A Castle Surrounded by Hungry Wolves: Toward a Stage Theory of the Uses of the Future

Abstract

Drawing on hundreds of case studies and decades of using the future in professional settings, this article moves toward a stage theory—to begin with, a conceptual framework—to using the future. This extends the Six Pillars framework and accompanying tools (scenarios, causal layered analysis, visioning) by inquiring which methods and tools are appropriate for which national, institutional, organizational, and personal contexts. Seven stages (nonlinear, spiral) are suggested. The first is perceived injustice—“it is not fair.” The second is risk mitigation. The third is creating alternative futures. The fourth is directionality, the vision. The fifth is “making the vision real.” The sixth is metaphor. The final state is personal and focused on using the mantra technique to transform the narrative. This approach intends to assist change agents in understanding the worldview context they are working—co-creating—with.

Keywords

futures studies uses of the future narrative foresight metaphor visioning

Introduction

I was presenting to five hundred fifty plus mayors, councilors, policy analysts, and farming federation leaders at a conference on rural communities in regional Australia (Inayatullah 2018). The Minister’s staff had asked me to challenge their conceptions as to what the future could look like. During the presentation, there was a palpable sense of anger among participants. Many yelled out inappropriate comments. Most continued to drink. It was not just that they were exhausted from the day, but my comments only increased the challenges they had been experiencing. The world would not get easier for them, but more difficult to manage. The audience tuned out, increasing their beverage intake. The Ministerial staff made a run for it, leaving me alone on the podium. While alcohol was a factor, it was not decisive. I had been ill-advised. I had given the wrong speech. I should have begun with their difficulties and found stories to reduce their pain, not enhance their challenges. In their life experience, the world was unfair, rural Australia was being decimated. Suicide was on the rise. People were flocking to the major cities. They were in a middle of a cultural and population apocalypse. They did not wish for a new future; they wished for a different past. Or for reparations to be given to them because they were doing it hard.

Another group found itself fractured. Some of the executives wished to create new futures, but the vast majority wanted to prevent a worse future—for them foresight was not about creating new opportunities, thinking differently, but about protecting what they had. It was the castle they loved—they needed futures thinking to help them buttress the ramparts.

A third group—a Ministry of Education—wished for global innovation with the child, the student, at the center, taking classes from around the world, surrounded in a room with an Internet of everything, learning from whomever, wherever, and whenever. But when we began to discuss implementing the vision, their anxiety grew for they knew risk was everywhere. Their metaphor was a castle surrounded by hungry wolves.

These experiences have had me reflect on the generic foresight processes futurists use to create alternative and preferred futures.

Six Pillars Straight Up

Foresight processes or workshop models have a clear pathway (Dator 2002; Schultz 2017; Voros 2003). There is data input whether from experts or citizens in the room or a prior conducted literature review. Then the facilitator takes the group through a number of exercises to enhance their futures literacy. These are often methods such as the futures triangle, emerging issues analysis, the futures wheel, causal layered analysis (CLA), scenario development, visioning, scenario conflict resolution, and backcasting. From these methods, there a number of outputs about the future. These could be a CLA to examine the issue, the organization today and tomorrow, or a number of scenarios of possible futures. The output could be a preferred future with backcasting steps to realize the vision. There is often then an iterative process where the outputs become inputs for the next stage of the process, be it a strategic plan, action learning projects, or insights for participants and others to reflect on.

In my work, I have used the six pillars process in workshops (see Inayatullah 2008, 2015). This process borrows extensively from the work of James Dator (1980, 2002, 2011), Elise Boulding (Boulding and Boulding 1995), Michel Foucault (1984), P. R. Sarkar (1984), Graham Molitor (2004), and Ivana Milojević (2005). The process is a structured, step-by-step use of the future to move an individual, an organization, an institution, a city, a country, or a multilateral group from today to a set of tomorrows and preferred futures. It includes inner work on whom the participants wish to become in their desired future and external work on the world they seek to create.

Pillar one is “mapping” with the core method that of the futures triangle. Pillar two is “anticipation” with the core methods being emerging issues analysis and the futures wheel. Pillar three is “timing” with the core method macrohistory, in particular, the Sarkar game. Pillar four is “deepening” with the core method CLA. Pillar five is “creating alternatives” with the core method scenario planning. Finally, the sixth pillar is “transforming” with backcasting and anticipatory action learning as the core methods.

However, in the past decade, workshop participants have repeatedly asked what are the best methods for different situations. Do they need to go step-by-step through the six pillars (or other workshop models developed by luminaries such as James Dator [2011] or Riel Miller [2018]) or are certain methods more appropriate for certain groups or situations?

This is not a question of tailoring, as every foresight practitioner does her best to ensure that the methods used address the research question asked. For example, when a CEO or board chair asks me to conduct a process, I always ask a number of questions. I generally ask, “When individuals leave the room at the end of the day or days, what do you wish their emotional state to be?” This is another way of asking for the product, but focused at the inner level. Some state, “I want them excited about the possibility of a new future?” “ I want everyone aware of the challenges ahead.” Directors also say, “I need to get them out of the day to day rut, they are too busy with what really does not matter.” Or, “they see issues from only one view, I need to expand their worldview.” “We have no direction nor strategy—we need a way forward.” “We understand that if we don’t disrupt ourselves, others will disrupt us.” These questions help me design the day, alerting me whether to focus on disruption and implications through emerging issues analysis and the futures wheel; deepening through CLA; creating a preferred future through visioning and backcasting; or reducing uncertainty through scenario planning.

Toward a Stage Theory of the Uses of the Future

Based on these requests and attention to what works and what does not, I have developed the following step-by-step guide to using the future. It is a move toward a theory—at the very least a conceptual framework—of using the future. This approach is insight and case study based. I have few quantitative impact studies to “prove” the claims made below (Hoffman 2019; Kuo-hua 2019; Rohrbeck and Kum 2018, see also the qualitative research of Patricia Kelly, most notably Kelly 2008, and see also Pauw et al. 2018). Correlation and causation are implied—suggested—in the case studies but not proved (Inayatullah 1991B). There is a natural progression through states, however, and this is critical, hierarchy is not implied. Latter stages are not better than earlier stages We are all different. Moreover, these are soft stages: one can move up and down, as appropriate given the success or failure of the futures thinking/practice intervention. These stages are meant as assistive diagnostics so that agency, capacity, and futures literacy of the individual or the organization can be enhanced.

The stage approach borrows from the work of P. R. Sarkar (Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) (1973) and his use of the Indian system of kosas; each layer of the mind takes us deeper. One needs to ensure that the body, for example, is well nourished through food before one can go deeper to intellect, and next to intuition, eventually leading to the stages of discrimination—what is of use and what is not—and enlightenment. I also borrow the framework from the work of Esther Hicks, who has developed an emotional scale of enlightenment, suggesting, for example, that the way out of depression is not bliss, as many argue, but anger (Schulman 2015). While one can argue over the details, the overall argument is clever, and transformative. There are stages to move through before one can jump with joy at a future achieved. Sensitivity to the cognitive-emotional reality of the person/organization one is working with is crucial to success. The role of the futurist, the foresight practitioner, is to determine given the worldview of those involved in the process, what is the most appropriate iteration of interventions. See Table 1.

Table 1.

Stages of the Uses of the Future.

Stages
Social injustice
Risk mitigation
Alternative futures
Directionality
Making the vision real
Metaphor
Mantra

Social Injustice

In my work—and with a hundred plus colleagues (at Melbourne Business school, the University of Melbourne; Tamkang University, Taiwan; the University of the Sunshine Coast; the Metafuture.org network; the Asia-Pacific Futures Network, for example)—I have noticed that stage one is the state of social injustice, the perception that reality is not fair. Individuals and collectivities are best served by a focus on theories of social change, particularly thinkers who help them understand that their state is not eternal. Ibn Khaldun reminds that all systems decline; thus, while the group may today be at the bottom, they may be on top later. (For more on macrohistory, see Galtung and Inayatullah 1997) Sorokin suggests that systems sway back and forth in a pendulum motion, between centralization and decentralization, for example; or between a concern for inclusion—soft solutions—to infrastructure planning, hard engineering solutions. One group of city planners who were focused on homelessness saw that their projects were about to be terminated since a new mayor, who was focused on tunnels and security, had been elected. The works of Sorokin (1957) helped them understand that they had to be patient—“hitting the wall with their heads” would not work, the system would not budge. Insight and understanding are crucial here. Once this is understood—within the terms of the participants—then I try and move toward theories that create change. One can use Polak (1973) and move the system toward a perception that the future can be bright and that they can influence this future. One can use Toynbee (1972) and search for the creative minority. Or one can use Sarkar and help them understand that reality is cyclical, but through balanced leadership, a spiral can be created. Scenarios that show this movement can be powerful. With one community whose collective income, life chances, and health indicators were challenging to say the least, they articulated stage-like scenarios (Milojević and Inayatullah 2018).

In the first scenario, present trends continue and nothing is done, “We die out.” In the second, the status quo, “We are a struggling snail.” Marginalization continues with no effort to create new strategies. In the third, “our powers and numbers are increasing” health and employment conditions improve as the community becomes futures oriented. They use the future to start to transform the present. In the fourth scenario, employment and health are secondary to the primary issue of self-governance. This was the scenario of “self-governance by Tjukurpa” (Australian Government and Parks Australia, n.d.). The last scenario was the radical one—this was a world where community was first, place/land-based spirituality was foundational, a universal basic income had been implemented, and it was indigenous peoples who had discovered the rest. Based on a short film this was called Uber BabaKiueria.

While the content is important in these scenarios, the real issue to note is that in each stage community power increases, reality becomes more preferred. The narrative moves from the impossible to the powerful. The future is used to understand what happens if nothing changes, what happens if there is marginal change, and what begins to happen when power is applied and accessed differently.

To move from this stage, four points are crucial: (1) hearing and acknowledging the pain; (2) using macrohistory to find theories of change that create a narrative that their time is to come; (3) change what is within reach, within one zone of control; and (4) personalize the future. This is crucial so change does not become too grand of a project, it should be either personal or generational.

The main goal is to help groups and individuals empower themselves to enhance their ability to create justice in their perceived worlds.

Risk Mitigation

And if power has been achieved, then what? Many groups that have power wish to retain it, obviously. For them, foresight is about using the future to mitigate against external situations where profits, power, social capital—“the loot”—disappear. With this group, while certainly the big picture of macrohistory is important, they care little for grand patterns of change, for the longue durée; rather it is events and issues that could potentially disrupt their business model that are most important. Molitor’s Emerging Issues Analysis (Molitor 2003) is the most important method in this phase. The S-curve helps organizations understand that they are too focused on current problems and have not spent enough time identifying future risks. Once this is done, then the implications of these risks can be teased out with futures wheel. Following that, new areas of opportunity can be explored, helping the organization move from what it is good today to new capabilities for tomorrow. Often I explore the structural implications of the vegan (Hancox 2018) and plant-based revolution as well as the in vitro meat–based revolution (cellular agriculture: for example, see Ferguson and Colditz 2019; also see the latest for milk replacement [Lamb 2019]). This challenges the worldviews of departments of agriculture and those in the food business. They can see these new products and the cultural shift this is part of—new science, new tastes—either as a threat or as an opportunity. Understandably a focus on defending comes first. One group suggested that the first response scenario was to kill the vegans, the second to kill the scientists, and the third to kill early adopters. It is only with a great deal of effort that certain individuals begin to see that their core product: land, meat, milk, loans to the agricultural industry—may be a stranded asset (MacGeorge 2019). General Electric (Bloomberg News 2018) recently had that experience where their high-performing assets—the fossil fuel industry—swiftly became stranded assets as individuals and nations move toward carbon neutral realities, as renewables become the likely future. Instead of defending the current reality, the used future—what worked before, but no longer does—it is more appropriate to look for new markets -financial and epistemic. These could be a shift toward organics, or investments in cellular agriculture, or becoming hubs for the new meat in nearby regions (e.g., just as in Islamic finance, where Malaysia and Singapore lead).

Creating opportunities best comes from the futures wheel method. In a workshop organized by the South African government, we explored the pricing shift toward solar. Implications included the main energy company, ESKOM disappearing, going bankrupt. Alternatively, it could purchase solar companies and retool. A third choice was not just to go solar nationally, but all over Africa—electrify the entire continent. Finally, one group of engineers suggested creating an “uber of energy”—each African village would use solar and then ESKOM would develop a peer-to-peer energy exchange scheme. They would need to change who they were, who they hired, not just a retool, but a transformation. As it turns out for various political reasons, the power of the nuclear lobby, in particular, this trajectory did not occur. Instead, it is in Bangladesh that the first peer-to-peer energy trading scheme has occurred (Peters 2018). Challenging used futures—institutional practices that are no longer aligned to the vision of desired results—or stranded assets is not just a technical issue, but also a political issue, in that, for example, with decentralized energy power relations shift, as we have seen with Grameen bank, where female borrowers have become empowered.

To move out of this stage, it is crucial to acknowledge risk aversion and then slowly shift toward possible opportunities. Data orientation, that is, quantitative evidence to back up any possible futures, is critical as decision-makers will not support a project based on intuition or hunches. Examples or case studies of other nations, cities, organizations, and persons having challenged “used futures” successfully are crucial for conceptual movement to occur.

Creating Alternatives

To enhance the possibility of moving from used or stranded futures to futures with opportunity, the possibility of change, the critical pathway is to move from one future to many futures. Individuals and organizations need to assess what the alternatives are before choices are made. Indeed, it is this notion of alternative futures that distinguishes Futures Studies from other disciplinary frames, as James Dator (2011) and Zia Sardar (2010) have argued. For example, in the earlier example on the rise of the new meat (as technology and as a movement), should national governments defend their agricultural system? Should they innovate and become global players in the new system? Should they go even further and disrupt the new meat model with meat that looks like a vegetable (Valinsky 2019)? Or is the real issue, not so much about protein but about the supply chain; for example, is intellectual property (the menu, not the food) decisive in the new 3D printed localized system?

Alternative futures thinking explores questions about the future not with the answer, but with a range of answers—each with different assumptions. The goal in this approach is to challenge assumptions, to ensure the scenarios developed are different from each other, not merely a variation of the initial assumption. For example, working with national governments on infrastructure planning, the issue moves from creating new roads to rethinking mobility. In one workshop in Singapore, the conversation moved from quicker roads to cars that were upwardly mobile—going up and down buildings—to drones to using rivers for transport to finally a narrative wherein “everyone is within reach.” Thus, the question moved from cars and transport to designing mobility in all systems. Alternative futures thinking thus rethinks the core assumptions we use to define today. This creates a distance from the now, thus allowing new futures to emerge.

In projects with national governments and education providers, we developed a number of scenarios to assist Ministers and University presidents decide how and what they should teach in a world where automation and robotics may take away 40 percent of current jobs (Inayatullah 2017). The first future is a world wherein educational systems continued to teach for jobs that no longer existed. The second future is where marginal change occurs. Small changes are considered such as teaching STEM or English or Mandarin, but the nature of teaching—rigid, at one campus with some virtual, some professor-based—does not really change. A third future, the adaptive, suggests that emerging industries needed to be analyzed and teaching needs to focus on them, that is, 3D printing in health, the Internet of everything, robotics, personalized precision preventive medicine, and aging. This was teaching and learning for the emergent future—a world where the robot was one’s best friend forever. In the last future, the radical, the transformative, the nature of the world changes so much that no one quite feels at home. We teach and train for a world after jobs. It is not just the shift to industrial to digital pedagogy, but a shift in which the nature of work, compensation, and life purpose are challenged.

Alternative futures thinking is also a way of being. One public sector leader informed me that when he was dealing with the head of garbage collection in his nation, this approach was foundational to his success. He wished to convince the director to adopt driverless trucks. He refused, arguing they did not wish to eliminate their workers. “Our sanitation workers do more than pick up garbage, they connect with the community.” Most advisors would have left the discussion, but he remembered the core lesson of futures thinking—alternatives. He thus asked, what about at night? Can we imagine a scenario where garbage trucks become driverless for night shifts? This led to a world’s first of driverless garbage trucks.

Alternative futures thinking is also crucial in resolving conflicts. If those in conflict believe there is only one solution, one way to be, then the conflict is likely to continue. But if more and more scenarios are developed not only is it likely that the conflict will be resolved, but that the conflict will be resolved nonviolently. More opportunities are possible (see Galtung 1967; Hutchinson 1996; Milojević 2008).

This is true at the personal level as well. Time given, I always try and develop personal scenarios. One community organizer articulated four futures of her life. The first was the integrated life, personal, family, and professional. The second was the opposite—the perfectionist, the need to make her life perfect and thus sabotaging integration. The third was life in stages—a time for the personal (marriage and children); a time for career; a time for social service. The final was her outlier scenario: running away to India to become a yogic nun.

Thus, as we move up the scale from social injustice (it is not fair), to risk mitigation, to creating alternatives, opportunities for different futures to emerge expand. The goal in this stage is to create alternatives, possibilities, to not become stuck on any one future, particularly any predicted future.

Directionality

Once alternative futures are explored, insights into the range of directions are gained. But which direction to go toward? This is next crucial part of the foresight process. Scenarios help clarify alternatives, but once there is clarity of costs and benefits, of desires and fears, there needs to be a decision as to what is next? We need to decide on a vision, where do we wish to go. Personally and professionally where do we wish to be in a decade or two decades? The vision is crucial as it becomes the decisive indicator of what one should do in the present. Does a current decision align with where one individual or the institution wishes to be in a decade. Directionality is critical to harness personal and organizational energies. One corporate group asked for advice on the futures of cola. We provided our best insights into the risk of staying with a beverage that provided no measurable health benefits. Ultimately the CEO decided to focus on becoming the world’s leading wellness company by 2035 (The New York Times 2018). From this vision, she began to move into the health industry. After seven years, over 50 percent of corporate revenues are now derived from health drinks and products.

Another group, a coroner’s court, saw that the part of their work they believed the most significant and personally rewarding as justices want prevention, not merely the analysis of factors that led to death. They began to imagine a future where they focused on well-being and prevention. Notes from the Futures workshop. February 5, 2019. The Coroner’s Court. See Table 2.

Table 2.

The Coroner’s Court.

Coroner’s court 2030	Today	Preferred future
Litany	Throughput Recommendations	Reduced deaths Increased wellness Greater community satisfaction
Systemic	Paperbound Internally progressive: externally limited	Enhance efficiency through new technologies
Worldview	Serve the community with empathy and compassion	Serve the community through proactive innovation
Myth/Metaphor	Sprouting seed	Large blossoming tree

Using the CLA process of four levels of reality, they used what was working well in the present and magnified it, moving from a sprouting seed to a large blossoming tree. They did not wish to stop serving the community, but rather wished to enhance it through proactive innovation. However, they understood that many of their traditional administrative procedures needed to be streamlined so they could focus on what was of greatest value. To ensure they stayed on this pathway, they also changed their key performance indicators, the litany, what they talked about daily.

Visioning is particularly valuable when participants understand their zone of control—what they can influence and what they cannot. This allows for the vision to become reality. Cities are perfect examples of this. They have budgets and influence, but generally of the size where policy and strategy can make a difference. In a number of Australian cities, we have embarked on 2030, 2040 projects (Russo 2016b). These have worked well when we included three parties: citizens through foresight workshops; political, business, and community leaders through visioning and strategy sessions; and academics and research organizations to collect data on the past, emerging trends, and indicators of the desired future. In a recent city project, the past was used as an asset, to help set up the desired future. The refrigerator had been invented in the city and it was one of the first global cities to develop botanical gardens (Russo 2016a). The founding elders had created a public green space for future generations. Working with public officials, citizens, we developed a vision of the future. This was further narrowed down through a citizens’ voting process to develop preferred trajectories. In another city, hundreds of vision ideas were collected (Ding 2004). These were then narrowed down to ideas that could be implemented. In all these processes, the vision and budget became linked; civic energy was enhanced through anticipatory democracy, and communities felt heard, even if no idea was implemented.

Ultimately, visioning is a victory of agency over structure, of what can be over what is.

Making the Vision Real

Visions without reality can reduce agency quickly. Visioning can be a direction, linked to the strategic plan. Visioning can be personalized, creative visualization, imagining a different future. Visioning can also be fantasy, a way of avoiding what is painful, what needs to be understood and discarded. Visioning as such hurts the futures process.

Thus, to continue along the path of using the future to empower, we need to make the vision real, to allow the vision to enable and ennoble.

A number of processes help. Most significant are action learning, strategic plans, backcasting, and personal ownership of the future.

Action learning seeks to link the vision of the future with individuals using open space technology (Owen 2008) to design projects and processes to create a difference. In one project on rural health futures, over fifty CEOs met to design a new health system. Over two days, they imagined the 5P health model (Cornell Tech 2016). This consists of moving toward (1) prevention (exercise, meditation, early checkups); (2) precision/personalized medicine; (3) predictive health; (4) participation (patients designing their health journey); and (5) partnership (all agencies working together). Done well, this vision would dramatically reduce costs. It would do so by focusing on individuals in the context of their communities, use advanced genomics medicine to tailor health solutions for the individual, predict an individual’s health pathway, work with patients so they could participate in their health decisions, and create health systems that work in partnership with each other. This challenges the generic, silo-based, problem-solving hospital health model. While the vision was brilliant, there was concern that this was too far in the future. How could we move forward? Using open space technology, ten working groups were created. Group leaders pitched the project ideas they wished to embark on. Of those ten, there were no takers for three of them. Seven groups developed proposals for next steps, such as developing a home-hospital, articulating system wide measurements for prevention, creating a one-stop health center, and so on. The director of health funded all seven projects. This created a quick planning cycle from vision to creation.

Of course, open space is not appropriate for every project. With a large professional group, Optometry Australia (n.d.), the vision was made real by participatory scenario planning not open space. Foresight workshops were run for optometrists throughout the nation. This process led to considerable buy-in. In the national planning day, optometrists articulated a range of activities and steps they asked the national body to initiate. This was the case for the Hawaii Judiciary as well. There, after a decade of futures activities—primarily focused on emerging issues analysis—a national conference articulated core strategic recommendations to the Chief Justice (Inayatullah 1991a). As there was deep inclusion of system actors in the process, it was relatively easy to gain legislative and executive approval for the changes.

Communify, a community organization supporting the most vulnerable, has used futures every five years to articulate its vision. The vision then is translated into the strategic plan, which the Board and the CEO then enact. Participants in the processes know that their work, while fun, is also productive; it will lead to change. The futures process is used since it is inclusive, takes a longer view of time, can identify risks and emergent opportunities, and as it is grounded in depth, it helps ensure that “culture does not eat strategy for breakfast.” This phrase is often ascribed to Peter Drucker (The Management Centre 2019).

The vision also becomes powerfully real through participatory backcasting. Developed as an analytic approach by John Robinson (1982) and as a participatory method by Elise Boulding (Boulding and Boulding 1995), in this process, the imagined future is accepted as the reality, for example, by 2030. The past then is remembered. I ask participants to remember what happened in 2028, 2025, 2020, and so forth. Individuals who offer suggestions then move to the spot on the floor reflecting distance from the year 2030. A time line quickly forms. Individuals then move based on logic, that is, if there is new legislation that occurred in 2025, then there needed to be a social movement around the legislation earlier. There needs to be research done as to its implications. Funding for these actions would have to have been sought much earlier in 2022. Backcasting takes the mystery of futures back to practical strategy. There are clear steps that need to be done, and a logical and rational narrative of the process to create 2030 is developed. If individuals find they are unable to create the backcast, it is almost always that 2030 is too soon for the vision, 2040 is needed, that is, more time is required for implementation.

As well, the future becomes more real—filled out—through the CLA process. This works as the preferred moves the abstract to reality. In the CLA process, the current reality is deconstructed at four levels. The first is the litany, the current measurement of reality, the current discourse. The system or the causative variables that create the litany are then debated. From there, the underlying worldview or worldviews are mapped. Finally, the underlying metaphor that supports the entire narrative is discovered. From here, the preferred future is developed through articulating the new metaphor, the new worldview, the new system (how reality—technology, society, regulations), and the new litany, the new preferred measurement system. The following examples are of an educational school system from the view of students (Edmund Rice Education Australia, n.d.). See Table 3.

Table 3.

Causal Layered Analysis of Catholic Education.

Catholic students in 2030	Today	Preferred future
Litany	Mandatory schooling Standardized, outdated, restricted	Flexible, unrestricted, global Everyone has access Relevant and adaptable
System	Segregated by status and gender. Restricted. Does not support individuality	Students control learning Increasing drive to learn Increasing access to education
Worldview	Recall and striving for results rather than knowledge	Knowledge is useful and adaptive
Metaphor	Generic suit	Tailor-made suit

This next CLA was developed by Catholic church leaders in Australia on the futures of the Church. See Table 4.

Table 4.

Catholic Identity.

Catholic identity in 2030	Current reality	Transformed
Litany	Traditional, maintain Catholic identity for the good of faith	Transformational, gospel-based spirituality
Systemic	Faith is under challenge. Faith and the Church are losing relevance. There is a lack of alignment between the laity and the clergy.	Re-awaken the spiritual search where traditional categories have failed to satisfy
Worldview	One true faith	Community at the service of the world
Metaphor	Fist	Open hand

While this works for large groups, making the vision real also can be enhanced through individual inner work. Individuals need to see themselves in that future. We often ask participants to write a day in their life in 2030. What are they actually doing? This definitional work again makes a vision, often vague for some, into something far more tangible.

The Metaphor

Once the vision starts to become real, we need to ensure that culture does not eat strategy for breakfast. In my experience, here lies the power of story, particularly of metaphors that help support the new vision, personal or collective.

As developed elsewhere, we have argued that metaphor is important.

Indeed decisive in policymaking and strategy. It is based on metaphor. “The metaphor,” Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset once wrote, “is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities . . . Its efficacy verges on magic” (Ortega y Gasset, n.d.). How one uses metaphor can define the results that are created (Thibodeau and Boroditsky 2011). As we know from many studies, if crime is described as a beast then there is greater likelihood of subjects arguing for jails and punishment. Presenting crime as a virus, then the intended policy result is more likely to be increased funding for education and poverty eradication (see, for example, Kelling 1991). In the USA, if one argues for welfare, then interest in the legislative bill drops dramatically (Cammett 2014; Stone 2012). If one suggests charity for the poor, then it goes up. The welfare discourse creates the image of the person who does not work hard, indeed, games the system. The other of the innocent poor.

I have described this process extensively elsewhere (Inayatullah and Milojević 2015; Milojević and Inayatullah 2015), particularly in work on CLA. With one organization that sought to identify future risks, while there was considerable intellectual excitement for this task, there was also an uneasiness—would it be of any use, would decision makers find the information valuable, they pondered?

During the workshop, we realized that the current metaphor was a “toothless tiger.” In this context, information about the future would only have an academic interest—which in policing means none at all. The toothless tiger story ensures no real actions can result. An alternative narrative that emerged as preferred was the guard dog. The guard dog is community friendly, and thus community engagement becomes a necessity. A guard dog has bite, i.e., it can protect citizens and hurt offenders if need be. But most significantly, the guard dog acts as an early warning system. Within this narrative frame, information about the future now can be sensible, of tangible use. Foresight suddenly not only makes rational sense, it can be a story that can make a difference. (Inayatullah 2018, 18)

Another large international organization desired to engage in futures activities, but was cynical given that the scenario work they already done had not yielded enough “bang for buck.” They were surprised that when they sent foresight surveys for field operatives to fill out, there were few responses. The insight came in the narrative phase of the process. While there were a number of competing metaphors, the one that resonated the most with the seventy or so participants was that of an old, blind, crippled elephant. However, one scientist commented, “the elephant is already dead: we are too busy filling out reports to notice.” Although the leading international organization on the topic, a division of the United Nations, it had failed to adjust to the changing world. When asked what type of organization should they become, what was an appropriate metaphor, the best response was: “We need to be like an Octopus. Our tentacles and brains should be everywhere. We need to become smart, swift, adaptable, and develop the ability to productively engage globally, everywhere.”

Thus, finding the right metaphor and linking it to strategy and how we measure the future we wish for are critical. In a project for the People’s Republic of China on educational futures, the sticking points, participants believed, were four fold. First was the litany, the institutional control of all education. Second was the system of compulsory, age-based, place-based education. Third was the Asian worldview that education leads to a job, which leads to a successful life. And finally, in the China case was the metaphor of the dragon contained by the Great Wall. After exploring alternative futures of education, business as usual, minor reforms, and radical changes, they articulated their preferred future. This was a new litany that allowed for multiple choices. The underlying system would offer multiple pathways for students. Education would be less about a job and more about learning tools that led to self-mastery, global-mastery and about creating alternative and desired futures. The underlying metaphor was the dragon pulling China to globalization. The Ministry would thus create more flexibility and adaptability. The great wall was the story of the past. In the transformed narrative, the dragon flies above the wall, seeing the planet, and helping citizens gain new skills not just as workers but as learners.

In a recent project, with a state deaf association, the CEO, Brett Casey, first embarked on a challenging narrative shift. He shifted the metaphor from losing one’s hearing to gaining deafness. He wished participants in a CEO leadership futures course to see hearing loss as a positive, as a possibility to expand community and culture (Futures Thinking and Strategy Development, Melbourne Business School, Melbourne, May 3, 2018). From this course, he then presented these ideas to his Board, with the intent to create an integrated community with hearing and deaf in partnership. Phase one in this process was to create a deaf center of excellence. The next phase is to expand this center to an integrated community.

The metaphor thus sets up the next phase of the strategy. It is decisive in setting direction, creating the new. The metaphor process is of use for groups and for individuals. With individuals, the CLA of the self process is used. We move from the litany of the problem, for example, “I don’t like where I work,” to the systemic causes, such as “they pay well but I have little impact.” From systemic issues we shift to the worldview, that is, what are the origins of this challenge? Does this challenge feel like any other life challenge? It could be feeling stuck in a previous job or issues in youth. In this real example, the senior economist of an International Bank said his metaphor was “golden handcuffs.” He earned well but felt trapped. Once the old metaphor is discovered, then a new one is created. In this case, it was the “Midas touch.” From the metaphor, the new strategy is created. For him, this meant not just giving financial advice, but leaving the bank and developing his own skills in the market, or creating a portfolio career.

In another case, a young detective said his current metaphor was “an Iphone in a room full of Nokias.” As he was in a hierarchical police system, his views were not heard even though he believed he had the talent and novel skill sets. His litany was not fitting in, believing himself to be better. The worldview was created earlier in his life in school. In the transformed narrative, the story shifted to the “co-designed chip-maker.” In this story, he was no longer passive but active. Hierarchy was transplanted by partnership.

In this phase, the goal is to transform through depth, to create a new organizational or personal life story, to move from what does not work, to what works.

The Mantra

However, the earlier process assumes that we know our future best, that our rational mind, the choosing self is wise. In the final stage, done exclusively with individuals, we move from the rational to the post-rational or the intuitive. Developed by the mystic, Dada Pranakrsnananda (2011), this process uses mantra—or the sound that transforms—to intuit the new metaphor (for more on the epistemological framework of this argument see Inayatullah 2002). Mantra becomes therapeutic, indeed, transformative, argues Dada (in a personal communication “Therapeutic meditation,” available from sinayatullah@gmail.com).

In the case of our youthful detective, when he imagined his new metaphor and connected it to a sacred sound what emerged was not a reversion to the Iphone in a room full of Nokias or the co-designed chipmaker but instead a warm loving sun. The mantra went to a deeper part of where he was—in this case, he was now outside the hierarchy-partnership worldview. He had shifted to a different framework.

One CEO, a cancer survivor, wished to leave her husband. She felt he had not been supportive during her health ordeal. Moreover, she now wished to travel the world while he preferred watching television all day. They had two different visions of the future. In the inner CLA process, she noted that not all her selves were aligned. Her “dutiful wife” self wanted to stay with him. Her explorer self wished to see the world, having seen how precious life was. Her current metaphor was “living life in a straight-jacket.” In the metaphor process, she saw herself departing in a Ferrari. However, as she visualized that, she noted her dutiful self was upset. As she sat quietly to reflect, a new image emerged. This was the open-door carriage. She was still to leave him, but the door to the carriage was wide open. She hoped he would join her. If not, she was set to go alone.

With one doctoral student who was unable to finish her PhD, in the rational part of the process, the metaphor shifted from “deer frozen by headlights” to “the keymaker.” In this transition, instead of being stuck not writing—she was afraid to finish her PhD, as she did not believe she had the skills to get a job—she saw herself graduating, and creating keys so that she was a successful academic, wife, and mother. When she went to the mantra state, the deer frightened by headlights become a horse bolting from the farmhouse.

A leadership consultant used the process with these results. Her effort was to link her three passions: (1) leadership for all, the masses, (2) leadership for activists who wished to transform the world, not just optimize performance, and (3) leadership for women in science, technology, engineering, and management. In the first, her metaphor was “behind the curtain.” In the second, it was the “harbinger.” In the third, it was the “mirror.” These three strategies reflected her three selves as well. When she imagined these metaphors and connected them to mantra—the new metaphor was the “walking stick.” For her, this was the “tool through which grace could flow.” It was a tool she could use to support her three narrative strategies.

The mantra process integrates and creates a new story for the participant. The technical aspects of the process are quite simple. This can be done with a facilitator who guides one through the inner discovery process or privately. First, the CLA of the self process is undertaken. Then, using either the old or new metaphor, the participants listen to a sacred sound—a mantra contextual to his or her life experience. For those challenged by the notion of the sacred, then the sound of “breathe in, breathe out” can be used. Once metaphor and mantra are juxtaposed, a new image, a new metaphor can often emerge. This then becomes the pull of the future, the new way forward. We then seek to develop systemic suggestions to support the new story.

Recently with one Chief Financial officer, her metaphor underwent a transmutation from “Atlas holding the world up” to “a community circle.” She understood this to mean that she was overly focused on her individualistic efforts to lead her team, based on her life story of coming from a disadvantaged community. When she juxtaposed the image of the metaphor with the sound of the mantra, the new image emerged. For her, this meant to change her leadership style from pushing her team to new challenges to working with them to create a different future.

The mantra process helps imagine creating a new future, an authentic future. It adds a feeling dimension to the rational act of creating alternative and preferred futures. It moves the participant to see and act differently in the present. This process can take time, however. One senior executive of a global beverage company was using foresight to help reduce the risks to their supply chain. In the mantra-metaphor process, he saw a different future for himself. Three years later, we had contact and he commented that he was now finally beginning to live the vision he had created for himself during the futures course. While vision to reality is a powerful indicator of success, Riel Miller goes further. He comments,

The vindication of a planning use of the future is one strong rationale. Equally important is the fact that they have imagined different futures. This alters what they see and do, and how they appreciate the future present when it arrives. (Comments on an earlier draft of this article, July 18, 2019)

Be the Future You Wish to See

The futures journey has an external and internal process. It certainly has stages and states, phases, and realizations. In my experience, a person or community experiencing injustice—it’s not fair—would find visioning and metaphor interesting, but one of their core selves, core identities would ultimately not find it relevant. An external systemic shift to reduce unfairness is required or theories that suggest that is possible. Or it needs a narrowing of the grand vision to one’s zone of control, otherwise visioning or scenarios would be fanciful, out-of-the-box thinking that leads nowhere.

Once there is some progress—the world is, or is perceived as fairer—then they often wish to reduce risk to the new system they have created. Once risk is mitigated, there is a desire to grow, to enhance possibilities. As Dada Pranakrsnananda has suggested, “the mind wants more, indeed, more is the metaphor of the mind” (from a personal conversation, January 2005). With this comes the need to explore alternative futures, to test each future for robustness, to get out of the single solution box. From here, we can empower using the preferred future. Communities and individuals believe they can create a desired future. They can imagine a world they wish to live in. The vision imagined, however, without a process to create the new reality can lead to despair, cynicism. Our task as futurists is then to help link the vision to day-to-day. The vision can become meaningful real—meaningful and powerful—through action learning, backcasting and the CLA process of external and internal change, of metaphor and system. However, as individuals and groups begin the task of system change, it is critical that the narrative also shifts, otherwise culture will eat strategy for breakfast. The narrative explains, gives insights, opens up new worlds, makes the complicated, complex, and allows the seeds of change to flourish. However, ultimately, the collective is but individuals. It is we that must change. We are the culture. Metaphor and mantra can play a crucial role in helping individuals become the future they wish to see.

Futures thinking can thus help us understand that while a castle surrounded by hungry wolves is often our current reality, it does not have to be.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr. Patricia Kelly, Dr. Riel Miller, and Russell Clemens for their gracious editorial assistance. I would like to also thank Dr. Jeanne Hoffman and Nicola Cooper for comments. This article is based on a presentation at UNESCO, Paris, June 26, 2019. It is originally published by UNESCO as part of its research paper series.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sohail Inayatullah

Author Biography

Sohail Inayatullah is the UNESCO chair in Futures Studies, USIM. He is professor at Tamkang University, Taiwan and adjunct professor, the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. His most recent books are: Transformation 2050: the alternative futures of Malaysian Universities and Asia 2038: ten disruptions that change everything.

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