Dialogues About the Role of Foresight and Problems it Faces Today: Part 2
This article is the second of three dialogues between a few members of our foresight team, Mat Lincez, Karl Schroeder, Dr. Ashley Metz, and Dr. Paul Hartley. In this series of discussions, we talk about the place of foresight strategy, some problems that we see in the way foresight strategy is implemented, and what needs to happen for governments, companies, and NGOs to get more value out of the exercise. In it we also discuss a few topics, like the current situation concerning the global pandemic, failures of foresight strategy in the communications process, and problems that arise when doing foresight well.
In this part, the panel talks about the strange way many in business are examining the future during moments such as these, the problem of assuming a stable “normal,” and the fact that in most applied cases, consulting foresight has not lived up to its promise. Finally, we return to the problem that most foresight projects are incomplete and unfulfilled because of the failure of the practitioners, or the receivers of the work, to actualize what they have learned.
We hope you find something of value in the discussion and join us in trying to expand the way foresight is communicated as a whole so it can help prepare us all and prevent, or at least mitigate, future disasters. This discussion has been edited for length.
We continue with part 2
Paul
The current situation [the Covid-19 pandemic] is kind of a good, proxy for talking about—or maybe not proxy, but maybe it's a container—for talking about the role of foresight and the appropriate role of foresight. And I mean, we were talking earlier a little bit about the nature of forked futures and foresight. We mentioned that there is a problem that lives between being able to see things like this coming and how we can galvanize people into action. But in this instance, this gulf is even more stark. Everyone who seriously studies foresight and epidemiology knew that this was an inevitability—I mean there are even global and national agencies devoted to preparing for this—and yet we were still caught unawares it seems. And I was wondering if perhaps you could explain what a forked future is and then talk about how what we're going through now presents us with a learning opportunity.
Karl
Well, it's one of the practices of scenario planning is to create essentially a branched set of future scenarios contingent on certain events. Now, this was done, for instance, for the post-apartheid political planning in South Africa. If this happens, then these scenarios become possible. And for each one of these, there are also entailing events that can lead to further scenarios down the road. You end up with a very rich and potentially large set of scenarios that come out of inflection points and moments of discontinuity so that the present moment, a disruption that we find ourselves in, leads to a spectrum of different possible futures. And each one of those has its own inflection points that can in turn lead to more. That's how I understand the fork future.
Ashley:
That sounds a bit like trying to predict the future instead of looking at the underlying drivers that change the environment? But I suppose the premise is to get even farther away from the present reality.
Karl
Well, yes. What's most interesting about the present moment is that we don't have a future right now. This is always true, right? The future doesn't exist. But we used to really live in a state where we can project forward from now with some kind of confidence. Even though there are always surprises lying around the corner. What's it been exposed really is just the fact that there are always surprises. The world is actually more complicated and the future isn't actually more ambiguous today than it was six months ago. It's just that we're realising how contingent all of our visions of the future were.
Paul
Well, therein lies an interesting point, because what we are now talking is talking about is the possibility or probably the actual fact that there are at least two understandings of what a futurist or foresight person means by the future. And the reason why I say that is because there is this and this is kind of a whole is true. There's a vernacular view, for lack of a better term, which is generally more object focussed in the way these are constructed. What I mean by object focus is that the future is a set thing. It is an established concept which has some set of characteristics so we can speak about it as if it exists. Whereas for thoughtful foresight practitioners, the notion of the future is always comes with that hedge of ambiguity. It may be like that, but it also may not. And part of the difference that I think we're finding here is that many people are saying, “oh my goodness, everything is going to be different after this.” The world is going to be so fundamentally altered by this single event. So, we don't know what things are going to happen. Why didn't we see this? And that depends on this more object focussed perspective. Whereas foresight practitioners like yourself just in a very similar way to the way you just said it would say. Things have always been this ambiguous.
Mat
They've [most foresight practitioners, business leaders, and government officials] been entrenched for five decades to preserve the status quo, to preserve a certain worldview and to preserve a certain approach to business. And this approach depends on an idea of normalcy, that simply doesn’t exist. Look at this silliness we have now about the “next normal” or the “new normal.” Look at the criticisms over the years of Friedman economics, about profit maximization, about shareholder value and all these kinds of the typical capitalist instincts that have been sort of commonly critiqued. I've been talking about limbic capitalism and limbic consumption for a while also. These things are so deeply ingrained now.
My perspective on limbic capitalism, which is like fascinating to me when I stumbled upon it, is that it's coded into our biology now. It is coded into our biology to derive pleasure from consumption. And it's reinforced through the marketing machine, through all our identities, the constructs of our identity use and how they're sort of rewarded or confirmed or denied. And it's so far embedded that it's altered the actual structures of our brains in our biology, to seek out and derive pleasure and avoid anxiety and pain through the consumption model that we've all been engaged in.
This "biological encoding" is the same for these large organizations and society as a whole where, to your point, you're trying to preserve continuously a state of non-change, a state of business as usual and safety or the familiarity of at least. People recognise it's broken or they recognise they don't like it or their job sucks or their life sucks. They'll feel good about themselves, if they continue to do these things.
With this Covid-19 event, to this stuff, not much will change. I think is more likely that we will purely return to hyper consumerism in a big hedonistic snap after people realise they can get back together again and consume what they want and blow off some steam. Maybe Spain implements, basic income as an experiment. Maybe some countries do that. But, I'm not fooled. I don't believe that we're going that society is going to be fundamentally transformed by this. I think this is just a distraction from profit maximization and hyper consumption, which will continue on, and at a break-neck speed, unabated. It might even be accelerated once we exit this.
Paul
This brings me to something which you've probably heard me say several times. But there's the issue of the true nature of homeostasis, in the sense of the inertia that a homeostatic system has to resist change. And yeah, we've talked to you've basically talked about that at two different levels. So, we have there's this system that is represented by the political and social and economic constructs that live inside a corporation. And basically the way that the culture of that organisation and the way that they work together, the way that they behave, the expectations that all of the people have has its own static quality. It because it lives as a homeostatic system. If any one or anything is too much for that system, they’re either fired or eliminated. And that's the optimization aspect. So, through optimisation and through expectations of the work that the working cultures inside these companies have become really hyper actualized homeostatic systems, which means that not changing is their standard mode of being.
Ashley
I think that is a question of whether or not various institutions will change. An institution can be anything from a nation-state, to hand washing, to working from an office. Scott’s definition is “Multi-faceted, durable, social structures, made up of symbolic elements, social activities, and material resources.” (Scott, 2001). When it comes to institutional change as driven from social, technological or regulatory jolts - as opposed to micro changes or embedded action, which are different topics – there are several stages to institutional change processes. For example, for reinnstitutionalization to take place, previous institutions are not only disrupted by innovation, but new ideas achieve legitimacy and diffuse, or they fade away.
I would love to do a study to scan for signals and analyze them with these thoughts in mind to see how close certain institutions are from really changing. These theoretical ideas and rich tradition can also offer clues for what would need to be done in order to tip certain institutions over the edge.
Paul
And that brings us to another interesting position, given the fact that that second layer that you were talking about in terms of the homeostatic system is the assumption that we're going to go back, and that the impulse is that going back is the best way to deal with an event of this kind. I'll just lay out my case and you can sort of see what you think about it. I'm really interested in this moment because I feel like very seldom in our lives do we have an opportunity to realize that many of the things that we thought were just true. It's just the way things are. But these have been completely up-ended.
One example is that the whole population can go and work from home. I mean, yes, certain jobs. But for people in the service industry working from home this is possible. And it's more about these kind of events for me, demonstrate opportunities to question the pillars of the way that we think the world works. Because a lot of the stuff that we live with are kind of just arbitrary constructs. They're there like that just because they're like that. But that doesn't mean that we can't change them. And so what events like this do is they offer us an opportunity to expand the expand our understanding of what could change if we just put some effort into it.
Mat
Yeah. I don't disagree with that. I think certain people, because of the circumstances they're in, and also because of their personalities, are probably, more ready or able to make those changes or adaptations and see that. Other people are either stuck in their situation and don't have the motivation or means to do that. And I don't see the sort of bigger pattern, the bigger structures of the economy. Stimulus is stimulus. It's not a fundamental restructuring. It's just free money. It's not like the stock market's going away and shareholder value in returns is not going to be a concern. And it's not like the fundamental systemic structures are that part of that capitalist model are being eroded right now. Absolutely not.
Amazon, they're booming. Everyone's waiting to get back to business as usual and they're going to hyper-discount, hyper-promote, and hyper-comp every other service they have and product they have to get everyone back on track. And as an individual, if you have been woken up by this and recognized "hey, I can change my lifestyle and live a certain way, I've done it" yeah, good for you. But like, I don't see collectively what that is going to look like. I just I'm sceptical right now and will continue to be that we're going to see this sort of big optimistic reset of the way we operate the world and how everyone treats each other. I think humans are survivors. Like we're just it's encoded in us to just survive by any means necessary. And right now, we're all just coping and surviving by any means necessary. And we're going to continue to do that.
Paul
So, what then do you think about all of these people saying that this is the beginning of fundamental change? I mean, like you and I have been on a lot of calls recently where people have saying everything's going to be totally different afterwards. What do you think? Yes. Like, what's it going to be different?
Mat
We're going to maybe finally get around to like stockpiling N-95 masks and ventilators for the next one? We're going to start to actually prepare for major events like this? It's funny because like in the last three decades or I mean, just take a quick look back at all the outbreaks, all the natural disasters and events that have already taken place just in the last couple of years. From tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires, major floods, to the outbreak and spread of like Ebola, all these things are still persistent, and they've continued to exist. Yet nobody is running around putting metal roofs on their houses and chopping down the underbrush around their place, even though there is a wildfire every year. I think certain factors and certain value will be focussed and placed on things like health care and the like. But look at in Canada and Ontario where we are. Teachers unions have been fighting for fair wages and for effective funding in classrooms and the education system for years. Maybe after this, because kids are all at home for the last two months, some of those parents who voted against this, and a larger set of political stakeholders more broadly, will start to actually see the value and the worth of the education system, teachers, and the jobs they do. Maybe there'll be a little bit more basic acceptance of funding for certain parts of our society in a different way. But are people going to stop going to Costco and going on trips to Cancun in the wintertime? I don't think so.
Ashley
Well for one, I think preppers have gained legitimacy! Well, I think for some of these it’s a function of severity and time.
Paul
The picture we’re painting, it kind of comes back to what we talked about right at the beginning of this conversation, which is that without an ability to actuate change, foresight is kind of impotent in the face of all of this indifference.
Mat
It is. I have to laugh, I really mean, my sister, for example, she chose to get into science communications rather than live in a lab and doing the work of immunology and virology, which she has a Ph.D. in. I thought you have to have the tools and training, you should be applying them in this way. But she was correct to point out as many levels that while there's a lot of techniques and people that are capable out there, the communication aspect of an impact is what's critical. And again, the climate debate is not going away. And this is what worries me actually the most is that unfortunately this event, this impact event, has taken the focus away from climate change. And it likely will now for the next three years in a critical time when investments, major investments in capital are required to do something about it. And now we're going to be pumping that money instead of pumping it into climate change strategies and adaptation strategies.
Mat
And again, foresight in many ways has been impotent. It hasn't had the impact it could have had. And I think that's also just because it's a fringe discipline still, despite all the people graduating with these degrees, and everyone has a foresight title on LinkedIn now.
Paul
Which is as bad as consultants calling themselves design researchers, anthropologists, or ethnographers with no credentials or credibility.
Mat
None of these people has had like a true impact in my world. I can't stress that enough. What part of your life has been transformed by foresight? Maybe none? Which is kind of depressing to say. But I mean, it is as I go, it opens your eyes up and inspires you. And, how do you think differently about the world? And it's given me a career and I've paid my bills off of it. And we've been sort of doing, I would say foresight-light, for the last 10 years or so.
Paul
Within the community or within the consulting space?
Mat
Within the consulting space. Imagine all the climate scientists sitting around in a room together talking about scenarios and data and projections and knowing what they know and not seeing the progress. And then imagine like the same group of foresight type people sitting around in a room like talking about drivers and trends and inevitabilities and the second and third order repercussions of events, and likely or less likely futures. At the end of the day, it's like, what is that been good for? What has it been used for? I'm glad that everyone's raising the literacy spectrum like this. Guys out there that are promoting foresight, literacy. We’ve always been promoting science literacy, of course, because we want to. In a commercial context, we want to develop our market and have people understand the value of the practise and how it can be applied and what it can do for you. We want people to be critical of it and be able to implement and be literate of how to use the tools. But at the end of the day, too, it's still it still comes back to the politics. It still comes back to the influence that that foresight can actually have on reshaping behaviour and diverting capital flows into the right places.
Karl
Yeah. I agree. But there is more to the future and foresight than just this. I mean, I have a very different view of the future than most people. I expect it in the sense that if business as usual had continued, 2030 would not be the future. It would be an extension of now, as far as I'm concerned. If we're still driving gas guzzling cars and the economy still sort of roaring ahead and we still have the same concerns and so on, then that's still now.
Paul
I mean there that the scale of changes is an interesting point for me as well, because what that suggests is that part of all of this is experience. Our assessment of what is and what is not an event is really based on how we collectively experience these things. And there's a big difference between shifts that happen at a macro level versus a meso- or a micro-level. And at the micro level, when you're trapped in your home, unable to go out and there's no toilet paper on the shelves, that the experience of that is extremely dear. It's shared, but very private and intimate. So all of this feels like a huge disruption. But it's impact on change as a whole is probably or potentially less so than some of the other changes that occur on a different level on a meso- or macro-level.
Karl
Sure. And one can get examples of what those might be for. For instance, if the current telecommuting trend is successful, a lot of office space is suddenly going to go empty as companies realise that they can actually be as productive as they were before without having to shell out millions of dollars to rent space. That, in turn has a knock on effect on commuting the number of cars on the road and there hence the number of cars being bought and hence the price of oil. And on and on and on. So, that kind of change echoes and echoes. And we are we already are catching a glimpse, at least in the suburban areas of what that might look like when you go outside and the kids are playing in the middle of the road. Because there are no cars.
And the birds are audible from blocks away and people are simply moving at a different pace. What's suddenly exposed is the frenetic and almost hysterical speed at which we were doing everything beforehand. And if we're to sustain our civilization at the pace that we're working right now or something similar to it, then suddenly that becomes an event because. Our whole experience of the world is change, not just being cooped up indoors, but after we're let out again. That makes sense?
Paul
It really does. And actually, it aligns very neatly with a conversation that Matt and I were having earlier. I was basically saying that what this moment offers is the opportunity to do is to question what I sometimes call "the way things are." These assumed structures that we just, or these arbitrary structures, that we assume to be real and the way things are, that this is just simply the way the world works and that there is absolutely no way that we could undo that, which then underpins things like the reasons why we shouldn't have basic income. The reasons why telecommuting can't be just as productive as having all the employees clustered in an office all day, because that's just the way it is. And what these are these moments offers the opportunity is as a quick vision of the arbitrariness of those pillars of reality.
Mat's position on that was that he sees that there is a certain resilience to the thinking which I agree with and sort of lament it a little bit. Right Mat? And that the he believes that once this is over there, it's likely more likely that it will just everyone will try to overcorrect and try to snap back to the way that things were before.
Karl
Yes. I think that's very true. And in fact, it's already happening. The stock market has been up recently. Sometimes by a significant amount. Yes. So investors are already sort of resetting. And this is definitely going to continue. How this kind of thing affects you depends on the nature of the change. And we've talked a lot in the past about theories of change. If you see the pandemic in a causal sense as being a giant impact like an asteroid, then it's reasonable to expect that it will direct or cause changes in society--how we act, how we go about our roles. But that's not actually the best model of change to use here. If you look at it from a systemic point of view as the whole system shifting, then of course parts of it snap back. Maybe the whole thing snaps back for a while. But there are there are broken pieces. There are linkages that have changed. And so changes cascades through the system in unpredictable ways. Toilet paper is a great example of that.
Why should toilet paper have been the icon of the beginning of the pandemic? Well, a lot of reasons, one of which being that it's just a symbol of dignity and people grabbed for their dignity is the very most important thing that they wanted to preserve at that moment. But the collapse of specific supply chains rather than the collapse of supply chains in general or the collapse of this or that nation or so on is what's more likely. And at and those will create weird knock on effects that come echoing around through the system. And back at us from different directions. So, it's easy from a systems point of view to imagine everything sliding back into the appearance of normalcy, but the various engines and connections underneath having changed such that it just doesn't quite go back to the way it was. And that effect may amplify over time.