HOW TO WIN THE FUTURE:Moving From Future Shock To Future Sense

DR. CLAIRE A. NELSON

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To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before. We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots - religion, nation, community, family, or profession - are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust… … The illiterate of the 21st Century are not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

― Alvin Toffler

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FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

TO WIN THE FUTURE IS TO MASTER THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CHANGEMAKING

Change is the only constant!

We cannot thrive if we do not learn to embrace change. As the leader of your life, your challenge is to see the future as a landscape to be explored, as opposed to an unknown destination.

The topography is ever changing in the ecology of time, but still you help create the future you choose.

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Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

John F. Kennedy

THERE ARE NINE QUESTIONS WE MIGHT ASK ABOUT THE FUTURE

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What does the future look like?

What is the future we are afraid of?

What are the trends and game-changers driving the future?

Are there some taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of the future that we might need to excavate?

What are some alternatives to your expected future?

What are the opportunities to move away from the feared future?

What is your preferred future? for yourself, your family, your organization, your community, your country, our world?

How might we navigate our way to the future we desire?

What do we need to know to build in resilience as we prepare for the future?

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Foresight is the art of taking the long view. It is about bringing the future into perspective so that you can explore its contours and then design for the future you want to experience.

Claire A. Nelson

FORESIGHT Foresight – Take a dragonfly’s eye view of your world and imagine the futures cape you will inhabit. That is step into the future and take a 360 degree view of what is around you – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Take it all in. These are all possibilities in the ecology that is the known future.

Foresight is a process that attempts to broaden the boundaries of perception in four ways: By assessing the implications of present actions, decisions, etc. (consequent assessment). By detecting and avoiding problems before they occur (early warning and guidance). By considering the present implications of possible future events (pro-active strategy formulation) and by envisioning aspects of desired futures (preparing scenarios). We do not predict the future. Foresight asks us to see the future differently -- as an asset as opposed to something to be feared, and use it as an input for our campaign to win the future we desire.

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“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.”

Peter F. Drucker

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

ASPIRATION Aspiration – Be sure to begin by imagining your dream future without reservations as to your current capacity to design, engineer or construct your dream.

Aspiration is about dreaming impossible dreams. The future always exists because we have an idea about what we want and what we fear? We are always living a story.

What is the story you want to write? What is the story you want to be told about you?

How much time and talent and treasure are willing to invest for the very definition of aspiration is a desire or ambition for which you are motivated to work very hard.

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“Your fantasies define you, so dream carefully. A man with no imagination is a man with no future in today’s world—and no past in tomorrow’s.”

Jarod Kintz,

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

INSPIRATION Inspiration – Take your dream future and turn it over to power of the universal creative spirit that animates the world, and see how your dream fits into a larger vision of what the world is seeking.

Inspiration is akin to breathless awe and creative beauty opening in your mind’s eye. That is to say, it may not be something you feel everyday but you can be inspired at any time and anywhere by a flash of insight. It has been said that many of the discoveries and exploits which are attributed to the Einstein’s, Mandela’s and Marie Curie’s of the world were as much inspiration as perspiration. Creativity cannot be cooked by force. Like giving birth, it requires that a seed be planted and then left to germinate and grow at its own pace until into bursts forth into life.

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“We can become inspired to shape a higher, more ideal future, and when we do, miracles happen.”

James Redfield, The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

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TRUST Trust – Trust that the process of our collective human will to be good and do good will lead you to the right knowledge, and right connections and right timing to help you design and construct your preferred future.

Trust is the outcome of integrity. Because we have integrity, we live in a world that is constructed on a field of trust. We can trust that the food we eat is prepared with care.

We trust that the water we drink has been treated. We trust that the driver across the road will stop at the red light. We trust that the doctor has kept up date with the science and is treating us in good faith. We must also trust that the mesh of integrity that keeps the world spinning will also serve to hold your vision in place until the right catalyzing forces converge and gives it vision to emerge.

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“All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.”

Octavia Butler

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

HOPE Hope – Keep your vision of your desired futures alive by nurturing it every day through right actions such as a daily review of the ever changing landscape in which your desired future resides.

Hope is the currency of the future. We cannot construct a future we desire without the foundation of hope. Hope is that wind that lifts the sail in our ship.

Hope and Faith work hand in hand, for while hope keeps our focus on the future we desire, faith focuses us on living the present in such a way as to help us meet the challenges of the journey.

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“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.”

Noam Chomsky

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

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the

STAY CALM

is Embedded in the Landscape of

PAST and The FUTURE favors the So SEIZE the

BOLD.

DAY! Hold on to Hope

with the constant

of foresight &

FACE The FUTURE with

FUTURE SENSE FORESIGHT ASPIRATION

INSPIRATION TRUST HOPE

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

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FORMULATE Formulate … Using your intellectual intelligence make a map, and a blueprint for the design of your desired future.

A Map is a survey of a terrain. A Blueprint is a Design. So what is your image of the future? Can you create an accurate or even adequate map?

What are the drivers supporting your map? What are the obstacles or roadblocks on the map? What is the blueprint for your journey? What might disturb your blueprint? What are the wild cards?

The future favors the bold! Be sufficiently well-informed to act boldly. Seize the day and formulate a plan!

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“The future is not a scenario written, which we only have to act out; it is a work which we have to create.”

Roger Garaudy

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

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ACTIVATE Activate – using your emotional intelligence will and tools at hand, begin engineering work on your preferred futures blueprint.

The Change you desire is propelled by the change you make. The first thing to be activated is your will. Ask yourself what I have to change, to construct the future in my blueprint. When we think about ourselves in the future, ask the question, “Is my future self going to be more valuable than my present self?” Will the person I become be more talented, confident, wealthier, healthier, better educated, or have a better circle of friends to network with? Will you be better liked, better informed, or better positioned to launch your next career move? Will you have more influence? Will you be better positioned to lead? Will you be living a life that is fuller of joy than it is today?

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“When you make a choice, you change the future.”

Deepak Chopra

“Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now.”

Mattie J.T. Stepanek

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FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

CULTIVATE Cultivate - Using your social intelligence make the necessary relationships, partnerships and networks to help you create your preferred future. The future is all about collaboration and ‘coopetition’.

Each helping the other.

Start with a successful outcome and ask: “what do we need to do today to reach that vision of the future?” Do you have a social network that can give you information that can help you see what is out there? What is the pattern of change? Where are you now in the pattern? Do you want to ride the wave? Fight against the current? We each have a vision of the future. It exists as a subconscious idea in our minds, and in the story of our organization, our families and in the story of our own lives. The question is “What you have not considered about your assumed future”?

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“Two main categories of people are needed in your circle; those who give you the necessary support to accomplish your dreams and those who become beneficiaries of what you achieve.”

Israelmore Ayivor, Shaping the dream

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

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EVALUATE Evaluate - Take a Step back, review the work you have completed, take an assessment of your distance to goal, the direction of prevailing winds as well as incoming storms. Correct any errors you are able to, and go back to the drawing board. Re-See-It. The future emerges out of the experience of the present. We have data all around us. How is that data changing the system? What is the system that is prevailing? How do you see yourself in the world? How do you see the world in yourself? What are the strengths and weaknesses inherent in your approach? How is your route tracking the emerging ecology of your exploration? Are you on the right path? Did you miss a turn? A Sign? Do you have the right tools? The right connections? You can’t solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it. Can you re-see it and apply your “dragonfly lens”? It turns out dragonflies have a full 360 degree field of vision. These eyes are made up of 30,000 visual units each one containing a lens and a series of light sensitive cells.

So they also have a souped-up color vision that’s better than anything ever seen in the animal world.

Dragonflies can see ultraviolet on top of blue, green and red. And it is thought that they can recognize polarized light coming off reflective surfaces like water.

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“True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.”

Winston Churchill

“Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic; it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation.”

Vannevar Bush

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FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

HOW TO WIN YOUR FUTURE The old leadership paradigm was about winners and losers. But to create a thriving or winning future in the complex interdependent world of tomorrow, there needs to be a new kind of leadership.

The leader of the past, was at the top of a pyramid. Leaders helped to create new leaders, who in turn built their own pyramids. But the leader of the future understands that everything is connected to everything. Whatis global is local and local is global. Organizations, clients and stakeholders are dispersed across various time zones, latitudes and longitudes. Our marketplace is becoming a community – a global/local or ‘glocal’ community. The emerging future requires ‘Cooperative Dispersed Leadership’ of the many, and ‘Change Mastery’ of the self. Winning requires that you see the future as an asset, anticipate change, and navigate your way with resilience – valuing collaboration – all the better to connect the dots in the volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world we live in. To shape the future you prefer, a win-win future -- it will take Foresight.

“Winning Leaders are those who create their future from their future, not their past.”

— Claire A. Nelson

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

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HOW TO WIN YOUR FUTURE The new paradigm for a thriving world is about recognizing we share the future. It is possible to design a win-win-win. Yes, there are at least three sides to a coin. Just as there are ways to make energy from waste, and water from air. To create a winning future requires a new mind-set.

There are three questions you might ask about how you can create a winning future.

• How is my foresight?

• Do I have what it takes to move from Future Shock to Future Sense?

• How do I find the right knowledge to get me started?

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“We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past” Miguel de Unamuno

FROM FUTURE SHOCK TO FUTURE SENSE : 9 ESSENTIALS TO A WINNING FUTURE

Dr. Claire A. Nelson Futurist, Sustainability Engineer, Storyteller

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WHITE HOUSE CHAMPION OF CHANGE Dr. Claire Nelson is Ideation Leader of The Futures Forum, a consulting practice specializing in bringing the power of strategic foresight, and the discipline of sustainability engineering to challenges facing organizations. She serves as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the World Future Review Journal, and a member of the Board of the Sustainability Division of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Her most recent essay on ‘Storifying Foresight’ appears in the book, ‘The Future of Business’. She is also Curator of the PodCast Series ‘Future Sense Now’ on The Futures of Women.

Before establishing The Futures Forum, Dr. Nelson was a Senior Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, for over thirty years. Her experience in strategic portfolio development, technical feasibility studies and program management spans a variety of sectors including: public sector modernization, private sector development, and community development. She has been a thought leader in promoting Strategic Foresight in Development, organizing the Bank’s first Latin America 2020 Social Development Futures Seminar Series, and pioneered the topic of Development with Equity at the Bank.

Dr. Nelson’s speaking engagements have included: Jamaica Stock Exchange; ASME; BET/CENTRIC, Guardian Insurance; Securities Exchange Commission; World Bank African Diaspora Outreach Forum; Women International Research Engineering Symposium; Black Engineer of the Year Conference; National Association of Security Professionals Conference; Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Conference; Harvard University Black MBA Conference; Micro-Enterprise Conference, African Development Bank. Dr Nelson has served on numerous boards and committees including: American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship Review Committee; and the Institute of Caribbean Studies.

An award-winning writer, Dr. Nelson holds a Bachelors and Masters in Industrial Engineering from the SUNY at Buffalo and Purdue University respectively, and a Doctorate in Engineering Management from the George Washington University.

Stay Calm and Face the Future with Faith

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