Topic: Mapping the past to predict the future
Program: Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan
Conducted by: Jesse Mulligan
Complete Audio Transcription
Jesse: (00:00):
Studying the future is not about predicting it, but rather understanding the forces that shape it. Universities all over the world now teach future studies, giving students the tools to explore the future. The way historians study the past. Dr. Sohail is the UNESCO chair and future studies and a world-leading authority on how to develop our foresight muscles to anticipate change and plan for it. He helps governments and organizations grapple with some big questions. Can we stop global warming? Will we switch from being meat eaters to mostly vegetarian? How will the shape of families change in the next 50 years? Well, he is in Christchurch right now to hold some workshops with Think Beyond a Future-Focused Leadership organization. And Sohail joins me now. Hello there. Welcome to New Zealand.
Sohail: (00:55):
Uh, thanks so much. Great to be here.
Jesse: (00:57):
Uh, I know you’re hugely respected, uh, in your field and we’re very privileged to have some time to talk to you, so thanks for your time today. Um, is thinking about the future a natural human instinct?
Sohail: (01:11):
Uh, the kind of science suggests no, we’re more comfortable with the past is kind of what’s called Velcro thinking. Some trauma happens to us, some pain. And so that becomes our set point, our emotional intellectual equilibrium. So we go back, futures thinking suggests, can you use vision as a way to help you decide what you should do today? So I won’t say it’s counterintuitive, but it is, as you suggested, a muscle that we have to work on develop.
Jesse: (01:41):
Yes, it sounds that way. So we are not inclined to do it. We must teach ourselves to do it. And how difficult is that? Um, what do we have to unlearn?
Sohail: (01:52):
Uh, well, it’s, part of it is a conceptual framework, right? So if we look at indigenous people, that the notion of 200 or present that helps from grandmother to grandchildren, grandfather of grandchildren who has suddenly moved us away from, uh, the future as an abstract idea to when you’ve placed it in future generations, it’s easier to access, easier to understand. And most people are very clear what type of planet do they want to leave for their grandchildren? That’s easier to access. It’s more family based. And I think there’s an emotional connectivity to it that makes futures thinking far less abstract than someone would want us to think.
Jesse: (02:32):
Nonetheless, you need some training, right? For future studies. You need to equip yourself with the tools and, and work out how to use them.
Sohail: (02:43):
Yeah. In, my approach is a book called What Works, uh, the Practice of Foresight. And basically, what I’ve seen over quite a few decades, you first have to start off seeing the future as a learning journey as opposed to a prediction. So it’s a prediction then people want us to give us the right answer. And as you hinted earlier, uh, the right answer, you may know from today, but the world is changing. We’re part of the way the world is being redesigned and recreated. So prediction becomes problematic. So what do you do? Well, you go from seeing how can I use the future to learn about today? That’s step one. Then we ask ourselves, what’s the used future? What are we doing today that’s not working, but we keep on doing it? So some people say education is the factory. Many people say it’s hierarchy just for the sake of hierarchy.
Sohail: (03:35):
Some people say it’s the nine-to-five job framework. So every organization, every country has certainly used futures. And so that’s once we say, Well, what’s the used future? What are we doing that doesn’t work? That frees up space for doing what does work. Now, if we’ve done that well, then the next part is, oh, what’s coming down the road? These are the disruptions. What are some of the weak signals? The emerging issues, we don’t know for sure, but we have a hint. Something’s about to change. And then we start to explore those in selves. If this occurs, what might it lead to? So again, what you mentioned earlier, what if 30 to 50% of the protein comes from cell agriculture or new sources of protein? How will that impact livestock, farmlands, uh, national innovation? And then we move towards scenarios. So with scenarios, we’re saying we don’t know, but here are four possible pictures, four ways of thinking no change, marginal, adaptive, and radical one. So now we’ve gone from what doesn’t work to what are some possibilities. If we’ve done that well, we can go towards what’s our preferred future. Cause this is going from I can’t change the world. There are threats to what might be some opportunities, and some possibilities, and there are some steps forward. But I’ll let you if you wanna respond to that and I can go on with the next steps.
Jesse: (05:00):
Yes, thank you. And, and hearing you talk about that, um, what, what’re the terms that cellular protein, um, or cellular grand, basically looking at replacements for traditional meat. Um, interesting to have you talking about that here in New Zealand. And I was gonna ask you about the value of future thinking. I guess if you’re a farmer or otherwise involved in New Zealand’s primary sector industry, it would be fairly obvious to you why you might want to think about the future because it will affect what you are doing today and, and maybe the role, um, you see yourself having in future years.
Sohail: (05:39):
Yeah, so part of the threats I ran, I won’t say which country, a project with the farming federation and I’m, you know, there was a three-day, two-day thing. So there are lots of very complex, great argument scenarios. But, one of the funnier workshops was when we said, Okay, how will this impact the seller agriculture farming industry? One group said, I said, What’s your strategy? Well, it’s obvious we just go kill the vegans, <laugh>. And I said I said, Well, you know, legally you can’t do that. What’s your strategy number two? Oh, he said, That’s easy too. I said, What’s that? Well, we’ll kill the scientist. I said, Okay, well you really can’t do either one. Is there a third strategy? They said, Yeah, kill the city-based coffee drinkers, <laugh>. I said, Okay, I understood your threats before. What’s about the city-based coffee drinkers said, Well, they’re early adopters of new technologies.
Sohail: (06:27):
Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And finally, the conclusion was, we feel under threat in terms of salaries, diseases, and pandemics. This is one more threat we don’t want to hear about. And then my task with the game, Okay, you don’t want to hear about it, I get it, but it’s may become a huge trillion-dollar industry. If that’s the case, what can you do to use it wisely? Have the technology actually, uh, optimize what your, you know, your products make ’em safer? Or do you help in the transition from meat to post-meat as we’re seeing from fossil fuel to renewables? These are tough transitions, but in case there is one, are you ready to make some opportunities out of it or are you gonna say it’s never gonna happen? So if futures thinking, we don’t quite know the future, but we have some hints. So the notion then is, okay, if this is gonna occur, should my country, my farm actually be looking to be a player in the game?
Sohail: (07:27):
Or even better can we be the best player in the game? So Holland, which was leaving this leading this, of course, is a leading agricultural exporter and they’re disrupting their own industry. They’re saying, We, we know we’re the best at agriculture, but what could disrupt it? Well, obviously southern agriculture can, So it’s, let’s lead in both. So now we have two horses and we’re gonna win in one of those. So that’s to me, a more clever way to use foresight, not just to make the castle optimize your castle, but to leave the castle, put the drawbridge down, and look for other forests to actually innovate in.
Jesse: (08:05):
This is a more negative example, but when you were talking about that, it made me think of cigarette companies and, and the way they started, um, getting into the vaping game. They saw what was going to happen and they thought, Well, let’s dominate the thing that’s here to replace us.
Sohail: (08:20):
So this, I mean, that’s where scenarios are good. Exactly your point. I was working with a large car company in the region. Scenario one was bigger in Boulder, right? Where you, might, if you’re a detractor, call car obesity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> scenario two was future washing, let’s just call it tailored cars, where you change the facade, and make it look green. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we put some nice paintings on it and three became, and I said, Okay, that’s your marginal change where you’re just doing that to keep your market and making customers feel better about themselves. Is there a third scenario? And they said, Well, the adaptive, I said, What’s adaptive? Will we move towards greener driverless pods and start to rethink the city and scenario forwards that radical, which was too far, right? I mean, radical is too far for most companies and people. This said, Well, let’s imagine a world after the car. Maybe our new product is mobility. So we become like a telco selling a subscription as opposed to you buying a car in aloha. Mm-hmm.
Jesse: (09:17):
<affirmative>.
Sohail: (09:17):
So the thing they got out of it, and I got out of it thinking, well, we can decide where do you wanna play on no change, marginal, adaptive radical, Those are four possible areas of, you know, uh, innovation. You can decide, no, we actually wanna keep on selling tobacco and we’ll do the vaping just to make sure some people are happy. But it essentially keeps us going. And you think, well, okay, that’s keeping you going. But I think what uh, the former CEO Pepsi said, Well, aren’t we here to develop a planetary purpose? Is not just about a sugar-coated drink. We’re here to actually make a difference. And she said, You can’t decide what markets do, but you can shape ’em for the better if you try. And I thought that was very possible. And so when we were working with them, she started this process, What would it look like if we changed who we are to the greatest wellness company in the world? Which goes to step four. After you do the scenarios, what’s your vision? Where do you wanna be? What type of company, or country person do you want to be in the future? So you’re guided by the future in terms of where you could go.
Jesse: (10:28):
I’m talking to Dr. Saha Ella, who’s the UNESCO chair and future studies, a world-leading authority on how to develop our foresight muscles. And he’s in Christchurch to hold workshops with Think Beyond a Future Focused Leadership organization. You gave us an example of the idea that is too radical. Is that a useful way to think about the future though for businesses and organizations and individuals, to consider the wacky idea? Might it get our thinking into an area of imagination that’s useful for making a realistic plan?
Sohail: (11:02):
So it depends on your role, right? My role with the future is to be radical, right? I have to push them. I was working with a very large company, a huge, a large country. It was a budget and they were looking at the future of museums and at the future of art and museums. And so in the workshop, it came off, what if art was designed by AI, was the role of the artists. Now, this was a year ago that seemed very radical that mm-hmm <affirmative>. And they said, Okay, that’s perfect for 2050. Let’s rethink the large museums in the world that have AI paintings. What happens to the artists? What happens to Mon Lisa? And they had a billion dollar budget behind the, behind us to rethink the museum. Now that was 2050. We already know what’s going on today, right? I mean the whole notion of AI software winning awards for best art. So our role, the radical one seems far away, but sometimes the technological, rate of change can be so quick. It’s tomorrow. So it’s really pushing them. So the far-away imagination isn’t so far
Jesse: (12:07):
Why you do encourage people to break up the future, uh, into different time spans and different horizons?
Sohail: (12:17):
That’s helpful. So I mean the common thinking is uh, three horizons, right? Today, Oh, I’m too busy long term. My vision and midterm is the area of possibility, uncertainty, anxiety, and fear, but also here are areas we can change. So that’s a good business tool. But at the same time, I think it’s more to know all of us live in different time horizons all the time. Some days we’re future-focused, some days we’re present-focused. If you’re saving for retirement, you’re of course future-focused. So I think one of the things we try to rethink is the nature of time. If you’re into mindfulness meditation, then every day you’re spending some time in a timeless time. Outside of time when you’re doing things you truly love, you’re no longer in the future or the past, you are in the extended present. So I think the useful part of futures thinking is to step back, and look at the way you’re timing the world.
Sohail: (13:13):
Most of us live in colonized time. We’ve adopted a view of time that’s not ours. So I know when I was young, we moved to the US and the first thing I learned is that second grader was the early bird gets the worm. So that’s a metaphor of time, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, be quick, be first, be agile. And that may work. But then after a while you think, well, you know, do I really want to be eating worms <laugh>? Do I really want to get up so early? Is that really the purpose of my life? To think what’s a better metaphor? And that’s actually, once you do the visioning, we’re pretty clear visions and strategies where they occur or don’t occur do so because it’s a supportive metaphor or a metaphor. Let’s suggest we shouldn’t change. And everyone has that. Today we are with Sport New Zealand and working on the future of sport in New Zealand.
Sohail: (14:01):
And I think one of the metaphors that people set is no longer so useful cuz the goal is inclusion. Sports for all. Exercise for all well-being for all is a metaphor of the gladiator. The gladiator leads to heroism the Michael Jordan of basketball for example. But it’s individualism, it’s rugged, it’s competitive and there’s some value to that. But it doesn’t help you create a wellbeing, culture, wellbeing society. So then we see the gladiator metaphor gives you strength and power and success in some ways, but it fails in terms of creating society of wellbeing where everyone is healthy and diabetes level keep on falling <laugh>. So then you have to find what’s a new, a better story. So I know in one country we were working with, they went from a poor country and now they’re I think the third or fourth richest in the world. I said, So what’s your issue?
Sohail: (14:48):
They said, Our issue is diabetes. We went from farming, fishing, we’re working all this. So diabetes was not an issue to now we got so wealthy you were watching TV. And what’s I said, what’s the core metaphor? The core, the core metaphor is we live to eat. And so the purpose of life has become now the six, seven meals a day. And that may give you temporary joy. It work when you’re working 12 hours in the field and now in our world, it’s okay. The new metaphor is the purpose is eat for life, eat to live. So living becomes wellbeing, healthy community being with nature. And thus we have to rethink taxation for sugar, rethink plant based economy, rethink, subsidizing, uh, uh, foods that aren’t good for you. So they said we need a new story. Purpose of eating is for life and we have to change our taxation system. Incentivizing local food, incentivizing whole range of green buildings, et cetera. Um, urban farming. So this is the last part of the fust thing is you go from here’s the world you don’t want, here’s the vision I want what’s my supportive story? Which increases the plausibility of it happening that often, more often than not, it’s a narrative that inspires that coheres that helps, that resonates with the world we want.
Jesse: (16:13):
That’s interesting because um, I mean a metaphor seems like just a nice thing to have a nice way of thinking about something. But I guess what you are saying is that you’ll be operating under a metaphor whether you like it or not. So you may as well pick one that um, that suits your desired outcome.
Sohail: (16:33):
Now your point is brilliant. I mean I think, I mean whether you’re a critical theorist and read lock off or an indigenous person and live in story stories define us, stories create us. I remember during the global financial crisis, Financial Times had an amazing article. This said there’s a crisis in search of a narrative. None of us knows what it is. Huh? Is this because of saving high rate of savings in East Asia? Is this a shift to Asia? Is it just about mortgage rates? Is it a financial crisis? Is it actually a creative destruction, new tech? So no one knew, is it a tech crisis, a rise of East Asia, a minor mortgage crisis or is a financial system in per is the metaphor they used was given the whole system a good crash, they decided let’s save Wall Street, not Main Street. So they saved Wall Street.
Sohail: (17:22):
But I think we’re still living in the peril of a system that doesn’t quite work. So the metaphors are stories, but there’s stories that help us understand the world. So I was working with W H O in Mongolia and is that they did the futures work, but for the people there, they needed stories that made sense to them and their stories didn’t make sense to me. Cuz I’m not Mongolian. I think one of the ones was neither can nor carrot don’t make your mouth the garbage can. And they said as they went from a command control economy to a market economy, they went for living in the steps to living in the city. Their food, their diet changed such that they lived on junk food. Mm. So I’d never heard of the metaphor of don’t make your mouth a garbage can. And so when it came to time we had one senior director of a hospital, she said, uh, she used to be the step girl, s t e p P e working in the Mongolian steps.
Sohail: (18:18):
There’s no sense of time there. This is before lunch, after lunch, that’s it, <laugh>. And now she’s right, she’s there and now she’s a city girl. And to optimize her strategy in a hospital, she had to change her story cause the step world makes sense, but not in a hospital with covid ramp you can’t just show up some day. The hospitals have rules and regulations and efficiency out there, efficiency imperatives. So what they got from it, in terms of national strategy on health, we have to use stories that make sense to our citizens, our patients, our doctors, our surgeons. When the best one, one head of a hospital, she said to succeed she had become the golden fish making everyone happy. And that helped her rise to the top. But given the crisis in health systems, it no longer worked co the golden fish actually can’t make everyone happy.
Sohail: (19:13):
The health system has so many different stakeholders. Her better story about herself was the bamboo forest. The bamboo tree allow the proms to right go through her like bamboo was flexible, could meet the needs, but the bamboo’s also strong could actually in board meetings say actually no, I can fund this but I can’t fund that. And so what was unique for me was of course learning about core stories from a different culture. And if we don’t do that, then we get the just sense. So the justice is the colonized time. I went on a new, I think da A L L e, you know, one of those new AI art sites. And I think, okay, let me for this talk I gave today for Sport New Zealand. Let me just Google sport robot future, let’s see what the algorithm said. And what came out was two gladiator robots trying to kill each other.
Sohail: (20:07):
And so I said, okay, so the official reading of the future from whoever planned it design and algorithm, it is basically sport is about robots, cloud ideas attacking each other. So I thought, well I don’t wanna live with that future. So then it becomes imperative if I’m at, how do I redesign the software, the algorithms so they better resonate or express my values. So if you’re an indigenous person, those may be a community, those may be nature, those may be spirit. And clearly those weren’t represented in that. So that’s what decolonizing the future or to use the future to better fit the world you wish for becomes quite powerful in how we design technology. The technology design, I would argue is always based on story.
Jesse: (20:55):
So Hal, just a minute or two left And um, we’ve talked a lot about mapping the future as it applies to institutions or organizations, but anything you’d like to leave us with in terms of how to apply it to one’s personal life and, and why futures studies is important at a personal level?
Sohail: (21:12):
So the core part as a personal level is again, you know, you can do, here are four scenarios for your own life. But the personal part is very powerful. I was working with law one law enforcement agency and there were senior detectives in your junior detective. And I’ve said this story before, the junior detective, his issue was, you know, feeling a bit ostracized, right? But also feeling better than everyone. And that got expressed in his battle between being inferior and being superior. But when it came telling a story, he, he’s an iPhone in a room full of Nokia, an iPhone and a room full of Nokia. Now the other detectives heard this and they all put their heads down and they go, What is smart Alec kid? And, and then he said, Well actually that story expresses my today it doesn’t make me feel good. I said, What’s the better story that gets you the world you want?
Sohail: (21:58):
And he said, Aha. A co-designing chip maker. So now I’m collecting my youth experience with the knowledge of the senior detectives we’re co-designing and finally said, go to a meditative state. We did a little meditation and now what do you see? And he said he saw the warm sun. So he went from feeling agro, tension between them and him, more inclusive scenario. And finally it hit him that actually wherever you are, people remember you in terms of how you feel, how you connect with them. And so he moved to very much a spiritual inner experience. So the main point there was he applied futures thinking to his own storytelling and found a better story and a better way to live and be
Jesse: (22:45):
Enjoy your time in New Zealand. I so appreciate, you having a conversation with us this afternoon, Sohail and all the best for the future.
Sohail: (22:54):
Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Thanks. This was great. Thank you.
Jesse: (22:57):
Dr. Sohail Inayatullah UNESCO chair in future studies and a world-leading authority on how to develop our foresight muscles. He’s in Christchurch to hold workshops with a New Zealand organization called Think Beyond, a Future-Focused Leadership Organization.
This is a System generated transcription.
