How foresight found me

Almost a decade ago I was working in public health, discussing workforce strategy. We were trying to figure out how many of the different healthcare professionals – the many types of doctors, nurses, and allied health workers – that we would need to start studying that year to meet our future workforce needs.

To work this out, we started by looking at the big, well established trends that we were already feeling the effect of, like the ageing workforce creating a spike in retirements, and the ageing population who need more complex care more often.

Don’t get me wrong – this was a great start, looking at what we already knew was changing and we would need to respond to. But there was something itching the back of my brain.

Scrolling through my phone on the tram home, I read articles about exciting developments in 3D printing being translated to medicine. I watched a video on personalised healthcare, and the rise of personal gadgets that could move healthcare back into the home via telehealth. I saw excitement and concern in equal measure about the potential and pitfalls of CRISPR, a novel gene-editing technology. I heard visions of the world of self-driving cars, and wondered how widespread adoption might impact the number of traffic-based trauma accidents that would come through the emergency department, and what that might mean for organ donations.

In short, I saw a lot of things in motion that were fairly uncertain, but could have significant impacts on how healthcare is delivered.

Up to this point, my training in change management had been framed as understanding the current state, identifying a desired future state, then finding a series of actions that would deliver us to that future.

What this approach failed to account for was how the world was changing around us, and how that might impact what future state we were planning for.

This led me down a rabbit hole as I looked for ways to bring in these volatile uncertainties into our discussions of what future it was we were planning the workforce for.

This rabbit hole took me via my favourite bookstore, who recommended Black Swan by Nicholas Nassim Taleb. I discussed this book with a date, who recommended the Masters of Strategic Foresight to me.

2 weeks later, I was spontaneously enrolled in a university course that turned me inside out. It changed the way I think about how the future emerges, and how we can use this noticing of what is shifting around us to work with the future as it arrives.

Now I want to share this experience with you.

In the Futures Sampler, I want to recreate my first taste of discovering futures and foresight methods for you to experience.

Over 5 weeks, you’ll experience first hand 5 different methods for bringing the future into the way you work with change. It will be both playful and practical, inviting you to consider your change practice from a different angle, and provide you with tools you can use in your work.

If you’ve been thinking about dipping your toe into futures work, this is a great place to start. Even better – sign up before Jan 10 and you’ll get a 20% discount.

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