“The question is not how to cope with a universe that seems to be getting more complex, but how to improve our ability to take advantage of the novel emergence that has surrounded us.” -Riel Miller via Futures Literacy: Embracing Complexity and Using the Future
It is difficult to deny the amount of complexity that has risen and been levied down across society and our systems over the last year. This was not a disruption, it is much deeper than that. In many ways, it was a widespread societal shift that affected everyone, both personally and professionally. It not only changed how we look at the present, it cast a long shadow on how we would visualize and approach the future.
We went from preparing for, to being thrust into the midst of VUCA.
Or environments that had become more volatile, more uncertain, more complex and much more ambiguous. And yet, it wasn’t just the vast VUCAness of the last year, but the disequilibrium of the unknowns and veiled future that the last year brought with it. An all encompassing disequilibrium that spread virally across all areas of our lives, which will continue to linger and ultimately have long-lasting effect on the future for all of us. For it is far easier to talk about finding the opportunities that exist in the midst of the disequilibrium created from crisis and chaos, than it is to actually discover and engage it positively and productively. Meaning that, especially as the arc of a crisis extends, both individuals and organizations slowly turn away from the tipping points of transformation and the unknowns that accompany it and begin to look furtively for a return to the safety of what was, of what felt comfortable, of what was known.
But no matter how we try, what we now find is that the mental models and maps that have accompanied and taken us up to this point, are seemingly no longer effective to take us forward effectively on the next leg of this journey, of our next steps into the future. When we really take the time to reflect, we find that those very same models and maps are grounded in a past perspective that is no longer viable or even useful to move us forward through the futures that we see emerging. Much like our technology and their operating systems, our mental models and maps require updates to remain relevant and effective.
It will remain difficult to parallel pace the accelerating rate of change using cognitive operating systems that have become outdated, or even obsolete.
The more we are willing to update our operating systems, and those models and maps that are often entrenched in the past, the more prepared we become to “use the future” to better prepare our individuals and organizations in the present. Too often, we do more to “accept” than we do to “use” the future. The narratives and design of the future that we are engaging in within the present, will ultimately have bearing on whether we become “accepting” of what we’ve determined to be probable or plausible futures, or if we will determine to “use” the future in ways that move us towards working for more preferable and possible futures.
Futures that our students will one day inherent…
Which will necessitate that we become much more aware and literate in and of how we determine to “use” the future, if we are going to then create futures that are more inclusive and inviting of multiple narratives and considerations of the futures that we want for our future generations. Which will require a diversity of voices, a diversity of thinking, a diversity of lenses, and a diversity of input, ideas, and visions of and for those futures.
Rethinking and reframing of how we approach our processes will be needed and necessary…
As Jim Dator shares in De-Colonizing the Future, “The crucial difference, then, between a better-or at least livable-future and one of catastrophe and chaos seems to be the ability of people to make appropriate decisions in sufficient time. We need people who are motivated, informed, sensitive, to the values and perceptions of others, and within political structures which facilitate relevant action.” For which Dator puts forth as part of the Futures Project, which was, “(1) To alert people to “the future” as an area of necessary and proper concern to themselves; and (2) To encourage people to gain greater control over their future by providing them with: ideas and metaphors; information; access to information; channels of communication; opportunities to unlock their imagination and creativity concerning desirable and feasible futures; and political structures which facilitate their realizing their desired futures.”
Which is incredibly important, for if we are to begin to look at de-colonizing the future, we have to be much more open to the diversity that was previously discussed and much more open to hearing and engaging multiple truths and perspectives towards the future. When voices are limited, so is our imagination and openness towards the future. Which ultimately limits our ability and willingness to gain a greater awareness of what is emerging, be that internally or externally of us individually, as well as our organizations and our systems.
When imagination is limited, so are our visions towards these futures.
As the Futures Centre shares, Decolonizing the Future would include some of the following considerations:
- Challenging cultural definitions of time and “the future”
- Challenging our mental models and unlearning cultural norms that benefit a hierarchical worldview
- Accepting that we don’t have all of the answers
- Redefining who is an expert and defining expertise in a more inclusive way
- Creating spaces for marginalized and underrepresented people and voices
- That this is an ongoing journey that requires both learning and unlearning, as well as acknowledging the roles we play and privilege we bring in our exploration of futures
In many ways, beyond what has already been shared, we have to engage in what Riel Miller puts forth in Futures Literacy: Embracing Complexity and Using the Future, which is the idea of engaging in “rigorous imagination.” As Miller adds, “The challenge is to find practical ways to use the future as part of the process of discovering and creating the present.” It is in this space, a space open to discovery and creation, that we can begin to consider not only better futures, futures that are more possible and preferable, but that we find ourselves and our organizations becoming better prepared through (foresight) to make the decisions in the present that support intentional design towards those more preferable and possible futures. It is in this space that we begin to become more futures literate, emerging both as a skill-set and as an action-orientation.
“The danger is that formal, preconceived sources of inspiration, intended to enable discovery, are all too often exactly what snuffs it out. By insisting and imposing the patterns, words, and ideas of the past on the present, the new and not-yet-meaningful cannot be invented and brought into our sense-making processes. Exploration is not about the paths not taken – which are only the possibilities of the past brought to life by the present. Instead, it is about futures unimagined and hence a present that does not yet make sense.” -Riel Miller via Futures Literacy: Embracing Complexity and Using the Future.
DCulberhouse 