Santanu Ganguly’s Post

🌟 #Why is the foresight market expanding so rapidly? Over the past 5 years, foresight has been trending 📈. Google searches for “what is foresight” and “strategic foresight” are at all-time highs since the early 2000s. And there’s a surge of new professionals entering the field. But why? 🤔 Could it be because we are in a #winter-era? According to Kairos Future's framework for institutional and societal cycles, societies move through cyclical phases, like ’seasons’. Right now, all the signs point to a period of ”Winter”❄️ — trust in institutions is falling, uncertainty is everywhere, and people are searching for new directions and visions. 🌌 Good or bad for foresight professionals? 🤷🏽♀️ Jan Berger from Themis Foresight worries that a "mushrooming field of #futures” threatens the quality standards of foresight work, risking how "future scenarios are developed." Why does this matter? 🚨 The danger of utopian thinking It matters because history warns us about the risks of calling for a #Messiah with idealistic futures in uncertain times—think Plato’s Philosopher King or Marxist utopia. Unrealistic solutions to complex problems rarely lead to sustainable change. As #JayOgilvy wisely said during the #DubaiFutureForum, “Developing plausible positive scenarios is hard work!" 🛠️ Utopias are limited; #pragmaticutopias are where real change begins.” But creating them requires tackling problems we’ve never solved before. This is a #craft foresight is well positioned for. ✨ #Foresight isn’t about dreaming—it’s about shaping actionable, credible futures. In a ”winter” era, foresight can help societies navigate uncertainty and create pathways for renewal and progress 🌍❄️ So, the question foresight professionals should ask is: How can we ensure the foresight #boom remains purposeful and impactful, helping usher in the next cycle of spring? 🌱 And what skills need to be coupled with foresight to ensure this? My own money goes on understanding #history as the study of change and #institutionaldevelopment 😇 Rikard Molander Mats Lindgren Daniel Lindén Magnus Kempe Axel Gruvaeus Ben M. Najafi Joanna Lepore #foresight #futurethinking #futurist #thefourthturning

The growing foresight market dilemma: Are we predicting or really oversimplifying the futures? With the influx of new voices and methodologies in the foresight market, there is a big danger of oversimplification and inconsistent methodologies. What will it take for foresight professionals to decode the uncertainties and tackle the problems we have never solved before #foresight #futuresthinking#standardframeworks

𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 = 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 + 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬 + 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞 is a common way to conceptually understand the components of competence 🧠 If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from years of running foresight training – both open courses and organisational training programs – it’s that ‘𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞’ is by far the most difficult component of the ‘competence equation’ when building foresight competence. In this respect, ‘𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞’ isn’t just about personal mindset and motivation. Sometimes, it’s actually more about how the organisational culture you are part of shapes or incentivises your attitude towards foresight. Short-term incentive structures, weird hierarchical dynamics, or official and unofficial ways of ‘doing things’ often get in the way of foresight. Anyway... When it comes to ‘𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞’, maybe the above equation should be rewritten to the following: 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 = (𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞 + 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬) * 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞 ✨ Because if ‘𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞’ equals 0, the ‘𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞’ also goes to 0! This is purely homespun philosophy based on my own experience 😉 Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies - Daria (Dasha) Krivonos - Lasse Jonasson - Tamira Vámosi-Snell #foresight #strategicforsight #futures

INNOVATION GOES ON UNDERSTAND & KNOW

Most Beautiful Transformation by Peculiarly Positive Perspectives Most Beautiful Transformation A beautiful transformation is a journey of change that brings personal development, environmental restoration, and positive societal change. It can be seen in an individual overcoming adversity to achieve success or the restoration of a natural landscape. Statistics and personal stories further illustrate the beauty of transformations, inspiring others to embrace their own journey of growth and bring hope to the world. via YouTube https://lnkd.in/dyxPqRDA

Not knowing is uncomfortable. We humans like to verify everything empirically. We crave certainty. Enduring the unresolved can be distressing. Yet, we can harness this unpredictability to drive novel ideas and original responses. The permission to wander around, imagine, ask questions, and challenge assumptions makes the magic happen. #DisruptWithImpact  #changemakers #foresight #assumptions #creativity

Venturing into new experiences can be thrilling, but it's consistency that truly fuels growth. Like a seedling breaking through soil, persistence allows us to unfurl into resilient, seasoned practitioners. With each challenge and triumph, we evolve. #thoughtoftheday #consistencymatters

Rekindling Foresight! #foresight #futures #futuresthinking #socialforesight #strategicleadership #strategicforesight Our perceptions significantly impact how we see the future, and a fundamental change in perception enhances our capacity to envision new and different futures. According to Slaughter and Bussey (2012), numerous options abound in the future, presenting us with multiple opportunities. Our expectations, cultural background, and prior experiences impact how we perceive, organize, and interpret information. They contend that, in addition to studying change, understanding long-term continuities (such as language, culture, tradition, human needs, etc.) in human lives and cultures is essential to understanding the future. One of the natural and inherent abilities of the human brain-mind system is foresight. Slaughter (2005) uses three different tiers to address the idea of foresight. The first is Pragmatic Foresight, which is set in traditional thinking and doing things better when organizations search for more effective ones. While Progressive Foresight aims to overcome obstacles by doing things differently, third-level foresight, or Civilizational Foresight, looks beyond existing paradigms by thinking anew. Foresight in individuals is grounded on the human brain-mind system that has an inbuilt capacity to conceptualize the past, comprehend the present, and project and visualize the future. Foresight or future literacy can be developed in people, best in young children at an elementary level, and made valuable and applicable to the real world by building on this innate capacity and widespread use of futures concepts and ideas, as well as by adding futures tools and methodologies to a futures discourse (Slaughter, 2005). With Social Foresight, we can actively and responsibly work toward a better future for humanity by envisioning the future we want. How has the educational system in your country fostered foresight and future-focused thinking, particularly in young people? References Slaughter, R. A. (2005). Pathways to Foresight: Session 1: The Making of a Futurist. Bimillennial. [Video]. https://lnkd.in/e4uAmANH Slaughter, R. A. (2005). Pathways to Foresight: Session 6: How to Create Social Foresight. Bimillennial. [Video]. https://lnkd.in/e9suC8ar Slaughter, R. A., & Bussey, M. (2012). Futures thinking for social foresight.

Let’s address the elephant in the room. In leadership circles, referring to our current era as “unprecedented times” has become quite possibly the most precedented thing of all. It has become a staple of business meetings around the world. Yet it is entirely misconceived. Throughout human history, we have perceived upheaval as novel – yet we have adapted, using the same ancient skillsets that allowed Homo sapiens to rise from its humble beginnings. Our ancestors endured “unprecedented” turmoil after turmoil by repeatedly deploying the same ancestral cognitive toolkit. Consider the sheer scale of the changes that lie in our past. Prehistoric climate shifts forced unplanned migrations. Empires rose, then collapsed. The Black Death pandemic wiped out up to 200 million people across Eurasia and North Africa in the 14th century; contemporary accounts described the devastation in apocalyptic terms, yet it was ultimately contained through the timeless practices of quarantine, sanitation, and building herd immunity. Humanity’s resilience persisted despite existential dread. We have endured a litany of industrial, political and social revolutions – from the Renaissance to the Age of Enlightenment to the digital era – each heralded as shattering the fabric of civilization. In each phase, human adaptability has carried civilization through. It is why – as we battle with our own disorienting waves of change today and strive to lead our organizations through the uncertainty – we are well advised to refocus on evergreen leadership capabilities. A leadership approach built on the constants of #reason, #empathy and #collectiveeffort will help us shape #positive #transformations. #leadership #empathy #people #culture #csuite

A word I've been thinking a lot about recently is: “AND”. One of the things that people tend to get wrong about the #future is that they think of things in terms of "or" -- "this future" or "that future." When we know the answer is "and". 📈 Trend AND Counter-trend (occurring not in spite of each other but because of each other) 👯 People AND Technology (both evolving together and separately) 💡 Imagination AND Inertia 🔼 Simplicity AND Complexity 👨💻 Real-world AND Digital (and virtual) ...and the list goes on. We live in a world of "and's" -- understanding "and" means understanding nuance. It means learning how to hold divergent opinions and divergent futures together in your mind. "And" will continue to define the future. We cannot let linear, straight-line extrapolated thinking get in the way of that. #future #futureofthought #thenewhumanfrontier #foresight