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What Is Futures Thinking? with Erik Korsvik Østergaard
What Is Futures Thinking?
By Guest Contributor Erik Korsvik Østergaard
Over the past decades, Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight have caught the attention of practitioners, strategists, and academics. In a world that can be described as VUCA and that feels like BANI (brittle, anxiety, non-linear, incomprehensible), Futures Thinking is increasingly used as a methodology and a mindset to explore the options and opportunities, in order to shape the future that you want to be a part of.
The idea of multiple futures was used increasingly in strategic thinking in the middle of the last century, where a shift appeared from a belief in predicting the optimal, positive future to embrace the worlds of open possibilities, chaos and complexity. Especially in the 1960s and ‘70s, researchers and futurists initiated a methodical effort to characterize the typology of the evolving futures approaches, and to investigate and understand how we anticipate and assume.
Futures Literacy is the ability and capacity to think critically and abstractly about the future. Key building blocks are the understanding of anticipation and assumptions.
Futures Thinking is the creative and investigative process of exploring and evaluating what affects us, to describe scenarios for the futures (in plural).
Let’s unpack that.
A broad definition of Futures Thinking
Futures Thinking is obviously quite literally thinking about the futures. We use Futures Thinking every time we imagine what we might have for dinner, who we could visit on the weekend, or where to go for vacation. Thin approach and capability are massively valuable when expanded and slid horizontally into strategic work: Thinking about the futures of the organization.
Several aspects are worth paying attention to:
First, note that the futures are plural. Multiple futures, in time and existence, and multiple types of futures: Possible, plausible, preferable, alternative, and participatory, just to name a few.
Second, Futures Thinking is a way to imagine what might be, at any point in time beyond the present. The future does not exist. This is one of the fundamental truths about Futures Thinking and Futures Literacy. Only the present moment exists. Not the past, not the future. The future only takes form as imagination, storytelling, expectations, anticipation and assumptions.
Last, Futures Thinking is a structured methodology and an approach to explore and evaluate the trends that affect you, to imagine possible, plausible and preferable scenarios, in order to make decisions today. Used this way, we often name this Strategic Foresight, it has its typical application in business strategy.
Put shortly, ‘using the future’ is to explore and evaluate future scenarios in order to make decisions today.
The popular, scientific, and practical answer
Maybe the easiest way to describe Futures Thinking is to spell out the popular, the scientific and the practical definitions of what it is.
The popular answer: Futures thinking is a way to predict or foresee what will happen.
I have been asked hundreds of times over the past decade about the future of ‘something.’ Typically, the question comes from people who are on the verge of a transition with a lot of moving parts, and they need to have some stepping stones to feel safe on.
I fully understand why we all look for those pointers and predictions. We need certainty in a world of uncertainty. We need some clear answers to foggy questions. We need to lean on someone who seems to have a firm idea of where we’re going.
The challenge is that not all futurists like giving such popular answers, as they inhibit our wiggle room, do not allow for hesitation, and rob us of our imagination.
Even if you give (or receive) such answers, remember that they are filled with bias from both parties. Maybe the answer comes from a white, middle-aged male engineer, from the Nordic business world, with his own set of ingrained biases. And maybe the recipient of the answer has a similar set of biases. These answers can absolutely be useful but remember that they are given (and received) in a certain context, with a ‘this is my world’ bias.
The scientific answer: Futures Thinking is the study of imagination and how it influences our decision-making, based on the use of scenarios.
It is a strategic approach to exploring and critically considering future scenarios in order to define the most preferable ones for people and society.
This scientific field is emerging. As the complexity of our challenges and worlds increases, Futures Thinking is needed in schools, businesses, politics and across society. Several universities are investing in this area and collaborating on shedding light on different aspects.
Using the future for better decisions in the present starts with understanding how we assume things, how we anticipate things, in what contexts they happen, and for what purpose.
The practical answer: Futures Thinking is a way to evaluate the trends and signals in your ecosystem to explore and evaluate the scenarios of what might happen, so that you can invest time and money in facilitating the future you wish for.
This is an approach that entails many methodologies and tools, with many thinkers and doers who contribute to the growing application of the field. We’ve mentioned signal sorting, trend spotting, scenario building and Backcasting. There are dozens of other tools that help us in exploring and evaluating possible futures, and emphasizing and nominating a future that we prefer.
For business applications, I much prefer the two latter understandings of Futures Thinking: The scientific and the practical ones.
Typical applications of Futures Thinking
Very often I present Futures Thinking in a business setting as a vehicle to bringing the Future of Work (or food, play, AI, teaching, HR …) into the context of your organization, in a structured manner.
Futures Thinking is typically applied in one of these situations:
- As an alternative to strategic planning
- As a supplement to strategic planning
- In transformation projects
- In change management projects
The intentions in all cases are the same:
- To explore and evaluate the possible, plausible and preferable futures, to make informed decisions on what to do, today.
- To engage people (leaders and doers) in shaping their future
- To increase the skills of the leaders and doers
- To establish Futures Literacy as an organizational capability.
The functional impact is tangible: Overviews of trends and their impact. Scenarios and futures. Roadmaps. Informed decision-making.
The emotional impact is substantial: Hope for the future. Ownership of the future and the way forward. Confidence in the approach. Agency to act and shape the future.
The Future of Futures Thinking in Businesses
I observe that the growing curiosity in Futures Thinking in businesses manifests itself in two ways.
First, the number of cases with strategic applications of Futures Thinking increases. More organizations across several industries are adopting this approach in order to navigate the VUCA and BANI world.
Second, Futures Thinking appears not only in strategic work but also on a smaller scale, inside the organizations, with a smaller time horizon and smaller ecosystem as a scope. An example is to use Futures Thinking to explore the scenarios for an organizational transformation in a business unit, or the future of the office worker in an IT organization, or the future of HR in a pan-European biotech company with hypergrowth.
Futures Thinking is increasingly becoming a tool in the belt for transformation architects, for business leaders, and for change champions. Common to all of them is that they are curious about trends around them and want to explore how they might affect their organization, structures, governance, and culture.
They shift their strategic approach to strategizing from the future, and not from the present.
THAT is Futures Thinking!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erik Korsvik Østergaard is a renowned Futures Thinker who explores and evaluates current and upcoming trends within the future of work. He co-founded Good Morning April, which helps leaders to design and build the workplace of the future. He is also the founder of Bloch&Ostergaard, a leadership advisory company. He is the author of The Responsible Leader and Teal Dots in an Orange World (LID). He is based in Denmark.
Suggested Reading
This book brings Futures Literacy, Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight into play in the tactical world of organizational change management — on the inside of your organization — to support leaders and organizations in activating their agency as change makers.