Make Me A Plan, Futurist, Futurist
As Broadway slowly reopens after an 18-month hiatus due to the Covid-19 outbreak, theater fans have taken to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to share footage of cast members spontaneously singing to adoring crowds on the streets of New York. The contagious energy in these recordings motivated me to listen to the Broadway channel on satellite radio in my car during a recent trip to the grocery store — I like a good Broadway show just as much as anyone. Hamilton, Chicago, Wicked, and Oklahoma — each song piqued my interest in a possible return to live theater, but one song in particular made me reflect on my role as a foresight professional and the work I perform for corporate clients throughout the world. Fiddler on the Roof is a well-known play (with a tremendously successful film adaptation). If you haven't seen this incredible story, I strongly urge you to do so (alongside millions of other fans). The story's amusing, sad, joyous, devastating, and loving themes will take you on an emotional rollercoaster (if you know what I'm talking about), and the song I'm talking about — Matchmaker — does an excellent job of conveying the play's very spirit. Take a few minutes to listen to the rendition from the 1971 movie before I tell you why this song appeared to speak to me about the achievements and failures I've had in conducting foresight work over the past 20 years.Information Transformation Services is endowing the clients with a stunning and impressive visual experience crafted by 3D Modeling Services. We are completely forted to offers our customers with a range of appealing 3D designs that are carefully crafted to meet with all type of requirements
Now that you've heard the original, you may sing along with my rendition, which I've dubbed Futurist, Futurist, Make Me A Plan!
Futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futur
Please spread the word.
Some idealized future,
And it's the perfect trend.
Futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futur
Make use of all of your resources.
And please tell me how it all ends.
Futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futurist, futur
I'll bring the goal for you.
You tell the story.
Unknown futures.
Bring me a vision that I've been waiting to hear,
Exciting, but not overbearing.
The C-Suite, on the other hand,
Fill it with information.
For our gathering,
Fill it up with technology.
Well, in terms of the organization,
You must construct a
A more credible and practical scenario deck.
I'm not suggesting Broadway will contact me anytime soon, but you have to admit... it's not awful, eh?!
Aside from my songwriting abilities, the parallel between the Matchmaker magically matching each of Tevye's daughters with the partner of their dreams and the desire for leaders to hire consultants who will work independently to create a product, strategy, service, innovation, process, or experience with almost no input from the leader's organization is a near perfect metaphor. All of this is to highlight one very important point: It is not my responsibility as a professional futurist to advise you and your company how the future will unfold. Economists, forecasters, AI zealots, and other so-called predictability charlatans are in charge of this. Not only can I not guarantee that a particular trend will pay off or assign concrete numbers to any rising future landscape (and, contrary to popular belief, neither can the aforementioned lords of linear long-shots), but I also can't lock myself away in my prophetic laboratory and build you the future of your dreams. Doesn't it sound bleak? That's because you're stuck with an out-of-date concept of success, one that doesn't fit in a world of open connections, unsiloed industries, unique capabilities, disruptive technologies, reframed disciplines, and redefined territory. Today's professional futurist — an organizational, governmental, and social notion whose time has come — isn't designed to be the classic matchmaker who pairs you up with a single thought, but rather to empower you to find your own true love... I'm referring to your own future story (you get the concept!). So, what do these new, forward-thinking matchmakers do, and why do you need them?
Activate the Future's Shared Ownership. The professional futurist doesn't spend years honing the craft of environmental scanning, trend-spotting, value-identification, pattern-making, scenario building, transformation mapping, speculative designing, and multi-faceted strategy/innovation development in secret, but rather acts as an expert guide who teaches you and your organization how to fish (i.e. how to challenge your biases and assumptions, and construct robust, rigorous and useful images of the future for yourself). This is a crucial skill in today's turbulent, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and innovative environment, since leaders and organizations — who am I kidding, EVERYONE — must use it on a daily basis. If you don't make this a priority, you won't be able to adapt, react, or reconsider in today's fast-paced world. If you don't take control of your skillset and the actions that follow, someone else will be shaping your future for you. (And you're not going to be pleased!)
Mental Models Must Be Challenged, and New Mindsets Must Be Created. Futurists have the experience and expertise to challenge organizational, governmental, and social biases about how the future will unfold, what forces are at work in altering the course of our collective future, what expectations we have about the future that may be very different in the short and long terms, what unseen threats and opportunities are staring us in the face, and what voices are missing from our vision of the future that can no longer be suppressed and silenced. When it comes to the effectiveness of our strategies and plans, every good leader knows that prejudices and assumptions are lethal poisons, but we often disregard them in the hopes that our organizational machines would have the force and drive to overcome any momentum that change might bring. That strategy, as history has shown, is guaranteed to fail. The "futurist mentality" helps us overcome our assumptions and biases by equipping us with the mental tools we need to notice change, be resilient, adapt to changing landscapes, discover revolutionary ideas, and co-create in the face of new realities.
Construct alternative and multi-faceted future visions. Organizations love to jump right to action whenever remotely possible in our short-sighted, serve-me-now, lightning-fast, quick-wins atmosphere, repercussions be damned. If the only way to do so is to scribble a strategic plan on the back of a napkin during a cocktail lunch, they'll clench their teeth and draft a one-pager with bullet points. Such a sloppy attitude will not be tolerated in today's environment. Leaders must reclaim their role as visionaries, committing quality time and effort to imagining not only the future of their enterprises, but also the influence on society and the globe. These are long-term consequences, and ignoring them is no longer an option. Those who want to lead in the twenty-first century must learn to think and act in multiples – what options are available, how can we construct empowering maps and tales of those possibilities, and how can we use those visions to create a better future? Futurists are competent in crafting deep and broad narratives around a variety of organizational, governmental, and societal focal concerns, but the best among them recognize that it is their responsibility to teach that expertise to the rest of the world. In our fast changing landscape, exploring future possibilities and provocations from a variety of perspectives must be understood as a necessary human attribute, not a skill that we isolate among a few trained minds. The futurist must collaborate with you, not against you. (P.S. It isn't the futurist's role to be the smartest person in the room, lecturing other experts on the finer points of a subject.) After years of scanning and research, the futurist may have knowledge of various subjects and disciplines, but her main role is to encourage challenge and discovery - but that's a topic for another post.)
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If you started reading this article by listening to Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof, you already know that Tevye's daughters saw the perils of being placed with the incorrect match and decided to take matters into their own hands. I hope that every leader, organization, and individual on the earth learns to sing the final verse of my reworked version. This is what it goes like:
