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What Futures are "Calling" You?
By
Seth Kahan INTRODUCTION &
TEMPLATE
Here is the framework I use to help my
clients explore possible futures. I have successfully used it to do
long-range strategic planning with organizations that include the
Peace Corps, Project Management Institute, NASA IV&V, and
others. I hope you find it useful, too.
The big question: What futures are calling you that
require your participation to emerge?*
I use this question to drive an entire
workshop. Here's how I break it down into bite-size
chunks:
Futures "call" to us three ways. We sense
them through:
1. Pain - Wherever we feel a pinch in the
current situation, the future is calling for a resolution.
2.
Emerging trends - Forces that have an influence on us,
positive or negative, ask for a future that embraces their
impact.
3. Visions of new capacity - Once in a while we
sense a whole new dimension that is accessible, something previously
unvisited.
As we identify the futures calling to us, it
is helpful to explore how we must change in order to bring them into
existence. I find it useful to look at four areas:
1.
Behavior
2. Business Processes
3. Policy
4. Partnerships
_____________________________________________________________________
TEMPLATE
WHAT FUTURES ARE CALLING YOU THAT REQUIRE
YOUR PARTICIPATION TO EMERGE?
Where are we feeling the
pain?
* What can we imagine that would
successfully resolve this?
* What would we have to do
differently?
What emerging trends do we need
to consider?
* What can we imagine that would
optimize these trends for our proposition?
* What would we have to do
differently?
What new capabilities can we
imagine? Out-of-the-box thinking
encouraged!
* What would we have to do
differently?
For all the questions above,
when you speculate on what we would have to do differently,
consider:
· Policies
· Behaviors
· Business Practices
·
Partnerships
_____________________________________________________________________
[*]For
more on this topic, see Senge, Peter, and Scharmer, C. Otto, and
Jaworski, Joseph, and Flowers, Betty Sue, Presence: Human Purpose
and the Field of the Future, the Society of Organizational Learning,
2004
©2003
Seth Kahan. Reprint with attribution allowed.
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Seth Kahan consults
and speaks on topics that include: communities of practice, business performance,
collective intelligence, tacit knowledge, business collaboration, business learning,
knowledge management, business storytelling, organizational storytelling, business
community, business communities, organizational community, knowledge and learning,
knowledge and community, knowledge community, knowledge communities, performance
improvement, visionary leadership, social potential, institutional community
building, and internal communications.
Speaking
I Consulting I Resources
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Seth Kahan : jumpstart
storytelling collaboration accelerating performance diversity
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