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Is there a new role emerging for futurists?
For many years, I’ve used the slide depicted in the figure to suggest potential positionings for an organizational futurist:
- Planner: Many organizational insiders have been dutifully subscribing to futures publications, going to futures conferences, and working with consulting futurists, and are now staking their claim as futurists. They tend to be politically savvy and in it for the long haul.
- Public Voice: This positioning is one in which the organization futurist is encouraged to publicly share the organization’s vision of the future in public, as a way of gaining support for what the organization is doing.
- Provocateur:This role ranges from bringing in “fresh thinking” for the politely inclined to “shaking things up” for the more confrontational. It is typically a shorter-term role, say 3-5 years.
- Stealth: This positioning avoids the use of the term futurist in cases where there is organizational skepticism about foresight but uses the tools and techniques.
The public voice has been the rarest, but there have been a handful, with Intel, Google, and Ford coming to mind. The stealth role was much more common twenty years ago when futurists were viewed more skeptically. There are lots more that have evolved in the planner role, and I hope that we can see more academically or professionally trained futurists in these roles. In my organizational futurist roles, I was a provocateur, and was willing to accept that I would eventually wear out my welcome, but it ended up being a perfect fit because I didn’t want to stay in one place too long anyhow (here’s a link to the original paper way back in 2003).
All this build-up to get to the punch line: is it time to add a new role? The voice of reason? I gotta say that in our more recent project work, we continually find ourselves advising clients to slow down and take their time. Wait, what? Big picture transformational futurists advising caution. Yep. We’ve seen too many cases where clients or potential clients charge ahead in pursuit of the new, new thing … and get burned. You may have see lately how we’ve been pushing the notion that “change is slower than we think.” We see that true transformation takes a really long time. The key is patience and persistence rather than dramatic gestures. We recommend getting aligned and in motion right away, but actions at an appropriate scale. Experiment, prototype, and pilot first. Manage expectations. Be wise with your investment dollars. Build slowly … but build. That, to me, is the voice of reason.
Are you seeing this, too? While we’re at it, I suspect there are other roles out there. It would be fun to hear how you internal futurists out there are positioning yourselves. – Andy Hines
Thank you Andy, you are spot on. I have articulated in the past some of where I see some of the weaknesses in the Futures Community. (not having enough people from the Technologies & Engineering and Program Managers being a big one ). Futurists should indeed be the voice of reason always in ALL things particularly when we are acting in an advisory position or as a teacher. Also, we as Futurists & Foresight Specialists must be mindful of Human Nature and its accompanying attributes . If there is one Constant in the Universe it would have to be Human Nature. No matter how elegant we may see something as potentially being the best for humanity or organizations it has to square up with human nature or it just won’t happen. Our clothes and technology may change, but the Basic Human has not changed. As Futurists we also have to understand our personal biases as well because we all have them and can be a product of them. In the United States we have a real heritage that others cannot claim and that is this very nation was conceived and started by “Futurists”. Dr. Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, to name a few. No other Nation can claim that Heritage. On this continent The Founders wanted to establish a Nation and system of governance that was based on logic & Reason with an eye towards human nature; where science, innovation, and new ideas would flourish without the constraints of church & feudal state. Hopefully, we American Futurists will always be a voice of Reason in the firmament of advice & ideas. We are certainly needed these days.
funny, so the people that were trying to push things to fruition 20 years before society was ready for them are now suddenly the voice of reason? seriously? having been involved in this field for 25 years i find that this perspective is lacking in authenticity.
it reminds of an IT futurist (maybe Paul Saffo) circa 2002. he said “most people get the future wrong once. futurists get it wrong twice. they see something and start talking about it 20 years before the knee of the curve (wrong). they get burned because nobody else gets it so they shut up and let it go. then, 20 years later, when at the knee of the curve. they ignore it like everyone else (wrong again).
one doesn’t have to tell executives to slow down on industry or societal change. they talk big, but their actions are almost always tempered by reality… but it is nice to see that for a change they don’t have to tell their “seers” to slow down.
i was always very cautious about making such predictions because i didn’t want to lose credibility. but even i felt the sting of executive push back. in 2010, i asked, “what will happen to auto insurance premiums if 2% of the cars on the road in 2020 have self-stopping capabilities? ” the response was not nice. after pushing for serious consideration for another year (after having confirmation from toyota, vw, and ford that they intended to have self-stopping cars by 2020) we ran scenario analysis and war games, but getting to that was painful…
i have a hard time believing that executives have changed much since 2010…