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Think Like a Futurist: Know what changes, what doesn't, and what's next, by Cecily Sommers
CECILY Sommers’ book opens with the Chinese proverb, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.” We did not know how badly we would need the tree twenty years later, so we did not plant it.
Futurists contribute to the solution to this problem. The Association of Professional Futurists describes a “futurist” as one who “studies the future in order to help people understand, anticipate, prepare for and gain advantage from coming changes.” Futurists do not predict what will happen; rather they describe what could happen.
The problem with thinking in this way, Sommers explains, is that our brain’s structure frustrates this effort. The neural networks that we use to foresee the future are the same used to recall the past.
The result is that we are inclined to see the future only as a continuation of the past, not as a departure from it. The consequence for both people and organisations is a predilection for what Sommers calls “the Permanent Present”.
Many futurists reduce the factors that affect change to the most elemental components. This method provides a manageable foundation for futurist thinking. One popular approach uses the acronym STEEP - Society, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Politics for the forces.
Sommers uses Resources, Technology, Demographics, and Governance. These, she asserts, produce changes “in a fairly predictable manner.”
Resources
Our Neanderthal predecessors were engaged in hunting, gathering food, and collecting materials to make fire, and shelter. They lived off what was close by and when then was consumed, they moved to a new area. When they discovered a new energy resource, the quality of their lives improved.
During some periods, we made such significant increases in our capacity to harness energy that these periods are referred to as revolutions. Progress is propelled by “one simple formula”, Sommers asserts: “advances in science and technology + new energy sources + imagination.”
This formula has enabled us to cross oceans using wind, and cross the world using fossils fuels, and cross the universe using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
Our future will, undoubtably, be affected by the sources of and use we are able make of various types of energy. Currently, fossil fuels are part of almost every item we use, and are used move the food we eat. Just as it has not always been this way, it is unlikely to continue.
Technology
Technology has always enhanced our limited human capabilities and given us power beyond our bodies’ capacities.
“Something as simple as magnification in a microscope or telescope opened up an entirely new way of understanding life that shifted beliefs and morality, affected medicine and science, and allowed us to dream about worlds beyond our own.”
Demographics
Sommers identifies demographics as the third category that needs to be taken into account when thinking about the future. Who makes up your community or country is an decisive factor in how successful it can be.
The community’s ability to produce more children and so provide more labour will affect its capacity to enhance the health and wealth of the group, positively or negatively. The effect of demographics is most easily seen in Neanderthal clans because they were rarely comprised of more than forty people.
Having the right mix of age, gender, and genetic diversity would determine the ability of the group and its chances of survival. There needs to be enough working-age people to support the young and the old, and there has to be a balanced ratio of men to women to produce the next generation.
Our communities and countries differ from the Neanderthal clan only in the enormity of scale, not in concept. The impact of demographics on our future will be no less significant that it was on the Neanderthal clan.
Governance
Governance is the last of the four factors as it forces them all in one or other direction. Primarily, governance is concerned with the distribution and management of the group's assets— resources, technology, and people. This is as true for a small group, the townhouse complex committee as it is for a whole country.
Governance is guided by two factors, the rule of law, and the rule of markets. These create constraints that determine what may or may not be done, and what can or cannot be done.
In the Neanderthal clan, it was necessary to decide who did the hunting, who looked after the children, and how the meat was distributed. China’s mandates for its 1.3 billion citizens on the distribution of resources, information, and even children, is little different.
The drivers of these changes are resources, technology, and demographics.
The problem with Sommers book is that this model comprises only a quarter of the text. The balance is a description of what sounds much like a creativity workshop organised by HR more as a treat than to solve a serious business problem.
That said, the model is a useful tool for thinking about the future. It is comprehensive enough and simple enough to make a solid start, and it can be used to think about possibilities in many business contexts.
Readability: Light -+--- Serious
Insights: High ---+- Low
Practical: High ---+- Low
- Fin24
* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy. Views expressed are his own.
CECILY Sommers’ book opens with the Chinese proverb, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.” We did not know how badly we would need the tree twenty years later, so we did not plant it.
Futurists contribute to the solution to this problem. The Association of Professional Futurists describes a “futurist” as one who “studies the future in order to help people understand, anticipate, prepare for and gain advantage from coming changes.” Futurists do not predict what will happen; rather they describe what could happen.
The problem with thinking in this way, Sommers explains, is that our brain’s structure frustrates this effort. The neural networks that we use to foresee the future are the same used to recall the past.
The result is that we are inclined to see the future only as a continuation of the past, not as a departure from it. The consequence for both people and organisations is a predilection for what Sommers calls “the Permanent Present”.
Many futurists reduce the factors that affect change to the most elemental components. This method provides a manageable foundation for futurist thinking. One popular approach uses the acronym STEEP - Society, Technology, Economic, Environmental, and Politics for the forces.
Sommers uses Resources, Technology, Demographics, and Governance. These, she asserts, produce changes “in a fairly predictable manner.”
Resources
Our Neanderthal predecessors were engaged in hunting, gathering food, and collecting materials to make fire, and shelter. They lived off what was close by and when then was consumed, they moved to a new area. When they discovered a new energy resource, the quality of their lives improved.
During some periods, we made such significant increases in our capacity to harness energy that these periods are referred to as revolutions. Progress is propelled by “one simple formula”, Sommers asserts: “advances in science and technology + new energy sources + imagination.”
This formula has enabled us to cross oceans using wind, and cross the world using fossils fuels, and cross the universe using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
Our future will, undoubtably, be affected by the sources of and use we are able make of various types of energy. Currently, fossil fuels are part of almost every item we use, and are used move the food we eat. Just as it has not always been this way, it is unlikely to continue.
Technology
Technology has always enhanced our limited human capabilities and given us power beyond our bodies’ capacities.
“Something as simple as magnification in a microscope or telescope opened up an entirely new way of understanding life that shifted beliefs and morality, affected medicine and science, and allowed us to dream about worlds beyond our own.”
Demographics
Sommers identifies demographics as the third category that needs to be taken into account when thinking about the future. Who makes up your community or country is an decisive factor in how successful it can be.
The community’s ability to produce more children and so provide more labour will affect its capacity to enhance the health and wealth of the group, positively or negatively. The effect of demographics is most easily seen in Neanderthal clans because they were rarely comprised of more than forty people.
Having the right mix of age, gender, and genetic diversity would determine the ability of the group and its chances of survival. There needs to be enough working-age people to support the young and the old, and there has to be a balanced ratio of men to women to produce the next generation.
Our communities and countries differ from the Neanderthal clan only in the enormity of scale, not in concept. The impact of demographics on our future will be no less significant that it was on the Neanderthal clan.
Governance
Governance is the last of the four factors as it forces them all in one or other direction. Primarily, governance is concerned with the distribution and management of the group's assets— resources, technology, and people. This is as true for a small group, the townhouse complex committee as it is for a whole country.
Governance is guided by two factors, the rule of law, and the rule of markets. These create constraints that determine what may or may not be done, and what can or cannot be done.
In the Neanderthal clan, it was necessary to decide who did the hunting, who looked after the children, and how the meat was distributed. China’s mandates for its 1.3 billion citizens on the distribution of resources, information, and even children, is little different.
The drivers of these changes are resources, technology, and demographics.
The problem with Sommers book is that this model comprises only a quarter of the text. The balance is a description of what sounds much like a creativity workshop organised by HR more as a treat than to solve a serious business problem.
That said, the model is a useful tool for thinking about the future. It is comprehensive enough and simple enough to make a solid start, and it can be used to think about possibilities in many business contexts.
Readability: Light -+--- Serious
Insights: High ---+- Low
Practical: High ---+- Low
- Fin24
* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy. Views expressed are his own.
