh the information flow by tapping into edgy or offbeat sources that challenge prevailing norms. In fact, many of today’s norms were yesterday’s novel and unusual ideas. The kinds of sources and approaches to look for and identify include:
• Sources at the edge of the organization–Find those in the organization who may be cynical or complaining, but have tried something different, and talk to them to see what they are thinking, reading, and doing.
• Sources outside the organization–Interview young people. Meet with teachers, designers, artists, economists, movers and shakers of the broader society. For example, observing and interviewing tribal elders has been used as a means of raising public interest in traditional storytelling.
• Sources inside and outside the industry–Interview leaders, regulators, politicians, activists, etc., and understand their motivations. Ask them who is doing the thinking at the leading edge.

The approaches for this activity will vary according to the analyst’s ability and willingness to invest time in it. One can go onsite and observe, interview, and then collate the learned insights into a meaningful output. It is helpful to have a partner to make sure all the insights are captured. It is not always easy to consult the outliers–they are typically in that position because they are not easy to deal with. Analysts may need to employ tact and diplomacy if they are to gain anything useful from these encounters.

Benefits

Much as yesterday’s fringe becomes tomorrow’s mainstream, an organization’s edge may someday become its center. Some industries, such telecommunications, transport, and retail, have gone through a dusk-and-dawn shift in the past ten years and are seeing their edges become mainstream while the tried-and-true formulas of the past crumble. Companies including Nokia, Sony, and Casio are redefining themselves and coming up with whole new ways of viewing the role of the industry in our everyday lives. They have incorporated their “edge” into their strategic and tactical behaviors.

Example

The World Water Vision exercise ( Cosgrove, 1998 ) is an example of a global strategic foresight program (1998 – 2000) that used outsiders’ perspectives to show the importance of using a wide scope to understand the world’s water challenges. To initiate several sub-exercises, expert panels were devised blending water and non-water experts. The panels discussed potential institutional shifts and developments in ICT, biotechnology, and energy–four topics very rarely considered among water professionals.

The panels were organized early in the process on a temporary basis of one or two days each. Their output, four small reports highlighting some major ideas, was fed into the overall exercise in order to serve two objectives. On the one hand, the reports made clear the relevance of the four non-water topics for water professionals. On the other, they showed the relevance of a long-term perspective, by elaborating future possibilities and potential long-term developments. As such, they helped to overcome initial skepticism about the value of using remarkable persons and strategic foresight to expand and extend the debate.

Further reading

Collins, J. and Porras, J. (1997). Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. New York: Harper Business.
Cosgrove, W.J. and Rijsberman, F.R. (2000) World Water Vision: Making Water Everybody’s Business. London: Earthscan/James & James.
Kleiner, A. (1996). The Age of Heretics. New York: Currency Doubleday.
Marsh, N., McAllum, M. and Purcell, D. (2002). Strategic Foresight: The Power of Standing in the Future. Melbourne: Crown Content.
Prusak, L., ed. (1997). Knowledge in Organizations. St. Louis, MO: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Steinbock, D. (2001). The Nokia Revolution: Success Factors of an Extraordinary Company. New York: AMACOM.

This vignette [1 of 6 I wrote] first appeared in “Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight”, edited by Andy Hines and Peter Bishop, published in 2006