p.1 Making predictions is easy... making correct predictions is exceedingly
hard... If an organization can more effectively imagine the future, then it obviously has an enormous advantage.
The future may be uncertain, but it is not a complete crapshoot...
the odds ought to be good that you can beat the house... what we once regarded as random occurrences in our physical
environment are really the result of systematic and potentially predictable forces.
p.2 Chaos theory... One of its lessons is that small things can have big future impacts often impossible
to fully appreciate until they've been played out. In chaos theory, the big impact of little things is called "sensitivity
to initial conditions."
p.2 It would be impossible to try to anticipate the emergence of
the infinite number of small things that might have big impacts. Things are just too complex and tightly woven. After
all, it is the large, transforming consequences you need to be ready to ride. It's the avalanche that's dangerous, not the
single snowflake that may ultimately set it off.
p.2 Physician, Hans Selye, put it this way in his advice to young people
at the beginning of their careers: "Try to look for the mere outlines of big things with your fresh, untrained, and unprejudiced
mind." That's also good advice for organizations planning their careers in the future.
p.3 A vision involves imagining a point in the future, then reverse engineering
by asking, "What must we do in the present to become our future?" As you undertake actions designed to realize your vision,
the future starts to dictate the present... Foresight is not enough. Foresight implies a certain level of passivity
- a willingness to react to the future. This is better than ignoring the future. But more powerful still is an "anticipative
shaping" that seeks to discern not only the powerful currents of the future but also how those currents can be leveraged.
The challenge is not only to anticipate the future but to wrestle with it in the present then make it your own.
But it's foolhardy to assume you
can control the future. The future will consist of powerful flows that, like the weather, can be leveraged
and ridden but can never be controlled. Trips to the future begin with a struggle to see and understand these powerful
currents: their general direction, their power, and where they may collide and coalesce. It is these forces that determine
how the beaches of the present will be eroded by the floods of the future.
p.4 It takes a youthful mind to do
this. To back off and see things whole. To not be dragged into the muck and mire by the gravity of details.
p.8 Run with the scissors. One of
my favorite T-shirt slogans is "Runs with scissors." It labels an obvious violator of life's protocols. Be reckless
in your thinking. Imagine inventing a future that would rip the guts out of the organization - that
would slaughter every sacred and semi-sacred cow. Boldness is liberating. So is audacity and heresy. Without
them, the organization can become subject to the tyranny of the incremental as it chants the mantra: "It worked in
the past. It works in the present. We need only do it better in the future."
p.8 To avoid being trapped by
too narrow or too rigid a set of assumptions, deliberately and repeatedly attack assumptions... By routinely asking, "Why?" five times, higher levels of understanding are created... there's
no way to create the future without action in the present. And the best way to allocate focus and resources in the present
is against some rational concept of the future.
