Unbounded Futures

I have been trying to articulate my world view of futures and how that impacts what I say and do in my futures work. I always start my presentations with the whakatauki:

Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua. 

I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past.

Why do I do that? Because I don’t see the future as being something that comes next, but rather a whole way of being, a constant movement and a futures fluent approach to taking action. I have called my emerging explanation Unbounded Futures, a model I have developed to articulate my futuring.

The diagram below shows three parts to Unbounded Futures although they are essentially woven together and are in constant interplay. I will explain each part separately as I seek to clarify my own thinking. This is an emerging idea based on many conversations rather than a research piece.

The overall approach

The headings of pasts, presents and futures set the scene in their plurality. Each is represented by many parts and are complex by the very nature of being human. We bring many selves to futuring and these are in constant momentum. The white dotted line around the diagram, with arrows going both ways captures this movement. It also acknowledges that to be truly unbounded the dotted line would not really exist, or at least it would be permeable.

The diagram also hat tips to polarities, with constant recalibration and motion. The focus is on a polarity to be managed not a problem to be solved. There is no one answer. This is the space of sensemaking in uncertain times. Rather than bringing certainty it invites us to be anticipatory, to consider many possibilities and hence to become a more resilient leader of ambiguity.

Pasts

An indigenous worldview always places value on who has gone before. This is passed down through the generations through pūrākau (storytelling) and sharing of ancestral journeys. I acknowledge my many Māori colleagues and the indigenous world views of Oceania in helping inform my futures work. In particular,I would like to acknowledge the Māori future makers of Tokona te Raki and Ōtautahi Futures Collective colleagues who continue to share their pasts and bring this learning to life.

Intergenerational thinking is a natural process. I have used histories to remind myself that our journeys are different and we may have different views of the same historical event. These differing remembrances are the result of many factors, some of which are shown in the diagram. Changes in thinking may be influenced by our own experiences over time. For example, my ‘history’ experience at school was mostly focused on the dominant pasts of our country and it is only in later years that I understood that there are many other pasts. I have added contested pasts to remind myself that I am better when I appreciate that there is controversy to be acknowledged. Rediscovered pasts considers things which may have been hidden from view or that are becoming known only as re-indigenising unfolds. 

Data also has a place in the past because there are many ‘facts’ such dates in history, population statistics, weather events and disasters.

Taiao

Taiao refers to the wider environment that contains and surrounds us.

The National Science Challenge explains Taiao really well. It describes four major components:

• Whenua (soil and land)
• Wai (all freshwater bodies and their connections)
• Āhuarangi (climate across time)
• Koiora (all living communities: human, plant, animal)

Thinking about the environment in this way encourages us to aspire to a future where humanity and the natural world sustain each other in an interconnected relationship of respect, and where we all act as land stewards. This is increasingly the space I am interested in connecting with.

Holding the past gently

Pasts is a space where utmost care is needed as these conversations can re-introduce unwanted or traumatising pasts. This is a space of acknowledgement and dialogue, listening and seeking to understand. In my work this is held gently. My place is not to dig deep into pasts but to help people consider how pasts influence presents and therefore futures. 

My own pasts relate to having grown up in Ōtautahi, Christchurch a small city in Aotearoa New Zealand. Five generations ago my ancestors travelled from England and Scotland to settle in this land. My family, my experiences, my education and quite possibly you have impacted my life, my ways of thinking and how I walk into the Presents space.

Presents

I have split Presents into two parts. At the top are the macrospaces that connect us globally or within the larger concept than self. Our times are fragile and are constantly changing. What happens in other parts of the world and beyond impacts on what is happening in our now. Taio also features as a living environment that breathes and exists in all spaces.

The other part of presents is the inner present. The most important futures work I support is connected to personal futures and exploring our own assumptions. This is informed by our pasts and in turn constrains our anticipation. I also note that for some this may be an individualistic view of self, while for others this may be a collective ‘we’ of self.  

Futures fluency is grown when we challenge our present assumptions and world views and actively explore other’s world views. The questions we ask are mental floss and the more we stretch our thinking in this space the more we develop our resiliency to lead in uncertainty. This is a critical leadership habit.

Cheryl Doig

Futures

The Futures section of Unbounded Futures draws on those who developed the Futures Cone in its iterations – Somporn Sangchai, Bezold & Hancock, and Joseph Voros.

Much has been written about this so I won’t go into detail as the link will take you to the futures cone, its use and its history. I will mention several points though:

• Potential refers to anything beyond the present moment. I like this idea because it can be near future or distant future.
• Acknowledgements of the history of the futures cone are mentioned above and whenever the diagram is discussed.
• I find the ‘Ps’ easy to remember. I have been asked several times why the Preferable futures area is down the bottom as people think it may not include the preposterous, possible, plausible and probable futures. It actually does include all of these if you explore the diagram carefully and the nesting of each cone. I suspect that it is placed lower so it is more easily seen?

I find this comment from Voros’ article very useful in describing nested classes of futures:

“The above descriptions are best considered not as rigidly-separate categories, but rather as nested sets or nested classes of futures, with the progression down through the list moving from the broadest towards more narrow classes, ultimately to a class of one—the ‘projected’. Thus, every future is a potential future, including those we cannot even imagine—these latter are outside the cone, in the ‘dark’ area, as it were.”

Voros suggests asking questions that go wide: “What preposterously ‘impossible’ things might happen?” This is a great mental floss question! I love to add in a ‘What if…’ activity into my workshops encouraging participants to be weird, push the fringes and make others gasp. Of course some things that seem preposterous may spark a new idea and what one person sees as preposterous does not seem so for others! My favourite book in this space right now is:

Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan to Rewild Every Planet on Earth – Steve Mushin – you need to check it out. It is quirky, has amazing illustrations and will definitely have some ideas you never dreamed of…

What Next?

The Unbounded Futures diagram is iterative, a conversation starter and an invitation. I have already received feedback that has altered the text above and I know more changes will eventuate. There are some new horizons being developed using digital systems in creating a digital map more reminiscent of a dynamic GPS. I look forward to this work being shared by those developing it. Meanwhile I recognise that my unbounded diagram has lines all over it! [V2 26 August 2024]

I also want to note that this post is raw rather than highly polished. Increasingly, I find myself in the space of exploring what it means to be #uniquelyhuman. So I will leave you with the following disclaimer:

Any imperfections in writing are my own. No AI has been used in the creation of this document.

cheryl doig