Learning
FROM THE
FUTURE
By J. Peter Scoblic
Strategic Foresight
The deliberative use of imagined alternative
futures in order to better sense, shape, and adapt
to the emerging future
2
A Role for Imagination in Business
Martin Reeves and
Jack Fuller
“Pandemics, ward, and other social crises often create new attitudes,
needs, and behaviors, which need to be managed. We believe
imagination – the capacity to create, evolve, and exploit mental models of
things or situations that don’t yet exist – is the crucial factor in seizing
and creating new opportunities and finding new paths to growth”
3
The Limits of Imagination
Thomas Schelling
“One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or
heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur
to him”
4
So, What do We do?
Organizations can use a disciplined process to
cultivate imagined futures – i.e., scenario planning
- to improve strategy, avoid, or adapt to surprise,
and navigate the uncertainty of the future
5
Scenario Fundamentals
Definition Philosophical What scenarios
Assumptions are not
Scenarios are futures
The future is unpredictable They are not
manufactured for a
(epistemology). There are predictions. They are
user with a use (e.g., to
many possible futures not exhaustive or
challenge assumptions
(ontology). We can mutually exclusive.
about the present, to
influence the future Scenario planning is
socialize new ideas, or
(agency) not contingency
to develop robust
strategy) planning
6
Other Effects with Scenario
Challenge existing mental models Orient away from short-termism
Encourage “out of the box” Link strategic-level thinking with
thinking operational-level doing
Enable flexibility / quicker
adaptation:
• Help us make sense of situations
• Engage a broader set of stakeholders
• Provide a common language for discussing
futures
• Allow us to socialize ideas – about
challenges, opportunities, strategies 7
Risk vs Uncertainty
Frank Knight
“The practical difference between the two categories, risk, and
uncertainty, is that in the former the distribution of the outcomes in a
group of instances is known (either through calculation a priori or from
statistics of past experiences), while in the case of uncertainty this is not
true”
8
Knightian Terms
If the actual past cant provide a guide
amid uncertainty, then perhaps the
imagined futures can
“Ersatz experience” via “some strange
aids to thought – e.g., scenarios
‘imagination has always been one of the principal
means for dealing in various ways with the future,
and the scenario is simply one of the many
devices useful in stimulating and disciplining the
imagination”
Scenarios can serve as artificial case
histories and historical anecdotes to make up
the lack of examples 9
Problem with Making Analogy
Problem 1 : The Nature
of Experience
The lessons of experience are
ambiguous – how do we know we learn
the right things from the experience
Small changes can have dramatic
effects on experience
An Analogy must account for all of
the past’s possible futures
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Problem with Making Analogy
Problem 2 : The Nature
of Human Judgement
Availability Bias
Explanation Bias
Confirmation Bias
Overconfidence
Focal Hypothesis
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Multiple Analogies = Better Judgement
“Considering an alternative”
reduces confirmation bias
Generating reference
classes improves Considering alternative
judgement pasts and alternative future
reduces bias
12
Closing Thoughts
Uncertainty is marked In such situations, Scenario planning can Imagination emerges
by the absence of constructing multiple alter mental models of as an invaluable
analogy to past analogies by turning to time, enabling strategic resource in
experience imagination instead of organizations to times of uncertainty
experience can aid operate simultaneously
judgement and in the present and the
strategy future
13
THANK
YOU
