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Navigating the Future: Essential Leadership Capacities for a VUCA World

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In a world of rapid disruption, artificial intelligence acceleration, and unprecedented complexity, today’s leaders face challenges that no previous generation has encountered. Leading in this environment means developing a new playbook – one built on adaptability, clarity, and a deep understanding of how systems behave under stress. As Robert Greene shares, “The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.”

Today’s leaders, more than ever, need to spend more time and effort gaining a greater environment and/or context awareness, especially in today’s exponentially shifting world and for the impact and challenges those shifts are having on our individuals, teams, organizations, and systems.

Especially as the escalating VUCAness (volatility – rapid or sudden and unpredictable change(s); uncertainty – lack of clarity or a sense of predictability towards the future; complexity – situations with multiple interconnected factors making it difficult to understand cause and effect relationships or predict outcomes; ambiguity – multiplicity of possible interpretations or meanings making it difficult to interpret events, predict outcomes, or make effective decisions) of our organizational environments can be overwhelming to say the least, unleashing heightened feelings of anxiety, worry, stress, frustration, fear, mental fatigue, loss of control, and fear of failure, that can emerge as the rate and pace of change accelerate, and more often than not in unforeseen or unexpected ways.

It is within these environments, that leaders are expected to make quick and timely decisions for their organizations, often based on limited data or information. Decisions regarding complex and adaptive challenges that have never been faced previously, under shifting circumstances and dynamic context, requiring leaders and the organization to be more agile, adaptive and flexible than ever experienced previously.

All of which necessitates leaders and organizations to gather information quicker, create better understandings and clarity, and develop decision processes that allow leaders and the organization to accelerate decision-making processes while navigating unforeseen or ambiguous situations and challenges. Engaging agility and adaptability as a skillset allows leaders and the organization to adjust and pivot from the current path, if needed, as new information and data become available. While improved communication and collaboration processes will minimize misunderstandings, thereby diminishing false or conflicting interpretations or narratives that often arise when there is a lack of clarity across the organization.

While not in any sense new, but since the importance of students acquiring “durable” skills has risen to the headlines recently, we can approach leadership in VUCA environments from that same lens. As it is just as vital that our leaders are investing in acquiring many of these same skills and skillsets. A few of these “durable” or “future” skills are provided below as examples of how to better equip our leaders to thrive and lead in VUCA environments. These durable capacities and competencies allow leaders to better navigate the dynamic, fluctuating and fluid context(s) that they now find themselves thrust into.

Building these skills across the organization creates value, as well as capacity, to better serve individuals and the organization as the digital disruption ramps up through automation and artificial intelligence. Providing people with skills that serve to augment rather than focus on replacing people or positions. 

Since there is no secret to what many term as these “durable” or “future” skills, let’s take a look at a few that can better support leaders in navigating the challenges associated with VUCA environments as they lead their organizations into this non-obvious future:

Adaptability, Agility, Flexibility: In today’s constantly changing VUCA environments, the cognitive ability to remain agile, to adapt, and be flexible is paramount to thriving. To quickly learn new skills and adapt to change allows leaders and organizations to manage the adaptive challenges that they are coming face to face with, which is crucial to navigating the plethora of ongoing course adjustments that will need to be made. Openness to learning and experiences will also allow leaders to course adjust and pivot as new data and information challenges the current direction (a skill that many leaders struggle to engage, many maintain the course even when it is heading over a cliff). But not just in data and information, but as technology shifts the landscape, being agile in our learning is a key to retaining relevance.

Communication and Transparency: When clarity is lacking, confusion thrives. When information is lacking or missing, people will create their own narratives, their own stories, and come to their own conclusions. None of which is helpful or positive for a leader or the organization. Leaders must be honest about what they know, and what they don’t know. When leaders share what is known, what is uncertain or unknown, and the “why” or rationale behind decisions, it can lessen the stress associated with VUCA. As well as communicating that decisions are subject to change as the context and environment shift, and or new data or information becomes available. All of which communicates a sense of clarity across the organization. All of which is supported when leaders are active listeners and not just tellers, when they foster opportunities for open and productive dialogue, and find opportunities to accept and embrace feedback. While building relationships and encouraging collaboration across the organization, all of which leads to not only greater individual and organizational clarity, but builds a sense of resilience into the entire system.

Vision and Foresight: Never forget, the future is not a fixed point – it’s a range of possibilities. The future is never singular, it is plural. There is no “one future” we are all marching towards, rather there are a plethora of futures that are emerging. When leaders remain aware of this emergence, of weak or strong signals on the horizon, it creates a great openness towards the future. When leaders engage the organization in future scenarios, it helps the organization to become more aware and open to what is emerging. It prepares the organization to be flexible and adaptive to that emergence, be it expected, unexpected, subtle, or disruptive. While the process of scenario building doesn’t predict a future, it does allow the organizational community to consider the future from a new and different lens, better preparing the community for whatever may come, considered or not considered. From these scenario processes, a vision(s) for a more preferable future can be considered and constructed. Which provides the organization the clarity of a north star to move towards, while allowing them to adapt as circumstances and the current context demands. That sense of clarity in the midst of VUCA cannot be underestimated, as it becomes a beacon in the fog.

Systems Thinking and Managing Complexity: We live in an interconnected world and understanding that interconnectedness on a variety of levels is a growing competency for today’s leaders. Leaders can’t combat complex and adaptive challenges with linear approaches that were designed to eliminate complicated or technical problems. Complexity can’t be tackled through linear thinking, especially when leaders need to understand the interconnected and complex nature of their teams, tools, resources, strategies, and environments. Technical approaches, in the midst of complexity, most often leads to frustration and dysfunction, and bigger problems. Remember, most complex, adaptive challenges aren’t solved, as much as they are managed. Systems thinking is a process that supports leaders in dealing with growing levels of complexity, helping them see the big picture, moving from a parts-to-whole or holistic approach, using anticipation as a process for preparing for unintended disruptions or consequences, understanding how systems react and behave, and seeing the importance of engaging multiple stakeholders and voices in these problem-engaging/solving processes to improve decision making. Which also includes identifying root causes and underlying causes, not just attending to symptoms, and utilizing these stakeholder interactions to spark new ways of thinking, acting, and innovative approaches to some of the most intractable challenges that we face as leaders and organizations.

The previous are a few of the “durable” or “future” skills that will support today’s leaders towards becoming or being more effective in the midst of these VUCA environments. Engaging a growth and future aware mindset, seeing learnability as a needed skillset to keep pace with the acceleration of change, and as a lens towards continuous growth will remain paramount to helping individuals and the organization stay aware, be more resilient,  and thrive in the current “chaotic” context.

However, we can see these emerging signals only in the terms of risk, challenge and disruption. It is also in realizing that these same signals also uncover new opportunities in which leaders and organizations can learn to grow, innovate, and thrive will add tremendous value for the future. Finding these opportunities, removing fears of failure, can allow curiosity, imagination, creativity, and innovation to flourish in the midst of VUCA. All of which makes an organization more resilient in how it approaches the future.

And the more we empower those we lead with the capacity and competencies to anticipate and approach the future in a more effective and positive manner, the more effective we will be as individuals, as leaders, organizations, institutions, and systems.

The future won’t wait. Leaders who invest in building up these durable or future skills – and in empowering those they lead to do the same – won’t just survive the volatility ahead. They’ll shape it.

Future Memories: A Transformative Tool For (Educational) Leaders and Organizations

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In a time marked by rapid change, ambiguity, and accelerating complexity, the most effective leaders and organizations are not simply reacting to change – they are preparing for it. In fact, they are creating processes that allow them and the organization to reimagine the future as a strategic asset, rather than a looming uncertainty. With that mindset in hand, one powerful and underutilized strategy in supporting this reimagining of the future, is in the development of future memories: which could be considered as vividly imagined, critically constructed scenarios of potential futures that serve as anticipatory knowledge for the organizational community. Far from being fanciful or speculative, future memories function as cognitive tools for enhancing foresight, decision-making, and organizational adaptability.

Unlike recollections of the past, future memories serve as mental simulations of plausible future experiences. Future memories involve using imagination intentionally – not for fantasy, but as a disciplined and rigorous tool to forecast, prototype, and navigate multiple of potential realities. Leaders must remember, that in the exponentially shifting context of our current circumstances, imagination must begin to serve the organization as a strategic tool in preparing more effectively for a very non-obvious future.

In other words, this concept repositions imagination from a peripheral or just novel mental activity, to a central position in the strategic thinking process. Educational futurists and cognitive researchers alike recognize that the brain engages similar neural mechanisms when remembering the past and envisioning the future. Which is a very important point, especially when trying to imagine very different futures from the present and the past. This neural overlap does, however, allow us to use past knowledge to simulate and test future possibilities – or what we might call “(p)re-membering.”

By embracing this strategy of future memories, (educational) leaders move from the reactive to a more proactive stance towards navigating complexity. Rather than viewing the future as an unknowable mystery, treating it as something we can simulate through scenarios and imaginative processes, enables leaders to develop pathways through uncertainty, that better prepare the organization and the organizational community from future shocks and disruptions. This idea of scenario-building grounded in future memories supports a deeper understanding of: emerging trends, disruptive forces, and societal, technological, and pedagogical shifts.

Along with proactively navigating complexity, future memories processes enhances strategic planning and decision-making for leaders, and across the organizational landscape, as it builds deeper awareness of possible futures that may emerge. By crafting narratives of different futures – plausible, possible, preferable, or desirable, disruptive, and dystopian – leaders can stress-test strategies, identify weak points or challenges in existing plans, and create more robust roadmaps for the future, as well as expanding current mental models that exist in the organization. Decisions are no longer a process made in a vacuum, but against a backdrop of imagined context and consequence. So, not only using future memories to improve decisions in the present, but inviting in a process that gives individuals, the organization, and the organizational community better and deeper understandings towards the decisions that have been and are being made.

Future memories processes increase awareness and make us more perceptive to both the strong and weak signals that are emerging on the horizon. As historian, Roberta Wohlstetter shares from the book Rethinking Strategy, “It is much easier after the event to sort the relevant from the irrelevant signals. After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling, since the disaster has occurred. But before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings. It comes to the observer embedded in an atmosphere of noise, in the company of all sorts of information that is useless and irrelevant for predicting the particular disaster.” And her classic insight still applies even more so today: it is only in hindsight that signals become clear.

Future memories allow leaders to become more sensitive to early signs of change by aligning perception with previously envisioned futures. When a future has been mentally rehearsed, signals that might otherwise be ignored suddenly gain significance. Something that futurists have shown to be true over time, as those rehearsals lessen the shock of unforeseen disruptions, even when the disruptions are not congruent to the current disruption. Rather, it is the matter of those rehearsals and scenarios, and playing in the future, that lessens the stress and shock of those disruptions.

For organizations, this suggests the need for diverse and expansive mental models of the future – to lessen the risk of missing crucial developments and signals as they emerge, especially in the midst of volatile or chaotic change.

Future memories aren’t just some form of creative exercises, they are a form of anticipatory knowledge. Or as Riel Miller reminds us, the power of and importance of anticipation is that it allows imagination to bring the future into the present and is a key to shaping our realities. However, for these memories to have epistemic value for leaders and the organization, these imagined futures must be: coherent, contextually plausible, and grounded in emerging data and trends (reminding us of how imagination, when utilized effectively, is a rigorous and strategic process). When developed critically, these memories support the organization in navigating the liminal space between evidence and possibility – a practice that fosters both insight and innovation.

Educational institutions and organizations can begin to build up and embed these future memory processes into their systems through the use of foresight exercises, such as:

Scenario Planning: which can include identifying key uncertainties and driving forces in your system, creating a set of divergent, plausible futures, and analyzing strategic implications and response strategies for each of those scenarios.

Backcasting and Pathway Mapping: start with a preferred future and map the steps backwards to the present, identify leverage points, policy changes, and innovations required to get there.

Signal Scanning and Interpretation: train individuals and leaders in the organization to detect early signs of change – technological, social, political, build systems to interpret weak and strong signals in the context of future scenarios, embed scanning into team culture, data systems, strategic exercises, and leadership processes.

Imaginative Simulation and Immersive Futures: use storytelling, immersive learning environments, or simulations to help the organization “experience” future contexts, as this not only builds empathy but increases psychological distance, allowing for more strategic decision-making.

Remember, developing sensitivity, perception and awareness to change and signals of change is both a leadership capacity and an organizational competency. Leaders must be able to distinguish between disengagement and indifference for the future, contextualize weak signals with imagined futures, and create space for divergent thinking and metacognitive reflection. By doing so, leaders become sensors of the future – able to connect the dots between the present and the potential, the plausible and the possible, and guide their organizations and organizational community accordingly.

The future does not arrive fully formed and there is no crystal ball that allows us to predict what the future holds. Rather, it emerges through a mixture of signals, context, decisions, and imagination. (Educational) leaders must recognize that what we imagine powerfully shapes what we perceive – and ultimately, what we become prepared for, both as individuals and as an organization.

By crafting future memories, organizations gain more than just speculative insight – the organization acquires a strategic compass, and epistemic toolset, and a cultural practice that empowers both individuals and the organization to shape, rather than merely accept and survive the future as it arrives.

“We will not perceive a signal from the outside world unless it is relevant to an option for the future that we have already worked out in our imaginations.” -Arie de Gues

The time to imagine is now…

The Learning Organization vs. The Knowing Organization: Embracing the Beginner Over the Expert Mindset

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It is and will remain difficult to become an authentic “learning” organization…If you spend the majority of your time and effort acting like a “knowing” organization.

In today’s dynamic, volatile, and ever-evolving world, our organizations face an onslaught of continuous change that demands high levels of agility, adaptability, innovation, and resilience. As Garvin, Edmondson, and Gino put forth in, Is Yours a Learning Organization? “Organizations need to learn more than ever as they confront these mounting forces. Each company must become a learning organization.” However, “A learning organization is not cultivated effortlessly.”

This new landscape, which can be tumultuous and volatile, in many ways offers two distinct paradigms of organizational behavior: acting as a learning organization, characterized by what can be considered a beginner’s mindset, versus functioning as a knowing organization, dominated by what we have seen as an expert mindset. A learning organization cultivates a supportive and positive learning environment where curiosity, adaptability, safety, diversity, and growth prevail (often more open to experience(s), creativity and innovation); whereas a knowing organization often relies on and entrenches itself in established knowledge and expertise, fixed structures and mindsets, avoidance of challenges that may induce moments of not knowing or require new learning (often closed off to information and data that does not coalesce with their thinking and understandings that might require a pivot from what determines their expertise). 

Consider some of the characteristics of Learning vs. Knowing Organizations

Learning OrganizationKnowing Organization
Foster continuous improvement and innovationPrioritize stability and rely on established expertise
Encourage open dialogue, experimentation, and risk-takingResist change, often clinging to traditional methods and past successes
Embrace uncertainty as an opportunity to grow and evolveEmphasize hierarchical structures and top-down decision-making
View mistakes and failures as integral to the learning processFocus on maintaining efficiency over adaptability
Encourage individuals to develop new skills and perspectivesMay inadvertently stifle creativity and new ideas by overvaluing expertise

In getting back to the idea of the beginner and expert mindsets, it harkens us back to this quote from Zen Master, Shunryu Suzuki, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” Whereas the beginner’s mind is open, curious, and willing to learn without preconceived notions or assumptions (approaching learning as a journey); the expert’s mind has established boundaries around their knowledge that often limits or closes off new possibilities and learning from assuming a posture of certainty and a stance of knowing (approaching learning as a destination).

The Positives of a Beginner’s Mindset and the Negatives of an Expert Mindset

Beginner Mindset (+)Expert Mindset (-)
Adaptability: enables quicker adjustments to new circumstances and technological advancementsComplacency: Over reliance on existing knowledge may lead to stagnation
Creativity: fosters innovation by questioning assumptions and exploring unconventional solutionsResistance to Change: inflexibility can hinder progress in volatile and uncertain contexts and systems
Collaboration: encourages inclusivity, and being open to diverse perspectives, thinking, and ideasNarrow Focus: overemphasis on the “expertness” which may overlook broader opportunities and new learning and possibilities
Resilience: reduces fear of failure and of being wrong, to frame setbacks as opportunities to learn and growStatus Quo: often unwilling to pivot thinking even when new data presents the need or requirement for change

In moving forward, it is important to keep both the individual and the organization in mind, and why it is good to couple the beginner’s mindset with the learning organization. For when the individual is learning, then the organization is also learning, and when the organization is learning, so is the individual. It is not and EITHER OR, but an AND proposition. And there are definite benefits to both…

Adopting a beginner’s mindset brings numerous personal and professional benefits. It promotes continuous skill development, enabling individuals to stay relevant with their learning, as well as being able to better navigate new challenges. This mindset also helps reduce burnout by cultivating a sense of openness and curiosity, which counteracts the stress and perfectionism that often accompanies and leads to exhaustion, especially as it is drawn to emanates from the expert mindset. Furthermore, embracing a beginner’sperspective or mindset fosters stronger interpersonal relationships, as it encourages individuals to value and learn from others’ viewpoints, leading to more collaborative connections and networks. As well as the act and process of learning and exploring new ideas provides a deep sense of personal fulfillment, contributing to greater overall well-being and a deeper sense of purpose.

Whereas, being a learning organization also offers a range of significant benefits that drive both innovation and long-term success. By fostering an environment where employees feel safe to experiment and share ideas. Such organizations enhance innovation and maintain competitiveness in an ever-evolving ecosystem and society. A culture of continuous learning also boosts employee engagement and satisfaction, as individuals thrive when given opportunities to grow, leading to increased morale, loyalty, productivity, and ability to continuously improve at their work and job. Moreover, learning organizations are better equipped to navigate change, viewing it as a natural part of their growth rather than a disruption, which strengthens their resilience in the face of societal shifts and unforeseen challenges. Collective learning also enhances decision-making, as it draws on diverse perspectives and supports informed, flexible strategies. Ultimately, the commitment to ongoing development and upskilling enables a learning organization to achieve sustainable growth and effectively adapt to emerging trends.

Shifting from a traditional “knowing” organization to a “learning” organization presents several challenges, but the effort is both necessary and rewarding, for both individuals and the organization. One of the primary obstacles is resistance to change, as both leaders and employees may be reluctant to abandon or give up familiar practices and mindsets. Additionally, the fear of failure can be a significant barrier, especially in organizations where mistakes are stigmatized, discouraging risk-taking and innovation. Another challenge is the pressure for short-term thinking and results, which often undermines the long-term commitment and perspective needed to foster a culture of continuous learning. However, these challenges can be overcome through deliberate and intentional strategies. Leaders must model a learning mindset, openly admitting their own limitations and encouraging a culture of collaboration and problem-solving. Creating psychological safety is also crucial – employees need to feel that they can experiment, fail, and learn without fear of retribution or judgment. Recognizing and rewarding efforts to learn, even when they don’t lead to immediate success, helps reinforce this culture of growth. Investing in training and professional development opportunities ensures that employees have the resources to expand their skills, while promoting cross-disciplinary collaboration breaks down silos and encourages diverse perspectives. While the transition may require significant effort, becoming a learning organization is ultimately worth it. It not only enhances innovation and adaptability but also boosts employee engagement and resilience, ensuring long-term success in an often volatile and ever-changing world.

The journey from a “knowing” organization to a “learning” organization must begin with a shift in mindset, particularly at the leadership level. Leaders play a crucial role in setting the tone for this transformation by modeling the behaviors they wish to see across the organization. This means embracing a beginner’s mindset – acknowledging that they don’t have all the answers and demonstrating an openness to new ideas and perspectives. From there, as mentioned previously, is that the focus should shift to creating a culture of psychological safety, where employees feel empowered to take risks, make mistakes, and learn from them without fear of retribution and judgment. Encouraging open communication and fostering collaboration across teams is essential, as it breaks down silos and promotes a more integrated, cross-disciplinary approach to problem-solving. Additionally, investing in training and development should be prioritized, ensuring that employees have access to continuous learning opportunities that keep their skills relevant and adaptable to changing circumstances. By starting with leadership, cultivating psychological safety, and emphasizing collaboration and professional development, an organization lays a solid foundation for becoming a true “learning” organization – one that thrives on growth, innovation, and resilience in the face of change. 

The shift from a knowing organization to a learning organization is not just a strategic advantage in a time where ongoing learning and change is a necessity, it is also a cultural transformation. Organizations that embrace the beginner’s mindset unlock creativity, adaptability, and resilience, enabling them to thrive in an ever-changing environment. For individuals, the benefits extend beyond professional success to personal fulfillment and lifelong growth. By cultivating a culture of curiosity and learning, organizations and their members can achieve greater innovation, engagement, and sustainable success and improved outcomes, ensuring they remain relevant and competitive in the face of an uncertain and non-obvious future.

Navigating Uncertainty: Foresight And Futures Thinking

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In a world being heavily marked by rapid and unrelenting change, as well as unprecedented levels of complexity, the notion of a singular, predetermined future has given way to a multiplicity of potential futures. Realizing that there is a myriad of other futures we may or may not have considered, helps us realize that there is not a “one” future that we are marching towards, but a plethora of possible futures that may emerge, reminds us of the vast diversity of thinking and considerations that surround us, and the impact that can be awakened and ignited when we engage that array of cognitive diversity. 

Which reminds us, that the future may be one of our greatest design challenges…

Whether our influence and actions will shape the emergence of specific futures is a lingering question that continues to drive those engaged in the field of foresight and futures thinking—a discipline focused not on prediction, but on exploring possibilities and helping us make sense of an evolving landscape, and the impact that those possibilities will have on us individually, and organizationally.

Understanding Foresight and Futures Thinking

The VUCAness (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) of our current context and times has made, for a burgeoning group of educational leaders, foresight and futures thinking a necessary set of skillsets in preparing our organizations for a non-obvious future. 

But what exactly is foresight, you may be asking?

It is a set of methods designed to help us discern patterns in the world around us. It is a tool to support decision-making, helping us navigate a fast-evolving context by providing a framework to understand emerging trends, such as being attuned to “strong” and “weak” signals on the horizon alerting us to “possible” changes that may or already be coming at us in the present and the future. Unlike traditional forecasting and other practices for determining the future, foresight does not seek to foretell or lay out a single outcome or future. Instead, foresight, often through scenarios and scenario planning practices of determining plausible, probable, and preferable futures, to allow us to open our minds to a range of possibilities, encouraging us to perceive the future as a web of interconnected possibilities.

These futures (signals) first appear barely noticeable, like the imperceptible silk threads of a spiderweb blown by the wind, lacking any form of connection or stable structure—but for the spider, signaling the need for attention. Much like the spiders notice (spidey senses), especially when something rattles, shakes, or attaches to the web, our notice of these often “weak” and barely perceptible futures signals on the horizon will require our notice, our examination, and our interpretation, as well as a determination of next steps. Much like the spider, that remains aware of all contact, from the core to the farthest reaches of its web, we too must be aware of not only what is around us in our current context, but what is emerging on the horizon and how that might have impact and influence on our considerations and decisions that we are making in the present.  

As it has been said, the practice of foresight for a leader requires scanning (horizon), awareness and notice, some level of scrutiny and analysis, building or creating understanding and interpretation (sense and meaning making), and at some point, measures or action(s) taken. With the last point being incredibly important for leaders, as many are overwhelmed by the uncertainty and ambiguity of their current situation and/or context, often feeling as if they are unable to make a decision, leaving them and their team or organization entrenched and paralyzed towards next steps. So, while it feels as if the future is hurtling at us in an accelerated, volatile, and often unanticipated manner, it still remains a daily journey. And the decisions that we make today, will influence and impact tomorrow, which is why foresight is such a necessary and vital leadership tool for today’s challenging and complex world. As it provides us insight into today, for what might be coming at or upon us tomorrow.

The future is a lifelong journey without a predetermined destination, a journey that is constantly evolving and emerging in a myriad of different ways, a future that is influenced and impacted by the decisions we make in the present. 

As the World Economic Forum shares in The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be, “Foresight is a set of approaches that help explore, imagine, and anticipate the future in an open but structured way. It can help identify and explore challenges and opportunities emerging from multiple signals and drivers of change shaping the future.” And to add, “Some of the fundamental underpinnings of foresight include the recognition and acceptance that the future is a space of possibilities that cannot be predicted; the need to focus on the long-term, and embrace peripheral and systemic views, looking above and beyond; and also the inclusion of a multiplicity of perspectives to overcome potential individual and group biases.”

The World Economic Forum provides foresight as a support to organizations in building future preparedness, and share five areas for “Foresight Use Cases:”

Innovation: to identify and explore ideas that can propel and ignite innovation and new avenues for growth and impact

Strategy: to inform and stress-test your strategic options and broader strategy

Visioning: to support the creation of a strategic vision that considers and distinguish what is desirable, what can happen and what can be done in an open and uncertain context

Orientation: to create a stimulating, future-oriented and open environment for people to think and explore the future in a divergent but concrete way

Exploration: to support exploration and preparation to uncertain, complex, turbulent and fast changing futures

In a time period that many have termed the “Great Acceleration” for the rapid rises in population growth, energy use, technological advancement, and cultural interconnection – we have seen complexity and even randomness continue to rise and spread across all parts and sectors of society, making it increasingly difficult to even begin to predict a future that is inherently unpredictable – and why the use of foresight as a strategy, framework, and tool provides greater opportunity to build a deeper awareness, understanding, and action-orientation from and towards what we see emerging on the horizon. Allowing us to create and structure new scenarios, new stories, and new narratives that better prepare and allow us to consider our influence towards more preferable and possible futures.

What we have come to realize, in the midst of accelerating change and growing complexity and uncertainty, is that traditional models of strategic planning have become increasingly inadequate and antiquated for what we are and will be facing in the future. Engaging foresight as a structured approach and strategic resource allows leaders and organizations to identify and interpret both strong and weak signals – early indicators of change that may not yet be fully visible but have the potential to shape the future. By understanding these signals, leaders can anticipate emerging trends, assess potential risks, identify new opportunities, and provide the space for an action-orientation for next steps in and towards the future. Having a proactive stance allows leaders to be more resilient, agile and adapt in response to various driving forces and our evolving organizational and societal landscapes, rather than reacting to challenges and crisis as they emerge and occur.

The future is inherently uncertain and often feels abstract, distant, and these days, often approached with a sense of apprehension, trepidation and foreboding. Storytelling, sense-making, scenario planning, and narrative crafting are ways to help individuals and the organization to imagine what the future could look like, what it could be, how we can begin to vision it forward, thereby, making it easier to understand and relational to the possible challenges and changes we may be facing. Through storytelling, as we know we are a storytelling species in how we cognitively and emotionally connect, we can convey complex ideas, illustrate the consequences of certain trends, and explore the implications of different choices in a way that resonates emotionally and intellectually (which we can’t relay as deeply through analysis and data). It is where imagination, creative thinking, and innovation can be seen from a new lens, and can enter into the conversation as a strategic resource for both individuals and the organization moving forward. Which allows us to transcend the constraints of current thinking in order to explore a vast array of possibilities for the future.

To navigate the challenges and complexities of the 21st century, engaging and embracing an exponential, or future-oriented mindset is vital for today’s leaders and the teams and organizations that they lead. Foresight equips each of those with the tools to anticipate change, explore alternative futures, and make better decisions in the present (for tomorrow). By embracing foresight and futures thinking as a strategic resource, leaders can begin to guide their organizations through uncertainty and ambiguity. It allows leaders to build a deeper level of individual and organizational resilience, and thereby harness and engage opportunities for greater creativity, innovation, and imagination.

Remembering that the future is not predetermined – but often influenced and defined by the choices that we make in the present…

Allows leaders with a foresight orientation to better position individuals, teams, and the organization to create a future that is aligned with an organization’s vision, values, and aspirations. Allowing leaders to serve as architects and catalysts that provide the courage and capacity to not only navigate the unknown, but set us on our way as explorers towards discovering not just the possible, but more preferable futures.

Moving From “Should” To Exploring “Could”

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“The different outcomes of ‘should’ and ‘could’ thinking apply beyond our reactions to extreme emergencies. In all aspects of our lives, whenever we face an important decision, we naturally ask ourselves “What should I do?” But this framing constricts the answers we will come up with. When we instead ask ourselves “What could I do?” we broaden perspectives.” -Francesca Gino via Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and In Life

One thing we’ve learned from the Futures and Foresight movements is that, when we are looking at next steps, that we don’t, especially in the face of uncertainty, consider and constrain our way forward by referring to it as “the” future. Rather, moving “future” to “futures” reminds us that there are a multitude of possible outcomes and that there is no “one” future that we are all marching towards, but many possible futures that are, could, and may be unfolding and emerging at any time, depending on a wide variety of influences and factors. As Insight & Foresight share in Five Reasons to Say “Futures” Instead of “The Future,” “When we use the term “the future,” it can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there is only one possible outcome. This can limit our thinking and prevent us from considering alternate possibilities. By using “futures,” we open up our minds to a wider range of potential outcomes, which allows us to be more creative and expansive in our decision-making.

In making future plural, from one future to many futures, it shifts and expands our mindset in how we consider and approach the future, helping us to see multiple possible outcomes, as well as opening up our imagination to variety of scenarios that run the gamut from plausible, to possible, and preferable futures. This openness to futures, in many ways, not only helps us to be more creative and innovative, it reinvigorates our imagination as a strategic resource in considering the many ways the future may unfold and what may possibly emerge. Which is vitally important, because, as we all know, the future cannot be predetermined, it can only be imagined.

These subtle shifts, especially in our language, can reframe and change our perspective(s), opening us up to a greater sense of cognitive flexibility, and to reinvigorating our imaginations, considerations, thinking, and ideas. Engaging us to be more creative and innovative, as well as helping to override negative and constraining assumptions, which encourages and engenders a much more positive, growth-minded, and empowering mindset. As a leader, especially in the context of our current times which is fraught with disruptive, accelerated, and often volatile rates of change, it is imperative to catalyzing positive and often transformational action(s) with individuals, in our teams and across our organizations.

Which provides us a reason leaders can consider, as we consider the importance of our language as part of our organizational culture and climate, to moving our leadership language from “shoulds” to exploring “coulds” as another subtle, and yet possibly transformational shift…

Words hold power, internally and externally, in how we communicate, how we consider our actions and decisions, the environments we create in our organizations, and the shaping of our individual and organizational mindsets. And like a fish that fails to recognize that it is swimming in water, we often fail to recognize the power of words and how transformational subtle shifts in our language can be. 

Consider a decision that you may be facing as a team…

So, you ask the team, what should we do?

What we don’t realize is that there is a constraining heaviness that “should” produces. It expresses expectations that naturally lead us into more convergent considerations, narrowing our thinking, our ideas, and how those are framed. In many ways, “should” is accompanied with a sense of rigidness and obligation that rides alongside how we determine to approach the problem at hand.

On Leadership’s article, The Power of Should and Could adds to the overall importance of the words that leaders use. As the article shares, “When leaders use “should” with their teams it fosters a sense of fear or pressure among team members, and will limit creativity. Employees might feel compelled to conform to a predetermined set of rules or standards, leading to a lack of empowerment and diminished job satisfaction. The emotional impact of “should” in leadership can result in disengagement, resistance, or a culture of blame.”

Whereas, what if you asked the team, what could we do?

In this subtle shift from should to could, we find an overall feeling of lightness to “could” that that lifts us away from the heaviness that permeates the feeling of a “should.” Taking us into and towards more divergent thinking, encouraging new considerations, new ideas, and a wider variety of options. As well as the freedom to explore these options. 

As one author shares, “Emotionally, “could” fosters a sense of inspiration and optimism. It allows us to consider different paths, take risks, and learn from experiences. By embracing the notion of “could,” we open ourselves to new opportunities and reduce the self-imposed pressures of perfectionism and rigid expectations. Leaders who embrace “could,” create a more empowering and inclusive work environment encouraging creativity. “Could” communicates a sense of possibility, openness, and collaboration. It fosters an atmosphere of trust and psychological safety, enabling employees to voice their opinions, experiment, and learn from failures.”

What is also interesting, especially in a time when we are realizing the deeper importance of wellness in our organizations, is that, in the Difference Between Should and Could, “shoulds” are often seen as something that is “shaped by external factors” and “how we think others see us” are usually come from thinking we’re not enough.” Whereas, “coulds” provide a sense and feeling of empowerment and can leave us “possibly inspired and motivated to be open to trying more things,” and take the “overwhelm (and judgment) out of the situation.”

Here are a few examples to consider for using “should” and “could”:

  • I should go on a diet
    • I could take an online class on eating healthier to see if I like it
  • I should train for a marathon
    • I could start taking short runs in the morning to see how it feels
  • I should write a book
    • I could utilize quiet time in the morning to try and begin journaling

Language is the water that we swim in within our organizations. It often determines how we feel as individuals, the optimism, motivation and inspiration we feel (or not), as well as the overall culture, climate and environment of our teams and organizations. Awareness of that language, how it is used, and how it permeates the organization, is paramount to creating more creative, innovative spaces and environments, where imagination allows us to explore, experiment, and discover new possibilities and opens us to new experiences and ways of thinking, collaborating, connecting, and interacting. 

Meaning, that being mindful and aware of how language permeates the organizational “waters” that we all swim around in together, is impactful to the level of ideas, solutions, and outcomes that arrive at, both individually and organizationally.

As Francesca Gino shares in Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules At Work and In Life, “When we think about what we could do, out thinking becomes much broader: We imagine and explore a much larger set of possibilities before making a final decision. Considering what we could do shifts us from analyzing and weighing options that we assume to be fixed to generating more creative options.”

So, the next time you are considering what you should do? 

Maybe take a minute or two to reframe the question in order to consider what you could do?

It might be well worth the outcome, for you as a leader, and your teams and your organization.

    In Consideration Of More Positive Futures

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    “Extensive research has found that happiness actually has a very important evolutionary purpose. Instead of narrowing our actions down to fight or flight as negative motions do, positive ones broaden the amount of possibilities we process, making us more thoughtful, creative, and open to new ideas.” -Shawn Achor via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work

    Which means, especially in considering expectations for the future (both personally and professionally), positivity in our environments not only allows us to see a greater quantity of possibilities (problem-solving in complexity), but makes us more thoughtful (reflective and empathetic), creative, and open to new ideas (which spur greater levels of innovative thinking and doing). All of which speaks very closely to the skills and competencies that are being raised up currently across the world of work as wanted and needed skills and skillsets for the future.

    As Shawn Achor puts forth in the Happiness Advantage, “When positive emotions broaden our scope of cognition and behavior in this way (through amusement or contentment instead of anxiety or anger), they not only make us more creative, they help us build more intellectual, social, and physical resources we can rely upon in the future.”

    When we think of preparing for and building skills for the future, be that students or adults, we often think of the skills for the future World Economic Forum skills lists, or we consider what LinkedIn has put together as the most in-demand skills for the future, or a variety of other most valuable skills of tomorrow lists and how we begin to build capacity and competency with these skills, and what kind of learning frameworks and development days we will need to integrate and build knowledge and mastery around and towards these skills and skillsets. 

    But, in the midst of all of that work, the one thing that we probably never consider, is the need for positivity and happiness. In many ways, just mentioning it feels out of place (and a bit fluffy) in the midst of all of the serious work that needs to be contemplated and integrated to better prepare our people and organizations for a very non-obvious future.

    And as Achor adds, “Think of the edge all of this gives us in the workplace. After all, who wouldn’t want to see out-of-the-box solutions, spot opportunities, and better see how to build upon the ideas of others?” 

    All of which is technically aligned to what many current employers are saying that they are asking and looking for from those applying to their organizations, institutions, companies, and businesses. Run your own search and see, the demand is growing exponentially for individuals who can think creatively and innovatively. Who can use creative thinking to solve problems and challenges in new and effective ways. Or the ability to build upon the ideas of others (plussing) necessitates the ability to be able to collaborate and engage in high level teamwork. Both of which, collaboration and teamwork effectiveness, continue to rate extremely high on just about every one of the most in-demand skills lists. Or the ability to spot opportunities, to be able to see new possibilities, requires a sense of curiosity and lifelong learning, which remains in the top five list of skills for the future for WEF. Let alone the willingness to engage such skillsets as foresight and horizon scanning, a willingness to test the validity of your assumptions, to see things anew and from other perspectives and vantage points.

    But, very seldom do we see where positivity aligns itself, (as a road less traveled) to engaging and unleashing these abilities and competencies in our teams, organizations and institutions…

    This is not to say that happiness and positivity can take the place of continuous learning for our individuals and organizations, or upskilling, reskilling, capacity, and competency building. Far from it. But it is saying, that if you want these mindsets and skillsets to flourish in your teams and across our organizations, you won’t be able to do it with an environment and culture that is not conducive to positivity and happiness. As Shawn Achor shares, “Smart companies cultivate these kinds of working environments because every time employees experience a small burst of happiness, they get primed for creativity and innovation. They see solutions they might otherwise have missed.” 

    When you think of positive work environments and cultures, you can see why they have increased productivity, improved engagement, have higher levels of motivation, stronger decision making, more creativity, better resilience, as well as enhanced problem-solving and teamwork. 

    For example, close your eyes and then think of the best place you have ever worked. Then try to remember how you felt when you worked there? On the other side, which is probably an easier ask, consider the worst place or environment you ever worked in. How did that make you feel? When considering both examples side by side, it really amplifies the need and importance of having a positive work environment; and how much happiness plays a part in how effective you are individually and as an organization.

    While the concept of (positivity and happiness) can be difficult to define for every individual and across the organization, it is not hard to see how much weight both happiness and positivity carries towards improved effectiveness and outcomes for the organization…

    Be that from the classroom to the boardroom, and in all the spaces in-between. 

    Achor reminds us that, “Positive emotions flood our brains with dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that not only make us feel good, but dial up the learning centers of our brains to higher levels. They help us organize new information, keep that information in the brain longer, and retrieve it faster later on. And they enable us to make and sustain more neural connections, which allows us to think more quickly and creatively, become more skilled at complex analysis and problem solving, and see and invent new ways of doing things.”

    However, as you see in the previous quote, this is not about a feeling, about how positivity and happiness make us feel, rather, it is based on neuroscience of how our brains work and connect. And what happiness and positivity, especially in the work environment, does for our brains. Which means that it is difficult to look at these “positive” outcomes that come from creating environments and cultures where happiness and positivity permeate, and wave it away as being ineffectual and worthless to the “real” work. Much as we have found in determining the deep importance of what we often term “soft” skills, that in the overall scheme of things, they often matter as much or even more than the “hard” or technical skills. 

    We sometimes need to remind ourselves, lest we forget in the urgency of the everyday, that we live in highly disruptive times. Times that accentuate the disruptive through accelerated and an often volatile rate or pace of change.  Which can accompany itself with anxiety, uncertainty, even a sense of foreboding towards the future. Our perspective and assumptions we create for the future, under this context, can be a bit negative, or even dystopian. Which heightens the importance of happiness and positivity, especially when concepts such as flexibility, agility, adaptability, and learnability, become must have mindsets and skillsets for the moving forward, both as individuals and organizations.

    But with so many things, including the future veiled in uncertainty and ambiguity, how can we be positive?

    So, as we begin to determine our point of view (POV) for the future, including how we decide we are going to frame it, and the perspectives we ultimately view it from, we have a choice. A choice from each of us individually, as well as from our teams and our organizations, on whether we approach the future and all that is riding in on it, as a negative, or as a positive. Now don’t get me wrong, uncertainty and ambiguity can feel negative and even scary. But that is a choice we make, a perspective that we decide to carry forward. 

    Because we can also choose and determine to view today’s uncertainty and ambiguity as an opportunity, a chance for exploration and discovery. A chance to change. An opportunity to learn new ways to approach the future, as well as gain new strategies that allow us to navigate complexity and the challenges we face from new perspectives and considerations. To envision and even create more preferable futures. To use this opportunity to stir up a myriad of new possibilities that we may not have even considered, or imagined, if we were entrenched in the status quo and not facing an ambiguous and uncertain future. 

    As Achor puts forth in the Happiness Advantage, “Focusing on the good isn’t just about overcoming our inner grump to see the glass half full. It’s about opening our minds to the ideas and opportunities that will help us be more productive, effective, and successful at work and in life.”

    Finding ways to infuse bits of happiness and positivity into our personal and professional lives, and finding ways to change our mindset to engage new perspectives that allow us to overcome entrenched assumptions, will only lead to better environments and improved outcomes, for us both personally and organizationally.

    “Each one of us is like that butterfly, the Butterfly Effect. And each tine move toward a more positive mindset can send ripples of positivity through our organizations, our families, and our communities.” -Shawn Achor via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work

    Learning And Thriving In Non-Obvious Futures

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    “We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.” -Sheryl Sandberg

    What has become most difficult for many in today’s world, from both a personal and professional perspective, is determining how to thrive in uncertain environments, especially when ambiguity and the unknown are flourishing, making even the most mundane seem non-obvious and open to new interpretations. Often making us feel unsettled and tentative in making the most basic of assumptions and decisions, especially within today’s constantly shifting organizational environments.

    Which harkens leadership to Sheryl Sandberg’s quote from Lean In, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Which have become a much more viable question in today’s world, one we may need to ask ourselves much more often in response to our current context and times.

    In many ways, we can struggle to find the space and time to even ask those kinds of reflective questions and allow time for creative and innovative thinking and ideas to incubate and percolate, especially when everything feels more like a sprint, than a marathon. When we feel like slowing down circumvents any type of built of up momentum and leaves us awash in feelings of falling farther and farther behind (and very often, we do not even really know what it is we are falling behind from). 

    In many of these environments, we can actually standby and watch today’s innovation become tomorrow’s status quo. 

    And while we know that creative and innovative thinking will move from a good to have, to a must have in the organizational context, it can be incredibly difficult to settle into any type of deep flow state when everything feels accelerated and volatile, especially while change is whizzing towards you at a breakneck speed. But in many ways, those are the conditions that we are facing when we are looking down the horizon of a very non-obvious future.

    So, for these and so many other reasons, one of the best things a leader can do for those that they lead, the organization, and even for themselves, is to learn to slow down, to slide into spaces of stillness. Where deep thinking and reflection can exist. Or as futurist Loes Damhof shares in her article Doing vs. Not-Doing: The Rebirth of Agency, “These times are urgent, let us slow down.” Which seems paradoxical to what we believe we need to do, which is to speed up, to parallel pace the rate of change.

    However, it will be difficult to engage in not only long-term thinking, but the foresight to make decisions in the present that lead us to better and more possible and preferable futures down the road, if we are unable to slow ourselves down against this acceleration and volatility of change we find us and our organizations facing. Or as Damhof shares, “Without slowing down and observing our responses or questioning our underlying assumptions and biases, we are forever stuck in a wheel of responses and adaptation.”

    Which is why many leaders and organizations find it incredibly difficult to be proactive, when the majority of their time is based in reactive responses to what is coming at them and the organization.

    Ultimately, if we are finding ourselves unable or lacking in ability to be proactive, “forever stuck in a wheel of responses and adaptation,” we will also find it incredibly more difficult to then explore what is emerging across our systems and how that emergence is or will possibly be signaling, be that weak or strong, impact on the futures that are visibly emerging, both in the present and on the horizon. Awareness of those signals, deciphering what that emergence could possibly mean, as well as running scenarios for short and long term perspective and resilience can help us in how we move forward into this unknown and very non-obvious future.

    Many like to talk of this post-COVID time as a “new normal” that we are all experiencing and learning to live in, live through, and come to terms with, while still hoping somehow we can find a way to return to our pre-COVID normal. Unfortunately, changes like what we have and are experiencing aren’t held in place by a gravitational pull that will bring us back to where we were previously spinning in our pre-COVID orbit. Changes like these, often seen as transformational and even paradigm shifting, really require us to update our mental models and change up the maps that have previously held in place how we interact with our past, the present, and the coming future. 

    Which means, for example, in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, much of our static and linear frameworks and models, such as one-size-fits-all bulk curriculum and content, which works for efficiency, now becomes brittle and unable to adapt and flex to support learning and our learners effectively. Which means we will have to slow down, if we are going to move from efficiency towards ideas of effectiveness (and relevance), to better determine what is going to best serve the needs of all of our students moving forward (what changes, and what stays the same). 

    Which is neither an easy to determine or easily accessed proposition, especially for a future that is much more uncertain and ambiguous. Which means that the coming journey is not going to comfortable, it will require us to step over some entrenched organizational boundaries from the known into the unknown, it will require a willingness and ability to engage in exploration and discovery learning (which will definitely require us to slow down, in order to speed up).

    It is with this idea that we do see education changing, especially in determining the skills, competencies and capacities that will be necessary and needed, not only by our students, but also our teachers and educational leaders, that we realize the present and the future is predicated on engaging an AND mindset over either/or ways of thinking. It is not just about content and knowledge, and it is not just about skills and competencies, rather it is both. It is an AND proposition moving forward. Knowledge creation and skills building need to ride right alongside each other in the front seat of the future. As McKinsey & Co share in their paper, The Skills Revolution and the Future of Learning and Earning, “Demand will grow for social and emotional skills, higher-level cognitive skills, and both basic and advanced digital skills,” as well as those foundational skills in literacy and numeracy that we know remain foundational.

    And when you consider each of those 3 skills buckets, social and emotional, higher-cognitive, and basic and advanced digital skills, we can begin to realize that this is not a higher education or high school function, but rather, lifelong process of learning to be embedded throughout, not only our entire educational experience (TK-12, Higher Ed), but our entire life. Lifelong learning has moved from the doors and rooms of our educational institutions, to infusing itself throughout all facets of our life, throughout our lifetime.

    This is about an integration, not appropriation of – one taking over, of being more important, or taking the place of – but riding together. As we do understand that the content and curriculum builds up and creates a knowledge base that, as of now, is necessary and needed. Especially as creativity and innovative thinking become rise higher as need-to-have’s in the future of work. But it is also in seeing how skills, integrated into the curriculum and content of learning prepares students for the future of work, and diminishes, what is seen as an expanding “skills gaps” that has been highlighted by employers for many years. This integration allows education to better prepare our young people for, what McKinsey shares as “rapidly evolving workplaces” and a future of work that is changing in some dynamic and exponential ways. Especially as that “rapidly evolving workplace” becomes more global in its reach and requires more and more from those three buckets (social and emotional, higher-cognitive, and basic and advanced digital skills).

    Furthermore, as we dive deeper into these paradigm shifts, education and educational institutions are going to have to begin to transition away from seeing themselves as these stalwart, stand along organizations, and begin to see themselves in a new light, in a new frame. To seeming themselves as serving as community hubs, as a strong, yet integrated and natural part of a larger ecosystem. Which requires a much more communal, collaborative, and communicative approach to not only the work and decision making, but the relations with students, families, stakeholders, and communities. Under this umbrella of change, leadership becomes much more of a distributive and collaborative approach leading to greater sense of shared and collective responsibility, shared by all. Which invigorates a new sense of agency across the system, leading to a greater collective impact.

    Ultimately, we see the importance of seeing how those three skills buckets build new competencies and capacities that will better serve our students in the future and for the future of work and the changes it is and will be experiencing. And just as much as the skills, equipping our students with increased levels of agency, accessed through a distributed leadership model, helps our students to put their knowledge creation and skills acquisition into play beyond the classroom, through real life learning experiences. Enabling our students to better navigate this non-obvious future that quickly coming at us. 

    All of which will becomes more and more urgent and important, like a runaway train, automation and Ai continuously increase their ability to acquire attributes that we thought are innately human. Which is an even deeper conversation for a later time, that hopefully revolves around the idea of framing automation and Ai from a perspective of augmentation over replacement (for the benefit of our future generations).

    Each of these three buckets, social and emotional, higher cognitive, and advanced digital skills, and what those three buckets represent and include, along with the ability to integrate those buckets in an adaptive and flexible way, will become increasingly vital to our individual and organizational viability for a world that is becoming highly digitized and technologically infused. Especially as Ai and burgeoning tools such as ChatGPT gain the capacity to solve basic problems and even not so basic problems and challenges. As these tools gain greater ability to write, to draw, to create, to innovate, and ultimately evolve in some often awe-inspiring and also unforeseen ways, we too will also need to evolve our own competencies and capacities to remain relevant, so that we are not replaced in the future.

    We are well to remember that this is not and should not be a race against the machines, but it should be a race with the machines. Seeing these as tools to support and augment, rather than overseers to constrict and remove. Reframing from replace to augment, is just another notch in expanding that AND mindset moving forward.

    It is in learning to build our skills, competencies, capacities, and values in areas that provide authentic value that is beyond what, currently, these automated systems and Ai can provide. Otherwise, when we choose to race against the machines in areas that support what they were created to provide, we are running a losing race. One we won’t, and really can’t, win.

    “It is the ‘humanness’ of our organizations that will eventually allow us to create and sustain the creativity and innovation necessary to move forward confidently into the chaos and turbulence of an unknown and constantly changing world…” -via The Changing Face of Modern Leadership (2013)

    A Tipping Point To Change And Transformation

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    “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” -African Proverb

    It is now much more of an acknowledgement than a “aha” to remind people that we are living in a world permeated by constant, volatile, accelerated, and even exponential change. It has moved from the edges to the core and we are immersed in it, both personally and professionally. Which means, being able to remain flexible, agile, and adaptable towards change and even transformation is becoming the true difference maker between retaining some semblance of relevance, or fading into irrelevance, for many of today’s organizations.

    Which is a staggering fact when facing a future that moves at this level of pace (and today will be the slowest it will ever be), as John Kotter has shared a brutal fact from his research that many organizations are facing, “70% of all change initiatives end up in failure.” 

    To add to that research, not only are organizations struggling to positively move the meter on change and transformational efforts, a study from McKinsey shares that, along with the change struggles, the overall life-spans of many organizations are shrinking (often at staggering levels), as well. For example, McKinsey includes in their study that in 1958 that average life-span of a Standard & Poor (S&P) 500 company was 61 years, which has, in today’s world, dropped to less than 18 years. McKinsey adds, that they believe by the year 2027 (which is not that far off), 75% of companies currently quoted on the S&P 500 will have disappeared entirely (reminding me of such companies as CompUSA, Circuit City, Mervyn’s, etc.).

    Which could be a very good reason, that for those ones entering the workforce in today’s world, according to the most recent averages fropm the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, will have to restart their job or career at least 12.8 times (which is on the rise) over their lifetime. Which really amplifies the need for lifelong learning, attaining new competencies and capacities, and skills acquisition as a never-ending journey into the future. Lifelong learning has moved from a good to have mindset, to a need to have mindset for today and tomorrow. 

    So, in combining the dwindling life-span modern organizations and companies, in conjunction with the inability to engage positive and successful change initiatives and transformation, we see begin to see the flashing beacon of need upon many a leader’s problem-solving landscape (another reason among the many that systems thinking is such a vital skillset for leaders). Couple that with today’s intensity and speed of change, we now see the curtain call of irrelevance looming on the horizon.  Especially for those organizations that are unable or unwilling to learn, that find themselves stuck in the status quo or yesterday’s thinking, and who are unwilling to let go of the successes of the past for the possibilities of tomorrow. For many organizations, they see the urgency and need for change, but remain in these static poses, either unwilling or unable to make the changes that are needed to push their individuals and organization forward. Especially for those organizations where past and current successes make the need for change to seem much less urgent, or even necessary. Or as Kotter shares in the Harvard Business Review, “Convincing people of the need for change is harder, especially for those organizations or areas where the success has been achieved.” And for most, the scariest proposition to this process is that by the time the organization realizes it needs to change, it is often too late. 

    Irrelevance has arrived in the meantime.

    While both urgency and relevance serve as prime factors in moving organizations towards a willingness to disrupt the status quo, towards a need for change and transformation, those may still not be enough to serve as the tipping points in making change and transformation a viable process and outcome in many organizations. Of overcoming the 70% failure rate of organizational change initiatives. But why?

    It’s not as if change is some out of the box idea that no one has experienced in their lives. Change is all around us, it permeates our lives each and every day. To say that you avoid change, is to say that you avoid living, because you can’t escape it. While we all admit that it can be difficult, both personally and professionally, and find it often easier to avoid than embrace, we are coming to the realization that avoidance is no longer a viable route forward for us or our organizations. 

    But is that why we have such a high number of change initiatives that consistently fail? Or why engaging any type of transformational process often ends, at best, in some sort of shallow incremental level of change? Or just fades off into the “next” thing? The question then remains why? Why do these change initiatives and transformations fail? Even when we know that the outcomes of the initiative are better for us as individuals, and as organizations? Why?

    Let’s consider this quote from Margaret Wheatley as we venture into this why…

    “People support what they create. Participation is not a choice!”

    Or as Wheatley puts forth in Find Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Future, “It’s the fact that people need to be creatively involved in how their work gets done.” Individuals don’t show up to the organization hoping to not have to think, to not needing or wanting to create or innovate, to only be meaningless widgets serving at the whim of the organization and leadership. Rather, they are looking towards being an integral part of a vision, of adding to something bigger than themselves. Towards building a collective identity based around a shared significance that they can be a part of, which is rooted in meaningful work that has a real impact for which they are individually and collectively part of creating. 

    As Wheatley adds, “We have no choice but to invite people to rethink, redesign, restructure the organization. We ignore people’s need to participate at our own peril. If they’re involved, they will create a future that has them in it, that they’ll work to make happen.” 

    Or we could say, commitment becomes a by-product of creating.

    Which take us into this idea of selling and buying…

    Which means, that if people are a part of creating the solution, they will also work to make sure that the change or solution leads to a positive outcome. Which means, engaging the collective in the process removes the need for “selling” your idea to the people, or working to have people “buy into” the process or initiative that the leader is “selling.” As Wheatley shares, “People support what they create.” Or, to add, “People only support what they create. Life insists on its freedom to participate and can never be coerced into accepting someone else’s plans.”

    Now couple that, with the realization that most change initiatives or transformational efforts are determined by and created from leadership (top down approach), or leadership combined with a small group (limited voice), and we wonder why failure exists at the 70% threshold? And while these efforts might not be framed as top-down initiatives, they are definitely not collective and/or broadly participative in creation or design. 

    As Wheatley puts forth in Finding Our Way, “Enormous struggles with implementation are created every time we deliver changes to the organization rather than figuring out how to involve people in their creation. These struggles are far more draining and prone to failure than what we wrestle with in trying to engage an entire organization. Time and again we’ve seen implementation move with dramatic speed among people who have been engaged in the design of those changes.” For which she adds, “As people are engaged in the difficult and messy processes of participation, they are simultaneously creating the conditions – new relationships, new insights, greater levels of commitment – that facilitate more rapid and complete implementation.” 

    However, what she shares, speaks to Kotter’s 70% failure rate…

    “because participative processes can overwhelm us with complexity of human interactions, many leaders grasp instead for quickly derived solutions from small groups that are then pronounced to the whole organization.”

    Couple the complexity of those collective environments, with the accelerated pace and rate of change, and we can see why many leaders and organizations will forgo this step in the change process…

    Which definitely speaks to a leadership conundrum we are facing in most organizations…

    Leaders can often help people see the need for and urgency for change or transformation, but in an effort to speed up and de-complexify the process, will avoid including that collective in participating in the creation of the change initiative or transformation. Which is often a tipping point to ultimately determining the fate of the initiative and the commitment of your people towards achieving implementation and a positive outcome. 

    Or as Wheatley puts forth, “Leaders keep hoping this will work – it would make life so much easier! But life won’t let it work; people will always resist these impositions. Life, all of life, insists on participation. We can work with this insistence and use it to engage people’s creativity and commitment, or we can keep ignoring it and spend most of our time dealing with all of the negative consequences.”

    Which leaves leaders with a choice, and ultimately, to determine which side of the 70% they want to be on? And as a leader, in today’s constantly and exponentially changing world, it is also now one of your most important and visible tasks moving forward, or as John Kotter shares…

    “To make the status quo seem more dangerous than launching into the unknown.” 

    Shaping Tomorrow And The Future: Realizing The Transformative Power Of Possibility Thinking

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    “Now when I say let go, I do not mean reject. Because when you let go of something, it will still be there for you when you need it. But because you have stopped clinging you will have freed yourself up to tap into other possibilities – possibilities that can help you deal with this world of accelerating change.” -Gordon McKenzie via Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace

    The future is not predetermined…it never was.

    The future is a wide-open canvas that is just waiting to be painted with the brushstrokes of imagination, innovation, and possibility.

    In many ways, it remains our greatest mindset and design challenge facing us today…

    Especially when you consider our dynamic, turbulent, complex, and ever changing and evolving modern world; one which necessitates that each and every individual and organization will need to be able to both envision and pursue new considerations and possibilities for the future. In world that is constantly challenging us and our organizations to continuously adapt, innovate and evolve, possibility thinking emerges as a transformative force, capable of catalyzing systemic shifts within our organizations. In many ways, possibility thinking, which is a mindset rooted in exploration, creativity, innovation, and forward thinking, can become that transformative force serving as a guiding light and beacon for navigating us through today’s increasing complexities and adaptive challenges.

    Possibility thinking transcends the boundaries of conventional wisdom, which often keeps us in the trap of same thinking and challenges us to explore unchartered territory and envision the what if, moving us out of what is. It challenges us to question those assumptions, to question our current and existing considerations, and as difficult as it can be, to embrace uncertainty as a catalyst for dislocating the status quo. At its very core, possibility thinking is about leaders and organizations fostering a culture where imagination thrives, and where limitations are viewed as opportunities for new thinking, and breakthrough ideas and solutions for the future.

    Possibility thinking begins with that simple, yet profound question: What if? It challenges us to question the boundaries of what is deemed possible and dares us to dream beyond the confines of the status quo and that which entrenches us known. Possibility thinking helps individuals and organizations loosen the limitations and constraints that are held in place by past successes, command and control leadership structures, and internal and external politics. To inspire our individuals, teams, and organizations to dream big, take calculated risks, and pursue ambitious goals that expand our imagination, drive innovation, fuel growth, and help us thrive in an uncertain and exponentially changing world.

    Navigating Uncertainty with Resilience: In an era defined by rapid technological advancements, geopolitical shifts, and global crises, uncertainty has become a constant companion for leaders and organizations. Possibility thinking equips leaders with the mindset and tools necessary to navigate uncertainty with courage and resilience. So, rather than being paralyzed by fear or indecision, possibility thinkers view uncertainty as an opportunity for growth and adaptation. Thereby, embracing change as a catalyst for creativity and innovation, seizing upon emerging trends and disruptions to pivot towards new opportunities.

    Embracing Diversity: One of the most profound aspects of possibility thinking is its ability to embrace diversity – not only in terms of people but also ideas, perspectives, and experiences. In a world marked by increasing interconnectedness, this diversity becomes a source of strength, driving more creativity and innovation, as well as fostering resilience in the face of adversity. When individuals from different backgrounds come together to tackle complex challenges, they bring with them a wealth of insights and approaches that can spark new and creative solutions. By embracing a mindset of inclusion and openness, individuals, organizations, communities, and societies can tap into this rich tapestry of perspectives, unlocking new possibilities for collaboration and growth.

    Driving Purposeful Change: Change is inevitable in the journey of individual and organizational growth the evolution of both. Possibility thinking empowers leaders to drive purposeful change by envisioning new possibilities and rallying individuals, teams, and the organization around a shared vision for the future. Whether it is implementing new technologies, engaging new thinking and models, or reimagining structures and systems, possibility thinkers approach change with optimism and determination.

    As we stand at the edge of tomorrow, and what feels like the uncertainty and chaos that is accompanying it, the decisions and choices we make today will have deep impact, shaping the world for our future generations. Possibility thinking invites us to embrace the boundless potential of the human spirit and imagination, so that we can dream, collaborate, and innovate in the pursuit of a brighter, better, more inclusive and sustainable future for us all.

    By redefining our current limits, by embracing diversity, navigating uncertainty, and taking bold action, we can harness the transformative power of possibility thinking to create a world where anything is possible, a world where the dreams and imaginations of today can truly become the realities of tomorrow.

    “Our creative genius is the fountainhead of originality. It fires our compulsion to evolve. It inspires us to challenge norms. Creative genius is about flying to new heights on untested wings. It is about the danger of crashing. It is amorphous, magical, unmeasurable and unpredictable…” -Gordon McKenzie via Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace

    Unleashing The Power Of Ai And LLMs: Is This The Cognitive Exoskeleton Of The Future?

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    “The goal of the computer is to provide people with the means to extend people’s minds and bodies. It is an exoskeleton that expands our human reach.” -Jean Louise-Gassee

    In the ever-evolving and exponentially shifting landscape of technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) are rapidly emerging and permeating our current context as go to transformative tools that have captured our imagination and consideration from their ease of access and useability, often reshaping the way we think, work, and interact with information, especially as it no longer takes an engineer or a coder to work with these tools. In this dynamic world of Artificial Intelligence (Ai), ChatGPT has made itself stand out as a groundbreaking tool that exemplifies the concept of what could be referred to as a “cognitive exoskeleton.” This term and concept of “cognitive exoskeleton” was recently shared on The Futurists podcast by guest Marshall Kirkpatrick, who discussed this idea of Ai and LLMs becoming, for better or worse, a cognitive exoskeleton that we are beginning to rely more and more upon, both in our daily professional and personal lives.

    The most popular of those LLMs, designed by OpenAI, is ChatGPT, which serves as a virtual assistant and an extension of our cognitive capabilities that can enhance our communication, problem-solving, and information processing. Which may be why Kirkpatrick uses this metaphor of “cognitive exoskeleton” to capture the essence of how we are beginning to use these LLMs, such as ChatGPT. Just as an “industrial” type of exoskeleton can enhance the physical capabilities of its wearer, Ai and LLMs now serve us as a cognitive exoskeleton, augmenting our mental capacities and propelling us into new realms of efficiency and even innovation, all of which will have ongoing impact on our conversational interactions and the broader landscape of human and machine collaboration.

    Building This Idea of Understanding the Cognitive Exoskeleton

    A cognitive exoskeleton, while being a metaphorical concept to describe the augmentation of human cognitive abilities through the use of these external tools or technologies, has been particularly powerful in capturing our imagination of what Artificial Intelligence (Ai) is, and what it can become, especially as we are just tapping into the surface of its possible capabilities. Just as we discovered that those physical “industrial” exoskeletons could truly enhance the physical capabilities of its wearer, we are now discovering that these LLMs or cognitive exoskeletons are emerging very quickly in their ability to enhance and extend our human mental capacities (as long as we are also aware that these Ai tools, while improving continuously, are still open to their own cognitive hallucinations). In many ways, this concept of a cognitive exoskeleton refers to the symbiotic relationship between human cognition and artificial intelligence (AI), that we now see growing and expanding. In many ways, it’s a partnership that can empower individuals to surpass current limitations of their natural mental capacities, illuminating blind spots, engaging new thinking and ideas, enhancing creative and innovative possibilities, as well as problem-solving, and information processing. We are at the early stages of really seeing Ai and LLMs act as an extension of our cognitive abilities and capacities, providing immediate and often dynamic support, assistance, and amplification.

    Information Processing and Analysis: One of the fundamental roles of these cognitive exoskeletons (Ai-LLMs) is to be able to streamline the vast amount of information available in today’s digital age. Ai and LLMs excel at processing and analyzing data at speeds that have been previously unattainable by the human brain alone, sifting rapidly through massive datasets (depending on the system’s contraints), to identify patterns and extract meaningful insights, presenting users with breathtaking immediacy, of distilled information that can allow for more informed decision-making, aiding us as humans in dealing more effectively with data overload and the current information firehose.

    Language Understanding and Communication: These LLMs, in particular, can demonstrate a remarkable capability to understand and generate human-like text. This linguistic prowess allows for the facilitation of natural language interactions, enabling often seamless communication and interactions between humans and machines, which in many ways is unprecedented and not previously attainable. Consider how chatbots can now provide customer support for language translation services breaking down language barriers, allowing us to see how these LLMs are and will play a pivotal role in enhancing our ability to communicate and collaborate globally.

    Creativity and Innovation: Ai algorithms, when fed with and combining information from diverse datasets and sources, can now, with general accessibility, generate novel ideas and solutions that may elude human minds and thinking. These cognitive exoskeletons can now empower individuals to easily leverage Ai’s creative potential, often sparking innovation across various domains and fields, from art and design to scientific research. And if it is not a cognitive exoskeleton, it is surely beginning to serve many as a collegial copilot. This augmentation and collaboration between our human creativity and Ai-generated insights is beginning to foster inspirational ideas and even breakthroughs that were once deemed impossible, and if not impossible, lacking in consideration.

    Personalized Assistance: As these Ai systems become more evolved and sophisticated, we are seeing how they can tailor their support to individual, and even organizational needs. Whether it’s predicting user preferences in entertainment, suggesting personalized learning paths, or offering context-aware assistance, these cognitive exoskeletons (LLMs) we are finding can adapt to our unique characteristics, enhancing efficiency and overall user experience, offering personalized content, services, and suggestions, allowing for the creation of a more tailored user-centric or centered experience.

    Problem Solving: When it comes to pattern recognition, Ai can identify complex patterns and relationships within data, that contributes to problem-solving processes in a variety of areas and field. But it is not just in the pattern recognition, but the speed in which it provides this pattern recognition, that we often find so astonishing. We are seeing Ai assist, both individuals and organizations, in complex problem-solving by analyzing, often vast amounts of data and then identifying patterns or correlations that might be challenging for humans to discern. Especially in a time of information and data overload. Thereby allowing humans to test and analyze solutions in virtual environments before implementing them in the real world, helping humans make informed decisions by considering a multitude of factors and potential outcomes, when it is needed most, proactively and prior to the urgency of now and reactive decision-making.

    Learning and Education: In considering adaptive learning, Ai has shown growing possibilities for facilitating adaptive learning environments, allowing for the tailoring of educational content to individual learning styles and preferences, which can provide for and create more opportunities and support for personalized learning. Seeing Ai from the stance of an augmentation tool, especially regarding the heavy workload of educators, it can be a support for tailoring learning experiences based on individual preferences, behaviors and needs, offering personalized content, recommendations, and assistance.

    Seeing these Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT, as a Conversational Companion

    Communication remains at the core of human interaction, and what has resounded with people and ChatGPT, is this significant breakthrough in its ability to transform how we communicate and, in many ways, seamlessly integrate this fundamental aspect into our lives. Acting as a conversational companion and even thought partner, ChatGPT can assist in a variety of ways, from answering questions and providing information to engaging in natural language dialogues. As Ginni Rometty, former CEO of IBM and author of Good Power shares, “Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence.” The real-time interaction with ChatGPT transforms ordinary conversations into dynamic exchanges that can enhance and amplify productivity, creativity, and even companionship, both personally and professionally, which is reason for the term cognitive exoskeleton.

    Information Retrieval and Synthesis: ChatGPT, as an LLM, has shown the ability to excel at retrieving and synthesizing information from a vast array of sources. It serves as a cognitive exoskeleton by augmenting our ability to not only access and process information, but to do it rapidly. Whether it’s finding relevant details, summarizing complex topics, or assisting in research, ChatGPT becomes a valuable ally in the quest for knowledge, in a time of data and information overload. But it is also used with the understanding and realization that, even though it is continuously evolving and improving, it is prone to experiencing what have been termed “hallucinations” and/or making things up and providing incorrect information or fabrications, which according to the New York Times, happens about three percent of the time.

    Language Comprehension and Generation: One of the highlights and features of ChatGPT is its natural language processing capabilities and its ability to provide real time data analysis and synthesis, provide support in multiple languages, as well as being able to generate poems, stories, essays, articles, papers, etc., with astounding speed and quickness. It can, often based on the ability of the user to prompt appropriately, show understanding of context, can interpret nuances, and generates human-like responses in a conversational tone. This linguistic capability enables fluid and coherent communication, making interactions with ChatGPT feel remarkably close to conversations with another human. Which supports the human-machine augmentation that serves as a cognitive exoskeleton.

    Problem-Solving and Decision Support: By engaging people in what is seen as thoughtful discussions, through artful prompting, ChatGPT has become a catalyst for problem-solving and decision-making. It can offer diverse perspectives, generate ideas, and assist in evaluating options. The collaborative nature of these interactions transforms ChatGPT into a thinking partner, expanding the cognitive capacities of its users. 

    Personalized Assistance: ChatGPT adapts to user preferences and needs, providing personalized assistance in various domains. From offering recommendations based on user history to providing tailored information, the cognitive exoskeleton aspect of ChatGPT ensures that interactions are not just generic but customized to individual requirements. Which is why we are now seeing people use it in a myriad of manners, from answering simple questions, to finding and synthesizing information in a variety of outputs and forms, generating presentations and creating powerpoint slide decks, to providing outlines for creating and facilitating a multitude of meetings, just to name a few ways that it augments from the perspective of a cognitive exoskeleton, as an LLM.

    Remaining and Being Aware of the Challenges and Ethical Considerations Moving Forward

    While Large Language Models such as ChatGPT have exploded across the technological landscape and ramped up the Ai conversation of things to come. They have done this by providing widespread awareness and access on a whole new level, beyond what was previously available to us as a society at an everyday level. While these cognitive exoskeletons (Ai-LLMs) promise unprecedented benefits through augmentation and hold immense potential for the future, the conversation also brings forth ethical considerations and challenges that will have to be faced by our organizations and society as a whole. Issues such as data privacy, bias’ in algorithms and responses, concerns of information dissemination, the potential for job displacement, and the need for responsible use of this technology warrant and require careful attention and consideration for the future.

    Or as Ai pioneer Mustafa Suleyman and author of The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma speaks of and argues for often, is the concern that these Ai’s are accelerating quickly, possibly beyond our control, and will need a “containment” plan over, at the very least, the next five years. Striking a balance between harnessing the power of Ai, enhancing user experiences, mitigating potential risks, and ensuring responsible and ethical use is and will be crucial for the continued success, acceptance, and harmonious integration of these cognitive exoskeletons into our daily lives, especially if we are to avoid what Suleyman refers to as “unintended consequences” of these Ai in the future.

    The Knowledge Era and a time of Ai augmentation and the cognitive exoskeleton is upon us, ushering in a new age of human-machine collaboration. Ai and LLMs serve as integral components of this cognitive exoskeleton, empowering us to consider how we can overcome cognitive limitations, tackle complex problems, and unlock creative and innovative possibilities. By embracing what is seen as a transformative partnership, we can navigate the evolving landscape of technology with a growing and renewed sense of curiosity, creativity, and efficiency. Cognitive exoskeletons such as ChatGPT mark a significant milestone in the evolution of Ai-powered tools, especially in its widespread ability to engage multitudes in the growing conversation around Ai and its current and untapped potential, for better or worse. The ability of these LLMs to understand, generate, and interact in natural language propels us into a future where human and machine collaboration becomes increasingly seamless. Embracing tools such as ChatGPT as a cognitive companion opens up new possibilities for communication, problem-solving, and learning. As we move forward and navigate this ever-evolving technological frontier, it is both essential and imperative that we remain vigilant, ensuring that these cognitive exoskeletons align with ethical principles, user privacy, and the shared values of a responsible Ai-powered future. 

    “Artificial intelligence is not a substitute for human intelligence; it is a tool to amplify human creativity and ingenuity.” -via Fei-Fe Li, Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and IT Professor at the Graduate School of Business