Foxy futurists & how to become one
Clem Sunter
Human & Rousseau
To Steve Biko
A genius ahead of his time
“The great powers of the world may
have done wonders in giving the world
an industrial and military look, but the great
gift still has to come from Africa – giving
the world a more human face.”
Steve Biko at the Ecumenical Lay Training Centre,
Edendale, Natal, in 1971
Introduction
This book primarily consists of articles I have written each week between May 2009 and September 2010 for the News24 website. The internet is a wonderful medium through which to express your views, because you get instant feedback in the comments made by readers of your article. They are raw, uncensored, positive and negative. The internet democratises the word as well as spreading it.
Although some of my columns are written as an impulsive reaction to an event that has occurred in the world or South Africa, I have a subconscious theme running through all of them. I want people to become foxy futurists, where – like the fox – they are constantly scanning the environment around them to identify opportunities and threats that arise from the changes taking place. But – more than that – I want them to respond with action, an adaptation of behaviour, strategy or tactics to suit the new circumstances. It is the speed of response that ensures the survival of the fox and makes it one of the most successful of species. Likewise with human beings and companies.
I would like to thank Cathryn Rees, who originally invited me to become a columnist for News24, and Aneeqah Emeran, who has assisted me with the production of the articles on a weekly basis. Reading the articles of my fellow columnists on the website, I am very proud to be part of the team. We try to serve up a quality product that educates and entertains the readership. Sometimes we strike a chord, sometimes we fail, but the intent is always there. The great thing about an internet news site is that you rapidly know where you stand by the number of hits you achieve. We even have a hit parade! Each article is like a CD single, immediately measured and ranked.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Erika Oosthuysen and her colleagues at Human & Rousseau for converting my articles and commentary into a literary format that is logical to follow and entertaining to read.
I have dedicated the book to the late Steve Biko, who linked self-development to self-esteem, a concept that is only now gaining general currency. In modern terminology, the only way of overcoming the hideous inequalities in South African society is to create a culture of entrepreneurship whereby people feel sufficiently empowered and confident to do things for themselves and ask what they can do for others.
I hope you get as much pleasure out of dipping into these articles as I got out of writing them. Because I liken this book to a CD album, here is the message for the cover. Wherever you are, whatever you do, may the fox be with you when you look at the future. Every track is composed with this wish in mind. Press ‘play’.
Foxy futurists
| This is the first of two articles that define a foxy futurist. It reflects a methodology which Chantell Ilbury and I have jointly developed since we published The Mind of a Fox in June 2001. The principal difference between our method and the standard scenario planning technique used and taught in America, Britain and Europe is our insistence that scenarios have to be accompanied by flags and subjective probabilities. Ordinary people are underwhelmed by experts who just offer scenarios or possible pathways into the future. They liken these experts to the Delphic Oracle, who could never be proved wrong. The process gains credibility only if you supply the flags indicating possible movements from one scenario to another, and then attach subjective probabilities to the scenarios based on the disposition of the flags. As much effort has to go into defining the flags and determining the probabilities as goes into formulating the scenarios themselves. Even then, Chantell and I make it quite plain that our flags and probabilities are open to debate. There is no guarantee that we are right. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that, given the inherent uncertainty of the future, it is a great deal smarter to structure a conversation around possible scenarios, flags and probabilities than to attempt to arrive at a single-line forecast on which you bet your whole life or business. Obviously, a company has to have a single set of assumptions on which it bases its plan and budget. But that’s all it is – a set of assumptions. The whole point of our approach is to examine in advance the practical implications of other possible futures, so that you can adapt your plan more quickly than your competitors if any of those futures materialises. We call it ‘road-testing’ your current plan. Checking your resilience just makes sense, particularly in the volatile times that we are currently experiencing. Indeed, whereas a few years ago, during the long boom, companies would tell us it was a waste of time looking at alternative futures because their plans and forecasts were quite satisfactory, now they welcome us with open arms. Another point we underline is that, no matter how exhaustive a conversation you have, you will never capture all possibilities. There will always be ‘unknown unknowns’ – events you don’t know you don’t know – that will subsequently occur (like the volcanic ash cloud over Europe). Yet you still need the flexibility and swiftness of a fox to respond to these totally unexpected events. Three final aspects of our model, to which we refer as our ‘conversation model’, are as follows: Firstly, foxy futurists can, at the most, hold a maximum of four scenarios in mind at any one time. We therefore encourage management to construct a matrix where the two axes are the principal driving forces behind the scenarios. Examples are given early in this book. It helps to put the scenarios into a pictorial context. Secondly, foxy futurists reject scenarios that break fundamental rules of the game. For instance, in one article you will see that it is impossible for a nation to be competitive in global terms and have a civil war at the same time. In other words, scenarios have to be plausible and logically consistent. Thirdly, foxy futurists are as much interested in unusual White Swan scenarios as Black Swan scenarios. Foxes pounce on opportunities as much as they counter imminent threats. A full description of the conversation model is given in our previous book Socrates & the Fox. |
When an economist says “on the one hand” and “on the other hand”, you know exactly what the audience is thinking: give me a one-armed economist. The problem with providing different scenarios of the future, but no further information, is that people conclude that you are just covering your backside – exactly as the Delphic Oracle did in ancient times.
So one of the most important points that Chantell Ilbury and I made in our third book Socrates & the Fox is that you have to go further in exploring the future than merely producing a range of scenarios. You have to provide the flags that would indicate that you are moving from one scenario to another and, based on the disposition of the flags, attach subjective probabilities to the scenarios.
What do we mean by subjective probabilities? The answer is that the future is only played once, so you cannot – as in a laboratory – repeat an experiment many times and, from the pattern of outcomes, derive a scientific range of probabilities. It is more a matter of intuition and hunch after studying the flags. The closest we can come to an analogy is to picture scenarios as racehorses and, as the race proceeds, we note the changing position of the horses and amend the odds accordingly.
In other words, before the future unfolds, you have a favourite scenario, a possible scenario and a long shot. As you proceed into the future, the flags either go up or stay down, which gives you an indication of the positioning of each scenario: which one is moving to the front and which one is lagging behind. Thus, a favourite may become an outside chance at the back of the field, and an outsider may burst into the lead. Depending on how far the race has progressed, you begin to get a feel for the result. Except that there is no finishing line, because the future goes on forever. Hence you are constantly revising