Creating Better Futures
Let’s start with the author: James A. Ogilvy
Co-founder and Principal Consultant of Global Business Network, an organization described as “a worldwide learning community of organizations and individuals” that generates out of the box thinking scenarios.
Taught Philosophy at several universities including Williams College, University of Texas, and Yale.
Wrote several books including Seven Tomorrows with Peter Schwartz and Paul Hawken.
In summary, the book is about rethinking key aspects of our life like communal representation, marketplace economics, values, and worldviews to create better futures using scenarios. James spends a significant amount of time reviewing how, in his opinion, we should manage community representation and what the definition of “better” may be. In sum, we need to develop scenarios that take into consideration all of the “players” involved, bringing together a group of people that represent the “community” as a whole to envision and develop scenarios that we can all stand behind and work towards. It is those scenarios that can help create a “shared hope”.
Part One: New Game
Here Ogilvy argues that there needs to be a shift from hierarchy models to more of a heterarchy system. A heterarchy is an organizational change that relies upon teamwork, everyone working towards a goal but in their own individualistic way. We are free to be ourselves, yet we know it is up to us to work towards the greater good for our community. He goes on to argue that we are moving away from a world where the government is driving the car(there are lots of car metaphors which resonates with me), responsible for the big decisions, to one where markets are at the steering wheel and the government is simply sitting in the passenger seat.
There are, however, other options besides a world in which the government makes all of the decisions or the free market drives change. We can use scenarios to help us imagine alternatives or combinations that may better support our communities. The biggest problem with the marketplace running the show is that a free market creates winners and losers and if someone loses, we all lose.
Consideration should be given to communities rather than specialists. Communities that represent the diversity within the entire system. And we are not talking about a community only in the sense of neighborhoods but also groups of people that are a part of a system or a corporation. A group of people in which the scenario impacts that is not too large that it becomes impossible to take full representation but not too small that it leaves out key individuals.
Part Two: New Players
One does not have to choose individualism or collectivism, there can be a combination of the two that supports the whole. You can be free to make your own choices and still be considerate of the people around you. Scenarios need to have a mixture of the two. They need to represent each individual as well as the community as a whole. That is why it is key to have a diverse group of people in the room when developing scenarios. You need to be able to take into consideration everyone within the community so that you can come up with a better future that everyone can agree upon. Communal creativity is key. Groups will always out perform individuals.
Part Three: New Lenses
It is impossible to leave out your biases when creating scenarios but to try to be value-free and objective. The definition of better is going to be up to the community. This, again, is why it is so important to have the right representation. Each community may have different views and therefore they have different inputs into building their own futures. It is possible to define better if you are taking into consideration the “shared hopes of the community”. Again, this is about the process. It is about what you learn when you put a group of people together into a room to talk about the future and what that might mean for their community.
Part Four: New Rules, New Tools
Norms are objective while values are subjective. Norms are what we aspire to and values are what we use to get us there. We aspire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and therefore instill and live by a value of sustainability. Communities will have different values. And that is ok. Ogilvy feels that we are in a place in time where real values, not the ones given to us by authoritarian figures, will begin to assume increasing importance. You can see this in societal/community responses to things like the war in Ukraine, women losing the right to abortion, and women’s rights to education in the middle east. It is becoming less about what the church’s opinion is or what our government’s opinion is and more about what our individual opinions are and how they are linked to others within our community.
I loved the idea of Intellectual Jam Sessions. Ogilvy describes them as “different musical instruments, complementing and provoking one another in phrases combining both dissonance and harmony. Soloists sometimes emerge to grab attention for a few bars, but a successful workshop is an ensemble performance”. Scenarios can create a shared hope. Creating a shared hope is inspiring, it drives communities and individuals to make better decisions, to work towards a greater future. It isn’t some single person or group that is telling everyone why and how to live their life but instead it is a community making a decision based on what they all feel is best for their group. Of course, there will be more motivation to be successful if everyone is involved in the ideation of a better future.
Part Five: Scenario Planning in Action
There is not much to this section. He goes through education, health, and environment, coming up with two scenarios for each and talking through how each might be considered, who should be involved in the conversation and why.
METHOD
I can see how this closely relates to the University of Houston methodology, especially when he begins to go through his examples at the end. In the education example he creates a list of drivers then he uses those drivers to create two scenarios. He argues about the importance of who is in the room, the representation, when coming up with the scenarios. For him, it seems like this is the most important part. If you don’t get the participants right, you don’t get the scenarios right and you are bound to fail.
I also found that this connects well with Integral Futures. You are considering an individual and a community along with internal and external factors to create ideal/better futures.
I love the way he talks about representation. Some of us could feel quite hopeless in today’s political environment. It appears nothing will ever be accomplished. But this book lays out impactful ways that smaller communities could come together to create a shared hope that they in turn could work towards that might not have to involve broken pieces of our political process.
CITATION
Bibliographic format and a link
Ogilvy, J. A. (2002, April 11). Creating Better Futures. Oxford University Press.
https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Better-Futures-Scenario-Planning/dp/0195146115