My last reflection for 2024. I’ve seen futures processes fail, not because the scenarios were weak, but because the facilitation was. Some common anti-patterns that I’ve noticed include: Scenario-as-performance Scenarios are presented to people, not worked with...
Movement is often treated as a break from thinking. But research shows that movement is a form of thinking and meaning-making. Our brains evolved in motion, solving problems while walking, navigating, scanning, and responding together. When we sit people still and ask...
Most futures sessions involve people sitting still, listening for long stretches, trying to imagine radical change through abstract language and bullet points. Which is odd, because our brains didn’t evolve for that at all. John Medina’s Brain Rules makes this clear:...
Psychological safety is often talked about as if it were a mood. Let’s create a space with good vibes, a warm and welcoming energy where people can feel “comfortable”. But in futures work, I believe that psychological safety is structural. If people don’t feel safe to...
There’s a facilitation exercise called Blind Portraits that has some interesting lessons for futures facilitators. Two people sit facing each other. Each draws the other’s portrait for three minutes without looking at the paper and without lifting the pen. You have to...
In her essay Important Questions to Ask Yourself, poet Jane Hirshfield tells a story about a man who travels far to ask a wise teacher a question. When he finally asks it, the teacher slaps him. The lesson, the disciples later explain, is simple and severe: never...
