Scenarios for Tomorrow

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Scenarios for Tomorrow with Dr Megan Crawford. Headshot of Megan Crawford. FAR Hub logo lower left. Tomorrow's Headings, Today's Thought Experiments lower right.

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Transcripts & Show notes

00:00:00 Megan

Sophia, you opened your chapter with a really brilliant quote by Dr.

00:00:04 Megan

Akomolafe.

00:00:06 Megan

And I was wondering if you could walk us through that, especially given scenario planning’s historical precedents with the military.

00:00:15 Sophia

Sure.

00:00:16 Sophia

This quote by Dr.

00:00:17 Sophia

Bayo Akomolafe is from a talk that he gave at the Future School, which is now known as TSFX.

00:00:23 Sophia

The future is a very militaristic concept that emerged from a commitment.

00:00:29 Sophia

It’s an invitation for us to notice how the future cannot be really embraced until we really look into how a militaristic era created and still creates and produces our infatuation and obsession with the future, right?

00:00:42 Sophia

The future, again, is not natural.

00:00:45 Sophia

The future is a political commitment to mastery, right?

00:00:48 Sophia

To control.

00:00:50 Sophia

To controlling the variables so that we can predict the next, because our bodies are still ringing with the explosions of Hiroshima and the trauma of that moment.

00:00:59 Sophia

What next to do except to know what next?

00:01:02 Sophia

Or how to navigate the complexities of what next?

00:01:06 Megan

Welcome to Scenarios for Tomorrow, a podcast where we turn tomorrow’s headlines into today’s thought experiments.

00:01:13 Megan

This first series includes conversations with the authors of our latest book, Improving and Enhancing Scenario Planning, Futures Thinking Volume, from Edward Elgar Publishing.

00:01:24 Megan

I’m your host, Dr.

00:01:25 Megan

Megan Crawford, and throughout this first series, you’ll hear from my guests the numerous global techniques for practicing and advancing scenario planning.

00:01:34 Megan

Enjoy.

00:01:45 Megan

Today, we are lucky to have two guest authors with us here to discuss their work in our joint book together.

00:01:52 Megan

Sophia Basile is a futures literacy and foresight researcher and practitioner with a background in business management and foresight.

00:02:00 Megan

Her approaches draw upon conventional frameworks and are grounded in decolonial and black feminist theory and praxis.

00:02:08 Megan

Perhaps most importantly is her commitment to lifelong and life-wide unlearning.

00:02:14 Megan

Her emergent futuring is inspired and informed by her situatedness and lived experiences as a first-generation daughter of the Haitian diaspora, born and raised in New York, and as a long-term guest inhabitant of Latin America, the UAE, East and Southeast Asia, and as of 2025, Africa.

00:02:36 Megan

Sophia is currently affiliated with the African Innovation Summit Foundation and One Resilient Earth nonprofit.

00:02:46 Megan

Professor Geshe Kururi-Sabina is an African scholar-practitioner based in Johannesburg, working in the intersection between people, place, time, and technological change, with a focus on the Global South.

00:02:59 Megan

She is currently an associate professor at the Wits School of Governance, where she is hosting the African Civic Tech Innovation Network and establishing a center of excellence in digital governance.

00:03:12 Megan

Geshe is currently the Islamic World Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization Chair on Innovation and Futures in Africa, and a founding director of the Southern Africa Node of the Millennium Project.

00:03:25 Megan

Geshe’s background is in computer science, architecture, urban design, and innovation systems.

00:03:32 Megan

Welcome both.

00:03:32 Megan

It is great to have you here today.

00:03:35 Megan

Though we worked on this book together for well over a year, we’ve never actually had the opportunity to be in the same room and just chat about things and our work and what we’re doing, which makes today additionally special.

00:03:51 Megan

I’ve been looking forward to our episode in particular because your expertise, built from your backgrounds and your experiences, brings perspectives to this book and to the conversation in general from our everyday realities that just

00:04:05 Megan

simply aren’t integrated well enough into the futures and foresight practice yet.

00:04:12 Megan

We understand that not all of our listeners are familiar with scenario planning, though they may have heard more about it since the pandemic.

00:04:20 Megan

And one of the motivations to this podcast is to bring our world of futures and foresight science outside the walls of academia, where within, language is understandably closely controlled,

00:04:33 Megan

But knowledge is not as easy to access as we generally wish it to be, which just means we’re here to have a chat with the public.

00:04:40 Megan

Your chapter in the book is titled The Wilds Beyond Two by Two Futures: An Inquiry into Decolonizing Foresight.

00:04:47 Megan

And your chapter has an absolutely excellent opening quote.

00:04:55 Sophia

That quote does an incredible job of just

00:04:59 Sophia

Well, first of all, Bayo Akomolafe, I don’t think he’s ever called himself a futurist.

00:05:03 Sophia

And I think if you ever asked him what a Delphi scenario is or any of these methodologies that we have been talking about throughout this book and what this critique is about, these very technical things would be very beyond him.

00:05:18 Sophia

So what really captured me about this quote and why I thought it was so

00:05:23 Sophia

vital to include in this paper and even worthy of opening this paper with is because it traces the genealogy of scenario planning and it’s an inextricable link to the evolution of modern future studies.

00:05:38 Sophia

But it does so in such an evocative way.

00:05:40 Sophia

It tells the same story about how the very concept of future and these methodologies, particularly scenario planning, which we’re focusing on in this book, are very, very

00:05:52 Sophia

militaristic concepts that are based on prediction, mastery, control, rooted in fear, rooted in ideas of scarcity.

00:06:02 Sophia

And I think, well, in our paper, we definitely trace the origin, citing authors such as Curry, who have written extensively about this, about how the field of modern future studies has started, you know, a post-World War II era.

00:06:18 Sophia

And there are two distinct strands of future studies.

00:06:21 Sophia

The scenario planning was very much rooted in the US military context.

00:06:27 Sophia

And so much research money was poured into that to maintain this newly established positioning as a world superpower.

00:06:36 Sophia

And that evolved into the ’50s and ’60s, totally eclipsing the more European strand of future studies, which was more critical and more focused on social reconstruction,

00:06:48 Sophia

of societies after World War II.

00:06:49 Sophia

So these distinct stands emerged.

00:06:52 Sophia

And then the 70s came about.

00:06:54 Sophia

So the military industrial complex are things that are really, really well traced.

00:06:59 Sophia

But I loved Akomolafe’s quote because it really captured the emotional and affective states of futuring, which are often

00:07:09 Sophia

neglected in our practices of future studies that are very much focused on methodologies.

00:07:13 Sophia

And I think that’s something that we’re here to explore as decolonial practitioners.

00:07:19 Sophia

I just want to close with a piece that didn’t make the cut of the final paper, because as I was, as we were writing this chapter, in December 2023, I found myself sitting there working with this background of what future studies was.

00:07:35 Sophia

And naturally, that leads you to think about

00:07:38 Sophia

the moment we’re sitting in today and what might lie ahead.

00:07:41 Sophia

We cited Sardar in talking about foresight works over emphasis on scenarios, which is really devouring future studies.

00:07:50 Sophia

And I think the same does hold true today.

00:07:53 Sophia

It’s almost like the myth of the Ouroboros, a serpent eating its own tail or Sisyphus doomed to rolling the same boulder up the same hill for eternity to come.

00:08:04 Sophia

It’s a commitment to further entrenching conventional scenarios practice as foundational to effective futures thinking.

00:08:10 Sophia

And this signifies a commitment to reproducing the world we created in 1945.

00:08:15 Sophia

And very interestingly, I was just scrolling Instagram and there was a post that talked about how in Balinese Hindu culture, December, 2023 transitioning in the Gregorian calendar, the calendar was actually the year 1945 in Balinese culture.

00:08:31 Sophia

And in Haitian culture, it was the exact 200-year anniversary of Haiti’s revolution, which is one of the most significant revolutions in our collective history that is purposely excluded because it was so consequential to the denial of our possibilities for a society of equals and all that’s emerged economically and socially and politically since then.

00:09:00 Sophia

That was just a gesture towards that we’re not even living on the same particular timelines.

00:09:08 Sophia

There’s a quote from the Entangled Time Tree that might have made it into another part of the paper.

00:09:15 Sophia

In order for us to have such transformative thinking, instead we need to employ methods that can disarm deeply held but often harmful beliefs

00:09:23 Sophia

around natural resource extractivism and the exploitation of labor, individualism, and the ceaseless capitalist quest for economic growth, because these beliefs and the values that underpin them prime the imagination towards scenarios of inevitable dystopia and collapse, and if they continue to dominate our worldviews.

00:09:43 Sophia

So,

00:09:44 Sophia

Herman Kahn, the father of scenario planning, who encouraged us to think the unthinkable, and that entire evolution of scenario planning, Shell using scenario planning to predict climate change, but in a quest for profit and continued domination of the markets, hiding climate change from us.

00:10:04 Sophia

speaks to the fact that it’s not just about the tools itself, it’s the way these masters use these tools to create the world and make certain worlds possible or impossible.

00:10:18 Megan

That is a perspective that you absolutely shine through in the book.

00:10:22 Megan

And unsurprisingly, nobody else is talking about this, but you really bring to light this idea of colonizing the future.

00:10:32 Megan

You know, having that

00:10:33 Megan

the practice of scenario planning and maybe the broader practice of futures and foresight has a very homogenous view because it comes from very homogenous roots.

00:10:45 Megan

And I think that you highlight that really well with the calendar system, just the perception of time itself, because that’s what scenario planning is, right?

00:10:54 Megan

It’s us using our ingrained perception of time to, you know, try and anticipate

00:11:04 Megan

the future time.

00:11:05 Megan

What is the future?

00:11:06 Megan

And your chapter really brings in not only what are perceptions, but what is even the future and what can it be?

00:11:16 Megan

So I’d like to take that, what you’ve said.

00:11:20 Megan

You use this term, colonize the future.

00:11:23 Megan

I was wondering, building on what you said, could you help us understand a bit more of what you mean by that, especially around

00:11:33 Megan

this inbuilt sort of like, what do you call it, friction within scenario planning and specifically where they ask, we are taught to, and we teach our clients and we work with our clients to come up with plausible futures, right?

00:11:49 Megan

But as you quote Herman Kahn as saying, think of the unthinkable and plausible and unthinkable aren’t really the same thing.

00:12:01 Megan

and would almost be considered dichotomous opposites.

00:12:04 Megan

So I’ll stop there.

00:12:08 Megan

I would like to, yeah, what’s your work around this concept of colonizing the future?

00:12:19 Geci

I’m happy to comment on this one.

00:12:23 Geci

So it’s interesting because the kind of decolonial turn, which I think has been there across a number of fields, I think is often reduced to just being about the historical actions of European states, really focused on territorial, political, and economic imposition, exploitation in Africa, in the Americas, and other such.

00:12:45 Geci

And it’s easy, and I think that is part of it.

00:12:48 Geci

But I think it’s really easy to think it’s only about that, and therefore it becomes about giving voice to the Global South as though that’s the only issue.

00:12:58 Geci

And I think for us, starting there, like what’s the colonial question in the 1st place?

00:13:04 Geci

I think for us it’s about the much more insidious and ongoing systems of power that really perpetuate inequality and dominance.

00:13:11 Geci

really at an ideological level and at a much more ontological level as well, that there is this sort of hegemonic control on future narratives that have historically been controlled by very singular views and normally Western, but not only that.

00:13:27 Geci

And I think for us, when we talk about decolonial then, we’re really referring to the move away from that worldview, that the Eurocentric or any centric worldview is

00:13:39 Geci

what’s important and is what’s common and is what’s within that plausible cone and that anything else is inferior or marginal or irrelevant or even dangerous.

00:13:50 Geci

And that’s what we actually say.

00:13:51 Geci

That’s actually a direct quote from the paper.

00:13:54 Geci

When, one of the papers we cite is 1 I worked on with Bourgeois and Yves Foucault, where we talk about the future as a public good.

00:14:04 Geci

And there we’re really trying to highlight very specifically that the future, like any other resource, can actually be colonized.

00:14:10 Geci

It can be made a private or a club good if there are dominant powers that act to exclude any alternative view of what’s possible in that future.

00:14:19 Geci

And often those are views from the global South.

00:14:22 Geci

And the global south, not as a geography, but as indigenous voice, as places that could be located geographically, geographically in the global north.

00:14:31 Geci

I mean, patriarchy is part of that as well, and that’s obviously located everywhere.

00:14:35 Geci

So what we try to do is to argue that colonizing the future is something that dominates to what the narrative is, and that the power to do that isn’t equally distributed.

00:14:46 Geci

And so historical colonial structures can continue to play into that, but that’s not the only

00:14:52 Geci

perspective, that’s not the only concern we have.

00:14:54 Geci

So we want to try to decolonize futures by opening up the space for imagination, for what the assumptions are about plausibility not being defined by whiteness.

00:15:06 Geci

And when I say whiteness, I don’t mean sort of the color right, but more the white, this idea of modernity and northern hegemony.

00:15:16 Megan

This is probably one of the featured

00:15:19 Megan

pieces of work and the two of you as practitioners in the field that are really reflecting where scenario planning and futurism foresight obviously not only need to go, but where we’re really trying to push it to go, you know, getting out of those 20th century roots.

00:15:40 Megan

And that’s,

00:15:43 Megan

I don’t want to knock too much the foundations of any scientific field, but that is the progress of science, right?

00:15:51 Megan

It starts in a small space.

00:15:53 Megan

And then as more people become learned professionals in it, we really push it, right?

00:15:59 Megan

We really try to push it into ever more broader boundaries.

00:16:03 Megan

And what you’re talking about really puts me in mind of

00:16:08 Megan

the way I describe science to students and at on panels and stuff on public talks, which is science is not about being truthful as much as about being accurate.

00:16:22 Megan

You know, let’s accurately reflect reality.

00:16:25 Megan

A truth, you know, comes within that.

00:16:29 Megan

And that’s what I hear when y’all are talking about a colonized future and decolonizing that future and thinking, really thinking the unthinkable, which we don’t mean this in an oxymoronic kind of way, but it’s thinking of things you haven’t thought of before, right?

00:16:49 Megan

And with scenario planning, it’s the effort of trying to get people into a space to facilitate

00:16:58 Megan

thinking we can’t think of on our own.

00:17:01 Megan

So, right.

00:17:02 Megan

Okay.

00:17:03 Megan

I’m trying to back off a little bit.

00:17:05 Megan

Let’s, there’s so much we could talk about or y’all could talk about it.

00:17:10 Megan

You’ve got, okay.

00:17:12 Megan

There was a point made earlier about this Western centric assumption about quote unquote progress, which goes into that experience of time, which goes into experience of your place within your culture and your meaning, the meaning of our own

00:17:28 Megan

ourselves as actors in our culture.

00:17:30 Megan

And in the West, when I was thinking about that, at least in the Western American European kind of perspective, it’s very, if not exclusively economically based.

00:17:41 Megan

Progress is an economic measure.

00:17:44 Megan

And that still to this day is either Keynesian or Friedman.

00:17:48 Megan

I mean, it’s there really is outside of the within the West.

00:17:52 Megan

Those are the two major camps.

00:17:54 Megan

And that’s where we value progress.

00:17:56 Megan

And

00:17:58 Megan

I recently heard an advisor, I can’t remember.

00:18:04 Megan

It was the last presidency, so I do apologize for not remembering the name, but he was saying that we’re in this state now in the US where economics is our new religion.

00:18:16 Megan

It is the language of our gods.

00:18:18 Megan

And if you speak economics, you speak power as far as the US system is concerned.

00:18:25 Megan

So I wanted to bring this back to your work, to what you’re talking about with this getting breaking away from these unspoken, assumed intuitive roots of scenario planning, what is building the what has been building rather the futures field.

00:18:42 Megan

So I’ll just throw it out there.

00:18:48 Megan

How do you think these dominant practices

00:18:52 Megan

actively or passively exclude marginalized perspectives.

00:18:59 Geci

Yeah, yeah.

00:18:59 Geci

You know, I like the example you just gave about the economic dominance and it calls to mind a recent exercise I was part of where right at the offset, just off the blocks, somebody raises their hand and says, you know, it’s fine for us to talk about all of these other issues about the future, but I think we should agree on one foundational point.

00:19:19 Geci

which is the economics have to make sense because if nobody’s going to pay for it, then none of this matters.

00:19:26 Geci

So of course, maybe a couple of us in the room are like, what?

00:19:30 Geci

But in a way, that’s very typical of how you lead into scenario planning or you get led into a scenario planning.

00:19:36 Geci

And in a way, I think it’s not a mistake.

00:19:38 Geci

This play we had on the two-by-two is obviously partly about the two-by-two matrix, but it’s also talking in a way about matrix thinking, that in the matrix,

00:19:47 Geci

the boundaries are clear, the plausibility is clear, what’s reasonable and agreed can be agreed at the beginning of the meeting to only be economic.

00:19:57 Geci

And there’s work I’ve been part of where we’ve commented with authors like Ali and Sal about the idea of orphan variables that will go into a whole process of foresight and certain things are just never talked about.

00:20:10 Geci

They just don’t come up.

00:20:11 Geci

And now to some people, it’s strange that they don’t come up.

00:20:14 Geci

in the dominant frame, it’s obvious that they don’t come up.

00:20:17 Geci

And those often variables often are some of the softer issues we raised in the papers, the relationality, it’s the different ways of being.

00:20:25 Geci

It’s even in dominant terms, the cultural variables will be softer or lighter.

00:20:29 Geci

And the word soft is often used like soft issues.

00:20:32 Geci

So I think the idea that progress is

00:20:36 Geci

Rostovian, it’s linear, it’s Cartesian, it’s science, and all of these defined in a particular way is, I think, a very inbuilt aspect of how we have tended to learn.

00:20:47 Geci

It’s how I learned scenario planning, and I think it’s how many of us do.

00:20:51 Geci

And then the methods frame that.

00:20:54 Geci

And then I think, as Sophia has commented, then the dominance of the method means that it almost becomes what defines the practice of foresight.

00:21:01 Geci

And I think those Western-centric assumptions, those knowledges, those ontological and those epistemological unspoken ideas about what it means to make progress, what time means and how time works, really exclude the possibility of anything else.

00:21:16 Geci

And whether it’s excluding actual voices in the room or whether it’s excluding actual perspectives in the world, and then, of course, excluding any other possibility,

00:21:29 Geci

and by calling it implausible, I used to use that term all the time.

00:21:32 Geci

And we’d very actively say to people, oh, you know, we’re not here to sort of talk crazy, right?

00:21:37 Geci

We are here to talk about things that are within the realm of the plausible.

00:21:41 Geci

That’s a really colonial thing to be made to think.

00:21:44 Geci

And it’s a really colonial thing to say.

00:21:47 Megan

Right.

00:21:49 Megan

I think

00:21:50 Megan

Maybe because of who we are in the field we’re in, we get the privilege of having learned to be a little more aware of when we start using that language or when someone around us starts using that language.

00:22:01 Megan

Because yes, it is very, very, I mean, that’s just a cultural norm, you know, pretty much at least where I grew up is, yeah, you seek implausibilities and you ignore the implausibilities.

00:22:13 Megan

And lo and behold, implausibilities happen all the time, all the time.

00:22:17 Megan

It doesn’t mean impossibility.

00:22:20 Megan

And that’s what we call, we have new words for it, right?

00:22:22 Megan

Well, we don’t have new words.

00:22:23 Megan

We have popularized words for it, like technological disruptions.

00:22:28 Megan

And what’s the other one?

00:22:32 Megan

Wicked problems, right?

00:22:34 Megan

And so we start building this language around what we’re also actively denying, which is implausibility.

00:22:44 Megan

And I think,

00:22:46 Megan

I think one of the greatest things happening to the sustainability of all of us is that we’re becoming more global.

00:22:53 Megan

But by becoming more global, we really need to shift our assumptions about the plausible, about the implausible.

00:23:01 Megan

And I really, I like, I’m going to put this in the show notes.

00:23:04 Megan

I like your term orphan variables.

00:23:07 Megan

It’s very evocative and it clearly speaks to what you’re talking about, to what we’re talking about here.

00:23:15 Megan

Yes, I’d like to bring us back to one thing that you said earlier.

00:23:19 Megan

You talk about the two by two matrix, which is in your title.

00:23:22 Megan

In the field of scenario planning, it is one of the opening methods or techniques, if you will, that we learn in the overall methodology of scenario planning.

00:23:32 Megan

And I was wondering if you could walk us through what a two by two matrix is that you were, particularly in your context.

00:23:42 Geci

Actually, I’d love if Sophia could come in to talk about this one.

00:23:45 Geci

But I mean, just to remind us about the point she made earlier, that we were quite aware that it’s maybe unfair to characterize all of scenario planning as two by two, because it’s obviously not the only technique.

00:23:57 Geci

But I think there was a, I don’t know if it was a double meaning to it that we sort of appeals to us.

00:24:03 Geci

But Sophia, would you mind maybe?

00:24:05 Sophia

Sure.

00:24:06 Sophia

Thank you.

00:24:08 Sophia

We certainly wouldn’t be the first to critique the two by two.

00:24:12 Sophia

scenario framework.

00:24:13 Sophia

It’s been critiqued by Slaughter and called the flat land of scenario planning.

00:24:18 Sophia

It’s been deconstructed and we are not calling all scenario planning two by twos.

00:24:25 Sophia

We’re well aware that, for example, the shell method, which is off conflated with the two by two method, was actually the inspiration for the two by two method.

00:24:36 Sophia

What we wanted to highlight in this paper is that it doesn’t take a futurist or foresight practitioner expert to realize what is problematic about the two by two scenario framework.

00:24:47 Sophia

The fact that it’s very axes seek to just reduce to these four possibilities of very linear directions, a Cartesian framework, if you will, for how these possibilities could emerge.

00:25:01 Sophia

And it really simplifies to just these

00:25:05 Sophia

two determinants on the x and y-axis, and there’s any range.

00:25:10 Sophia

So it produces these false dichotomies, essentially, where it relies on selecting these two key uncertainties, and they create these artificial oppositions or tensions, and they may ignore a lot of the interdependencies between these other factors that we’re completely ignoring.

00:25:27 Sophia

So it’s this flat land, and it just ignores a lot of other things.

00:25:31 Sophia

So thus there’s this limited exploration of alternative futures.

00:25:35 Sophia

People can get this, it’s, what was the analogy?

00:25:40 Sophia

It’s a McDonald’s type of thing, right?

00:25:43 Sophia

It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s filling, but is it nutritious?

00:25:48 Sophia

And is it actually providing you nourishment?

00:25:50 Sophia

And that’s what we wanted to just really emphasize, that the two-by-two scenarios aren’t easy when they’re an entryway into future studies, which is great,

00:25:59 Sophia

but the fact that they persist in practice and people use these even really experienced and expert practitioners continue to use these as a quick and easy one with clients and more broadly scenarios.

00:26:14 Sophia

Also, we kind of explored that as a path to winning strategy rather than to doing rigorous futures exploration as some of the critiques that we have for the two by two matrix and that kind of extend.

00:26:29 Sophia

So these binaries that they create, it misses a lot of nuance.

00:26:34 Sophia

We also talk about, yeah, there’s this overemphasis on plausibility, which Geci mentioned.

00:26:40 Sophia

So these axes that are going to be privileged, if you’re going to do this once, you’re going to choose what’s most plausible, and then you’re reducing the uncertainties to an even greater extent.

00:26:51 Sophia

So these prioritizations of what

00:26:57 Sophia

a small group of people deem what is logical or coherent or plausible really doesn’t allow for an expansive or it includes transformative futures that might be more disruptive or insightful.

00:27:13 Sophia

There’s also very limited capacity for very intersectional or decolonial perspectives in those particular frames, even with the

00:27:25 Sophia

So there’s the two by two, but then there’s also, we looked at, excuse me, oh my gosh, I shouldn’t forget.

00:27:34 Sophia

One of the father of futures, University of, Jim Dater, sorry.

00:27:40 Sophia

Dater’s four generic futures also use these quadrants.

00:27:43 Sophia

And there’s been responses to this critique of the two by two scenario.

00:27:47 Sophia

But what we’re seeing is just that people are still creating these matrices.

00:27:53 Sophia

And their different quadrants still fall into the growth, decline, collapse, transform frame.

00:28:02 Sophia

And you can see that again and again.

00:28:04 Sophia

So these false innovations that are not really addressing the underlying issues of what the real critiques of scenario planning are, are diversion and a waste of time and a waste of a lot of resources.

00:28:16 Sophia

Our critique is that also not just the two by two, which we apply to more broadly scenarios planning, it just consumes a lot of the literature

00:28:23 Sophia

which means it consumes a lot of the possible intellectual and other praxis-related

00:28:33 Sophia

inquiries that we could be, that might better serve us at this point, at this point in time.

00:28:40 Sophia

So there’s many other critiques that we could offer.

00:28:43 Sophia

It’s, in terms of complexity, it just really does not allow for us to delve really deep into the complex and often interdependent nature of

00:28:58 Sophia

many of the wicked problems we are facing nowadays.

00:29:03 Sophia

And there’s also quite a bit of difficulty in actionability with the two-by-two scenarios, but also we find with scenarios in general, people create these scenarios, whether it be an external team of consultants that comes in to create these scenarios and writes them, or whether it’s a more participatory process where they are involving different people from the organization or the community,

00:29:28 Sophia

But what happens to that matrix after?

00:29:30 Sophia

Sure, it may get translated into a narrative of some sort, but then, okay, these scenarios were created, great.

00:29:37 Sophia

They then go sit somewhere and we did them.

00:29:40 Sophia

How are they informing the strategy and how are they, yeah, how are they actually being used?

00:29:49 Sophia

There’s very little research that actually

00:29:54 Sophia

proves the effectiveness and the usefulness of scenarios.

00:29:58 Sophia

There’s very little evidence to show that they are worth the amount of time and energy that we spend consumed with them in this in the futures field.

00:30:10 Megan

Yes, that is a major point of contention overall in the field.

00:30:15 Megan

Again, something, a standard feature that plagues, if you will, futures are not in early scientific fields.

00:30:24 Megan

The budding stage of them is that we need to figure out how to measure impact.

00:30:31 Megan

And when we think about scenario planning,

00:30:36 Megan

and a lot of futures work, a lot of foresight work.

00:30:39 Megan

These are science by practice, right?

00:30:44 Megan

Praxis.

00:30:45 Megan

It’s, we’re working with organizations, we’re working in the field, which means less control over variables, you know, co-occurring variables, less clarity in what we can measure.

00:30:59 Megan

And then you’ve got the entire intellectual property rights.

00:31:03 Megan

factor in there where organizations shut themselves off once these strategy workshops happen.

00:31:10 Megan

And so we can’t go back and say, well, what did you do?

00:31:13 Megan

How did you do it?

00:31:13 Megan

Did it work out?

00:31:15 Megan

Particularly if it didn’t work out, right?

00:31:18 Megan

As a general rule, I think organizations don’t like to share it that they failed at something.

00:31:25 Megan

Okay, so let’s bring it back to your work.

00:31:28 Megan

We had a lot of topics we were interested in discussing.

00:31:31 Megan

I mean, your chapter is for anybody who gets the book, which everybody should get the book.

00:31:37 Megan

And there’s ebook and hard book copies if your library has copies.

00:31:42 Megan

And you can just reach out to us.

00:31:43 Megan

We’ll see what we can do.

00:31:44 Megan

The thing is, your chapter is so completely different from everybody else’s.

00:31:52 Megan

And your chapter actually argues against

00:31:59 Megan

a few of the other chapters saying, no, this is actually not the case, or actually this other thing is the case.

00:32:05 Megan

And your chapter doesn’t do a lot of shooting.

00:32:09 Megan

It’s not very normative.

00:32:10 Megan

It’s very or proscriptive or prescriptive, if you will.

00:32:14 Megan

It’s very informative.

00:32:16 Megan

And I don’t want to sound terrible and say thought provoking, but it is.

00:32:22 Megan

It’s thought provoking and in the best way.

00:32:27 Megan

which means we have a lot of things we could cover.

00:32:30 Megan

So I’m going to pass the mic to you, Sophia or Geci.

00:32:35 Megan

What is something else in this chapter that you really wanted to get out to the larger audience?

00:32:43 Geci

Oh, should we play rock, paper, scissors, Sophia?

00:32:47 Geci

I think there’s a lot.

00:32:48 Geci

You know, we had such great conversations in the process of pulling a paper together like this.

00:32:54 Geci

And so maybe I’ll just lead with that, Sophia, and then maybe you can jump on in.

00:32:58 Geci

But just this idea that we wanted to talk about, just, yes, framing what the two by two was about.

00:33:06 Geci

And as Sophia has said, the critique is there.

00:33:08 Geci

So that wasn’t what was novel in what we were doing.

00:33:11 Geci

I think how we were doing it and why we were doing it is what we thought we were bringing to the fore.

00:33:16 Geci

So this point about, and it’s not something we do a lot in the future space because we’re not philosophers, most of us, like Dr.

00:33:23 Geci

A.R., but

00:33:25 Geci

really talking about things like ontology and who do we, who are we and what are we trying to do and how do we know things?

00:33:31 Geci

When we bring people into a room and begin talking about the future, how we do that matters.

00:33:36 Geci

And so what doesn’t make it into the space matters.

00:33:40 Geci

And we think that there’s something significant about that.

00:33:43 Geci

We think it’s politically significant.

00:33:46 Geci

We think it’s relationally significant.

00:33:49 Geci

We think it’s politically significant.

00:33:52 Geci

to have done that.

00:33:53 Geci

So I think there’s a lot that’s important to us in how we tried to sort of step out those arguments.

00:33:59 Geci

And we had a lot of feedback in review, because when you do that, when you’re sort of questioning things, then obviously there’s a lot of having to back yourself up in terms of, well, what do you mean by that?

00:34:10 Geci

And, you know, so there was a lot of that.

00:34:12 Geci

And even that engagement, I think, was good.

00:34:15 Geci

But yeah, I mean, I guess maybe one of the perspectives we could easily speak about are some of the more non-Western.

00:34:21 Geci

and non-hegemonic views we thought that we were beginning to call to question here.

00:34:25 Geci

Maybe I’ll hand over to Sophia to see what she wants to bring up, and I can probably talk about one or two as well.

00:34:32 Sophia

Yeah, so our paper was a philosophical deconstruction of scenario planning and violation of future studies.

00:34:43 Sophia

And I’m not sure how I wound up there.

00:34:45 Sophia

I’ve only been in futures for five years, but I’m very drawn to the philosophical stuff.

00:34:49 Sophia

I think my name is Sophia, which I didn’t love when I was young.

00:34:51 Sophia

I only knew Sophia from the Golden Girls, and I thought it was an uncool name.

00:34:55 Sophia

But in midlife now, I think it’s come full circle.

00:34:59 Sophia

I’m very much drawn to these deeper questions.

00:35:01 Sophia

And I took a very roundabout way into future studies, much of what Geci’s described, the typical path of being introduced to scenario planning.

00:35:11 Sophia

and going through the European and US consultancy context where all of this is just very implicit and never questioning.

00:35:18 Sophia

And then suddenly it dawning on me like, oh my gosh, like, wow, this is not at all the only possibility of having to unlearn so much, but also having a feeling like coming home to myself because I have this theory, it’s not a formal one that’s been tested, but I think particular people on this planet

00:35:41 Sophia

Black people, indigenous communities, we are natural futurists.

00:35:45 Sophia

Like, we are adept at understanding complexity and systems and navigating and adapting and responding to emergence.

00:35:54 Sophia

Because otherwise, how would we have endured all of these years and all of these challenges and constantly

00:36:03 Sophia

innovated in ways that might not fit the Western paradigm of innovation all the time, but are very much innovative in ways of being.

00:36:12 Sophia

So that’s what we came down to.

00:36:14 Sophia

And we broke it down into the ontological and epistemological, which is often hybridized into onto-epistemological.

00:36:23 Sophia

Ontologies are what are ways of being, our understanding of what it means to be.

00:36:32 Sophia

the epistemological studies around how do we know what we know, what is knowledge?

00:36:37 Sophia

And we also talked about the role of language, and that is logocentricity, and we explored notions of time.

00:36:47 Sophia

And I think what we wanted to highlight is that there are, we’re seeing improvements in terms of what is included in

00:36:58 Sophia

participatory scenario planning, first of all, is that it can be done in a more communal and relational way.

00:37:05 Sophia

It can be more participatory and include, but there are also dangers with that.

00:37:09 Sophia

And Akash Aikanu from the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective was also at UBC and many others, Sarah Ahmed write about on the dangers of inclusion.

00:37:20 Sophia

Inclusion is the bare minimum, what is happening beyond that inclusion that is making it beyond tokenism,

00:37:28 Sophia

or that is actually not perpetuating harm in the inclusion of marginalized people and perspectives is something that we can, as we mentioned before, learn to measure for or learn to put some guardrails in for.

00:37:43 Sophia

In our paper, we also talk about the use of storytelling and the use of arts and creativity, other ways of expressing.

00:37:56 Sophia

And there’s been some successful endeavors with this.

00:37:59 Sophia

I think we can cite an example of how we work together on this Youth Futures Project in the East and Southern African region.

00:38:09 Sophia

And when I tell you, just the way, the feel of the room is completely different than futuring in a Western context or in Europe.

00:38:21 Sophia

There’s a different levity, there’s a joy,

00:38:25 Sophia

There is song.

00:38:27 Sophia

There is poetry.

00:38:28 Sophia

This is not even something you have to make explicit that these forms of expression are welcome.

00:38:33 Sophia

This is what just emerged from putting these people in a room together who are, who may not be legible in certain contexts, but really have such a beautiful and evocative way of communicating ideas that is really,

00:38:56 Sophia

Perhaps more, what’s the word I’m looking for?

00:39:00 Sophia

Illustrative than the flattening and caging of the English language that we try to package futures in and tell everybody that this is how you need to speak about the future using this language and these terms.

00:39:13 Sophia

And if you can’t, you’re not qualified to talk about your imagination or to express your imagination unless it comes in this package.

00:39:22 Sophia

So I think Geci, yeah.

00:39:25 Geci

I love that you talked about packaging futures.

00:39:27 Geci

I think it’s such a beautiful language because there’s a part where we talk about and why we call the paper the wilds beyond the two by two was again playing.

00:39:36 Geci

I mean, maybe we are overusing Bayo.

00:39:38 Geci

We might have to give him some credit for the chapter, but Bayo Akomolafe’s book was the wilds beyond these fences.

00:39:43 Geci

And so we talk about the wilds beyond the two by two.

00:39:46 Geci

And so one of the phrases I picked out here is that this is the wilds beyond what we know and control.

00:39:52 Geci

It’s the space of imagination that is genuinely open to unknowing and the unknown.

00:39:58 Geci

And so when you talk, Sophia, about the packaging of futures so that they can be neat, so that they can be legible, so that it’s easier to work with.

00:40:05 Geci

And these are the arguments.

00:40:06 Geci

And it’s why we use the two by two.

00:40:07 Geci

It makes it easier to deal with a lot of complexity.

00:40:11 Geci

But in doing that,

00:40:13 Geci

We are packaging the future.

00:40:15 Geci

We are saying that this is the box and that’s how everything fits.

00:40:18 Geci

And what Bayo tries to evoke with his book is that there’s so much more beyond the fences.

00:40:24 Geci

You just have to be brave enough to go beyond those fences.

00:40:27 Geci

And if that means bringing in the body and we don’t quite know what’s going to happen, but we’re open to it.

00:40:35 Geci

We don’t quite know what’s going to happen when we don’t insist

00:40:39 Geci

that the PESTLE are the only headlines, all the steeple that, what can be brought into this, because that’s all we can manage.

00:40:45 Geci

And if somebody brings in something crazy, we don’t know what to do with it.

00:40:48 Megan

Right, we call it potpourri or others.

00:40:52 Geci

Exactly.

00:40:52 Geci

So that’s transform, Megan, that you’re saying is interesting.

00:40:56 Geci

You know, that is crazy space.

00:40:58 Geci

You don’t really know what to predict about what might come up, and it might be very difficult to deal with.

00:41:02 Geci

It might not be easy to do our M&E after that monitoring and evaluation once we have something that we couldn’t quite have predetermined.

00:41:10 Geci

But there’s something about that willingness not to know and that openness to what the youth or the participants or whatever will bring into the space that I think does a few things.

00:41:23 Geci

I think one,

00:41:24 Geci

It invites our humility, which I think is really important, because us being humble as the scenario planning facilitator, but also as the participants in a foresight exercise, opens up space.

00:41:35 Geci

It opens up space for us, and the burden isn’t on us.

00:41:39 Geci

to come up with four very clever stories with very clever headlines that everybody thinks it’s very clever.

00:41:45 Geci

That’s not on us because that’s going to be emergent, right?

00:41:48 Geci

So that’s a lot of baggage off our backs, but it also opens up space for others.

00:41:52 Geci

They don’t have to fit into the package.

00:41:53 Geci

They can bring what they have.

00:41:55 Geci

And things, you know, the idea of collective intelligence is things that can emerge out of that new shared narrative, I think, becomes truly open.

00:42:03 Geci

I think it also allows us to acknowledge the limits of our knowledge.

00:42:07 Geci

So we

00:42:08 Geci

keep coming up with some variation of the same scenarios, basically.

00:42:12 Geci

So fairly predictable outcomes of most foresight exercises.

00:42:16 Geci

And I think that openness beyond the package allows more than that to come up.

00:42:21 Geci

But then I think very importantly for Sophia and I is this acknowledgement of the power dynamics, the power dynamics that makes certain knowing more important than somebody’s unknowing.

00:42:30 Geci

So why is the fact that you’re so certain about something more important than the fact that I’m questioning something?

00:42:38 Geci

And that’s what happens in a scenario exercise, because the thing that is clear can be documented because it’s languaged, it’s agreed upon by other people, it’s packaged.

00:42:48 Geci

So that makes it.

00:42:49 Geci

But then the one that’s a little messier that we’re not quite sure, if you’re lucky, you’re in the parking lot, most likely you’re not even on the table.

00:42:57 Geci

And so I think that power dynamic is something we really wanted

00:43:00 Geci

to bring in, because I think that’s what begins to speak to a future that really can be public, that really can be shaped by a collective understanding that’s inclusive.

00:43:10 Geci

And I think adaptability comes out of that.

00:43:12 Geci

You know, we keep talking about needing to be adaptable and agile and innovative and creative, but that doesn’t come out of a package.

00:43:18 Geci

That doesn’t come out of everything we already know.

00:43:20 Geci

So anyway, I think these ideas really excited us.

00:43:24 Geci

And it was also fun, I think, to be welcomed by the wonderful editors.

00:43:29 Geci

To do that, to have a chapter maybe that was different and didn’t answer the question.

00:43:33 Geci

I know a few of our reviewers felt that we should tell people what to do now.

00:43:37 Geci

And we were like, well, you know, it’s the wilds, the wilds.

00:43:41 Megan

No, it’s an absolutely perfect response to that level of feedback is it’s the plague of being in business research, right?

00:43:52 Megan

In philosophy, psychology, even physics.

00:43:55 Megan

you get to say, I just want to experiment on.

00:43:57 Megan

So I just have a question.

00:43:58 Megan

I just want to find the answer to the question, whatever it may be.

00:44:00 Megan

But in business, it’s like, okay, great.

00:44:02 Megan

What does it mean for this industry?

00:44:06 Megan

You know, or what does it mean for this client?

00:44:08 Megan

So absolutely.

00:44:11 Megan

And I don’t know who your reviewers are, but I know who the authors are on the book.

00:44:15 Megan

And yeah, everybody’s from a business background, everybody.

00:44:19 Megan

So one way or another, I cannot emphasize

00:44:25 Megan

and support your comments enough about following on from the actual physical exercise of going through scenario planning.

00:44:35 Megan

What it’s supposed to mean, right?

00:44:38 Megan

What is the purpose of scenario planning?

00:44:39 Megan

It’s not to go through this empty exercise.

00:44:41 Megan

It’s to impact.

00:44:44 Megan

something, is to be a tool for positive impact or whatever the thing is that you’re trying to snare a plane around.

00:44:50 Megan

And the thing that’s going to facilitate that more than anything else is exactly what you said, Geci, which was you got to be open.

00:44:58 Megan

You have to be open.

00:44:59 Megan

We can think of transformational.

00:45:01 Megan

We can come up with all sorts of scenarios about this and that and the other.

00:45:04 Megan

And like you said, you can have anybody and everybody at the table.

00:45:07 Megan

You can have that participatory– well, you can have the looks.

00:45:11 Megan

a participatory scenario planning where you have a lot of representation at the table.

00:45:16 Megan

But I wish I could remember who said this, because I think this is one of those moments they were talking about that I hadn’t quite articulated in my own mind.

00:45:25 Megan

But the line is representation without investment is exploitation.

00:45:32 Megan

So you’re just, you know, virtue signaling or you’re just ticking a box, as they say in the UK, just ticking a box.

00:45:39 Megan

We got we got the stakeholders in there, right?

00:45:42 Megan

And then with that comes the openness.

00:45:45 Megan

How many times, how many times has somebody been in a room and trying to help strategize about an idea?

00:45:53 Megan

And in the end, they go with what they’ve always gone with before.

00:45:57 Megan

We have cautionary tales, if you will, of past organizations that seem too big to fail, that 100% failed because they just didn’t have the openness that was that

00:46:10 Megan

mitigating or moderating factor that is necessary in this space.

00:46:16 Megan

And that feeds right into openness to who you’re going to bring to the table.

00:46:20 Megan

And that’s going to leave you openness to what you’re willing to think of for the future and then the openness, all of it.

00:46:26 Megan

Yes.

00:46:27 Megan

Like I said, I cannot emphasize that enough.

00:46:30 Megan

So I will stop there because I’ll just keep going on and chattering.

00:46:40 Megan

So with that in mind, I’ve got my big question for y’all and ask everybody at the end.

00:46:46 Megan

And it’s because I am personally extremely fascinated in whatever the answer may be.

00:46:53 Megan

And the question is, what trends are you seeing now in your area of work?

00:46:58 Sophia

Well, this is such a funny question and we chuckle because the trend

00:47:03 Sophia

scouting and the trend reports is where our mind first way was like, no, we’re not going to do AI agentic and this rundown of top 10 things that are going to disrupt everyone’s world in 2025.

00:47:15 Sophia

That’s not the approach we decided to take.

00:47:18 Sophia

It was the challenge to kind of think of this question.

00:47:20 Sophia

I hope Geshe will add on, but I’m going to go back to something that you mentioned, which is that you hope people will join us from the margins or

00:47:28 Sophia

I was thinking in the cracks, right?

00:47:31 Sophia

Where we have been exploring futures, just a different orientation towards the very notion of future and how divesting from that a bit and just being, allowing ourselves to embrace a very messiness, a squishiness when it comes to things like time or when it comes to things like should and ought to be.

00:47:59 Sophia

We’re seeing more people wading into there, but I think it comes, they’re compelled by different forces, right?

00:48:08 Sophia

I’m going to say Geci here and talk about innovation prospecting.

00:48:11 Sophia

And this is not something that’s new.

00:48:14 Sophia

It’s not new that people from the dominant culture are going to indigenous or African cultures and innovation prospecting, right?

00:48:26 Sophia

showing up and suddenly you can hear and see people citing the language of liberation.

00:48:32 Sophia

And everybody is citing Audre Lorde, or everyone’s inviting Bayo Akomolafe, or Dr.

00:48:37 Sophia

Vanessa Andreotti, or Dr.

00:48:39 Sophia

Geci Kori Sabina to come talk and to offer this disruptive experience that is going to thrust people into a decolonial futures trajectory.

00:48:52 Sophia

Yeah, but that’s about where it stops, I see, right?

00:48:56 Sophia

I have rarely– I really appreciate that people who do not formally situate themselves in the futures and foresight community and practice, especially in academia, but are in the space, are taking the lead in these conversations around systems transformation and complexity.

00:49:18 Sophia

And they’re offered this platform.

00:49:20 Sophia

But what happens after that, it’s almost like they’re being consumed, right?

00:49:25 Sophia

They’re being consumed.

00:49:26 Sophia

They’re being added to some futures practitioners’ tool belt of how they can use this language or use these ideas for their new offerings.

00:49:36 Sophia

But it stops there.

00:49:38 Sophia

I’ve taken a lot of courses.

00:49:40 Sophia

Decoloniality is a process.

00:49:42 Sophia

Just like coloniality is an ongoing process, decolonizing oneself and one’s practices is an ongoing, lifelong, lifewide process.

00:49:51 Sophia

And I’ve sat in courses and I’ve rarely seen

00:49:55 Sophia

academically qualified futures practitioners sitting and learning for any extended period of time from these scholars that they’re willing and very quick to cherry pick what’s useful for them from to give the appearance of being, well, I was almost going to say woke, but of being, you know, a decolonial orientation, but

00:50:24 Sophia

the praxis.

00:50:26 Sophia

The practice is there, right?

00:50:28 Sophia

So it’s still very much commodifying, taking something from somewhere and almost selling it back and commodifying it, legitimizing it, but going no further.

00:50:42 Sophia

And we would hope that when we talk about building these organizations of these future or these economic systems of the future, we have to practice our futures.

00:50:54 Sophia

right?

00:50:55 Sophia

How else are they going to come into being?

00:50:57 Sophia

We have to move beyond just writing about these things and speaking about these things.

00:51:01 Sophia

There’s a I’m going to age myself.

00:51:03 Sophia

But you know, we say, don’t speak about it.

00:51:04 Sophia

Be about it right?

00:51:06 Sophia

So we can talk, talk, talk.

00:51:08 Sophia

But what are we going to actually practice running our organizations like this actually focus on our collaborations the way that we talk about them and embodying these

00:51:20 Sophia

These very principles that we know are vital.

00:51:22 Sophia

There’s a saying by Vanessa Andreotti that you can only, you only know if you can swim when the water’s up to your waist.

00:51:29 Sophia

I didn’t get it exactly correct, but these waters are rising.

00:51:33 Sophia

You know, we are reaching times.

00:51:36 Sophia

Some of us, well, we’re definitely not swimming in the same rivers and not equipped with the same tools and not navigating the same waters, but we are all pretty in for a pretty, you know, adventurous,

00:51:50 Sophia

sail into the horizon right now.

00:51:53 Sophia

So how are we going to respond to that as practitioners?

00:51:57 Sophia

This is something that we all have to take responsibility and accountability for ourselves and individually.

00:52:03 Sophia

But how else can we be held accountable other than in community?

00:52:08 Sophia

So there’s that balance of of of navigating your own path.

00:52:14 Sophia

You know, it really is.

00:52:15 Sophia

Choose your own adventure, and I try not to really, really pass judgment.

00:52:19 Sophia

on anything, but also when the people who have the most to lose and who have already given up the most to be in this space are the ones who are also charged with doing the really, really hard work of being epistemically humble, of doing this unlearning constantly, constantly, it’s exhausting, right?

00:52:42 Sophia

So, and the invitation is open, the more the merrier, we’re happy to have you promise, we’re still here somehow, so

00:52:49 Sophia

We don’t bite.

00:52:50 Sophia

We’re not that scary.

00:52:52 Sophia

We laugh a lot.

00:52:53 Sophia

We love humor and to have fun.

00:52:55 Sophia

So I just think there’s just so much space for, yeah, lots more humility, which is coming one way or another.

00:53:09 Sophia

I think it’s inevitable that there’s going to be some humbling moments for us as individual practitioners and for the field and their opportunities to reflect.

00:53:20 Geci

Beautifully said.

00:53:22 Geci

Thanks.

00:53:22 Geci

So I don’t have anything to add.

00:53:24 Geci

I completely agree.

00:53:26 Geci

I was just laughing here.

00:53:28 Geci

I was remembering.

00:53:29 Geci

So John Sweeney, who is a futurist who I quite enjoy, also known as Cynthia, he reminded me about a year or two ago about a thing I had discussed in an interview like 10 years ago, like a really long time ago.

00:53:46 Geci

where I’d spoken about foresight being like hygiene, like, you know, it’s it’s, you know, you’re going to have to brush your teeth and I think you’re going to have to do some foresight in an organization.

00:53:56 Geci

I think it’s just good, good hygiene.

00:53:58 Geci

And I was just thinking in terms of this kind of prospecting or appropriation of certain techniques that it’s probably more useful to think about foresight like that, you know, as hygiene, as toothpaste rather than as lipstick.

00:54:11 Geci

because you can appropriate lipstick, you can look, and there’s a lot of lipstick that’s been going around, I think.

00:54:16 Geci

There’s a lot of, whether it’s getting the language down or appearing to use the method or, I mean, futures literacy is an interesting term because obviously that came out of very much the work of UNESCO and Reel Miller.

00:54:28 Geci

And actually at its core, if you’re really to look into it, it’s very decolonial in terms of what it’s trying to do.

00:54:34 Geci

But then what began to happen is everybody began to say they were doing futures literacy.

00:54:38 Geci

Futures literacy began to literally mean

00:54:40 Geci

just appearing to be able to say that, you can say futures literacy.

00:54:46 Geci

So it became quite a literal thing.

00:54:48 Geci

So it became lipstick.

00:54:50 Geci

And I think if we can really get into it, if we can really take the time, and I appreciate actually, Megan, your quote about representation without investment is exploitation.

00:55:02 Geci

I think also appropriating language and ideas without really reflecting upon about what they mean.

00:55:09 Geci

And what’s beautiful to me is that these ideas are resonant in context and everybody’s in a context.

00:55:16 Geci

And so in a way to grab the lipstick from over there and slap it on is to ignore the fact that there’s a hygiene issue in your own context that that may not apply to.

00:55:25 Geci

And you’re probably better off investing yourself where you are and understanding that.

00:55:30 Geci

that the work is about you, the work isn’t about borrowing it from somebody else.

00:55:35 Geci

So there’s something in there.

00:55:36 Geci

And so, yeah, I would completely agree with Sophia that I think there is this tendency in this space.

00:55:41 Geci

And I know people want to see whether it’s woke or relevant or whatever in a moment, but there’s a real deep opportunity here.

00:55:48 Geci

And I think I’ve often made the point that the idea of decolonizing, again, like I said, it’s not a– I mean, I think Black people are colonized, I think white people are colonized.

00:56:00 Geci

It’s deeper and it applies to all of us.

00:56:02 Geci

And I hope it’s a project that we can all see ourselves in.

00:56:06 Megan

Scenarios for Tomorrow is produced by me, Megan Crawford, with invaluable feedback from Dr.

00:56:12 Megan

Isabel Ariza, Jeremy Creep, Brian Ego, and as always, my kids.

00:56:18 Megan

This is a production of the Futures and Analytics Research Hub and FAR Lab affiliated with Edinburgh Napier Business School.

00:56:25 Megan

You can find show notes, references, and transcripts at scenarios.farhub.org.

00:56:33 Megan

That’s scenarios.farhub.org.

00:56:36 Megan

You can follow us across social media by searching for Scenario Futures, all one word.

00:56:41 Megan

You can subscribe to Scenarios for Tomorrow wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:56:45 Megan

Today’s track was composed by Rocket, whose links are provided in the show notes.

00:56:51 Megan

This is Scenarios for Tomorrow, where tomorrow’s headlines start as today’s thought experiments.

00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:03.399
an organization a leader being just a passive

00:00:03.399 –> 00:00:07.960
victim to be a to be actually in fact an active

00:00:07.960 –> 00:00:13.779
agent so that um thank you can i quickly go and

00:00:13.779 –> 00:00:15.880
answer the door if you’re gonna pat because somebody’s

00:00:15.880 –> 00:00:18.820
ringing my doorbell and it’s not stopping yeah

00:00:18.820 –> 00:00:22.660
i’ll be back yeah i know what’s going on is in

00:00:22.660 –> 00:00:29.070
me yeah Welcome to Scenarios for Tomorrow, a

00:00:29.070 –> 00:00:31.469
podcast where we turn tomorrow’s headlines into

00:00:31.469 –> 00:00:34.189
today’s thought experiments. This first series

00:00:34.189 –> 00:00:36.630
includes conversations with the authors of our

00:00:36.630 –> 00:00:39.549
latest book, Improving and Enhancing Scenario

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Planning, Futures Thinking Volume, from Edward

00:00:42.729 –> 00:00:46.390
Elgar Publishing. I’m your host, Dr. Megan Crawford.

00:00:46.770 –> 00:00:48.570
And throughout this first series, you’ll hear

00:00:48.570 –> 00:00:51.390
from my guests the numerous global techniques

00:00:51.390 –> 00:00:54.149
for practicing and advancing scenario planning.

00:00:54.390 –> 00:01:06.099
Enjoy. Today we are lucky to have three guest

00:01:06.099 –> 00:01:09.359
authors with us. Maureen Meadows is professor

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of strategic management in the Center for Business

00:01:11.939 –> 00:01:15.799
in Society at Coventry University. She co -leads

00:01:15.799 –> 00:01:18.680
the research cluster data organization and society.

00:01:19.299 –> 00:01:21.760
Maureen’s background is in big data, customer

00:01:21.760 –> 00:01:24.599
analytics and governance of data where she has

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worked as both practitioner and academic. If

00:01:27.739 –> 00:01:30.079
you’re interested in learning more, you can purchase

00:01:30.079 –> 00:01:32.760
her latest book, which is the second edition

00:01:32.760 –> 00:01:36.480
of Strategy, Theory, Practice, and Implementation

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from Oxford University Press. Frances O ‘Brien

00:01:41.180 –> 00:01:44.420
is an associate professor of operational research

00:01:44.420 –> 00:01:46.680
and analytics at Warrick Business School, my

00:01:46.680 –> 00:01:50.019
alma mater, where she teaches across undergraduate,

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MBA, and executive education. Her work looks

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at the use of tools such as scenario planning

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to support organizational strategic development.

00:01:59.989 –> 00:02:02.209
Francis’s background includes working at Ford

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of Europe, which is a subsidiary of Ford Motor

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Company as their operational research analyst,

00:02:09.210 –> 00:02:13.669
specializing in simulation modeling, manpower

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planning, and optimization. And the third member,

00:02:19.039 –> 00:02:22.219
of our panel today is Alessandro Merendito. He

00:02:22.219 –> 00:02:25.520
is a lecturer in accounting at Queen Mary University

00:02:25.520 –> 00:02:28.360
in London and a qualified charter accountant

00:02:28.360 –> 00:02:31.120
member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants

00:02:31.120 –> 00:02:34.360
in England and Wales. Alessandro’s work focuses

00:02:34.360 –> 00:02:37.939
on digital integration, particularly how big

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data and AI are shaping strategic decisions and

00:02:41.479 –> 00:02:44.840
digital strategies. And after all of that, welcome,

00:02:44.900 –> 00:02:47.259
everyone. It’s very great to have you here today.

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Thanks, Megan. Given the hurricane path that

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our book took, which is about two years in change,

00:02:55.460 –> 00:02:58.740
there’s never really been a good chance for Alessandro

00:02:58.740 –> 00:03:02.240
and I to meet, and that is until today. So welcome

00:03:02.240 –> 00:03:05.620
to our inner circle, Alessandro. Thank you, Megan.

00:03:06.199 –> 00:03:10.460
I’m grateful to be here. Great. And Maureen and

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Frances, you’ve been working together for years

00:03:13.979 –> 00:03:18.169
in your professional capacity and have impacted

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the field of scenario planning on several fronts,

00:03:22.509 –> 00:03:23.990
including both of your works have influenced

00:03:23.990 –> 00:03:26.870
my research and will continue to influence my

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research and I’m very grateful for it. And particularly

00:03:30.870 –> 00:03:34.449
in that not just the practice of scenario planning,

00:03:34.870 –> 00:03:39.110
but now in a broader sense of foresight and futures

00:03:39.110 –> 00:03:44.030
thinking. So welcome. As mentioned in the introduction,

00:03:44.030 –> 00:03:46.490
we’ve just published a book together about scenario

00:03:46.490 –> 00:03:50.229
planning in the 21st century. And here in 2025,

00:03:50.409 –> 00:03:52.169
right at the quarter century mark, we’re here

00:03:52.169 –> 00:03:55.189
to talk a bit about that. We understand that

00:03:55.189 –> 00:03:58.030
not all of our listeners are familiar with scenario

00:03:58.030 –> 00:04:01.449
planning or scenario planners, though they may

00:04:01.449 –> 00:04:03.830
have heard more about it since the pandemic when

00:04:03.830 –> 00:04:07.969
we got extremely popular. And one of the motivations

00:04:07.969 –> 00:04:11.009
to this podcast is to bring our world of futures

00:04:11.009 –> 00:04:14.129
and foresight science outside the walls of academia,

00:04:14.849 –> 00:04:18.810
where within language is closely controlled and

00:04:18.810 –> 00:04:22.709
knowledge is not as easy to access as we generally

00:04:22.709 –> 00:04:25.250
wish it to be, which just means we’re here to

00:04:25.250 –> 00:04:28.209
have a chat with the public. So let’s get into

00:04:28.209 –> 00:04:32.709
it. Your chapter in the book is titled, In the

00:04:32.709 –> 00:04:36.410
Thick of It, Scenario Planning at a Time of Crisis.

00:04:37.310 –> 00:04:42.040
You are I do believe the only chapter that really

00:04:42.040 –> 00:04:46.540
brings in the concepts that you discuss, which

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is an incredible for it, an incredible addition

00:04:50.560 –> 00:04:54.439
to the overall narrative. So let’s start at a

00:04:54.439 –> 00:04:59.560
grounding level, right? How do you define scenario

00:04:59.560 –> 00:05:02.420
planning? So I think I’m answering this question,

00:05:03.279 –> 00:05:06.680
or at least I’m starting off. So scenario planning

00:05:06.680 –> 00:05:11.019
is a methodology by which I mean it’s a series

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of steps that people follow typically as a group

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participatively facilitated by an expert scenario

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planner and it’s a methodology which seeks to

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develop a set of scenarios which are then used

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for some purpose by the group. So a scenario

00:05:38.810 –> 00:05:44.829
is a description or a story of a possible future,

00:05:45.649 –> 00:05:48.790
and scenarios are typically presented as sets

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to acknowledge that the future is uncertain.

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If you were to just create a single story about

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the future, that would be equivalent to a forecast.

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But given that we don’t know what the future

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will contain, how it will develop, the idea is

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that you develop a set of scenarios, typically

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between two and four is what the literature says

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is useful for people to manage, and you develop

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this set in order to try to capture the uncertainty

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about the future. So we don’t know what the future

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might look like. We are not simply going to project

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historical patterns because historical patterns

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don’t always replicate themselves and things

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happen that we don’t necessarily anticipate or

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foresee. So the idea with the set of scenarios

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is you capture a range of uncertainty about multiple

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different factors or elements. Some people might

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call them variables, but these might be factors

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or elements, typically about the external environment.

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So we’re creating stories about what the future

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world out there might look like that an organization

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or a group may have to contend with in their

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work. So I said scenario planning is a methodology

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that develops scenarios and then uses them. So

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I think it’s really helpful to consider those

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two stages when you’re talking about scenario

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planning. It’s not just about creating the stories,

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but about thinking, what do those stories mean

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for us? And one of the key concepts that’s associated

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with scenario planning is the notion of robustness.

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If we are going to plan how our organization

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might develop in the future, and we don’t know

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what that future might be like, then it’s a good

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idea that our plans are robust in that they can

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cope with whatever the future might throw at

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us. And that’s why we develop a set of scenarios

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so that we can test our plans and our thinking

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about the future to check that they can cope

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with a variety of different situations because

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we don’t know which situation will come to pass.

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How’s that? It’s excellent. Anyone want to add

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anything else? I agree with everything. I think

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that’s great. I mean, just a couple of thoughts

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which we may get into. You know, the arguments

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are often made, aren’t they, about the benefits

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of actually engaging in the scenario planning

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and that by considering alternative futures,

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it changes the mindsets of those who participate.

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And to me, that’s always been a very important

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argument. And maybe we’ll get into that as we

00:08:41.960 –> 00:08:46.100
talk about the case study in a bit. Oh, I’m sure

00:08:46.100 –> 00:08:48.980
we will. In fact, I’m sure we’re about to get

00:08:48.980 –> 00:08:54.480
into it right now. So what you bring up, Frances,

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is that scenario planning is a process. It’s

00:08:58.659 –> 00:09:05.940
multi -parts. It’s involved. And it’s about looking

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towards the future. It is, I would say, always,

00:09:09.679 –> 00:09:12.120
or is that what you’re, am I agreeing with you

00:09:12.120 –> 00:09:14.340
on this one, that it’s always about looking towards

00:09:14.340 –> 00:09:19.169
the future? Yeah, good enough. You just challenged

00:09:19.169 –> 00:09:20.610
me by thinking there. I was just thinking, oh,

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that’s an interesting idea. Is it always about

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the future? Might it ever be about the past?

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Can we have uncertainty about the past? There’s

00:09:29.509 –> 00:09:33.389
a question. Spend an hour talking about that

00:09:33.389 –> 00:09:36.389
one. Yeah. An incredible point that is brought

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up by others as well. Taking that into the context

00:09:40.169 –> 00:09:43.279
of your chapter. Your chapter about scenario

00:09:43.279 –> 00:09:47.059
planning at a time of crisis. So something we

00:09:47.059 –> 00:09:52.059
know from the inside, you know the sort of Secret

00:09:52.059 –> 00:09:55.360
conversations we have is that we understand that

00:09:55.360 –> 00:09:59.419
our field becomes exceptionally popular at times

00:09:59.419 –> 00:10:04.279
of crisis compared to before the crisis and as

00:10:04.279 –> 00:10:07.580
well after You know, whatever is assumed to be

00:10:07.580 –> 00:10:12.090
after a crisis So this is the feature you bring

00:10:12.090 –> 00:10:16.629
into your futures and foresight chapter. And

00:10:16.629 –> 00:10:21.009
I’d like to then pass the mic over. I’d like

00:10:21.009 –> 00:10:25.309
to hear your thoughts about the story of crisis

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as a process, as opposed to crisis as an event,

00:10:29.509 –> 00:10:33.610
right? And what it can look like and how it can

00:10:33.610 –> 00:10:36.889
be experienced from our side of the futures thinking.

00:10:38.820 –> 00:10:40.779
Alessandra, would you like to take this one?

00:10:41.240 –> 00:10:43.440
Yeah, absolutely. So there’s a very good point

00:10:43.440 –> 00:10:48.100
and it’s how in our study, in our study we adopted

00:10:48.100 –> 00:10:51.159
this perspective. We adopted the perspective

00:10:51.159 –> 00:10:54.919
that crisis is not a one -off event, but rather

00:10:54.919 –> 00:10:58.779
it’s a process that unfolds over time. with multiple

00:10:58.779 –> 00:11:02.059
faces and multiple decision points. And this

00:11:02.059 –> 00:11:05.679
is particularly relevant for sectors like the

00:11:05.679 –> 00:11:08.519
museums, which is the sector that we are looking

00:11:08.519 –> 00:11:11.860
at in this research, where the effects of a crisis

00:11:11.860 –> 00:11:16.100
such as COVID -19 ripple across funding, across

00:11:16.100 –> 00:11:20.279
staffing, audience engagement and strategic direction.

00:11:21.059 –> 00:11:26.019
So seeing a crisis as a process, allows us to

00:11:26.019 –> 00:11:30.500
move away from the idea of a single shock moment

00:11:30.500 –> 00:11:36.080
and instead allows us to it allows us to focus

00:11:36.080 –> 00:11:40.740
on how leaders can meaningfully intervene throughout

00:11:40.740 –> 00:11:45.299
the life cycle of a crisis. So, for example,

00:11:45.539 –> 00:11:48.000
it’s quite useful for leaders, instead of asking

00:11:48.000 –> 00:11:50.919
how do we recover from the crisis, because we

00:11:50.919 –> 00:11:52.879
can tell that we are always in a crisis, so it’s

00:11:52.879 –> 00:11:56.379
a process. Probably this process -oriented view

00:11:56.379 –> 00:12:00.480
asks how do we understand and act within a crisis

00:12:00.480 –> 00:12:06.899
and as it develops. And this definition of a

00:12:06.899 –> 00:12:09.039
crisis as a process, rather than a one single

00:12:09.039 –> 00:12:13.159
event, was pretty useful for our project on scenario

00:12:13.159 –> 00:12:16.940
planning, because scenario planning, as my colleagues

00:12:16.940 –> 00:12:19.440
Francis and Lauren said, is a process. And exactly

00:12:19.440 –> 00:12:22.440
like the crisis, which is exactly the context

00:12:22.440 –> 00:12:26.740
that we have looked at during our project. OK.

00:12:28.240 –> 00:12:31.720
And to be honest, it almost feels like when we

00:12:31.720 –> 00:12:34.879
look back at these big moments, we talk about

00:12:34.879 –> 00:12:39.919
them through a processional, episodic memory

00:12:39.919 –> 00:12:47.259
retrieval kind of reeling. So crisis as a process.

00:12:49.100 –> 00:12:53.779
Yeah, it brings, and that matches, that really…

00:12:54.440 –> 00:12:57.519
I would say seems to be supported well by something

00:12:57.519 –> 00:13:00.220
like scenario planning, right, which is this

00:13:00.220 –> 00:13:02.659
multi -approach system that looks at a bunch

00:13:02.659 –> 00:13:07.039
of different qualities of the problem. Yeah,

00:13:07.240 –> 00:13:09.740
and if I may, sorry, there’s another point. And

00:13:09.740 –> 00:13:13.100
this framing is also particularly useful because

00:13:13.100 –> 00:13:15.879
this framing as crisis as a process rather than

00:13:15.879 –> 00:13:18.879
a single shot. moment is particularly useful

00:13:18.879 –> 00:13:22.860
because it emphasises that organisations and

00:13:22.860 –> 00:13:26.620
leaders are not just passive victims of external

00:13:26.620 –> 00:13:31.100
shocks. In fact, they are active agents who can

00:13:31.100 –> 00:13:34.419
shape their responses and adjust course and learn

00:13:34.419 –> 00:13:37.000
from what is happening in real time. So having

00:13:37.000 –> 00:13:41.139
this perspective will really shift from an organisation,

00:13:41.240 –> 00:13:46.080
a leader being just a passive victim to be a

00:13:45.820 –> 00:13:50.059
to be actually, in fact, an active agent. Right.

00:13:50.299 –> 00:13:53.860
So that is something that I don’t think we discuss

00:13:53.860 –> 00:13:57.799
much about in that kind of framing. We think,

00:13:57.919 –> 00:14:00.039
understandably so, a lot of our discussions.

00:14:00.730 –> 00:14:03.590
Kind of you know between us but also when we

00:14:03.590 –> 00:14:07.149
talk to the media or talking with a Client when

00:14:07.149 –> 00:14:09.350
we’re you know consulting or anything like that

00:14:09.350 –> 00:14:12.289
is in more simplistic terms like here’s a tool

00:14:12.289 –> 00:14:14.350
It’s gonna do a thing for you at this time But

00:14:14.350 –> 00:14:17.409
what’s really happening is we’re looking at this

00:14:17.409 –> 00:14:20.889
this whole process perspective this whole systems

00:14:20.889 –> 00:14:23.769
perspective and It’s hard to break that down.

00:14:24.090 –> 00:14:26.529
So I do appreciate that. We’re getting a chance

00:14:26.529 –> 00:14:30.820
to share that today now With that said, your

00:14:30.820 –> 00:14:35.259
chapter specifically did look at, it discusses

00:14:35.259 –> 00:14:40.840
a case study, the museum sector, and how COVID

00:14:40.840 –> 00:14:46.000
-19, our most recent pandemic, impacted the sector.

00:14:46.960 –> 00:14:50.299
So would you walk us through that a little bit?

00:14:50.379 –> 00:14:53.629
Give us a little introduction. Yeah, so the pandemic

00:14:53.629 –> 00:14:56.850
created a sudden existential threat to the whole

00:14:56.850 –> 00:14:59.789
sector because the whole sector, like many others,

00:15:00.610 –> 00:15:06.389
was relying on people, on physical programmes

00:15:06.389 –> 00:15:09.870
and exhibitions. So museums were forced to close,

00:15:10.350 –> 00:15:13.850
leading to furloughs, redundancies and total

00:15:13.850 –> 00:15:18.009
disruption to physical programming, which was,

00:15:18.009 –> 00:15:21.250
as it is for some, their main business model.

00:15:21.710 –> 00:15:26.409
And many institutions lacked robust digital infrastructure.

00:15:26.809 –> 00:15:30.909
and were suddenly asked to pivot overnight, that

00:15:30.909 –> 00:15:35.669
was quite challenging. And it wasn’t just about

00:15:35.669 –> 00:15:38.370
putting collections online, so it wasn’t just

00:15:38.370 –> 00:15:42.690
about upload a picture online, it was about rethinking

00:15:42.690 –> 00:15:46.289
what engagement, education or community connection

00:15:46.289 –> 00:15:50.190
could look like in a digital space. It was tremendously

00:15:50.190 –> 00:15:52.629
tough and difficult and challenging for the museum

00:15:52.629 –> 00:15:55.970
sector. And if we think that it’s just… This

00:15:55.970 –> 00:15:59.570
has to be done with very limited time and no

00:15:59.570 –> 00:16:03.490
resources or very limited resources. And also

00:16:03.490 –> 00:16:06.789
the crisis, the COVID -19 and the crisis also

00:16:06.789 –> 00:16:12.370
expose existing inequalities within the sector.

00:16:12.990 –> 00:16:16.409
So if you think about larger museums or larger

00:16:16.409 –> 00:16:19.169
and better -funded museums compared to your smaller

00:16:19.169 –> 00:16:22.509
and local ones. So that was, this is the sex,

00:16:22.649 –> 00:16:26.570
this is the environment where our research fit

00:16:26.570 –> 00:16:34.029
in. So this very, this sex is deeply affected

00:16:34.029 –> 00:16:40.000
from the crisis and COVID -19. Okay, so yeah,

00:16:40.159 –> 00:16:43.940
let’s go even deeper into that then. So here’s

00:16:43.940 –> 00:16:47.299
scenario planning. Some people consider it a

00:16:47.299 –> 00:16:50.320
process, so almost more conceptual. Some people

00:16:50.320 –> 00:16:52.639
consider it a tool. I believe you all speak about

00:16:52.639 –> 00:16:57.799
it a little bit of both in your chapter. Maureen.

00:16:58.740 –> 00:17:01.399
specifically like scenario planning as a tool

00:17:01.399 –> 00:17:04.339
in these times where it’s fast decision making,

00:17:04.920 –> 00:17:08.559
fast changeovers, unexpected changeovers, and

00:17:08.559 –> 00:17:11.420
having hardly a time to sort of stress test,

00:17:11.700 –> 00:17:16.000
you know, a lot of what’s coming. You’re specifically

00:17:16.000 –> 00:17:19.099
a we, but in this situation, you’re specifically

00:17:19.099 –> 00:17:21.440
working with leadership, right? Because they’re

00:17:21.519 –> 00:17:23.519
decision makers, they’re the ones who have the

00:17:23.519 –> 00:17:27.220
final say. So how was scenario planning this

00:17:27.220 –> 00:17:30.680
useful tool with the leadership during COVID?

00:17:32.059 –> 00:17:34.400
Yeah, I mean, I think it was interesting. The

00:17:34.400 –> 00:17:37.059
first thing was that we found people did want

00:17:37.059 –> 00:17:39.240
to talk to us, which wasn’t, you know, would

00:17:39.240 –> 00:17:42.000
not have been obvious at the beginning. This

00:17:42.000 –> 00:17:44.400
was an incredibly stressful time for them, as

00:17:44.400 –> 00:17:47.359
Alessandro’s already said, they, you know, they

00:17:47.359 –> 00:17:50.079
were shut, they had lost all their income streams.

00:17:51.000 –> 00:17:53.900
Staff were furloughed, you know, staff working

00:17:53.900 –> 00:17:56.720
at home trying to figure out, if you remember

00:17:56.720 –> 00:17:58.940
those days, how to use Zoom, how to record a

00:17:58.940 –> 00:18:01.619
podcast, all those things that we became, you

00:18:01.619 –> 00:18:05.299
know, quickly very familiar with. And they really

00:18:05.299 –> 00:18:07.599
wanted to have that conversation because the

00:18:07.599 –> 00:18:09.240
other thing you might remember from those days

00:18:09.240 –> 00:18:13.009
was what is the future going to look like? This

00:18:13.009 –> 00:18:15.309
question, is it going to go back to normal? Or

00:18:15.309 –> 00:18:17.650
everyone was talking about a new normal, right?

00:18:17.710 –> 00:18:22.210
What will the new normal be? And again, in those

00:18:22.210 –> 00:18:24.569
workshops, the managers were saying things like,

00:18:24.990 –> 00:18:27.470
will people want to come back? If we put things

00:18:27.470 –> 00:18:30.890
online, maybe people won’t want to come back

00:18:30.890 –> 00:18:32.930
again into music, which again, sounds a little

00:18:32.930 –> 00:18:35.880
bit crazy. We know that we… a few years on.

00:18:36.019 –> 00:18:38.779
We know that people have gone back, but I guess

00:18:38.779 –> 00:18:42.299
my point is people did want to have those conversations.

00:18:42.759 –> 00:18:46.160
I think it comes back to this notion of crisis.

00:18:46.380 –> 00:18:48.039
Yeah, and I think one definition of crisis is

00:18:48.039 –> 00:18:50.000
the point when you really don’t know what to

00:18:50.000 –> 00:18:54.079
do, right? You’re almost at maximum uncertainty

00:18:54.079 –> 00:18:57.779
and you’re probably stressed and baffled and

00:18:57.779 –> 00:18:59.579
you know really wondering what the right what

00:18:59.579 –> 00:19:02.960
the right route is and so we found the scenario

00:19:02.960 –> 00:19:06.700
process to be a really good one for talking through

00:19:06.700 –> 00:19:09.420
you know obviously what those different futures

00:19:09.420 –> 00:19:12.539
might look like and what they could do starting

00:19:12.539 –> 00:19:14.960
from where they were starting from and it’s worth

00:19:14.960 –> 00:19:16.660
saying that the museums we talked to there was

00:19:16.660 –> 00:19:20.059
a wide range from some large, well -resourced

00:19:20.059 –> 00:19:22.460
institutions that you definitely know the name

00:19:22.460 –> 00:19:26.019
of, through to some little local ones with even

00:19:26.019 –> 00:19:29.519
less resources. So there was a huge worry about

00:19:29.519 –> 00:19:32.319
the right resources and capabilities to respond

00:19:32.319 –> 00:19:36.220
to these challenges. And the scenario process,

00:19:36.339 –> 00:19:38.160
I agree with you, it’s a process and a tool,

00:19:38.319 –> 00:19:41.279
I think, Megan, it really did help. You know,

00:19:41.279 –> 00:19:43.299
I’m interested in how you have a good strategic

00:19:43.299 –> 00:19:45.380
conversation. That’s that’s one of the things

00:19:45.380 –> 00:19:47.140
that, you know, one of the questions that’s run

00:19:47.140 –> 00:19:50.200
through my my research for years. And I felt

00:19:50.200 –> 00:19:53.539
it really did help. Really did help with that.

00:19:55.859 –> 00:20:03.599
Yes. And that that exercise of having not just

00:20:03.599 –> 00:20:07.240
a strategic conversation, which is an entire

00:20:09.390 –> 00:20:13.769
I don’t know, subset, what a conversation can

00:20:13.769 –> 00:20:17.869
even be, but a good, a meaningful strategic conversation,

00:20:18.049 –> 00:20:21.789
right? That is something that’s coming into question

00:20:21.789 –> 00:20:26.799
a lot with a lot of the digital tools. that people

00:20:26.799 –> 00:20:30.099
are trying to use to support scenario planning,

00:20:30.559 –> 00:20:33.920
right? The most obvious one being various AI

00:20:33.920 –> 00:20:37.700
tools is like, okay, what does that mean to the

00:20:37.700 –> 00:20:40.960
strategic conversation that we have assumed in

00:20:40.960 –> 00:20:44.059
the field and in the practice that the study

00:20:44.059 –> 00:20:48.920
of it is a key part of the success, right? Is

00:20:48.920 –> 00:20:54.609
that… Well, one on five, one on seven thousand

00:20:54.609 –> 00:20:57.970
conversations that we have. Right. OK, so you

00:20:57.970 –> 00:21:02.710
had large museums that you were working with.

00:21:02.970 –> 00:21:06.650
So they had and then small local regional, they

00:21:06.650 –> 00:21:09.369
had different budgets, they had different concerns,

00:21:09.609 –> 00:21:12.329
they had similar but different fears. Right.

00:21:13.279 –> 00:21:16.839
And COVID added one more thing to that with this

00:21:16.839 –> 00:21:18.819
ability to have conversations with them, which

00:21:18.819 –> 00:21:21.359
is we had to take a hybrid approach or we had

00:21:21.359 –> 00:21:24.680
to take a fully virtual approach. We had to change

00:21:24.680 –> 00:21:27.880
even the way we approach scenario planning as

00:21:27.880 –> 00:21:30.900
scenario planners. How that worked out for you?

00:21:31.160 –> 00:21:32.660
What were some of the things you took away from

00:21:32.660 –> 00:21:37.940
that? So we did have to run the exercise virtually.

00:21:38.200 –> 00:21:41.099
um we didn’t meet any of these people in person

00:21:41.099 –> 00:21:45.099
until until much later but we we use the word

00:21:45.099 –> 00:21:49.480
hybrid in in the in the chapter because well

00:21:49.480 –> 00:21:51.680
we’re using it in a slightly different way actually

00:21:51.680 –> 00:21:56.200
we’re dealing with the fact that um the participants

00:21:56.200 –> 00:22:00.640
were very time poor um just extremely busy um

00:22:00.640 –> 00:22:03.579
you know as I say stressed short -term future

00:22:04.559 –> 00:22:07.579
the survival of the organisation in some cases,

00:22:07.720 –> 00:22:11.380
you know, it was that bad. And, you know, so

00:22:11.380 –> 00:22:13.839
we worked very hard to get them to engage in

00:22:13.839 –> 00:22:16.019
the workshops. And as I said, they did appreciate

00:22:16.019 –> 00:22:19.079
the conversation. But we’re using hybrid in a

00:22:19.079 –> 00:22:20.819
slightly different sense. I mean, a scenario

00:22:20.819 –> 00:22:23.720
planning exercise can be done in a number of

00:22:23.720 –> 00:22:26.640
ways, right? And the literature often presents

00:22:26.640 –> 00:22:29.220
the ideal way of running a scenario planning

00:22:29.220 –> 00:22:32.400
exercise is to… involve people involve the

00:22:32.400 –> 00:22:34.599
participants right from the beginning right through

00:22:34.599 –> 00:22:38.420
to the end in every step right from brainstorming

00:22:38.420 –> 00:22:41.220
generating scenarios using the scenarios and

00:22:41.220 –> 00:22:43.339
coming up with the strategies and and this whole

00:22:43.339 –> 00:22:46.440
this whole process not every scenario exercise

00:22:46.440 –> 00:22:48.799
is like that francis and i have written about

00:22:48.799 –> 00:22:51.920
scenario use so what it’s like when you get participants

00:22:51.920 –> 00:22:55.160
to engage with set of existing scenarios that

00:22:55.160 –> 00:22:58.259
they haven’t been part of developing and they

00:22:58.259 –> 00:23:02.220
need to orientate themselves sometimes in order

00:23:02.220 –> 00:23:04.559
to use the scenarios effectively you need to

00:23:04.559 –> 00:23:07.700
ground yourself in them. So we were very aware

00:23:07.700 –> 00:23:12.220
of these arguments, you know, ideally you’d get

00:23:12.220 –> 00:23:13.960
people involved throughout the process because

00:23:13.960 –> 00:23:17.000
that’s perhaps how the mindset change happens,

00:23:17.319 –> 00:23:19.980
those arguments about the participants look at

00:23:19.980 –> 00:23:22.339
the world differently even if the scenarios themselves

00:23:22.339 –> 00:23:24.880
they don’t. feel are useful, the processes, right?

00:23:24.920 –> 00:23:26.920
Those kind of arguments. We couldn’t do that.

00:23:26.960 –> 00:23:29.480
We couldn’t do a, you know, a whole day in person

00:23:29.480 –> 00:23:32.680
or, you know, it just wasn’t an option during

00:23:32.680 –> 00:23:36.240
COVID. So Alessandra and I designed a process

00:23:36.240 –> 00:23:39.240
where we ran a couple of workshops upfront, where

00:23:39.240 –> 00:23:42.920
we got them to do brainstorming the elements

00:23:42.920 –> 00:23:46.420
in the external environment. listeners might

00:23:46.420 –> 00:23:48.880
be familiar with PEST, political, economic, social,

00:23:49.079 –> 00:23:51.339
technological, those kinds of frameworks for

00:23:51.339 –> 00:23:53.700
saying what’s going on in the external environment.

00:23:54.059 –> 00:23:57.400
We did that. We then took away all the output

00:23:57.400 –> 00:23:59.960
from those conversations and Alessandro and I

00:23:59.960 –> 00:24:02.920
designed the scenarios and then we ran a second

00:24:02.920 –> 00:24:07.160
set of workshops where the scenarios were used

00:24:07.160 –> 00:24:10.829
and the strategies were developed. it was it

00:24:10.829 –> 00:24:13.950
was this this little bit of a halfway house some

00:24:13.950 –> 00:24:16.390
participants stayed with us they they came to

00:24:16.390 –> 00:24:19.210
one of the first workshops and they came to the

00:24:19.210 –> 00:24:22.730
to the to the scenario use type workshops some

00:24:22.730 –> 00:24:24.769
you know didn’t do the first and did the second

00:24:24.769 –> 00:24:28.529
or or or vice versa so it was a very interesting

00:24:28.529 –> 00:24:30.630
exercise from that point of view it’s often how

00:24:30.630 –> 00:24:32.650
it would happen in an organization by the way

00:24:32.650 –> 00:24:35.109
isn’t it if you’re running a consultancy exercise

00:24:35.109 –> 00:24:37.730
for a company again not everybody can make can

00:24:37.730 –> 00:24:40.779
make every meeting because their busy time for

00:24:40.779 –> 00:24:43.599
managers. So we tried to design the process to

00:24:43.599 –> 00:24:47.880
work in that way entirely online and I think

00:24:47.880 –> 00:24:50.799
by and large it did because when we came to the

00:24:50.799 –> 00:24:53.079
scenario use workshops as we mentioned in the

00:24:53.079 –> 00:24:55.539
chapter people did recognise the people who’d

00:24:55.539 –> 00:24:58.079
been at the earlier workshops were saying you

00:24:58.079 –> 00:25:00.299
know I recognise that I can see you’ve taken

00:25:00.299 –> 00:25:03.000
some of the debates we had at that early workshop

00:25:03.000 –> 00:25:05.619
are reflected in the scenarios and so on. So

00:25:05.619 –> 00:25:09.000
for us it was a It was it was quite an interesting

00:25:09.000 –> 00:25:11.559
exercise that was kind of, as I say, kind of

00:25:11.559 –> 00:25:14.819
a halfway house between the full you’re involved

00:25:14.819 –> 00:25:18.160
from A to Z or just giving you a set of scenarios

00:25:18.160 –> 00:25:20.380
that you haven’t been involved in developing

00:25:20.380 –> 00:25:28.849
at all. Yeah, that was. That is a point of contention

00:25:28.849 –> 00:25:32.210
a lot between us, just as researchers and practitioners.

00:25:32.769 –> 00:25:36.250
You know, do we be dogmatic and have like the

00:25:36.250 –> 00:25:39.029
same, first of all, have a leadership team, you

00:25:39.029 –> 00:25:42.829
know, involved? And do we make them be involved

00:25:42.829 –> 00:25:45.250
the whole time or considered a failure effort?

00:25:45.930 –> 00:25:52.759
Or do we factor in? as the term that I think

00:25:52.759 –> 00:25:57.630
is a great term, time -poor nature. of these

00:25:57.630 –> 00:25:59.930
clients, right? The other point, sorry Megan,

00:25:59.970 –> 00:26:01.750
is of course this wasn’t an exercise for one

00:26:01.750 –> 00:26:05.069
organization. It was for a bunch of museums,

00:26:05.190 –> 00:26:09.130
you know, across the West Midlands. So Alexandra

00:26:09.130 –> 00:26:11.390
and I were not in a position to insist, right,

00:26:11.789 –> 00:26:14.549
and say right, well there wasn’t a senior management,

00:26:14.630 –> 00:26:16.710
there wasn’t a single senior management team

00:26:16.710 –> 00:26:20.750
that we could talk to, you know. Because these

00:26:20.750 –> 00:26:22.589
were like boards, right? I mean museums are run

00:26:22.589 –> 00:26:24.630
by boards and trusts and things of that nature,

00:26:24.630 –> 00:26:27.450
right? So our participants we had some directors,

00:26:27.869 –> 00:26:31.289
some CEOs, some chief operating officers, some

00:26:31.289 –> 00:26:33.970
heads of digital or heads of marketing, you know,

00:26:34.009 –> 00:26:36.910
in some of the small museums, it was only a very

00:26:36.910 –> 00:26:40.289
small senior team anyway, you know, there weren’t

00:26:40.289 –> 00:26:42.930
too many individuals you could reach out to.

00:26:44.009 –> 00:26:46.230
So yeah, that was the level we were aiming at,

00:26:46.470 –> 00:26:48.910
those sort of senior decision makers who were

00:26:48.910 –> 00:26:51.789
interested in strategy and digital going forward.

00:26:52.740 –> 00:26:56.539
Okay. Well, okay. So you then, you know, your

00:26:56.539 –> 00:26:59.539
team, y ‘all bring in something else that’s also,

00:26:59.940 –> 00:27:02.539
at least from my perspective, seemed a little

00:27:02.539 –> 00:27:05.519
different from the norm as well. The way you

00:27:05.519 –> 00:27:08.420
said you did this hybrid approach, you were using

00:27:08.420 –> 00:27:12.920
almost like the crisis of application into being

00:27:12.920 –> 00:27:14.579
flexible and saying, okay, we can have these

00:27:14.579 –> 00:27:16.140
people here and some people there and we’re going

00:27:16.140 –> 00:27:19.279
to do like this stage of scenario and then that

00:27:19.279 –> 00:27:23.950
stage of scenario. use this technique within,

00:27:24.210 –> 00:27:27.630
which is you didn’t make the scenario planning

00:27:27.630 –> 00:27:31.390
about the organizations you were working with.

00:27:31.430 –> 00:27:34.829
You used a fictional museum, right? A fictional

00:27:34.829 –> 00:27:38.930
organization. And I haven’t personally come across

00:27:38.930 –> 00:27:44.009
that outside of when you’re just teaching about

00:27:44.009 –> 00:27:46.490
scenario planning, right? But even then we bring

00:27:46.490 –> 00:27:50.009
in real governments or something, you know, so

00:27:50.009 –> 00:27:52.630
people can do the research. So I would love to

00:27:52.630 –> 00:27:54.769
hear more about that. What was the motivation

00:27:54.769 –> 00:27:57.190
behind it? How did it work out? What was the

00:27:57.190 –> 00:28:02.210
effect of it? Yeah. Yeah. So we created, so we

00:28:02.210 –> 00:28:05.549
broke the rules. but that was a deliberate and

00:28:05.549 –> 00:28:08.069
strategic choice and we’ll explain why. So we

00:28:08.069 –> 00:28:10.950
created this fictional, we call it West Midlands

00:28:10.950 –> 00:28:15.569
Museum, WMM, and they said it was a deliberate

00:28:15.569 –> 00:28:20.269
and strategic choice and the key idea was to

00:28:20.269 –> 00:28:23.690
allow for open and honest reflection across a

00:28:23.690 –> 00:28:26.849
group or diverse institutions without putting

00:28:26.849 –> 00:28:30.210
any one museum or leader under the spotlight.

00:28:31.210 –> 00:28:35.490
So and by using this fictional organisation participants

00:28:35.490 –> 00:28:39.109
could explore difficult scenarios or even complex

00:28:39.109 –> 00:28:42.390
decisions without feeling that they as leaders

00:28:42.390 –> 00:28:45.789
or their organisation organisations were being

00:28:45.789 –> 00:28:50.670
judged and so that was quite powerful because

00:28:50.670 –> 00:28:55.009
that gave them space to reflect critically and

00:28:55.009 –> 00:28:58.589
creatively rather than defensively So, the way

00:28:58.589 –> 00:29:02.029
we created this fictional museum, we ran some

00:29:02.029 –> 00:29:05.890
workshops before to, as Moritz said, we ran this

00:29:05.890 –> 00:29:10.589
pestle analysis and the conversations with the

00:29:10.589 –> 00:29:13.230
organisations, with the leaders, and then we

00:29:13.230 –> 00:29:17.069
analysed the data and we built this fictional

00:29:17.069 –> 00:29:22.089
museum. So, this fictional museum is based on

00:29:22.089 –> 00:29:26.769
what our participants said and is based on the

00:29:26.759 –> 00:29:29.960
two main external variables that, or two external

00:29:29.960 –> 00:29:37.000
factors that the leaders see as an important.

00:29:37.900 –> 00:29:42.819
So, and probably, as I said, there was quite

00:29:42.819 –> 00:29:48.200
a very good exercise because creating this fictional

00:29:48.200 –> 00:29:52.299
organization, because… Using a fictional organisation

00:29:52.299 –> 00:29:56.779
avoided competitiveness, for example, or finger

00:29:56.779 –> 00:29:59.700
-pointing, which can easily emerge in a sector

00:29:59.700 –> 00:30:06.839
-based discussion. So instead of creating this

00:30:06.839 –> 00:30:10.079
safe imaginative space where participants could…

00:30:10.039 –> 00:30:13.599
discuss strategy I could see their organization

00:30:13.599 –> 00:30:17.619
in that in this fictional museum that was quite

00:30:17.619 –> 00:30:23.319
that was quite powerful and so also this exercise

00:30:23.319 –> 00:30:28.430
allowed leaders and museum leaders to test assumptions

00:30:28.430 –> 00:30:31.170
and consider different organisational responses.

00:30:32.690 –> 00:30:36.109
So yeah, as I said, this fictional West Midlands

00:30:36.109 –> 00:30:39.950
Museum, the WMM, allowed for, as I said, honest

00:30:39.950 –> 00:30:43.750
and sector -wide reflection without implicating

00:30:43.750 –> 00:30:48.240
any one institution. And participants could engage

00:30:48.240 –> 00:30:51.500
with the strategy narratives more freely without

00:30:51.500 –> 00:30:55.000
feeling defensive or without feeling too exposed.

00:30:56.559 –> 00:31:01.140
And to be fair, many CEOs, so we run these workshops

00:31:01.140 –> 00:31:06.140
with the CEOs and senior, director of the senior

00:31:06.140 –> 00:31:09.690
management teams. And so they said that… that

00:31:09.690 –> 00:31:14.069
they saw their own organisations reflected in

00:31:14.069 –> 00:31:19.029
our fictional museum and that opened up strategic

00:31:19.029 –> 00:31:26.109
conversations about responses. It works quite

00:31:26.109 –> 00:31:29.250
well and also we had very positive feedback from

00:31:29.250 –> 00:31:31.190
our participants so it wasn’t too far away, it

00:31:31.190 –> 00:31:35.359
wasn’t too far -fetched organisation. If I can

00:31:35.359 –> 00:31:38.000
just add a little bit to that, I mean, I think

00:31:38.000 –> 00:31:43.740
it comes up. It is an important issue, this one,

00:31:43.940 –> 00:31:46.940
because as you say, Megan, scenarios are traditionally

00:31:46.940 –> 00:31:49.079
pictures of the external environment, aren’t

00:31:49.079 –> 00:31:51.579
they? But, you know, it just comes back to that

00:31:51.579 –> 00:31:55.140
crisis situation. I think people were very much

00:31:55.140 –> 00:31:58.740
wanted to talk about. there’s a real sense of

00:31:58.740 –> 00:32:01.500
urgency and a real sense of thinking of being

00:32:01.500 –> 00:32:04.779
constrained by their own lack of resources and

00:32:04.779 –> 00:32:07.480
so purely talking about the external environment

00:32:07.480 –> 00:32:10.640
without talking about how getting quite quickly

00:32:10.640 –> 00:32:13.200
into how they could respond and the constraints

00:32:13.200 –> 00:32:16.660
on their response, you know, that wouldn’t have

00:32:16.660 –> 00:32:19.460
been a useful conversation for them. So we wanted

00:32:19.460 –> 00:32:25.440
to make it as engaging and as plausible as possible

00:32:25.440 –> 00:32:30.920
is how I would. put it, I think. Yeah, that whole

00:32:30.920 –> 00:32:36.660
business of how you create meaningful, engaging,

00:32:37.440 –> 00:32:40.859
relatable, plausible, you could insert any adjective

00:32:40.859 –> 00:32:43.559
there and the scenario literature is full of

00:32:43.559 –> 00:32:45.900
lots of adjectives that says what makes a good

00:32:45.900 –> 00:32:49.690
scenario. But I think, I think One of the points

00:32:49.690 –> 00:32:52.029
that will come out a little bit later as well

00:32:52.029 –> 00:32:56.049
is it’s context dependent. And I think what we’ve

00:32:56.049 –> 00:32:59.369
got a good example here of is how Maureen and

00:32:59.369 –> 00:33:04.589
Alessandro really thought about not following

00:33:04.589 –> 00:33:09.509
some notion of a, you know, on paper scenario

00:33:09.509 –> 00:33:12.670
planning has to be done this way, but they adapted

00:33:12.670 –> 00:33:16.329
it and they modified it to suit the needs of

00:33:16.329 –> 00:33:21.019
the context. and of the stakeholders involved.

00:33:21.200 –> 00:33:24.660
And that’s why they made the choices that they

00:33:24.660 –> 00:33:32.339
did. Yes. Just from a purely selfish point of

00:33:32.339 –> 00:33:35.920
view, I hadn’t planned. I didn’t think y ‘all

00:33:35.920 –> 00:33:37.660
were going to write about this. And when I saw

00:33:37.660 –> 00:33:40.460
it, I was like, heck yes, because we are really

00:33:40.460 –> 00:33:44.559
talking about What are we doing now in this evolution

00:33:44.559 –> 00:33:47.880
of the field compared to where we’ve come from

00:33:47.880 –> 00:33:51.980
in the last 60, 70 years, right? And breaking

00:33:51.980 –> 00:33:56.519
the mold is happening. And I’m wondering, what

00:33:56.519 –> 00:34:00.740
are your thoughts on using this technique outside

00:34:00.740 –> 00:34:05.059
of scenario planning and crisis, right? So day

00:34:05.059 –> 00:34:08.639
-to -day scenario planning. Do you recommend

00:34:08.639 –> 00:34:14.260
this kind of What would you say, third person

00:34:14.260 –> 00:34:18.699
perspective almost in the work? I think there’s

00:34:18.699 –> 00:34:21.159
a lot of different ways. I’ll start, you two

00:34:21.159 –> 00:34:23.559
chip in. I think there’s a lot of different ways

00:34:23.559 –> 00:34:26.760
that you think about how you’re going to present

00:34:26.760 –> 00:34:29.860
your scenarios. And I think this is an area that’s

00:34:29.860 –> 00:34:32.860
really ripe for research. And I don’t see an

00:34:32.860 –> 00:34:37.880
awful lot written about precisely how you present.

00:34:38.300 –> 00:34:41.699
the scenarios and what you populate them with

00:34:41.699 –> 00:34:45.360
beyond the individual factors or variables, whatever

00:34:45.360 –> 00:34:48.079
people call them, that you’ve brainstormed in

00:34:48.079 –> 00:34:52.639
the early part of the process. And I think the

00:34:52.639 –> 00:34:55.719
answer has to be it depends. It depends on other

00:34:55.719 –> 00:34:59.579
things. It depends on who’s involved, the context.

00:35:00.170 –> 00:35:04.050
the time and space and what’s going on around

00:35:04.050 –> 00:35:09.050
you that affects those decisions, as well as

00:35:09.050 –> 00:35:12.909
the purpose. What is the purpose of the exercise?

00:35:13.130 –> 00:35:19.250
And here it was about giving people a tool to,

00:35:21.070 –> 00:35:23.250
I don’t want to say take their minds off the

00:35:23.250 –> 00:35:25.530
immediacy of the thing, but it was almost about

00:35:25.530 –> 00:35:31.349
lifting their heads up and seeing a way into

00:35:31.349 –> 00:35:36.650
a time beyond the crisis. One of the other features

00:35:36.650 –> 00:35:40.909
of this exercise where they broke the rules,

00:35:40.929 –> 00:35:43.429
if you like, was there was no date on the scenario.

00:35:43.610 –> 00:35:45.530
So the scenarios, although they were set in the

00:35:45.530 –> 00:35:49.949
future, they weren’t set at a particular point

00:35:49.949 –> 00:35:54.710
in time or with a particular endpoint trajectory.

00:35:55.230 –> 00:35:57.949
And I think that, again, was another conscious

00:35:57.949 –> 00:36:01.219
decision But that doesn’t mean that they’re not

00:36:01.219 –> 00:36:09.119
scenarios as we would call them, because they

00:36:09.119 –> 00:36:14.099
are clearly descriptions of alternative possible

00:36:14.099 –> 00:36:17.500
futures that describe a different time zone,

00:36:17.780 –> 00:36:19.980
even though they might not describe a particular

00:36:19.980 –> 00:36:25.539
date or, you know. specific years there’s clearly

00:36:25.539 –> 00:36:29.380
a feeling of a different period that these futures

00:36:29.380 –> 00:36:32.460
are set in and again I think that that was a

00:36:32.460 –> 00:36:35.659
conscious decision that was influenced by the

00:36:35.659 –> 00:36:39.289
setting and the people involved. I mean, just

00:36:39.289 –> 00:36:41.909
to add a little bit to that on the timing, you

00:36:41.909 –> 00:36:43.869
know, we’ve probably all met resistance. I know

00:36:43.869 –> 00:36:45.849
working with other groups, I’ve met resistance.

00:36:45.989 –> 00:36:48.210
If you ask them to think too many years out,

00:36:48.530 –> 00:36:50.530
they say, oh, I can’t possibly do that. You know,

00:36:50.849 –> 00:36:53.409
I work in a fast moving industry. I can’t predict

00:36:53.409 –> 00:36:56.190
three months, six months. Don’t ask me to talk

00:36:56.190 –> 00:36:58.110
about it. You know, so we were partly getting

00:36:58.110 –> 00:37:02.050
over that. You know, that there was so much in

00:37:02.050 –> 00:37:06.719
the Covid crisis that we didn’t push them. you

00:37:06.719 –> 00:37:09.199
know, I think five years, 20 years out. But Frances

00:37:09.199 –> 00:37:12.639
is right. We were painting a picture of a world

00:37:12.639 –> 00:37:16.440
beyond the crisis without putting, as Frances

00:37:16.440 –> 00:37:18.460
just pointed out, we didn’t put a number on it,

00:37:18.699 –> 00:37:21.900
but we were still gently getting them to think

00:37:21.900 –> 00:37:25.340
about a world. a time beyond the crisis, which

00:37:25.340 –> 00:37:27.679
again, if you think back to the COVID days, we

00:37:27.679 –> 00:37:29.579
didn’t know how long it was going to take to

00:37:29.579 –> 00:37:32.019
play out, you know, how many lockdowns there

00:37:32.019 –> 00:37:35.739
were going to be, etc. So that was a way of,

00:37:35.739 –> 00:37:38.280
I guess, a way of dealing with that very extreme

00:37:38.280 –> 00:37:43.000
uncertainty, I guess. Right, right. I mean, that

00:37:43.000 –> 00:37:45.099
was some of the work that George and I did. We

00:37:45.099 –> 00:37:49.139
were looking at I could be wrong, but at the

00:37:49.139 –> 00:37:52.480
time we had the largest review of COVID scenarios.

00:37:52.739 –> 00:37:57.420
It was the first half, but it was a monster half

00:37:57.420 –> 00:38:04.860
of 2020. And I mean, people were focused on two

00:38:04.860 –> 00:38:08.590
weeks, two months. you know, you had some, there

00:38:08.590 –> 00:38:11.710
were plenty, you know, in that database that

00:38:11.710 –> 00:38:16.289
went a whole year out. But that short term perspective,

00:38:16.429 –> 00:38:19.750
and it put me in mind of another place where

00:38:19.750 –> 00:38:24.210
the short term and almost like jumping from one.

00:38:26.230 –> 00:38:29.550
anxious, I don’t want to quite call it a crisis,

00:38:29.650 –> 00:38:31.269
but people do talk about it in the exact same

00:38:31.269 –> 00:38:35.550
terms, when scenario planning or forecasting,

00:38:35.929 –> 00:38:37.829
even which is more in that quantitative work,

00:38:38.630 –> 00:38:42.210
is dealing with politics, politicians and policymakers,

00:38:42.429 –> 00:38:46.989
because they are so focused on the election cycle,

00:38:47.230 –> 00:38:51.000
like that’s their time where they… can guarantee

00:38:51.000 –> 00:38:53.019
their ability to do whatever it is they’re trying

00:38:53.019 –> 00:38:55.199
to do, right? Election cycles can be a year and

00:38:55.199 –> 00:38:58.079
a half, you know, or four years. I mean, in the

00:38:58.079 –> 00:39:01.760
US, they’re set in the UK, there are snap elections,

00:39:01.840 –> 00:39:04.400
but that’s that in and of itself is a limiting

00:39:04.400 –> 00:39:06.099
factor, you know, when you’re thinking is like,

00:39:06.099 –> 00:39:10.260
oh, they could call an election anytime. So there’s

00:39:10.260 –> 00:39:13.960
that short term. And I really liked that you

00:39:13.960 –> 00:39:16.969
you tried something different with that. Okay,

00:39:17.190 –> 00:39:19.449
so this is one of the fun things, right, about

00:39:19.449 –> 00:39:22.590
bringing in a case study is you’ve got outcomes.

00:39:22.929 –> 00:39:25.909
That is something researchers like I and many,

00:39:26.150 –> 00:39:29.929
especially in scenario planning, struggle and

00:39:29.929 –> 00:39:33.170
rage against as we don’t get the chance to follow

00:39:33.170 –> 00:39:35.539
up. with a lot of things, it’s a lot of theory

00:39:35.539 –> 00:39:38.500
papers, understandably so, discussion papers,

00:39:38.860 –> 00:39:41.940
review papers, very few empirical papers, but

00:39:41.940 –> 00:39:45.460
the empirical papers are largely often laboratory

00:39:45.460 –> 00:39:49.579
based, right? So we’re testing out very small

00:39:49.579 –> 00:39:52.719
situations. And as Francis said, probably every

00:39:52.719 –> 00:39:56.159
single one of those papers reduces to, it depends,

00:39:57.019 –> 00:39:59.159
it’s so context dependent. And that’s not a bad

00:39:59.159 –> 00:40:01.440
thing, but it’s good to recognize, right? So

00:40:01.440 –> 00:40:04.199
y ‘all had not just one client, you had an industry.

00:40:04.519 –> 00:40:06.679
So I’m going to pass the mic back. I want to

00:40:06.679 –> 00:40:08.940
hear what happened with all these breaking the

00:40:08.940 –> 00:40:13.679
molds and new methods. So shall I talk about

00:40:13.679 –> 00:40:15.420
some of the themes that came out of our data?

00:40:15.719 –> 00:40:18.099
Megan, would that be? Absolutely. Would that

00:40:18.099 –> 00:40:24.380
be useful? So we picked up our two major themes

00:40:24.380 –> 00:40:27.500
and we did what many scenario planners do and

00:40:27.500 –> 00:40:31.030
use those as the two axes that make up they give

00:40:31.030 –> 00:40:38.010
you the four scenarios in the quadrants. So we

00:40:38.010 –> 00:40:40.769
had an awful lot of qualitative data, we analyzed

00:40:40.769 –> 00:40:42.869
and transcribed, we transcribed and analyzed

00:40:42.869 –> 00:40:47.969
all the sessions that we did. And the first big

00:40:47.969 –> 00:40:50.369
theme that we kept coming back to, we summarized

00:40:50.369 –> 00:40:53.340
as digital is about people. And what did what

00:40:53.340 –> 00:40:56.579
did we mean by that? The museums were sort of

00:40:56.579 –> 00:40:59.500
obsessed with their audiences, their visitors,

00:40:59.860 –> 00:41:03.019
the needs and the wants of those audiences, you

00:41:03.019 –> 00:41:06.699
know, where. Were people going to enjoy digital

00:41:06.699 –> 00:41:09.139
activities? Were they going to enjoy them so

00:41:09.139 –> 00:41:10.599
much that they’d never come back through the

00:41:10.599 –> 00:41:12.960
door of a museum again? Or was there going to

00:41:12.960 –> 00:41:15.840
be some future where they were, you know, doing

00:41:15.840 –> 00:41:18.900
both? So we talked an awful lot about that, about

00:41:18.900 –> 00:41:21.019
how they were going to serve their audiences

00:41:21.019 –> 00:41:24.119
in a digital world post -COVID and what, you

00:41:24.119 –> 00:41:26.360
know, what a hybrid strategy in the sense of

00:41:26.360 –> 00:41:29.159
a mix of digital and in -person might look like.

00:41:29.360 –> 00:41:32.519
And it was also interesting talking to these

00:41:32.519 –> 00:41:35.110
museum specialists, just how rooted in people

00:41:35.110 –> 00:41:38.710
and stories they were. So they saw museums, not

00:41:38.710 –> 00:41:42.130
as a building with objects in it, they saw museums

00:41:42.130 –> 00:41:45.309
as all about engagement, all about dialogue,

00:41:45.550 –> 00:41:47.690
all about their local communities and telling

00:41:47.690 –> 00:41:51.150
stories and so on. So there was a very much people

00:41:51.150 –> 00:41:54.469
-driven account of their purpose and why they

00:41:54.469 –> 00:41:56.789
were there, what their strategy should be. So

00:41:56.789 –> 00:41:59.570
that was really the first thing. And the second

00:41:59.570 –> 00:42:03.289
one, we summed up as digital is not free. So

00:42:03.289 –> 00:42:05.849
we’ve already said that these organisations are

00:42:05.849 –> 00:42:09.690
typically, they’re not well resourced. Some of

00:42:09.690 –> 00:42:12.329
the big museums might be more so, but many are

00:42:12.329 –> 00:42:14.230
not. Many are really struggling. They’re operating

00:42:14.230 –> 00:42:18.590
on really tight budgets. And while they wanted

00:42:18.590 –> 00:42:22.599
to go down a digital route, there was a cost

00:42:22.599 –> 00:42:26.440
associated with that and they were very interested

00:42:26.440 –> 00:42:28.860
in what the funding landscape would look like

00:42:28.860 –> 00:42:32.380
in the future. um as well because they felt that

00:42:32.380 –> 00:42:34.860
many of the traditional funders in this space

00:42:34.860 –> 00:42:38.679
funded based on visitor numbers you know it literally

00:42:38.679 –> 00:42:41.139
had to be you know bums on seats as they as it

00:42:41.139 –> 00:42:43.360
were people coming through the door and they

00:42:43.360 –> 00:42:45.260
were saying well how’s that going to work in

00:42:45.260 –> 00:42:47.420
a in a you know if we go more further down the

00:42:47.420 –> 00:42:50.159
digital route maybe we’re really great on tiktok

00:42:50.159 –> 00:42:51.960
and we’ve got millions of followers on tiktok

00:42:51.960 –> 00:42:55.739
but what does that do to our funding streams

00:42:55.739 –> 00:42:58.599
as well so very concerned about the cost of digital

00:42:58.599 –> 00:43:01.880
and very concerned about what the funding landscape

00:43:01.880 –> 00:43:04.280
for them looked like in the future in terms of

00:43:04.280 –> 00:43:09.480
just winning resources for their digital activities.

00:43:09.980 –> 00:43:11.840
So those were the two big themes that we summed

00:43:11.840 –> 00:43:14.139
up. Digital is about people and digital isn’t

00:43:14.139 –> 00:43:20.400
free. Yeah, I’m just trying to think where else

00:43:20.400 –> 00:43:24.019
you took that. So you had this new space. So

00:43:24.019 –> 00:43:28.880
how did Your clients or your participants, um,

00:43:29.059 –> 00:43:30.699
I think i’ve been referring to them as clients

00:43:30.699 –> 00:43:32.400
and you’ve been referring to them as participants

00:43:32.400 –> 00:43:35.400
But how do they like, you know balance this need

00:43:35.400 –> 00:43:39.880
for digital innovation? With their concerns about

00:43:39.880 –> 00:43:42.559
the funding and the resources and and and from

00:43:42.559 –> 00:43:45.059
and I even showed you a mic earlier I had right.

00:43:45.059 –> 00:43:47.659
That was my covet mic. I only had that one because

00:43:47.659 –> 00:43:50.320
it was the only one left in the only and all

00:43:50.320 –> 00:43:52.960
the electronic stores in the in the area it was

00:43:52.960 –> 00:43:55.420
it and and i was shamed for even walking into

00:43:55.420 –> 00:43:59.039
the store fair enough i get it but like yeah

00:43:59.039 –> 00:44:01.659
i mean there was there was constraints beyond

00:44:01.659 –> 00:44:04.639
constraints on so many levels so how’d that go

00:44:04.639 –> 00:44:08.039
how’d they how’d they deal with that yeah that’s

00:44:08.039 –> 00:44:11.739
uh as i said balancing the need for digital innovation

00:44:11.739 –> 00:44:16.469
with concerns about funding and resource constraints.

00:44:17.190 –> 00:44:21.570
That was a struggle, that was a constant tension.

00:44:24.170 –> 00:44:26.670
And indeed this balancing innovation, digital

00:44:26.670 –> 00:44:29.449
innovation with limited resources, was one of

00:44:29.449 –> 00:44:34.360
the most pressing challenges. Participants or

00:44:34.360 –> 00:44:37.679
clients, participants were pretty candid about

00:44:37.679 –> 00:44:40.579
their financial constraints facing the sector.

00:44:41.500 –> 00:44:45.219
Some museums, many museums were still struggling

00:44:45.219 –> 00:44:49.480
with basic operational costs. And we know digital

00:44:49.480 –> 00:44:53.440
strategies often require significant upfront

00:44:53.440 –> 00:44:55.880
investments and many museums weren’t ready to

00:44:55.880 –> 00:44:59.800
do that. Weren’t not ready, not just from a cognitive

00:44:59.800 –> 00:45:03.139
point of view, what I mean by that, they They

00:45:03.139 –> 00:45:07.360
were too scared to invest in that, but some museums

00:45:07.360 –> 00:45:09.860
were not ready from a financial point of view.

00:45:10.239 –> 00:45:13.719
They didn’t have sufficient budget, sufficient

00:45:13.719 –> 00:45:19.320
money to invest in this new world. However, there

00:45:19.320 –> 00:45:23.320
was a broad agreement that digital innovation

00:45:23.320 –> 00:45:26.380
was no longer optional. So there was the majority

00:45:26.380 –> 00:45:30.300
of our participants saying that digital innovation

00:45:30.300 –> 00:45:33.780
is not luxury, it’s not a luxury, it’s actually

00:45:33.780 –> 00:45:39.239
it needs to be central. So leaders spoke about

00:45:39.239 –> 00:45:42.800
needing to be pragmatic and finding good enough

00:45:42.800 –> 00:45:46.679
solutions, for example experimenting with affordable

00:45:46.679 –> 00:45:52.280
tools and pursuing collaborations with mainly

00:45:52.280 –> 00:45:55.440
external partners to stretch capacity. So the

00:45:55.440 –> 00:45:59.659
pandemic and the COVID -19 was actually for many

00:45:59.659 –> 00:46:03.579
like an opportunity, an opportunity to experiment

00:46:03.579 –> 00:46:07.119
and try new collaborations exactly to balance

00:46:07.119 –> 00:46:12.300
these constraints, the balance between the need

00:46:12.300 –> 00:46:15.360
for digital innovation and resource constraints.

00:46:17.000 –> 00:46:21.039
And since some museums began rethinking what

00:46:21.039 –> 00:46:24.260
constitutes value, for example, in a museum context,

00:46:25.219 –> 00:46:28.880
recognizing, for example, that digital engagement,

00:46:29.239 –> 00:46:33.639
even if imperfect, could create meaningful experiences

00:46:33.639 –> 00:46:36.940
also for well -being, mental well -being, and

00:46:36.940 –> 00:46:40.280
especially for audiences who cannot or may not

00:46:40.280 –> 00:46:43.710
or might not. return on site for different reasons.

00:46:44.650 –> 00:46:47.630
So there was the emphasis shifted from perfection

00:46:47.630 –> 00:46:52.710
of digital innovation to progress. And of course,

00:46:53.030 –> 00:46:57.909
the concerns about the affordability of digital

00:46:57.909 –> 00:47:01.750
actions as a result of digital strategies was

00:47:01.750 –> 00:47:07.900
present. Yeah, so just to finish on this, as

00:47:07.900 –> 00:47:12.059
it says, they advocated for digital to be central

00:47:12.059 –> 00:47:16.039
rather than a luxury for their organization and

00:47:16.039 –> 00:47:23.199
then for the sector. Okay. Now, as we’ve come

00:47:23.199 –> 00:47:26.559
to experience, you know, sort of proof of concept

00:47:26.559 –> 00:47:31.500
here is we’ve really embraced that digital space

00:47:31.500 –> 00:47:35.440
now and that digital the digital ways of doing

00:47:35.440 –> 00:47:38.199
things, and a lot of companies have responded

00:47:38.199 –> 00:47:43.980
to streamline that. Streamlining being another

00:47:43.980 –> 00:47:47.739
way of making it cheaper and easier. But yeah,

00:47:47.780 –> 00:47:52.179
yeah. And we see AI sneaking into it now as part

00:47:52.179 –> 00:47:57.630
of this digital support space. And again, just

00:47:57.630 –> 00:48:00.130
to say there was a huge spectrum. I think, you

00:48:00.130 –> 00:48:02.110
know, some of the smaller museums that we dealt

00:48:02.110 –> 00:48:05.449
with, they were doing very little on digital

00:48:05.449 –> 00:48:08.789
before COVID. You know, even their website was

00:48:08.789 –> 00:48:10.849
pretty bad, let’s say the website was a place

00:48:10.849 –> 00:48:13.170
you might go to check opening times or something,

00:48:13.349 –> 00:48:16.389
plan your visit. And that was about it, you know,

00:48:16.489 –> 00:48:18.170
through to a whole range of some of the bigger

00:48:18.170 –> 00:48:20.610
museums who were doing really exciting things

00:48:20.610 –> 00:48:23.550
with, I don’t know, virtual tours, even, you

00:48:23.550 –> 00:48:28.369
know, virtual reality for school. and all kinds

00:48:28.369 –> 00:48:34.550
of things. So it really did come back to them

00:48:34.550 –> 00:48:37.969
building, we found building some of their resources

00:48:37.969 –> 00:48:41.829
and their capabilities and taking the next step,

00:48:42.510 –> 00:48:47.010
trying some different approaches based on the

00:48:47.010 –> 00:48:48.889
resources and capabilities that they could muster

00:48:48.889 –> 00:48:55.369
at the time. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You have me

00:48:55.369 –> 00:48:56.869
thinking about all these new things I’ve been

00:48:56.869 –> 00:49:02.010
doing. Yeah, a lot of the websites absolutely

00:49:02.010 –> 00:49:08.090
got bumped up in quality and information at the

00:49:08.090 –> 00:49:11.269
UX, UI designs, all that good stuff. A lot of

00:49:11.269 –> 00:49:15.389
that was considered luxuries. These were technologies

00:49:15.389 –> 00:49:26.269
of luxury. But the luxury technologies are often

00:49:26.269 –> 00:49:31.619
coded for accessibility. And that accessibility

00:49:31.619 –> 00:49:35.539
is often relegated to the luxury space. So you

00:49:35.539 –> 00:49:39.079
need a lot of money. You need to be well -backed.

00:49:39.139 –> 00:49:41.159
You need to be well -informed in order to get

00:49:41.159 –> 00:49:43.559
all this. And now this knockoff effect of all

00:49:43.559 –> 00:49:47.480
these things is people are having access in ways

00:49:47.480 –> 00:49:52.000
that didn’t before and are able to have more

00:49:52.000 –> 00:49:55.500
meaningful, hopefully, exciting experiences for

00:49:55.500 –> 00:49:58.539
it. I’d just add one thing to that would be about

00:49:58.539 –> 00:50:01.360
the the relationship with schools though Megan

00:50:01.360 –> 00:50:03.900
between um because a very important audience

00:50:03.900 –> 00:50:07.579
for museums is school visits um and that’s the

00:50:07.579 –> 00:50:10.719
name Kim Stream for them and so on and so they

00:50:10.719 –> 00:50:13.880
started you know Covid came schools couldn’t

00:50:13.880 –> 00:50:15.579
come and clearly couldn’t come and visit you

00:50:15.579 –> 00:50:17.880
had staff at home so they were trying simple

00:50:17.880 –> 00:50:19.360
things to start with they were saying let’s do

00:50:19.360 –> 00:50:21.909
a zoom lecture you know, which will be available

00:50:21.909 –> 00:50:25.369
to the school kids. That worked okay for a little

00:50:25.369 –> 00:50:28.449
while, but we all got sick of Zoom pretty quickly,

00:50:28.550 –> 00:50:31.429
if you remember, you know, we’re spending too

00:50:31.429 –> 00:50:34.230
many hours on. So some of them were, again, were

00:50:34.230 –> 00:50:36.929
innovating and it was the mixture between the

00:50:36.929 –> 00:50:38.630
digital and the physical that was quite nice.

00:50:38.630 –> 00:50:40.650
So some of the museums started putting together

00:50:40.650 –> 00:50:43.349
a box with some of the items from the museum

00:50:43.349 –> 00:50:46.030
in which could go out and, you know, when kids

00:50:46.030 –> 00:50:47.889
could come back to school or some of the kids

00:50:47.889 –> 00:50:50.170
who were in school because their parents or key

00:50:50.170 –> 00:50:52.309
workers, they could interact with objects from

00:50:52.309 –> 00:50:58.809
the museum in a box alongside some sort of online

00:50:58.809 –> 00:51:04.050
activity. So it’s sort of thinking, it’s not

00:51:04.050 –> 00:51:08.199
just about taking. what was done in person and

00:51:08.199 –> 00:51:10.219
putting it online, you know, in some of the museums.

00:51:10.340 –> 00:51:12.800
I think Alex referred earlier to taking photos

00:51:12.800 –> 00:51:14.739
of all the objects and putting them on the website.

00:51:14.860 –> 00:51:17.960
You know, it’s thinking beyond that, isn’t it?

00:51:18.059 –> 00:51:20.059
What else, you know, what else can we do? What

00:51:20.059 –> 00:51:25.440
else can the digital world allow us to do? And

00:51:25.440 –> 00:51:28.519
that’s shaken up the relationship between museums

00:51:28.519 –> 00:51:31.820
and schools as well, we think. Well, that’s excellent.

00:51:32.489 –> 00:51:34.070
I love hearing that. This is what I love about

00:51:34.070 –> 00:51:37.010
case studies. We get to hear all the actual outcomes

00:51:37.010 –> 00:51:40.190
that happened. Okay, so I know we’re running

00:51:40.190 –> 00:51:42.409
short on time. We’ve probably gone over time,

00:51:42.610 –> 00:51:45.250
which is always, I find that a good thing. We’re

00:51:45.250 –> 00:51:46.829
just having a good conversation about stuff.

00:51:47.630 –> 00:51:50.250
But I do, there’s one question I really, really

00:51:50.250 –> 00:51:54.489
did want to make sure we had time for. And it’s

00:51:54.489 –> 00:51:57.880
from everything that y ‘all. been talking about,

00:51:58.280 –> 00:52:00.559
you know, you learned, you broke some molds,

00:52:00.760 –> 00:52:03.480
you tried some new stuff, you brought in experimentation,

00:52:04.159 –> 00:52:07.000
you brought in this third party kind of perspective,

00:52:07.099 –> 00:52:08.860
you brought in all these things, and you got

00:52:08.860 –> 00:52:10.699
to work with a lot of clients at the same time,

00:52:10.780 –> 00:52:14.440
a lot of organizations. So, but that was within

00:52:14.440 –> 00:52:18.070
that industry, right? Are there, and I bet there

00:52:18.070 –> 00:52:22.690
are, are there broader lessons that you can tell

00:52:22.690 –> 00:52:26.150
us about that other industries could learn from

00:52:26.150 –> 00:52:29.650
this case study about using scenario planning

00:52:29.650 –> 00:52:35.719
during a crisis? I’ll start here. I think the

00:52:35.719 –> 00:52:39.639
first thing that you have to do whenever you

00:52:39.639 –> 00:52:42.519
want to use scenario planning is you have to

00:52:42.519 –> 00:52:44.960
understand what you’re dealing with. So you have

00:52:44.960 –> 00:52:49.440
to understand the background context to what’s

00:52:49.440 –> 00:52:52.380
going on. So here, we had the background context

00:52:52.380 –> 00:52:57.670
was COVID had shut down. the museums and it had

00:52:57.670 –> 00:53:03.010
created a time of crisis and that had several

00:53:03.010 –> 00:53:07.949
implications. That meant that the various participants

00:53:07.949 –> 00:53:10.510
were not only time poor, they were quite anxious,

00:53:10.570 –> 00:53:14.809
they were very focused on the here and now and

00:53:14.809 –> 00:53:18.269
it was in thinking how can we use scenario planning

00:53:18.269 –> 00:53:22.880
to support this particular or these particular

00:53:22.880 –> 00:53:26.539
circumstances that led to the process that was

00:53:26.539 –> 00:53:29.219
actually deployed. And I think that’s the biggest

00:53:29.219 –> 00:53:32.019
lesson for me that, or if you like, the first

00:53:32.019 –> 00:53:35.539
lesson that is the takeaway is that that really

00:53:35.539 –> 00:53:39.469
needs to be upfront in any. any scenario processes.

00:53:39.650 –> 00:53:41.510
What is it all about? You know, what are we trying

00:53:41.510 –> 00:53:44.130
to do here? What is the purpose? And that reminds

00:53:44.130 –> 00:53:46.550
me of some of the stuff I read of, you know,

00:53:46.630 –> 00:53:48.550
from Case van der Heijden. He was really big

00:53:48.550 –> 00:53:51.829
on purposeful scenario planning. And so I think

00:53:51.829 –> 00:53:55.070
that’s really the starting point in terms of

00:53:55.070 –> 00:53:58.110
lessons to take away. There’s various things

00:53:58.110 –> 00:54:01.329
that were tried. So it wasn’t a question of you

00:54:01.329 –> 00:54:04.130
take the methodology and the tool out of the

00:54:04.130 –> 00:54:07.269
box and then you churn the handle as if you were

00:54:07.179 –> 00:54:11.539
making sausages or something it’s very much understanding

00:54:11.539 –> 00:54:15.320
the different aspects of the scenario process

00:54:15.320 –> 00:54:17.800
and thinking well if we’ve got really time poor

00:54:17.800 –> 00:54:22.119
people which bits do we really need them to engage

00:54:22.119 –> 00:54:25.619
in and which bits could we take away and and

00:54:25.619 –> 00:54:27.579
develop ourselves so I think there’s there’s

00:54:27.579 –> 00:54:31.199
a whole load of questions that start from that

00:54:31.199 –> 00:54:36.860
purposeful reflection. that can be taken away.

00:54:37.300 –> 00:54:39.900
Let me stop there and see whether Maureen or

00:54:39.900 –> 00:54:43.699
Alessandro want to chip in and take any of those

00:54:43.699 –> 00:54:46.719
points or bring in some other points. I was just

00:54:46.719 –> 00:54:50.099
going to say this idea of creating the fictional

00:54:50.099 –> 00:54:54.059
organisation. I don’t think I’d do that if I

00:54:54.059 –> 00:54:56.460
was working for one client. I can’t imagine that

00:54:56.460 –> 00:54:58.380
working with one client, but obviously with the

00:54:58.380 –> 00:55:01.760
sectoral perspective, I think that was a way

00:55:01.760 –> 00:55:04.239
of solving that. problem because working with

00:55:04.239 –> 00:55:07.179
quite such a range of clients is quite a challenge

00:55:07.179 –> 00:55:09.360
you know they were in they’re all facing this

00:55:09.360 –> 00:55:13.719
crisis but they were they were in very different

00:55:13.719 –> 00:55:17.699
positions so so yeah that was that was that was

00:55:17.699 –> 00:55:21.119
one point I wanted to make it could that notion

00:55:21.119 –> 00:55:24.000
of the fictional organization could work in other

00:55:24.000 –> 00:55:26.079
situations where you’ve got multiple clients

00:55:26.079 –> 00:55:34.059
or or an industry or an industry there. and again

00:55:34.059 –> 00:55:37.820
just on that point of having a fictional organisation

00:55:37.820 –> 00:55:41.239
in the scenarios and again a purist would say

00:55:41.239 –> 00:55:43.739
you know the organisation shouldn’t be in the

00:55:43.739 –> 00:55:48.760
scenario. I think what One of the things that

00:55:48.760 –> 00:55:51.059
frustrates me with some scenario exercises is

00:55:51.059 –> 00:55:53.300
you have beautiful scenarios that are not used,

00:55:53.679 –> 00:55:56.940
right, so it comes back to Frances’s purposeful

00:55:56.940 –> 00:56:00.800
point. It’s a tool for use, it’s a process to

00:56:00.800 –> 00:56:05.260
take people through and I think if you, if by

00:56:05.260 –> 00:56:08.699
putting an organization in the scenarios, you

00:56:08.699 –> 00:56:11.780
make the use aspects of it clearer because you’re

00:56:11.780 –> 00:56:15.659
actually talking about, you know, the strategies

00:56:15.659 –> 00:56:18.360
that the organization is choosing and the resources

00:56:18.360 –> 00:56:20.239
and the capabilities that it does or doesn’t

00:56:20.239 –> 00:56:22.300
have. So for me, I suppose I’m sort of saying

00:56:22.300 –> 00:56:25.320
it’s a price worth paying, right? You bend the

00:56:25.320 –> 00:56:30.500
rules in order to make the use aspects of the

00:56:30.500 –> 00:56:34.260
scenario work better. I hope that makes sense.

00:56:35.610 –> 00:56:39.110
And just to add, I know that my colleagues already

00:56:39.110 –> 00:56:46.289
had much. So the broader lesson, one broader

00:56:46.289 –> 00:56:48.269
lesson, and now one additional broader lesson

00:56:48.269 –> 00:56:51.510
is this study shows that scenario planning is

00:56:51.510 –> 00:56:54.929
not just about long -term futures. So in terms

00:56:54.929 –> 00:56:58.929
of in times of disruption or crisis, scenario

00:56:58.929 –> 00:57:03.269
planning can help organizations to shift from

00:57:03.760 –> 00:57:07.820
from reactive responses to proactive strategies,

00:57:09.139 –> 00:57:12.659
even between uncertainty, even amid uncertainty.

00:57:13.940 –> 00:57:17.329
So that’s one point. And the second is Scenario

00:57:17.329 –> 00:57:20.210
planning during a crisis must be responsive to

00:57:20.210 –> 00:57:24.010
participants’ lived experiences or lived realities.

00:57:24.329 –> 00:57:27.670
So that’s why we run workshops before that. And

00:57:27.670 –> 00:57:32.210
it needs to be faster and probably more focused

00:57:32.210 –> 00:57:36.989
than action -oriented. So that’s probably the

00:57:36.989 –> 00:57:41.550
two broader lessons that other industries can

00:57:41.550 –> 00:57:46.880
learn from this study. OK. Something else we

00:57:46.880 –> 00:57:49.000
were doing with the scenarios, I think, was challenging

00:57:49.000 –> 00:57:52.820
the functional silos, just to say. So, but a

00:57:52.820 –> 00:57:57.380
lot of the, for a lot of the participants, they

00:57:57.380 –> 00:57:59.619
would say that in their museums, digital was

00:57:59.619 –> 00:58:01.599
something, it was a certain person’s problem,

00:58:01.860 –> 00:58:03.820
you know, so digital is in the IT department,

00:58:04.519 –> 00:58:07.380
or digital’s in marketing, you know, they’re

00:58:07.380 –> 00:58:09.639
trying to sell tickets or do a bit of social

00:58:09.639 –> 00:58:12.000
media or something. And one of the things that

00:58:12.000 –> 00:58:16.480
very very strongly came out of this as a strategic

00:58:16.480 –> 00:58:19.420
conversation is digital has to be a golden thread

00:58:19.420 –> 00:58:21.300
that runs through the whole organisation, you

00:58:21.300 –> 00:58:23.559
know, your digital strategy isn’t a separate

00:58:23.559 –> 00:58:27.980
strategy, it is part of the strategy, you know.

00:58:29.480 –> 00:58:32.559
It has to be absolutely integrated into everything

00:58:32.559 –> 00:58:36.119
that the organization’s doing. And yeah, so I

00:58:36.119 –> 00:58:37.719
think that was an important learning and something

00:58:37.719 –> 00:58:40.579
that came out very strongly from the conversations

00:58:40.579 –> 00:58:44.320
with the museum leaders. Yeah, that’s something

00:58:44.320 –> 00:58:47.639
you see pop up in a, and maybe this is what they

00:58:47.639 –> 00:58:49.619
mean when they talk about whole systems thinking,

00:58:50.260 –> 00:58:53.920
you know, we get to think about. the entire organization

00:58:53.920 –> 00:58:56.880
and the environment and the stakeholders, all

00:58:56.880 –> 00:58:59.619
of it. But yes, Frances, I think I cut you off

00:58:59.619 –> 00:59:03.280
earlier. No, no, no, you’re OK. I was going to

00:59:03.280 –> 00:59:08.860
just bring in the time horizon bit and just say,

00:59:09.219 –> 00:59:12.440
if that is proving a barrier in your exercise,

00:59:12.579 –> 00:59:14.849
then why do you need to put a date on it? Because

00:59:14.849 –> 00:59:17.869
what you are creating is images of a different

00:59:17.869 –> 00:59:22.070
time. And if there is a sense that here there

00:59:22.070 –> 00:59:25.489
was clearly a zone of crisis which was whilst

00:59:25.489 –> 00:59:28.989
the pandemic lasted, but then there was clearly

00:59:28.989 –> 00:59:33.090
a time beyond that that the scenarios were set

00:59:33.090 –> 00:59:36.530
in. So would a time horizon on that have really

00:59:36.530 –> 00:59:40.050
been helpful? We don’t know how long the crisis

00:59:40.050 –> 00:59:46.360
was going to last. So I think that’s an interesting

00:59:46.360 –> 00:59:49.539
notion to take away is that scenario planning

00:59:49.539 –> 00:59:53.760
is a very, well, there isn’t one scenario planning

00:59:53.760 –> 00:59:58.360
method. I think that’s one thing that it’s really

00:59:58.360 –> 01:00:00.559
important to understand is that there are many

01:00:00.559 –> 01:00:02.599
different approaches to doing scenario planning

01:00:02.599 –> 01:00:05.500
as there are practitioners doing it, really.

01:00:05.679 –> 01:00:08.320
I mean, there might well be schools where different

01:00:08.320 –> 01:00:11.820
processes share things in common. But there are

01:00:11.820 –> 01:00:15.679
a huge variety of different processes out there.

01:00:15.699 –> 01:00:18.119
So if I were talking to people who were thinking

01:00:18.119 –> 01:00:21.840
about designing a scenario process, this notion

01:00:21.840 –> 01:00:25.420
that you can mix and match, that you can challenge

01:00:25.420 –> 01:00:28.539
preconceived ideas about what a scenario process

01:00:28.539 –> 01:00:33.400
has to look like is very much something to be

01:00:33.400 –> 01:00:45.460
encouraged. To end, everybody gets this question,

01:00:46.019 –> 01:00:50.300
because mostly I’m excited. I like to hear what

01:00:50.300 –> 01:00:52.539
everybody has to say, but I think it’s like one

01:00:52.539 –> 01:00:55.059
of the things we’re really good at answering

01:00:55.059 –> 01:01:00.460
in a really exciting way. What trends are you

01:01:00.460 –> 01:01:04.739
seeing in your area of work right now? I think

01:01:04.739 –> 01:01:08.320
one of the biggest ones, the most obvious ones

01:01:08.320 –> 01:01:12.530
is the impact of AI. Gen AI, you know, how does

01:01:12.530 –> 01:01:15.150
that, how can that be brought into scenarios?

01:01:15.570 –> 01:01:19.969
Is it a replacement for humans? Is it a support

01:01:19.969 –> 01:01:23.789
for humans? What role does AI have to play in

01:01:23.789 –> 01:01:25.530
the development of scenarios? I think that’s

01:01:25.530 –> 01:01:27.630
a really exciting topic which some people are

01:01:27.630 –> 01:01:31.269
already exploring in our field but I think that

01:01:31.269 –> 01:01:35.429
one’s ripe for further development. I think I’d

01:01:35.429 –> 01:01:40.760
just say One of the things that I think managers,

01:01:41.079 –> 01:01:43.239
decision makers are wrestling with, it’s an obvious

01:01:43.239 –> 01:01:46.139
one, but it’s speed of change and volatility

01:01:46.139 –> 01:01:50.880
and extreme uncertainty, isn’t it, across so

01:01:50.880 –> 01:01:58.079
many fronts. Methods like scenario planning are

01:01:58.079 –> 01:02:00.880
sometimes put in the box of, you know, some of

01:02:00.880 –> 01:02:03.079
your old -fashioned strategic planning methods

01:02:03.079 –> 01:02:06.900
that are too slow, too rigid and not going to

01:02:06.900 –> 01:02:13.840
help in situations of rapid change and great

01:02:13.840 –> 01:02:18.199
volatility, right? And I think I think they can

01:02:18.199 –> 01:02:20.679
and I think researchers in our space are thinking

01:02:20.679 –> 01:02:24.199
about, you know, scenario planning in different

01:02:24.199 –> 01:02:26.480
contexts. As Frances said earlier, it’s all about

01:02:26.480 –> 01:02:29.019
the context, isn’t it? And taking an outline

01:02:29.019 –> 01:02:33.559
of a method and adapting to situations of rapid

01:02:33.559 –> 01:02:37.260
change, situations of high volatility, that sort

01:02:37.260 –> 01:02:40.139
of thing. So I think those conversations are

01:02:40.139 –> 01:02:42.420
happening and I’m really excited to see what

01:02:42.420 –> 01:02:48.039
comes out of that. two things probably one is

01:02:48.039 –> 01:02:51.139
the the cognitive we talked about cognitive or

01:02:51.139 –> 01:02:54.719
cognition psychology and it’s something that

01:02:54.719 –> 01:02:57.119
i’m quite passionate about is the cognition or

01:02:57.119 –> 01:03:00.179
how directors think and i think scenario planning

01:03:00.179 –> 01:03:04.980
can be a tool a rule tool for them to think strategically

01:03:04.980 –> 01:03:09.199
and so to be more to be more precise so in my

01:03:09.199 –> 01:03:11.949
view something that we not talk talk about enough

01:03:11.949 –> 01:03:15.449
is the cognitive load on leaders and teams navigating

01:03:15.449 –> 01:03:17.989
this transformation, these changes, this crisis.

01:03:20.300 –> 01:03:23.860
So there’s a lot of emphasis of tools or platforms

01:03:23.860 –> 01:03:28.340
or outputs, but not much on thinking space or

01:03:28.340 –> 01:03:34.480
how we can support leaders in thinking. Leaders

01:03:34.480 –> 01:03:38.139
need to make sense of changes. They need to challenge

01:03:38.139 –> 01:03:41.320
assumptions and reimagine their institutions.

01:03:41.519 –> 01:03:45.559
And sometimes we don’t focus much on this cognitive

01:03:45.559 –> 01:03:50.280
process. There’s one aspect. The second is the

01:03:49.869 –> 01:03:53.090
failure something we also saw the fear of failure

01:03:53.090 –> 01:03:57.510
and we don’t discuss openly enough and so also

01:03:57.510 –> 01:04:02.989
creating this fictional organisation really helped

01:04:02.989 –> 01:04:08.070
to start in unpacking the failure but there is

01:04:08.070 –> 01:04:13.449
a real fear in the sector in general about getting

01:04:13.449 –> 01:04:17.409
wrong and specifically and particularly with

01:04:17.409 –> 01:04:20.449
public money involved and but we know if we want

01:04:20.449 –> 01:04:23.389
innovation or digital innovation and if we want

01:04:23.389 –> 01:04:29.519
to think long term we need to fail. But there’s

01:04:29.519 –> 01:04:33.320
no plan that can help envisage this. So we can

01:04:33.320 –> 01:04:36.559
play with failure and feeling less ashamed. So

01:04:36.559 –> 01:04:40.519
these two things, cognition, cognitive and aspects

01:04:40.519 –> 01:04:45.619
and fear of failure. And it would be my two trends.

01:04:48.110 –> 01:04:50.829
Scenarios for Tomorrow is produced by me, Megan

01:04:50.829 –> 01:04:54.570
Crawford, with invaluable feedback from Dr. Isabella

01:04:54.570 –> 01:04:58.230
Riza, Jeremy Creep, Brian Eggo, and as always,

01:04:58.269 –> 01:05:01.590
my kids. This is a production of the Futures

01:05:01.590 –> 01:05:04.710
in Analytics Research Hub and FAR Lab affiliated

01:05:04.710 –> 01:05:07.630
with Edinburgh Napier Business School. You can

01:05:07.630 –> 01:05:10.050
find show notes, references, and transcripts

01:05:10.050 –> 01:05:16.409
at scenarios .farhub .org. That’s scenarios .farhub

01:05:16.409 –> 01:05:19.389
.org. You can follow us across social media by

01:05:19.389 –> 01:05:22.110
searching for Scenario Futures, all one word.

01:05:22.690 –> 01:05:25.329
You can subscribe to Scenarios for Tomorrow wherever

01:05:25.329 –> 01:05:28.269
you listen to your podcasts. Today’s track was

01:05:28.269 –> 01:05:30.670
composed by Rocket, whose links are provided

01:05:30.670 –> 01:05:34.190
in the show notes. This is Scenarios for Tomorrow,

01:05:34.630 –> 01:05:37.030
where tomorrow’s headlines start as today’s thought

01:05:37.030 –> 01:05:37.710
experiments.

00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:03.240

I wonder how much of the facilitator has to like

00:00:03.240 –> 00:00:06.820

bring in this cult of personality. Because Matt,

00:00:06.960 –> 00:00:10.740

it’s not just ending the workshop, right? It’s

00:00:10.740 –> 00:00:13.019

saying, okay, now we got to think in a different

00:00:13.019 –> 00:00:14.800

way. And now we’re going to take what you did

00:00:14.800 –> 00:00:16.699

and think in a different way now, you know, because

00:00:16.699 –> 00:00:18.800

we have like creativity at the start and then

00:00:18.800 –> 00:00:22.620

causality and puzzle solving in the middle, you

00:00:22.620 –> 00:00:24.940

know, and then we get all the way to others.

00:00:25.000 –> 00:00:28.660

So I wonder how much of that. is really facilitated

00:00:28.660 –> 00:00:32.939

by, yeah, embracing a very specific profile of

00:00:32.939 –> 00:00:34.460

emotional. I don’t want to say manipulation,

00:00:34.479 –> 00:00:36.640

but sometimes it almost feels like that because

00:00:36.640 –> 00:00:44.560

we have to get through it. Back to you. PASS. I don’t

00:00:44.560 –> 00:00:46.920

know. I don’t know what to do with that, Megan.

00:00:47.179 –> 00:00:51.280

No, that’s great. It’s a great observation. I

00:00:51.280 –> 00:00:53.219

don’t know. Just cut this out. I don’t know.

00:00:53.259 –> 00:00:57.450

I don’t know. I’m sorry. A cult of personality?

00:00:57.670 –> 00:00:59.490

You got me stuck on that. That’s where you got

00:00:59.490 –> 00:01:02.310

me stuck. Welcome to Scenarios for Tomorrow,

00:01:02.509 –> 00:01:04.629

a podcast where we turn tomorrow’s headlines

00:01:04.629 –> 00:01:07.530

into today’s thought experiments. This first

00:01:07.530 –> 00:01:09.930

series includes conversations with the authors

00:01:09.930 –> 00:01:13.230

of our latest book, Improving and Enhancing Scenario

00:01:13.230 –> 00:01:16.379

Planning, Futures Thinking Volume. from Edward

00:01:16.379 –> 00:01:20.099

Elgar Publishing. I’m your host, Dr. Megan Crawford.

00:01:20.239 –> 00:01:22.340

And throughout this first series, you’ll hear

00:01:22.340 –> 00:01:25.099

from my guests, the numerous global techniques

00:01:25.099 –> 00:01:27.799

for practicing and advancing scenario planning.

00:01:27.980 –> 00:01:40.659

Enjoy. Today, we are lucky to have two guest

00:01:40.659 –> 00:01:44.319

authors with us. First is Nicholas Rowland, who

00:01:44.319 –> 00:01:47.140

is a distinguished professor of sociology at

00:01:47.140 –> 00:01:50.540

Penn State University in the U .S. He is also

00:01:50.540 –> 00:01:53.359

the academic trustee on Penn State’s Board of

00:01:53.359 –> 00:01:56.280

Trustees. Nicholas studies governance, the future,

00:01:56.480 –> 00:02:00.840

and the conduct of science. Matthew Spaniel is

00:02:00.840 –> 00:02:04.159

a senior researcher of strategic foresight in

00:02:04.159 –> 00:02:07.420

the Department of People and Technology at Roskilde

00:02:07.420 –> 00:02:11.039

University in Denmark. Matt has curated a YouTube

00:02:11.039 –> 00:02:14.060

channel called the Futurist and Foresight Papers

00:02:14.060 –> 00:02:17.080

Explained, where he has about a dozen or so scholars

00:02:17.080 –> 00:02:19.860

talking about their papers, of which both Nick

00:02:19.860 –> 00:02:22.419

and I have both been guests. So I highly recommend

00:02:22.419 –> 00:02:25.280

checking that out. Links will be provided in

00:02:25.280 –> 00:02:28.849

the show notes. So welcome both. It’s great to

00:02:28.849 –> 00:02:32.629

have you here. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to

00:02:32.629 –> 00:02:37.009

be here. We have had the opportunity, more than

00:02:37.009 –> 00:02:40.509

many, to catch up at our various international

00:02:40.509 –> 00:02:43.710

conferences and events that have gone around.

00:02:44.030 –> 00:02:46.650

But as it happens, I understand that the two

00:02:46.650 –> 00:02:49.490

of you have known one another for some time,

00:02:49.590 –> 00:02:54.199

right? Indeed, that’s the case. In fact, scholars

00:02:54.199 –> 00:02:57.699

that have seen our work probably don’t know that

00:02:57.699 –> 00:02:59.259

Matt and I actually went to college together

00:02:59.259 –> 00:03:01.759

so many years ago. And in fact, during our freshman

00:03:01.759 –> 00:03:03.960

year, we coincidentally lived right across the

00:03:03.960 –> 00:03:07.319

hall from one another. And so once we graduated,

00:03:07.479 –> 00:03:09.259

our paths went a slightly different direction.

00:03:09.259 –> 00:03:12.960

I went directly into a sociology graduate program.

00:03:13.740 –> 00:03:16.439

But then later on, we kind of got connected.

00:03:16.680 –> 00:03:18.539

Matt, do you want to take over what you did?

00:03:18.960 –> 00:03:21.560

So I went into finance and banking for a while

00:03:21.560 –> 00:03:24.379

and then did a master’s in international development

00:03:24.379 –> 00:03:26.939

in South America and came back and ended up at

00:03:26.939 –> 00:03:28.759

the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies.

00:03:30.240 –> 00:03:34.860

All right. That’s basically when we sort of rejoined

00:03:34.860 –> 00:03:37.719

forces, let’s say. And so we’ve been writing

00:03:37.719 –> 00:03:39.379

ever since. And that was about 10 years ago.

00:03:39.819 –> 00:03:42.620

Do you all have any idea about how many papers

00:03:42.620 –> 00:03:46.659

you have together or books? Papers total? Oh,

00:03:46.680 –> 00:03:49.550

gosh, I don’t know. At least a dozen. Yeah. Probably

00:03:49.550 –> 00:03:54.550

pushing 20. It could be. Nice. Nice and enviable

00:03:54.550 –> 00:03:57.449

professional relationship there. We’re all looking

00:03:57.449 –> 00:03:59.430

for that. In fact, our university, our department

00:03:59.430 –> 00:04:03.689

rather, just had one called Finding Your Research

00:04:03.689 –> 00:04:07.810

Life Partner. Something like that. I thought

00:04:07.810 –> 00:04:10.650

about it with that one. I was like, no, but that’s

00:04:10.650 –> 00:04:15.629

cute. So I’m grateful that we could find this

00:04:15.629 –> 00:04:17.569

time to chat because I know it was really difficult

00:04:17.569 –> 00:04:20.389

for all of us to get our schedules aligned, especially

00:04:20.389 –> 00:04:23.610

since we’re all teaching. We’re at exam times,

00:04:23.709 –> 00:04:28.110

all this kind of stuff. But I really, I wanted

00:04:28.110 –> 00:04:30.819

  1. talk specifically with y ‘all, not just because

00:04:30.819 –> 00:04:32.779

you’re authors on the book, but because of what

00:04:32.779 –> 00:04:36.360

you brought to the book. And it has to do with

00:04:36.360 –> 00:04:39.360

this latest shift in the focus in our field of

00:04:39.360 –> 00:04:42.819

scenario planning. So as mentioned in the introduction,

00:04:43.240 –> 00:04:45.620

we’ve just published this book together about

00:04:45.620 –> 00:04:48.660

scenario planning in the 21st century. We’re

00:04:48.660 –> 00:04:51.279

right here at the quarter century mark in 2025.

00:04:51.839 –> 00:04:54.420

We’d like to talk a little bit more about that.

00:04:54.829 –> 00:04:58.370

we understand that not all of our listeners may

00:04:58.370 –> 00:05:01.970

be familiar with even the concept or the terms

00:05:01.970 –> 00:05:06.029

scenario planning, though some may have heard

00:05:06.029 –> 00:05:09.550

more about us since the pandemic when our field

00:05:09.550 –> 00:05:14.060

got… extremely popular but one of the motivations

00:05:14.060 –> 00:05:16.860

to this podcast as well as was to the book was

00:05:16.860 –> 00:05:19.639

to bring our world of futures and foresight science

00:05:19.639 –> 00:05:24.439

outside the walls of academia where within understandably

00:05:24.439 –> 00:05:27.879

the language is closely controlled but knowledge

00:05:27.879 –> 00:05:30.579

ends up being not as easily to access as we generally

00:05:30.579 –> 00:05:33.540

wish it to be which just means we’re here to

00:05:33.540 –> 00:05:37.019

have a chat with the public yeah sounds great

00:05:38.060 –> 00:05:41.180

All right. Well, your chapter then is titled

00:05:41.180 –> 00:05:45.259

Examining Emotion in the Facilitation of Scenario

00:05:45.259 –> 00:05:48.980

Planning. Now with that, let’s start with a little

00:05:48.980 –> 00:05:51.899

softball question, right? So what is, in your

00:05:51.899 –> 00:05:54.779

professional experiences, what is scenario planning?

00:05:57.000 –> 00:06:01.680

I’m happy to start that one. So historically

00:06:01.680 –> 00:06:03.579

speaking, there’s been a little bit of confusion

00:06:03.579 –> 00:06:08.379

around the sort of absolute or the absolute definition

00:06:08.379 –> 00:06:11.120

of scenario planning. And that’s because, at

00:06:11.120 –> 00:06:14.959

least since the 1990s, there wasn’t academic

00:06:14.959 –> 00:06:17.939

consensus on what the term scenario itself meant.

00:06:18.100 –> 00:06:19.800

And that’s something that Matt and I actually

00:06:19.800 –> 00:06:21.579

picked up as one of the first papers that we

00:06:21.579 –> 00:06:24.120

wrote together was. trying to understand this

00:06:24.120 –> 00:06:26.759

problem about the confusion over the definition

00:06:26.759 –> 00:06:29.560

of scenarios in the scenario planning literature.

00:06:29.879 –> 00:06:31.939

And so what we did is we basically scoured the

00:06:31.939 –> 00:06:35.459

literature for every single example where scenario

00:06:35.459 –> 00:06:38.019

was defined. So these would be statements like

00:06:38.019 –> 00:06:42.519

scenarios are blank or a scenario is. And we

00:06:42.519 –> 00:06:45.399

basically amalgamated them all together and found

00:06:45.399 –> 00:06:48.860

that scenarios have six characteristics. The

00:06:48.860 –> 00:06:52.329

first one. of course, is that they’re temporally

00:06:52.329 –> 00:06:55.829

rooted in the future. And then secondarily, they

00:06:55.829 –> 00:06:58.810

almost always involve reference to some kind

00:06:58.810 –> 00:07:02.529

of external force in that context, maybe a political

00:07:02.529 –> 00:07:04.930

force or an economic force. There’s a bunch of

00:07:04.930 –> 00:07:07.889

variability there, of course. From there, we

00:07:07.889 –> 00:07:10.290

found that scholars make the argument that any

00:07:10.290 –> 00:07:13.550

scenario should be obviously possible, but to

00:07:13.550 –> 00:07:16.629

some extent also very plausible. and that the

00:07:16.629 –> 00:07:20.629

appropriate form for them to take is a narrative,

00:07:20.709 –> 00:07:24.089

or to put it more plainly, a story, only it’s

00:07:24.089 –> 00:07:26.029

set in the future, obviously not in the past.

00:07:26.850 –> 00:07:29.930

From there, we know that they exist in sets,

00:07:30.009 –> 00:07:32.870

and that they’re meant inside of those sets,

00:07:32.990 –> 00:07:36.430

this is the final criteria, to be meaningfully

00:07:36.430 –> 00:07:39.230

different from one another, so that there’s not

00:07:39.230 –> 00:07:41.470

a lot of overlap in the scenarios. They’re related,

00:07:41.649 –> 00:07:46.410

but they cover different ground. We’ve worked

00:07:46.410 –> 00:07:48.990

on what the word scenario means in there, although

00:07:48.990 –> 00:07:51.329

Matt is the one with experience actually conducting

00:07:51.329 –> 00:07:55.069

scenario planning in facilitated workshops. So

00:07:55.069 –> 00:07:57.230

maybe you want to take over the planning part

00:07:57.230 –> 00:08:00.839

for this one, Matt? It’s a bit of a kind of a

00:08:00.839 –> 00:08:04.680

missed marked nomer for the actual field that

00:08:04.680 –> 00:08:07.480

we work in, right? So planning assumes that you’ve

00:08:07.480 –> 00:08:09.379

got a budget and you’ve got a project and you’re

00:08:09.379 –> 00:08:11.879

trying to implement that project where when you’ve

00:08:11.879 –> 00:08:14.339

got a set of scenarios sitting in front of you

00:08:14.339 –> 00:08:15.740

and you’re trying to figure out what they mean,

00:08:15.839 –> 00:08:18.439

we’re looking for a few different types of other

00:08:18.439 –> 00:08:21.639

types of outcomes rather than just plans for

00:08:21.639 –> 00:08:25.189

the future. So the first thing is that we’re

00:08:25.189 –> 00:08:28.170

looking to ideate options. So if you think of

00:08:28.170 –> 00:08:31.110

the scenario as the puzzle, what’s the solution

00:08:31.110 –> 00:08:33.710

to that puzzle? And the solution to these puzzles

00:08:33.710 –> 00:08:36.389

are often going to come out in this world of,

00:08:36.450 –> 00:08:39.289

say, strategic options or ideas or actionable

00:08:39.289 –> 00:08:43.610

initiatives or something like that. But when

00:08:43.610 –> 00:08:46.480

you put that together again, The scenarios come

00:08:46.480 –> 00:08:49.360

back into the discussion again when you want

00:08:49.360 –> 00:08:51.799

to start talking about their ability to simulate

00:08:51.799 –> 00:08:56.919

the outcomes of those options. So imagine that

00:08:56.919 –> 00:08:59.679

you find some solutions to these types of puzzles

00:08:59.679 –> 00:09:03.179

and as you think of them and how they would unfold

00:09:03.179 –> 00:09:06.220

under these conditions set forth by the scenarios,

00:09:06.519 –> 00:09:08.799

right? You’re in this kind of, you’re stress

00:09:08.799 –> 00:09:10.799

testing your ideas, right? You’re trying to figure

00:09:10.799 –> 00:09:13.899

out what is the… the options that we have for

00:09:13.899 –> 00:09:16.200

ways forward. So we’re not setting a plan, a

00:09:16.200 –> 00:09:18.320

particular singular plan into place, but we’re

00:09:18.320 –> 00:09:21.299

looking for a divergence of different possibilities

00:09:21.299 –> 00:09:24.120

that we can move our organization into the future.

00:09:25.320 –> 00:09:30.000

Okay. All right. So you’re honestly the first

00:09:30.000 –> 00:09:36.429

group or individuals to break up. concept of

00:09:36.429 –> 00:09:38.649

scenario planning between the artifacts right

00:09:38.649 –> 00:09:41.490

the output that comes at the end pretty much

00:09:41.490 –> 00:09:44.289

but then the process itself as well and what

00:09:44.289 –> 00:09:47.389

it can be and yeah i’ve cited that first paper

00:09:47.389 –> 00:09:50.669

it is a pretty popular one um and in fact i’ll

00:09:50.669 –> 00:09:53.409

put up your decision tree that you mentioned

00:09:53.409 –> 00:09:58.250

nicholas at the start because um it’s a it’s

00:09:58.250 –> 00:10:01.210

one of it’s actually one of the graphics uh figures

00:10:01.210 –> 00:10:03.870

i use to teach how to illustrate qualitative

00:10:03.870 –> 00:10:07.529

data to the PhDs and stuff, because decision

00:10:07.529 –> 00:10:10.210

trees are just really nice. They’re really intuitive

00:10:10.210 –> 00:10:14.129

and understandable. I can’t take credit for that.

00:10:14.269 –> 00:10:16.690

Matt thought of the flowchart idea. I thought

00:10:16.690 –> 00:10:20.769

so, Matt. I use it in a course called concept

00:10:20.769 –> 00:10:25.210

analysis. So you can use that format, right?

00:10:25.370 –> 00:10:27.389

So the concept analysis or concept engineering

00:10:27.389 –> 00:10:30.909

also follows a similar type of method, if you

00:10:30.909 –> 00:10:33.240

will. Right. So there are ways to do this kind

00:10:33.240 –> 00:10:35.799

of work independently of scenario planning. Right.

00:10:35.840 –> 00:10:38.580

I wrote a paper on greenwashing with some students

00:10:38.580 –> 00:10:42.100

that we use a very similar type of method. And

00:10:42.100 –> 00:10:45.820

I find that PhDs actually get a ton of value

00:10:45.820 –> 00:10:47.360

out of something like that because you’re teaching

00:10:47.360 –> 00:10:50.159

them how to do what’s called a scoping review.

00:10:50.360 –> 00:10:52.559

Right. Which is like a miniature literature review

00:10:52.559 –> 00:10:55.840

for students. And so it’s quite a really nice

00:10:55.840 –> 00:11:01.129

way to get inducted into the PhD. or the research

00:11:01.129 –> 00:11:03.809

field, right, by being able to work with the

00:11:03.809 –> 00:11:06.570

literature in a very abridged fashion before

00:11:06.570 –> 00:11:09.750

you go out and do, say, more systematized or

00:11:09.750 –> 00:11:12.970

large literature reviews. Right. And it gets

00:11:12.970 –> 00:11:15.750

cited. The paper actually gets cited a lot as

00:11:15.750 –> 00:11:18.950

a way to do that rather than for its value as

00:11:18.950 –> 00:11:22.149

kind of defining scenario in itself. So that’s

00:11:22.149 –> 00:11:25.509

interesting you bring that up. Well, well, there

00:11:25.509 –> 00:11:28.950

you go. I think it all fits well. And I just

00:11:28.950 –> 00:11:31.289

realized. In this moment, I never told y ‘all

00:11:31.289 –> 00:11:35.110

that I could use your decision tree as a regular

00:11:35.110 –> 00:11:43.049

teaching example. So let’s see if we can find

00:11:43.049 –> 00:11:47.730

out about similar exciting, unexpected insights

00:11:47.730 –> 00:11:53.730

with your new approach here. One thing I do recognize

00:11:53.730 –> 00:11:56.409

in your work, and there’s a few out there in

00:11:56.409 –> 00:12:00.799

our field where you consistently keep and when

00:12:00.799 –> 00:12:03.179

I say you I mean the both of you I’m trying not

00:12:03.179 –> 00:12:05.879

to be too southern here but y ‘all promote together

00:12:05.879 –> 00:12:11.080

um really like I don’t want to I’m trying to

00:12:11.080 –> 00:12:15.539

be not too flowery in this but you really bring

00:12:15.539 –> 00:12:18.679

in new stuff okay you bring in new concepts that

00:12:18.679 –> 00:12:20.740

maybe we’ve all been talking about a bit in the

00:12:20.740 –> 00:12:23.799

past or we we you know we chat about between

00:12:23.799 –> 00:12:26.519

talks at conferences and stuff but but y ‘all

00:12:26.519 –> 00:12:29.299

are really some One of the teams that gets there

00:12:29.299 –> 00:12:33.980

first and paves the way. So this chapter, I remember

00:12:33.980 –> 00:12:38.379

talking with each of y ‘all independently. And

00:12:38.379 –> 00:12:41.759

this idea just sort of came out. And I remember

00:12:41.759 –> 00:12:44.240

saying. What do you kind of just have sitting

00:12:44.240 –> 00:12:46.960

on the sidelines that you haven’t found a platform

00:12:46.960 –> 00:12:49.659

yet to talk about? And that’s where this conversation,

00:12:49.779 –> 00:12:53.039

at least with me, came up for the book. So I

00:12:53.039 –> 00:12:55.340

did some searching afterwards and I repeatedly

00:12:55.340 –> 00:12:57.500

have done this for the last two years when we

00:12:57.500 –> 00:13:01.100

first discussed your chapter, which is about

00:13:01.100 –> 00:13:04.659

examining the emotional elements in the facilitation

00:13:04.659 –> 00:13:09.100

of scenario planning. Right. So I just before

00:13:09.100 –> 00:13:12.629

this. interview here right i did it again i went

00:13:12.629 –> 00:13:15.590

and i did a broad search of scenario planning

00:13:15.590 –> 00:13:18.830

um as it’s represented both in the public sphere

00:13:18.830 –> 00:13:21.990

and in the academic scholarship because these

00:13:21.990 –> 00:13:24.649

are very very different representations sometimes

00:13:24.649 –> 00:13:28.549

and and maybe we rail against that a bit too

00:13:28.549 –> 00:13:31.269

much i don’t know maybe not enough but what i

00:13:31.269 –> 00:13:34.759

find is they do align in some key concepts, right?

00:13:34.860 –> 00:13:36.679

So if you look for scenario planning in the private

00:13:36.679 –> 00:13:39.779

sector, you’ll see terms like foresight and forecasting,

00:13:40.159 –> 00:13:42.919

uncertainty, risk, things like that come up.

00:13:43.039 –> 00:13:46.919

In the academics world, you’ll hear those plus

00:13:46.919 –> 00:13:50.019

decision -making. In the private sector, you’ll

00:13:50.019 –> 00:13:53.220

hear more about agility and adaptiveness. But

00:13:53.220 –> 00:13:56.940

what is almost exclusively missing? In fact,

00:13:56.940 –> 00:13:58.840

I didn’t get any hits, to be honest, except for

00:13:58.840 –> 00:14:01.980

your publication was a discussion of the concept

00:14:01.980 –> 00:14:05.519

of emotions, or as we see in social sciences,

00:14:05.539 –> 00:14:11.679

affect, right, in the scenario space. And I am

00:14:11.679 –> 00:14:17.820

just as interested as to why this is not being

00:14:17.820 –> 00:14:21.129

brought up more now as I was before. Because

00:14:21.129 –> 00:14:24.870

foresight is rooted in the human agent. It’s

00:14:24.870 –> 00:14:27.750

humans engaging in foresight thinking. It’s humans

00:14:27.750 –> 00:14:30.769

engaging in scenario planning. And it’s humans

00:14:30.769 –> 00:14:34.929

that are the facilitators. So we know that humans,

00:14:35.110 –> 00:14:40.049

we as the species, are almost exclusively motivated

00:14:40.049 –> 00:14:44.309

by our emotions. And so we need to bring that

00:14:44.309 –> 00:14:48.529

into the dialogue. So I would like to pass the

00:14:48.529 –> 00:14:52.029

ball back to you now. What got you started on

00:14:52.029 –> 00:14:54.429

this idea of looking at the emotional aspect

00:14:54.429 –> 00:14:58.309

of scenario planning? Sure. I’m happy to start.

00:14:59.450 –> 00:15:02.210

Three things come to mind right away. One of

00:15:02.210 –> 00:15:07.990

them is that a couple years prior, we had been

00:15:07.990 –> 00:15:11.769

invited to a book about cognition. The link then

00:15:11.769 –> 00:15:14.090

from cognition to emotion ended up happening

00:15:14.090 –> 00:15:18.490

in this paper because the way that emotion is,

00:15:18.710 –> 00:15:21.350

at least the most frequently, but I do agree

00:15:21.350 –> 00:15:24.129

that it’s extremely rare, especially in any coherent

00:15:24.129 –> 00:15:28.710

way, despite the obviousness of emotion in the

00:15:28.710 –> 00:15:31.870

human drama that is every group level facilitation,

00:15:32.009 –> 00:15:35.389

planning, practice, strategy, development, and

00:15:35.389 –> 00:15:38.830

so on and so forth, is in terms of hot and cold

00:15:38.830 –> 00:15:42.940

cognition. That’s the jargon from higher education.

00:15:43.620 –> 00:15:46.299

So could you walk us through that? Yeah, yeah.

00:15:46.320 –> 00:15:49.620

No, happily. Hot cognition is talking about during

00:15:49.620 –> 00:15:52.899

a, especially decision -making processes, times

00:15:52.899 –> 00:15:55.340

when basically emotions are running high. That’s

00:15:55.340 –> 00:15:59.480

the hot part. And that it’s seen as interrupting

00:15:59.480 –> 00:16:03.399

cognition. That is, is that it discourages rational.

00:16:04.480 –> 00:16:07.320

thinking in part because the emotions take over.

00:16:07.379 –> 00:16:09.500

They’re sort of unregulated emotion. And then

00:16:09.500 –> 00:16:11.080

there’s this other thing called cold cognition.

00:16:11.220 –> 00:16:13.539

And you can imagine it’s basically just the opposite

00:16:13.539 –> 00:16:17.100

where you’re being like, you know, cold, very

00:16:17.100 –> 00:16:19.580

rational, and you’re keeping things, you know,

00:16:19.580 –> 00:16:21.820

keeping the emotion level low. And the belief

00:16:21.820 –> 00:16:25.639

in that line of research is basically that hot

00:16:25.639 –> 00:16:30.000

cognition is bad and it interrupts. and inhibits

00:16:30.000 –> 00:16:32.440

rational decision -making. And then there’s cold

00:16:32.440 –> 00:16:35.039

cognition, which seems to facilitate it in some

00:16:35.039 –> 00:16:39.360

way. Now, Matt and I weren’t super satisfied

00:16:39.360 –> 00:16:42.039

with that when we thought about our own experiences

00:16:42.039 –> 00:16:44.659

in this place, but that’s how we got to emotion.

00:16:44.860 –> 00:16:46.620

It was through cognition. It was being asked

00:16:46.620 –> 00:16:49.379

to write a book chapter about cognition. And

00:16:49.379 –> 00:16:51.799

secondarily, though, as soon as I read between

00:16:51.799 –> 00:16:53.779

the lines that even though those two terms are

00:16:53.779 –> 00:16:56.580

all about cognition, they’re also all about emotion,

00:16:56.799 –> 00:17:00.460

too, since that’s the major variable force that’s

00:17:00.460 –> 00:17:03.679

in the background. Right. And so being a very,

00:17:03.759 –> 00:17:06.160

I would say, a classically trained sociologist

00:17:06.160 –> 00:17:08.279

that took a lot of theory courses and everything

00:17:08.279 –> 00:17:11.900

like that, sociology of emotions has emerged

00:17:11.900 –> 00:17:15.579

in the mid 1970s and has been regularly utilized

00:17:15.579 –> 00:17:19.829

in order to look at. how emotions fit into social

00:17:19.829 –> 00:17:22.829

structure, how they were driven by shared norms,

00:17:22.930 –> 00:17:25.250

especially within organizations, and how they

00:17:25.250 –> 00:17:28.670

play a role in group -level processes, of which

00:17:28.670 –> 00:17:30.750

the facilitation of scenario planning is, of

00:17:30.750 –> 00:17:34.569

course, a great example. So for me, that wasn’t

00:17:34.569 –> 00:17:36.589

a leap at all, even though they didn’t seem to

00:17:36.589 –> 00:17:39.470

be connected in my understanding of those literatures.

00:17:40.089 –> 00:17:42.269

But then the third part, this is the real part.

00:17:42.329 –> 00:17:44.309

This is the heart of it all. is when I first

00:17:44.309 –> 00:17:46.289

started working again, remember how I told you,

00:17:46.309 –> 00:17:48.089

Matt and I kind of, we went to college together,

00:17:48.150 –> 00:17:49.910

then had like a period of time where we did our

00:17:49.910 –> 00:17:52.329

own separate work and then came back together

00:17:52.329 –> 00:17:55.650

once Matt was earning his PhD. When I would listen

00:17:55.650 –> 00:17:57.730

to Matt, and he had a lot of scenario playing

00:17:57.730 –> 00:18:01.390

experience already, in between the lines all

00:18:01.390 –> 00:18:04.769

the time was language about emotional regulation,

00:18:05.009 –> 00:18:09.029

you know, and that when, that was the most interesting

00:18:09.029 –> 00:18:11.890

thing, if you ask me. Bring a scenario planner

00:18:11.890 –> 00:18:13.349

in front of you. They’ll talk about emotion,

00:18:13.569 –> 00:18:16.289

no problem. Ask them to write about it. It doesn’t

00:18:16.289 –> 00:18:21.410

exist. For some reason, the very humanness of

00:18:21.410 –> 00:18:24.750

some of it just gets kind of taken out. And so

00:18:24.750 –> 00:18:28.670

honestly, I came to that conclusion in part just

00:18:28.670 –> 00:18:30.769

listening to Matt about when he was frustrated

00:18:30.769 –> 00:18:34.369

or when he had clients that were in a really

00:18:34.369 –> 00:18:36.650

negative emotional state and almost refused to

00:18:36.650 –> 00:18:39.609

play along and things like that. And so that’s

00:18:39.609 –> 00:18:43.519

the truth. behind it all, honestly. And so since

00:18:43.519 –> 00:18:45.059

I brought that up, Matt, do you want to pick

00:18:45.059 –> 00:18:49.019

up on that one? I think Nick was able to see

00:18:49.019 –> 00:18:51.480

that between the lines and that’s quite astute

00:18:51.480 –> 00:18:55.670

of him. I think a lot of times when… Scenario

00:18:55.670 –> 00:18:57.809

planners, consultants are called into organizations.

00:18:57.890 –> 00:19:01.450

You’re really not faced with a very bright, sunny

00:19:01.450 –> 00:19:04.509

day, right? Oftentimes, they’re struggling. And

00:19:04.509 –> 00:19:06.269

if they could solve the problems that they’re

00:19:06.269 –> 00:19:08.670

facing, they would have solved them. But they’re

00:19:08.670 –> 00:19:10.910

bringing in external help to do this often. And

00:19:10.910 –> 00:19:14.250

so there’s some issues that are already kind

00:19:14.250 –> 00:19:17.430

of unraveling inside the organizations. Perhaps

00:19:17.430 –> 00:19:19.829

they’ve lost a client. Perhaps they’ve lost a

00:19:19.829 –> 00:19:21.569

major supplier, and they’re trying to build back

00:19:21.569 –> 00:19:26.640

their resilience, for example. But one of the

00:19:26.640 –> 00:19:30.799

main tasks that I see is the facilitator has

00:19:30.799 –> 00:19:35.299

is when you’re walking into a situation in an

00:19:35.299 –> 00:19:39.240

organization in such a state, how is it that

00:19:39.240 –> 00:19:45.039

we can kind of make them do things differently,

00:19:45.240 –> 00:19:48.460

right? And so part of the emotional management

00:19:48.460 –> 00:19:53.890

stuff tries to shift them from… the state that

00:19:53.890 –> 00:19:58.109

they’re in to something where we can kind of

00:19:58.109 –> 00:20:00.970

jointly find new solutions together. And I’m

00:20:00.970 –> 00:20:03.329

a big proponent of the idea that that requires

00:20:03.329 –> 00:20:06.869

fun, right? So as an emotional state in itself,

00:20:07.009 –> 00:20:11.049

I believe that we’re having fun when we’re solving

00:20:11.049 –> 00:20:13.549

problems, when we’re seeing new things, when

00:20:13.549 –> 00:20:16.089

we’re collaborating with one another, when we’re

00:20:16.089 –> 00:20:18.130

building on other people’s ideas, when we’re

00:20:18.130 –> 00:20:21.920

iterating. And so… emotions can then work in

00:20:21.920 –> 00:20:23.920

our favor right when we can get that excitement

00:20:23.920 –> 00:20:27.940

going and and consultants and facilitators out

00:20:27.940 –> 00:20:29.660

there would recognize those moments that when

00:20:29.660 –> 00:20:31.700

you get that conversation and it’s moving in

00:20:31.700 –> 00:20:33.660

the right direction and and people are really

00:20:33.660 –> 00:20:36.819

kind of ping -ponging and doing a great job Our

00:20:36.819 –> 00:20:39.519

job as facilitators can be just to kind of hide

00:20:39.519 –> 00:20:42.019

over in the corner and not say anything, right?

00:20:42.099 –> 00:20:44.880

To get out of their way because they’re finding

00:20:44.880 –> 00:20:48.920

ways and doing things and reigniting that conversation

00:20:48.920 –> 00:20:51.640

that they’ve had a hard time having, right? Over

00:20:51.640 –> 00:20:57.079

time as they kind of slip and move and say drift

00:20:57.079 –> 00:21:00.720

in the directions that they’re going. The two

00:21:00.720 –> 00:21:04.059

of you paint a pretty, I think, accurate picture.

00:21:04.480 –> 00:21:08.640

of what a lot of us experience in the scenario

00:21:08.640 –> 00:21:11.680

consulting space right so we’re entering a room

00:21:11.680 –> 00:21:15.000

where we are already recognized because they

00:21:15.000 –> 00:21:17.859

brought us in as the scenario planning expert

00:21:17.859 –> 00:21:20.779

we’re taking that consultant role and often they’re

00:21:20.779 –> 00:21:23.380

strangers right we might know one or two people

00:21:23.380 –> 00:21:26.299

in the room because that’s who we’ve been setting

00:21:26.299 –> 00:21:29.069

up the intervention and the workshops with but

00:21:29.069 –> 00:21:30.710

a lot of the other people a lot of the other

00:21:30.710 –> 00:21:34.329

executives will be strangers and they have this

00:21:34.329 –> 00:21:37.190

way that they they everybody comes with their

00:21:37.190 –> 00:21:39.509

expectations in short right and those expectations

00:21:40.990 –> 00:21:43.450

As you say, like when we talk about this, we

00:21:43.450 –> 00:21:46.390

do, we imply a lot. Sometimes explicitly we’re

00:21:46.390 –> 00:21:49.410

saying, you know, they’re grumpy or disruptive

00:21:49.410 –> 00:21:52.930

or, you know, they’re very friendly or shy or,

00:21:52.990 –> 00:21:55.349

you know, and some of these are behaviors I’m

00:21:55.349 –> 00:21:57.410

largely mentioning, but they’re rooted in, you

00:21:57.410 –> 00:22:01.109

know, these assumptions of emotions. Right. And

00:22:01.109 –> 00:22:03.829

then our reactions to them, because it’s our

00:22:03.829 –> 00:22:06.630

role. We constantly talk about going back to

00:22:06.630 –> 00:22:09.410

what we say versus what we publish that Nicholas

00:22:09.410 –> 00:22:14.170

was mentioning is we present ourselves, though,

00:22:14.190 –> 00:22:17.589

as these sort of objective people, right? Like

00:22:17.589 –> 00:22:19.450

the way when the doctor comes in, we assume the

00:22:19.450 –> 00:22:21.009

doctor is going to be objective. When the expert

00:22:21.009 –> 00:22:22.430

comes in, we assume they’re going to have some

00:22:22.430 –> 00:22:26.690

sort of, you know, rational, if you will, look.

00:22:26.890 –> 00:22:29.410

And I will push back maybe later on the difference

00:22:29.410 –> 00:22:33.299

between emotional and rational. I really want

00:22:33.299 –> 00:22:35.920

to get to your work first. I really want to focus

00:22:35.920 –> 00:22:38.299

on that. So I do like this picture that you’re

00:22:38.299 –> 00:22:40.680

painting here. And it’s something I agree. We

00:22:40.680 –> 00:22:47.039

need to be more maybe forthcoming with acknowledging

00:22:47.039 –> 00:22:52.519

what these pieces are. And all of us have a social

00:22:52.519 –> 00:22:54.579

science background. I think maybe that’s why

00:22:54.579 –> 00:22:59.000

some of us are more ready. to recognize that

00:22:59.000 –> 00:23:00.519

than others. Like you say, Nicholas, you were

00:23:00.519 –> 00:23:02.279

the one who started seeing these between the

00:23:02.279 –> 00:23:05.579

lines things. Matt, you’re the one who was speaking

00:23:05.579 –> 00:23:09.740

about these things to start with. So let’s take

00:23:09.740 –> 00:23:12.019

that picture, right? You’ve got at least one

00:23:12.019 –> 00:23:15.279

facilitator in the room. You’ve got a whole bunch

00:23:15.279 –> 00:23:18.200

of people who generally know each other and have

00:23:18.200 –> 00:23:21.779

a completely expectation of working with each

00:23:21.779 –> 00:23:24.980

other, which we are about to disrupt as the facilitator

00:23:24.980 –> 00:23:29.259

in the room. Now, when it comes to our, we talk

00:23:29.259 –> 00:23:31.420

about group think, we talk about group dynamics.

00:23:31.539 –> 00:23:34.339

Well, here’s a group emotions, right? How do

00:23:34.339 –> 00:23:37.079

you see these emotions, our emotions influencing

00:23:37.079 –> 00:23:42.079

the decision -making process that is happening

00:23:42.079 –> 00:23:44.980

or hope to happen when we do these scenario planning

00:23:44.980 –> 00:23:49.359

workshops? So I think that’s a very interesting

00:23:49.359 –> 00:23:53.859

question, what you’re asking here about. How

00:23:53.859 –> 00:23:56.299

does it influence the decision making that goes

00:23:56.299 –> 00:24:00.019

on in the room? In those scenario planning workshops,

00:24:00.279 –> 00:24:03.200

it’s not like they’re taking critical, like organizational

00:24:03.200 –> 00:24:06.599

type of decisions either. I mean, they’re simulating

00:24:06.599 –> 00:24:08.920

potential options through these different types

00:24:08.920 –> 00:24:10.900

of conditions and the scenarios. And I think

00:24:10.900 –> 00:24:14.160

so it’s more of an exploratory than it is some

00:24:14.160 –> 00:24:17.640

kind of like closing down kind of part of the

00:24:17.640 –> 00:24:22.130

design diamond, if you will. But there’s plenty

00:24:22.130 –> 00:24:24.990

of people that are coming in with loaded agendas,

00:24:24.990 –> 00:24:28.190

with something that they have to get done, with

00:24:28.190 –> 00:24:31.670

maybe a group of stakeholders inside the organizations

00:24:31.670 –> 00:24:35.109

that have their demands on the table. So there’s

00:24:35.109 –> 00:24:38.509

a lot of pressure that we can’t necessarily know

00:24:38.509 –> 00:24:41.609

all the intricacies of. And this is a challenge

00:24:41.609 –> 00:24:45.150

because these manifest themselves in all sorts

00:24:45.150 –> 00:24:50.130

of different ways. Being, you know, the person

00:24:50.130 –> 00:24:53.470

that doesn’t want to play along, right? And that

00:24:53.470 –> 00:24:56.730

can be any role, right? That can be a C -suite

00:24:56.730 –> 00:24:59.769

member. That could be a CFO, CEO, or that could

00:24:59.769 –> 00:25:03.250

be one of the external members, right? And it’s

00:25:03.250 –> 00:25:05.230

a delicate moment and it’s a fragile moment,

00:25:05.390 –> 00:25:08.789

right? And so trying to get them to back up and,

00:25:08.789 –> 00:25:12.720

you know. downplay if you will a little bit of

00:25:12.720 –> 00:25:15.980

the seriousness of the of the episode to take

00:25:15.980 –> 00:25:18.420

them into this kind of hypothetical this you

00:25:18.420 –> 00:25:21.059

know these aren’t real stakes we’re talking about

00:25:21.059 –> 00:25:23.670

right these are just going through some of these

00:25:23.670 –> 00:25:26.630

right thought experiments and trying to move

00:25:26.630 –> 00:25:29.369

them away from this whole, we’re going to make

00:25:29.369 –> 00:25:32.250

a huge decision right now, right. That’s going

00:25:32.250 –> 00:25:34.730

to impact all you, your agenda and all your stakeholders

00:25:34.730 –> 00:25:37.529

to something more. Let’s just explore, you know,

00:25:37.529 –> 00:25:40.170

some of the, the different options that we have.

00:25:40.910 –> 00:25:43.710

Right. And so that’s a big moment, right. To

00:25:43.710 –> 00:25:46.930

get those people, if we call it the buy -in,

00:25:47.029 –> 00:25:48.650

right. To get the buy -in, to get the group moving

00:25:48.650 –> 00:25:51.750

forward together, to, to. To be able to do this

00:25:51.750 –> 00:25:55.789

kind of thinking. Big surprise. I agree with

00:25:55.789 –> 00:26:00.329

Matthew. Having observed him facilitate numerous

00:26:00.329 –> 00:26:04.710

times, I think he’s exactly right. And so maybe

00:26:04.710 –> 00:26:07.750

returning to that idea that emotion and rationality

00:26:07.750 –> 00:26:09.990

are sometimes somehow locked together in this

00:26:09.990 –> 00:26:14.509

hot and cold cognition modeling. I don’t know

00:26:14.509 –> 00:26:20.470

that I’ve ever seen a facilitator. actively try

00:26:20.470 –> 00:26:26.190

to bring the emotional state down in order to

00:26:26.190 –> 00:26:28.710

get to rationality. And in fact, when it’s the

00:26:28.710 –> 00:26:31.529

most successful, I often find what’s going on

00:26:31.529 –> 00:26:33.809

is they’re creating what we might now call like

00:26:33.809 –> 00:26:38.769

a safe space or a space where you can have hypothetical

00:26:38.769 –> 00:26:42.809

thought experiments where nobody is 100 % committed

00:26:42.809 –> 00:26:45.029

to any which direction. And like Matt said before,

00:26:45.089 –> 00:26:48.329

it’s exploratory in nature. And then you get

00:26:48.329 –> 00:26:53.589

people into, for lack of a better phrase, a somewhat,

00:26:53.769 –> 00:26:58.230

I would call it like heightened engagement. Because

00:26:58.230 –> 00:27:00.809

I don’t think it involves less emotion. I don’t

00:27:00.809 –> 00:27:04.049

think it involves, I’m not trying to get Goldilocks

00:27:04.049 –> 00:27:05.809

and the Three Bears here and say that it’s either

00:27:05.809 –> 00:27:07.650

too little or too much, but you got to get it

00:27:07.650 –> 00:27:10.710

just right. But I think there is an emotional

00:27:10.710 –> 00:27:14.970

state that can be induced. by creating an environment

00:27:14.970 –> 00:27:17.650

where people feel free to share and make guesses

00:27:17.650 –> 00:27:20.630

and maybe say something that isn’t the brightest,

00:27:21.069 –> 00:27:22.930

you know, as they’re just kind of exploring the

00:27:22.930 –> 00:27:25.829

future, but they’re engaged and they’re fully

00:27:25.829 –> 00:27:29.390

willing to, I don’t know, for lack of a better

00:27:29.390 –> 00:27:33.950

word, play, right? Like I was saying, yeah. Yeah,

00:27:33.970 –> 00:27:35.869

yeah, that’s exactly right. And so I don’t think

00:27:35.869 –> 00:27:38.009

it’s not cold cognition. I think it’s something

00:27:38.009 –> 00:27:41.349

more like what Matt is saying about getting people

00:27:41.349 –> 00:27:44.430

engaged and giving them a… enough room and

00:27:44.430 –> 00:27:48.089

enough emotional space so that they don’t feel

00:27:48.089 –> 00:27:50.430

like if they make a mistake they’re going to

00:27:50.430 –> 00:27:53.269

be judged by their colleagues or a situation

00:27:53.269 –> 00:27:56.309

where unlike in regular business operations maybe

00:27:56.309 –> 00:27:58.410

your boss brings up an idea and it hasn’t been

00:27:58.410 –> 00:28:00.829

the greatest idea that he or she has ever heard

00:28:00.829 –> 00:28:05.390

you know and you create some space to get out

00:28:05.390 –> 00:28:07.809

of the internal politics. This is probably the

00:28:07.809 –> 00:28:10.470

key. Get out of the internal politics that are

00:28:10.470 –> 00:28:12.549

blocking the ability of this organization to

00:28:12.549 –> 00:28:15.190

do this on their own. I think that’s the emotional

00:28:15.190 –> 00:28:17.970

regulation piece that gets delivered when someone

00:28:17.970 –> 00:28:21.329

like Matt is facilitating. There’s another model

00:28:21.329 –> 00:28:23.029

that we’ll often find also in the literature

00:28:23.029 –> 00:28:26.170

regarding Daniel Kahneman’s thinking fast and

00:28:26.170 –> 00:28:28.250

slow, right? Where he’s got the system one and

00:28:28.250 –> 00:28:30.650

system two thinking. And I think it’s got some

00:28:30.650 –> 00:28:33.569

similarity what we’re thinking about in the hot

00:28:33.569 –> 00:28:35.930

and cold cognition. But the hot and cold cognition

00:28:35.930 –> 00:28:41.470

is more about emotionally laden decisions again.

00:28:41.549 –> 00:28:44.619

And where the thinking hot… Or the thinking

00:28:44.619 –> 00:28:48.000

fast and slow is about the time or the speed

00:28:48.000 –> 00:28:52.180

it takes you to make a decision. And I also think

00:28:52.180 –> 00:28:58.940

that this is also an unfair, say, depiction of

00:28:58.940 –> 00:29:01.380

what’s going on in these workshops. You know,

00:29:01.420 –> 00:29:05.059

I’ll advocate for a Goldilocks, you know, third

00:29:05.059 –> 00:29:09.119

way that if we can switch this form that we communicate

00:29:09.119 –> 00:29:14.059

into. collaborative strategic conversation right

00:29:14.059 –> 00:29:18.299

where we’re using creativity and all of you know

00:29:18.299 –> 00:29:21.500

our imaginations and all of our puzzle solving

00:29:21.500 –> 00:29:25.500

abilities right to apply to these types of you

00:29:25.500 –> 00:29:28.500

know organizational questions then it does become

00:29:28.500 –> 00:29:31.359

something that’s really engaging right and we

00:29:31.359 –> 00:29:33.019

can really build and use each other’s momentum

00:29:33.019 –> 00:29:36.750

and so The positive side of this, it doesn’t

00:29:36.750 –> 00:29:39.569

necessarily require that it’s a hot or cold or

00:29:39.569 –> 00:29:43.650

a mode one or mode two when we can have that.

00:29:43.730 –> 00:29:47.210

And we feel like we can find that. And some people

00:29:47.210 –> 00:29:49.549

will find that flow. Right. But that’s often

00:29:49.549 –> 00:29:52.910

depicted as an individual type of activity where

00:29:52.910 –> 00:29:55.210

you find that flow when you’re in that in the

00:29:55.210 –> 00:29:57.910

zone kind of thinking. But we can also have that

00:29:57.910 –> 00:30:00.589

interpersonally. And we don’t find that very

00:30:00.589 –> 00:30:04.750

much in the literature. Hmm. Sounds like a future

00:30:04.750 –> 00:30:12.190

paper. Definitely. Um, well, the, I, yeah, let’s

00:30:12.190 –> 00:30:15.869

see. So many thoughts. Um, I do like the way

00:30:15.869 –> 00:30:18.930

you said, Matt, that, um, one of the things,

00:30:18.950 –> 00:30:21.230

one of the things you look for or is enjoyable

00:30:21.230 –> 00:30:26.029

or is aimed for in, um, in these strategic planning

00:30:26.029 –> 00:30:28.809

places, spaces, right. With the scenario teams,

00:30:29.089 –> 00:30:32.769

um, as a facilitator is it’s. like trying to

00:30:32.769 –> 00:30:35.250

manufacture, not manufacture, trying to excite

00:30:35.250 –> 00:30:37.890

fun, right? Trying to get some funness at which

00:30:37.890 –> 00:30:40.589

then, as you, Nicholas, say, it becomes almost

00:30:40.589 –> 00:30:44.769

like a hot, hot, trying to think of the word,

00:30:44.789 –> 00:30:47.329

and it left me, hot cognition, right? Emotions

00:30:47.329 –> 00:30:49.970

start running high, but not necessarily in a

00:30:49.970 –> 00:30:52.490

bad way. And then, as you say, Matt, you just

00:30:52.490 –> 00:30:54.069

kind of get out of the way and just let them

00:30:54.069 –> 00:30:55.849

run. And I think we’ve all been there before,

00:30:55.869 –> 00:30:57.190

where it’s like, no, no, no, I don’t want to

00:30:57.190 –> 00:30:59.650

disrupt this flow. And it puts me in mind of

00:30:59.650 –> 00:31:01.630

the old Model T cars, where you had to like,

00:31:01.789 –> 00:31:04.650

wind them up and sometimes it took a while and

00:31:04.650 –> 00:31:07.069

that first crank was always the hardest because

00:31:07.069 –> 00:31:09.869

the machine’s the coldest and that the way oil

00:31:09.869 –> 00:31:11.509

used to be back then and lubricants would be

00:31:11.509 –> 00:31:13.369

very thick and you really had to heat that up

00:31:13.369 –> 00:31:15.710

but once it went you would not touch it again

00:31:15.710 –> 00:31:17.250

you wouldn’t want to touch it again you would

00:31:17.250 –> 00:31:23.410

disrupt what um the the machines um now um self

00:31:23.410 –> 00:31:26.329

-perpetuating functioning was so or flow was

00:31:26.329 –> 00:31:29.930

so yeah to right and then we have to disrupt

00:31:29.930 –> 00:31:32.049

it because you know somebody set a time plan

00:31:32.049 –> 00:31:35.950

right for the day you gotta go and you have to

00:31:35.950 –> 00:31:38.170

go up there and say oh you know i’m really sorry

00:31:38.170 –> 00:31:40.309

that i have to interrupt such you know interesting

00:31:40.309 –> 00:31:45.630

conversations but now we have to move on so let’s

00:31:45.630 –> 00:31:47.829

go with that the speaking you know saying the

00:31:47.829 –> 00:31:50.470

things that we don’t really say in the professional

00:31:50.470 –> 00:31:53.970

spaces, like in our publications. I wonder in

00:31:53.970 –> 00:31:56.069

this one thing that I’ve wondered since we first

00:31:56.069 –> 00:31:58.309

talked about this topic of emotions in the spaces

00:31:58.309 –> 00:32:00.450

and what it means for the client, what it means

00:32:00.450 –> 00:32:03.529

for scenario planning broadly is I wonder how

00:32:03.529 –> 00:32:07.369

much of the facilitator has to like bring in

00:32:07.369 –> 00:32:10.109

this cult of personality almost, because we talk

00:32:10.109 –> 00:32:12.890

about fighting against that sometimes when we

00:32:12.890 –> 00:32:14.869

have the decision makers in the room, like we

00:32:14.869 –> 00:32:16.930

say, you know, the boss or the CEO or something

00:32:16.930 –> 00:32:20.779

who is. creating this sort of blockage, right?

00:32:20.960 –> 00:32:24.799

But it’s because they’ve cultivated this sort

00:32:24.799 –> 00:32:27.839

of like cultural, corporate culture, personality

00:32:27.839 –> 00:32:29.960

type, and then everybody’s responding to them.

00:32:30.059 –> 00:32:32.839

And one of our colleagues, George Wright, he’s

00:32:32.839 –> 00:32:35.119

talked about taking those people out of the room

00:32:35.119 –> 00:32:37.839

for a while so everybody else will talk. And

00:32:37.839 –> 00:32:40.380

I’ve wondered how much of this that we’re talking

00:32:40.380 –> 00:32:44.309

about requires us to… manufacture that within

00:32:44.309 –> 00:32:47.250

ourselves to this cult of personality. And I’m

00:32:47.250 –> 00:32:49.170

like, no, no, no, trust me. We just got to get

00:32:49.170 –> 00:32:51.069

through the first windup, right? We just got

00:32:51.069 –> 00:32:52.730

to get to the pitch. We just got to get to that

00:32:52.730 –> 00:32:55.869

and then just letting them go and then keeping

00:32:55.869 –> 00:32:58.970

that momentum going. Because Matt, it’s not just

00:32:58.970 –> 00:33:02.890

ending the workshop, right? It’s saying, okay,

00:33:02.950 –> 00:33:05.509

now we got to think in a different way. And now

00:33:05.509 –> 00:33:06.950

we’re going to take what you did and think in

00:33:06.950 –> 00:33:08.470

a different way now, you know, because we have

00:33:08.470 –> 00:33:11.609

like creativity at the start and then causality.

00:33:12.480 –> 00:33:14.599

puzzle solving in the middle you know and then

00:33:14.599 –> 00:33:17.559

we get all the way to others so i wonder how

00:33:17.559 –> 00:33:21.599

much of that is really facilitated by yeah embracing

00:33:21.599 –> 00:33:25.339

a very specific profile of emotional i don’t

00:33:25.339 –> 00:33:27.119

want to say manipulation but sometimes it almost

00:33:27.119 –> 00:33:29.539

feels like that because we have to get through

00:33:29.539 –> 00:33:43.339

it back to you I don’t have to do that, Megan.

00:33:43.680 –> 00:33:47.859

No, that’s great. Great observation. I don’t

00:33:47.859 –> 00:33:50.039

know. Just cut this out. I don’t know. I don’t

00:33:50.039 –> 00:33:53.799

know. I’m sorry. That’s a cult of personality.

00:33:53.920 –> 00:33:55.980

You got me stuck on that. That’s where you got

00:33:55.980 –> 00:33:58.680

me stuck. And you probably get Nick stuck, too,

00:33:58.740 –> 00:34:00.619

on cult of personality. Because we were thinking

00:34:00.619 –> 00:34:04.000

maybe we could go to the difference between emotion

00:34:04.000 –> 00:34:05.799

work and emotional labor if we haven’t been there.

00:34:05.819 –> 00:34:08.039

Have we been there yet? No, we haven’t. We’ve

00:34:08.039 –> 00:34:12.409

just barely touched upon that. With that in mind,

00:34:12.630 –> 00:34:17.989

you have these divisions that you have touched

00:34:17.989 –> 00:34:21.110

upon, which is the difference between, and it

00:34:21.110 –> 00:34:22.829

links into what we were just talking about, but

00:34:22.829 –> 00:34:25.309

I really wonder, it links between emotional labor,

00:34:25.469 –> 00:34:30.429

right, and emotional work. And again, along with

00:34:30.429 –> 00:34:32.849

the broader conversation about emotions, not

00:34:32.849 –> 00:34:37.090

really discussed. These not only… in and of

00:34:37.090 –> 00:34:39.309

themselves, but the difference between them.

00:34:39.389 –> 00:34:42.429

So with this idea of cult personalities and getting

00:34:42.429 –> 00:34:44.329

people going and all that kind of stuff, how

00:34:44.329 –> 00:34:49.969

do you see these differences? Interesting. Especially

00:34:49.969 –> 00:34:52.889

in the context of a facilitator, particularly.

00:34:53.630 –> 00:34:57.250

Right, right. I think these two terms get us

00:34:57.250 –> 00:35:01.110

some additional purchase in not only the way

00:35:01.110 –> 00:35:02.690

we think about it, but also the way we would

00:35:02.690 –> 00:35:06.380

examine this from a scientific perspective. The

00:35:06.380 –> 00:35:09.219

first piece that you brought up, I’m actually

00:35:09.219 –> 00:35:10.780

going to go in reverse because I think that might

00:35:10.780 –> 00:35:13.400

be better to start with work. So when we talk

00:35:13.400 –> 00:35:15.179

about emotion work, and again, keep in mind,

00:35:15.199 –> 00:35:17.619

this is the mid -1970s in sociology when these

00:35:17.619 –> 00:35:22.420

ideas first emerged. Emotion work, work is not

00:35:22.420 –> 00:35:24.719

meant to be, even though the other one, labor

00:35:24.719 –> 00:35:26.980

and work, you almost think they must be synonymous

00:35:26.980 –> 00:35:29.539

because those words could stand in for one another.

00:35:30.170 –> 00:35:33.309

When scholars use the terminology of emotion

00:35:33.309 –> 00:35:35.610

work, they’re simply referring to the effort

00:35:35.610 –> 00:35:40.550

that you or I or anyone else inside or outside

00:35:40.550 –> 00:35:43.769

of an organization is asked to exert on a daily

00:35:43.769 –> 00:35:50.690

basis in order to manage and control their expression

00:35:50.690 –> 00:35:53.750

and presentation of emotion during human interaction.

00:35:53.969 –> 00:35:59.349

So all the time we are… filtering what emotions

00:35:59.349 –> 00:36:02.170

we’re going to allow to move into the exterior

00:36:02.170 –> 00:36:05.969

part of our person or ourself and what emotions

00:36:05.969 –> 00:36:09.090

we’re going to keep, you know, tight to the chest

00:36:09.090 –> 00:36:11.889

or keep a poker face as they sometimes say, right?

00:36:12.050 –> 00:36:15.269

Now, all of us are doing that all the time, right?

00:36:15.349 –> 00:36:17.369

I mean, there are definitely moments for, you

00:36:17.369 –> 00:36:19.849

know, I’m sure lots of people know these moments

00:36:19.849 –> 00:36:22.369

where inside you’re really frustrated or really

00:36:22.369 –> 00:36:24.949

upset with somebody, but on the outside, nobody

00:36:24.949 –> 00:36:27.760

would know. So this is emotion work. And the

00:36:27.760 –> 00:36:29.400

reason they call it work is that’s the effort

00:36:29.400 –> 00:36:33.219

that you have to deliver in order to do that.

00:36:33.659 –> 00:36:35.800

Emotional labor, though, this is now we’re in

00:36:35.800 –> 00:36:39.360

the labor market. So we’re talking about occupations,

00:36:39.360 –> 00:36:41.579

work inside of organizations, things like that.

00:36:42.199 –> 00:36:46.420

And emotional labor then refers to the economic

00:36:46.420 –> 00:36:50.460

aspects where emotion is an explicit part of

00:36:50.460 –> 00:36:55.539

your job. To deliver your labor effectively and

00:36:55.539 –> 00:36:58.820

in exchange for money, you need to manage the

00:36:58.820 –> 00:37:02.400

emotional states of others and, of course, yourself.

00:37:02.699 –> 00:37:04.659

And in some lines of work, this is really obvious.

00:37:05.099 –> 00:37:08.260

So in one of the banner examples in early sociology,

00:37:08.739 –> 00:37:13.380

there was the case of airline stewards and airline

00:37:13.380 –> 00:37:16.460

stewardesses, where when, for example, a plane

00:37:16.460 –> 00:37:19.929

experiences some turbulence. Their job is to

00:37:19.929 –> 00:37:22.610

literally go into the cabin and manage people’s

00:37:22.610 –> 00:37:24.670

emotional state so that they’re calm and everything

00:37:24.670 –> 00:37:29.150

is collected, right? The truth is, loads of professions

00:37:29.150 –> 00:37:31.889

are asked to do emotional labor all the time,

00:37:31.889 –> 00:37:33.969

but you’d never find it in their job descriptions,

00:37:34.309 –> 00:37:38.190

right? Nobody’s going to say that, for example,

00:37:38.190 –> 00:37:40.449

a contemporary job, since we’re all faculty members,

00:37:40.630 –> 00:37:45.210

a contemporary aspect of the faculty workload

00:37:45.210 –> 00:37:47.570

right now is managing the emotional states of

00:37:47.570 –> 00:37:50.889

students. Sometimes that’s in the classroom where

00:37:50.889 –> 00:37:54.409

you want to keep discussions productive and so

00:37:54.409 –> 00:37:56.889

that they don’t devolve. Other times, and I know

00:37:56.889 –> 00:37:58.670

scholars are talking about this more than ever

00:37:58.670 –> 00:38:02.329

right now, in, for example, office hours and

00:38:02.329 –> 00:38:04.329

outside of the classroom where faculty members

00:38:04.329 –> 00:38:07.610

are being asked to act as kind of like de facto

00:38:07.610 –> 00:38:10.090

psychological counselors for their students and

00:38:10.090 –> 00:38:11.849

things like that. And so you’d never see that

00:38:11.849 –> 00:38:14.909

in a job description. But I think people are

00:38:14.909 –> 00:38:17.170

getting the sense that that is emerging as more

00:38:17.170 –> 00:38:20.670

of a norm. And so that’s the distinction. Emotion

00:38:20.670 –> 00:38:22.449

work, we’re all doing it all the time. It has

00:38:22.449 –> 00:38:24.929

a lot to do with how we keep some emotions in

00:38:24.929 –> 00:38:27.449

and let others out, sometimes selectively or

00:38:27.449 –> 00:38:29.849

even strategically. And then emotional labor

00:38:29.849 –> 00:38:33.630

is where your pay is effectively tied to either

00:38:33.630 –> 00:38:35.670

creating an emotional state in somebody else,

00:38:35.710 –> 00:38:39.530

like as a server, say at a restaurant. Or as

00:38:39.530 –> 00:38:42.789

part of managing, say, your clients or your customers

00:38:42.789 –> 00:38:46.550

or something like that. But you brought up the

00:38:46.550 –> 00:38:50.750

idea of how does that work with a cult of personality?

00:38:51.269 –> 00:38:55.090

You know, when you’ve got a, let’s say, a big

00:38:55.090 –> 00:38:58.369

wig in the room while you’re trying to get people

00:38:58.369 –> 00:39:02.409

into a more dynamic and imaginary space to deal

00:39:02.409 –> 00:39:04.030

with some of the thought experiments that you’re

00:39:04.030 –> 00:39:06.550

really challenged with in the organization. And

00:39:06.550 –> 00:39:09.929

sometimes that gets clogged up. If the current

00:39:09.929 –> 00:39:12.210

strategy is being designed by someone who’s elite

00:39:12.210 –> 00:39:13.869

in the organization, you’re going to find out

00:39:13.869 –> 00:39:16.130

when they come up with ideas during brainstorming

00:39:16.130 –> 00:39:18.809

practices, they’re often the best idea in the

00:39:18.809 –> 00:39:21.829

room. And the reason why, of course, is that

00:39:21.829 –> 00:39:24.730

there are political consequences. Even though

00:39:24.730 –> 00:39:27.309

you try to create, for the best of your ability,

00:39:27.429 –> 00:39:30.789

a safe space to be exploratory in these facilitating

00:39:30.789 –> 00:39:39.579

practices, there are realities. There are employees

00:39:39.579 –> 00:39:41.860

and organizations that don’t want to look dumb

00:39:41.860 –> 00:39:44.239

in front of their colleagues. They don’t want

00:39:44.239 –> 00:39:49.219

to say something that might become, I don’t know,

00:39:49.239 –> 00:39:52.119

used against them in the future. They might find

00:39:52.119 –> 00:39:56.860

that if they make too many recommendations that

00:39:56.860 –> 00:39:58.980

are unpopular, it might come up in their next

00:39:58.980 –> 00:40:01.920

round of employee review or something like that.

00:40:04.650 –> 00:40:08.409

I think it’s undersold exactly how much at risk

00:40:08.409 –> 00:40:11.130

some employees put when we asked them to do some

00:40:11.130 –> 00:40:13.570

of this more exploratory work, especially in

00:40:13.570 –> 00:40:17.030

the context of their peers. And so I did my best

00:40:17.030 –> 00:40:19.369

to touch on the call to personality thing. That’s

00:40:19.369 –> 00:40:22.510

a hard one. That’s a hard one. The truth is,

00:40:22.570 –> 00:40:28.469

because that is so rarely talked about in any

00:40:28.469 –> 00:40:30.789

systematic way, I feel like part of it is we

00:40:30.789 –> 00:40:33.210

don’t even have the analytical vocabulary yet

00:40:33.210 –> 00:40:36.340

to fully. parse out some of those issues. I don’t

00:40:36.340 –> 00:40:39.539

disagree. I think that they’re real. And I feel

00:40:39.539 –> 00:40:43.760

like I know what that is when I hear it in a

00:40:43.760 –> 00:40:46.539

more casual conversation. But getting at that

00:40:46.539 –> 00:40:49.880

empirically, that would be interesting. Really,

00:40:49.900 –> 00:40:52.199

really interesting. Well, you know, I’ll tell

00:40:52.199 –> 00:40:56.000

you what first got me thinking about that as

00:40:56.000 –> 00:40:59.760

even like a mover and shaker in the room, you

00:40:59.760 –> 00:41:05.429

know, of this. of the scenario space is when

00:41:05.429 –> 00:41:09.449

i was learning with from george my supervisor

00:41:09.449 –> 00:41:12.429

and he had his ways i mean he had been doing

00:41:12.429 –> 00:41:14.570

it for ages so he was obviously teaching me through

00:41:14.570 –> 00:41:18.269

his methods which involved his even just physical

00:41:18.269 –> 00:41:20.070

gestures you know just the way he walks around

00:41:20.070 –> 00:41:21.710

the room all this kind of stuff just everything

00:41:21.710 –> 00:41:23.670

about him and i was absorbing it like a sponge

00:41:23.670 –> 00:41:26.590

as you’re just you should right this is how it

00:41:26.590 –> 00:41:28.510

works and you’re the student and you’re being

00:41:28.510 –> 00:41:31.769

mentored um and i really said none of it no,

00:41:31.789 –> 00:41:34.769

not none of it, but a lot of what I thought would

00:41:34.769 –> 00:41:36.849

work for me because I was just parroting him

00:41:36.849 –> 00:41:40.369

in these very effective ways as is not a bad

00:41:40.369 –> 00:41:41.750

thing, but I was noticing they weren’t working

00:41:41.750 –> 00:41:44.829

for me. And then I started, all right, I’m a

00:41:44.829 –> 00:41:46.590

researcher. I’m just going to systematically

00:41:46.590 –> 00:41:49.409

try and figure out, take notes and figure out

00:41:49.409 –> 00:41:53.710

which parts aren’t working and why. And I, I

00:41:53.710 –> 00:41:57.090

mean, it’s hard to pin down a lot of what I’m

00:41:57.090 –> 00:42:01.210

about to say. But my mitigations and alterations

00:42:01.210 –> 00:42:05.010

helped support what I thought I was seeing, which

00:42:05.010 –> 00:42:09.170

is George is an older man in the room who commands

00:42:09.170 –> 00:42:11.590

authority. And I was a younger female in the

00:42:11.590 –> 00:42:16.139

room. attempting to command authority. And even

00:42:16.139 –> 00:42:18.820

when I do, when I figured out how to bring that

00:42:18.820 –> 00:42:21.300

authority into the space, which goes back to

00:42:21.300 –> 00:42:22.699

something you were saying, Nicholas, about we

00:42:22.699 –> 00:42:24.300

got to get them to trust us first. We got to

00:42:24.300 –> 00:42:26.659

get them to trust the process. And then, you

00:42:26.659 –> 00:42:28.800

know, we go to what Matt was saying, which is

00:42:28.800 –> 00:42:30.880

then we can get them going. And then, you know,

00:42:30.900 –> 00:42:33.179

they start going right. Just to get to that trust

00:42:33.179 –> 00:42:36.900

part, I had to create a whole other version of

00:42:36.900 –> 00:42:39.940

myself. It’s not that it’s inauthentic. but it

00:42:39.940 –> 00:42:42.800

definitely wasn’t George and it definitely wasn’t

00:42:42.800 –> 00:42:44.579

who I was bringing in before. And that’s why

00:42:44.579 –> 00:42:46.380

I started thinking like, okay, well maybe this

00:42:46.380 –> 00:42:51.420

is like, I need them to sort of halo effect me

00:42:51.420 –> 00:42:53.679

a bit. And then I can just pass the ball back

00:42:53.679 –> 00:42:56.360

to them and get out of the way. Right. So that’s

00:42:56.360 –> 00:42:59.079

what got me thinking about it. And that as core

00:42:59.079 –> 00:43:03.199

is yeah. A lot of emotional, not work, just work

00:43:03.199 –> 00:43:05.980

for me and labor, but like specifically trying

00:43:05.980 –> 00:43:12.159

  1. watch theirs and sort of facilitate their

00:43:12.159 –> 00:43:14.519

emotional spaces as well. At least that’s how

00:43:14.519 –> 00:43:18.760

I was interpreting it. I don’t know. We’re breaking

00:43:18.760 –> 00:43:21.260

new ground here. These weren’t part of our questions.

00:43:22.300 –> 00:43:25.400

I think that you’re on the right. I think you’re

00:43:25.400 –> 00:43:28.039

absolutely on the right track. And interestingly

00:43:28.039 –> 00:43:29.940

enough, despite the fact that you would think

00:43:29.940 –> 00:43:33.460

all of that should be a core part of the training

00:43:33.460 –> 00:43:36.500

process for getting people ready for the field,

00:43:37.550 –> 00:43:40.230

I mean, you just do not have an emotional management

00:43:40.230 –> 00:43:45.550

101 sort of piece, even though, like Matt said

00:43:45.550 –> 00:43:48.130

before, I think it’s really important that oftentimes

00:43:48.130 –> 00:43:50.469

the emotional state is already heightened when

00:43:50.469 –> 00:43:52.349

you show up because if things were going well,

00:43:52.409 –> 00:43:54.849

you wouldn’t need external support. And then

00:43:54.849 –> 00:43:58.510

the expectation is not only that, well, they’re

00:43:58.510 –> 00:44:01.130

coming in hot, is that you’re going to be able

00:44:01.130 –> 00:44:04.309

to manage them. Right. That they’re they’re asking

00:44:04.309 –> 00:44:06.329

for some outside. That’s literally the point

00:44:06.329 –> 00:44:11.409

of facilitation. Right. And so the assumption

00:44:11.409 –> 00:44:14.530

that, you know, you’re going to walk into a place

00:44:14.530 –> 00:44:16.769

with a heightened emotional state and that you’re

00:44:16.769 –> 00:44:20.690

going to be expected to manage it. And then simultaneously,

00:44:20.730 –> 00:44:23.949

keep in mind with the emotional work piece, also

00:44:23.949 –> 00:44:26.929

personally manage your own emotional emotional

00:44:26.929 –> 00:44:31.280

state, too, so that even if, for example. You

00:44:31.280 –> 00:44:32.760

know, you’ve got, like you said before, like

00:44:32.760 –> 00:44:35.119

one of the big wigs in the room just like won’t

00:44:35.119 –> 00:44:38.980

play ball or whatever the case might be. Instead

00:44:38.980 –> 00:44:41.260

of experiencing your authentic emotion, which

00:44:41.260 –> 00:44:43.900

could be deep levels of frustration, like why

00:44:43.900 –> 00:44:46.179

did you bring me here if you’re not going to

00:44:46.179 –> 00:44:50.170

play ball in the first place? So that’s where

00:44:50.170 –> 00:44:52.369

the emotional thing is really intense because

00:44:52.369 –> 00:44:55.349

you’re self -regulating your emotions while simultaneously

00:44:55.349 –> 00:44:58.090

managing the emotions in the room, all of which

00:44:58.090 –> 00:45:02.869

needs to move into a productive space or else

00:45:02.869 –> 00:45:07.050

things fall apart pretty quick. Right. So that

00:45:07.050 –> 00:45:08.769

was some of what we were talking about before.

00:45:10.050 –> 00:45:13.030

Yes. So there’s these challenges, right? These

00:45:13.030 –> 00:45:16.750

challenges of as the facilitator of managing

00:45:16.750 –> 00:45:21.469

a bunch of cats that we’re trying to herd in

00:45:21.469 –> 00:45:25.190

the room for their betterment. So let’s step

00:45:25.190 –> 00:45:28.110

from there. I think we’ve talked about this quite

00:45:28.110 –> 00:45:32.050

a bit, but I’d like to hear what ethical concerns

00:45:32.050 –> 00:45:34.170

arise when facilitators manage or manipulate

00:45:34.170 –> 00:45:37.170

emotions in the workshop. How does that go? How

00:45:37.170 –> 00:45:40.400

does that go, Nick? Well, just the idea that

00:45:40.400 –> 00:45:45.179

people in other areas where the work is highly

00:45:45.179 –> 00:45:48.380

about emotional regulation talk about burnout.

00:45:48.559 –> 00:45:53.059

So like the airline craft or the airline stewardesses,

00:45:53.139 –> 00:45:56.079

for example, because they’re so disassociated

00:45:56.079 –> 00:45:58.760

with their authentic emotional state on a daily

00:45:58.760 –> 00:46:02.000

basis, they become slowly more and more estranged

00:46:02.000 –> 00:46:04.679

from their actual feelings. And this coming from

00:46:04.679 –> 00:46:06.599

the States, you’re familiar with that restaurant

00:46:06.599 –> 00:46:11.659

named. Hooters. Hooters. Yeah. Is that right?

00:46:12.019 –> 00:46:14.219

Sports bar kind of place. I mean, it’s like.

00:46:14.280 –> 00:46:17.500

Oh, it’s a Hooters. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know

00:46:17.500 –> 00:46:20.099

what? Well, so they ran almost the same kind

00:46:20.099 –> 00:46:22.940

of interviews with women that were working at

00:46:22.940 –> 00:46:25.559

these places. And one thing that I will never

00:46:25.559 –> 00:46:29.039

forget was they were conducting one of the interviews

00:46:29.039 –> 00:46:31.440

right after a woman had gotten off like three,

00:46:31.519 –> 00:46:34.579

like long back to back to back, you know, where

00:46:34.579 –> 00:46:38.079

she was just like. being you know low -key uh

00:46:38.079 –> 00:46:41.699

sexually exploited in the workplace basically

00:46:41.699 –> 00:46:43.780

you know like can’t wait to get you guys more

00:46:43.780 –> 00:46:45.900

beers so you can sexually harass me more this

00:46:45.900 –> 00:46:49.380

should be great and at the the first question

00:46:49.380 –> 00:46:51.900

she basically said something like well how are

00:46:51.900 –> 00:46:53.659

you today how are you feeling there’s just kind

00:46:53.659 –> 00:46:56.260

of like a early rapport question and her answer

00:46:56.260 –> 00:47:00.519

was i don’t know i haven’t been myself all week

00:47:00.519 –> 00:47:04.969

and i was just like god damn you know like that

00:47:04.969 –> 00:47:09.250

really hits you know and so either way some emotional

00:47:09.250 –> 00:47:11.369

estrangement i think is there so i can start

00:47:11.369 –> 00:47:14.989

with that yeah maybe but i don’t as a facilitator

00:47:14.989 –> 00:47:18.329

i can’t say i mean i’m drained like energy wise

00:47:18.329 –> 00:47:21.409

but i wouldn’t say that i get into some kind

00:47:21.409 –> 00:47:25.070

of emotional or do i that’s hard for me to feel

00:47:25.070 –> 00:47:28.449

i don’t know do you get there megan because well

00:47:28.449 –> 00:47:30.800

i don’t know if i you just said you did Right.

00:47:30.920 –> 00:47:34.059

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to an extent, exactly. And

00:47:34.059 –> 00:47:38.559

what Nicholas mentions is, is, I mean, not to

00:47:38.559 –> 00:47:41.219

make it reduce it too much, too reductive, but

00:47:41.219 –> 00:47:44.139

like, welcome to the woman’s world. I mean, I’ve

00:47:44.139 –> 00:47:45.940

had these conversations with my kids who are

00:47:45.940 –> 00:47:49.400

both boys and I’ve told them jokingly, but it

00:47:49.400 –> 00:47:51.360

came from a very serious place. Just one day

00:47:51.360 –> 00:47:52.920

out of the blue said, wow, I don’t know how much

00:47:52.920 –> 00:47:55.440

of my personality is me and how much of it is

00:47:55.440 –> 00:47:58.139

just a lifetime of coping mechanisms because.

00:47:58.460 –> 00:48:03.650

Jesus Christ. Sorry. Right. I said it. And I

00:48:03.650 –> 00:48:06.769

think that gets back to what I was saying about,

00:48:06.809 –> 00:48:11.190

you know, as facilitators. how we command the

00:48:11.190 –> 00:48:14.610

space, how we lead the space or how we feed into

00:48:14.610 –> 00:48:16.929

the space or, you know, whatever approach we

00:48:16.929 –> 00:48:19.150

take. And clearly George had one approach after

00:48:19.150 –> 00:48:23.329

a career of making, you know, this, this practice

00:48:23.329 –> 00:48:27.349

really famous basically. And, and then myself

00:48:27.349 –> 00:48:29.869

who was brand new and not only from a different

00:48:29.869 –> 00:48:33.019

country, but a different. you know, selection

00:48:33.019 –> 00:48:37.460

of demographics on top of that. So yeah, yeah,

00:48:37.519 –> 00:48:41.860

no, I think these are very real functions in

00:48:41.860 –> 00:48:43.880

the space that maybe we don’t always bring out.

00:48:43.960 –> 00:48:50.860

So that does bring in this ethical sort of conversation,

00:48:51.179 –> 00:48:53.940

right? Okay, go ahead and ask the question. I

00:48:53.940 –> 00:48:55.900

think that Nick can do a really good job here.

00:48:56.429 –> 00:48:59.530

I’m not sure that I can maybe you guys go for

00:48:59.530 –> 00:49:01.869

  1. If I can bring in this Peter Schwartz stuff,

00:49:02.010 –> 00:49:04.550

if I find a dovetail for it, that makes sense.

00:49:04.630 –> 00:49:07.309

I’ll go there. But it’s not the facilitator’s

00:49:07.309 –> 00:49:11.170

ethical problem. It’s more of a contextual ethical

00:49:11.170 –> 00:49:14.289

problem than it is our problem. Right. So Peter

00:49:14.289 –> 00:49:18.309

Schwartz says in the extended version of The

00:49:18.309 –> 00:49:22.110

Long View. Right. That was his book. The Long

00:49:22.110 –> 00:49:26.449

View. Lessons from the Longview that came out

00:49:26.449 –> 00:49:29.969

in 2010 was kind of like an echo book that he

00:49:29.969 –> 00:49:35.409

wrote. He talks about a facilitation session

00:49:35.409 –> 00:49:38.530

where he’s got a gold mining company in the room

00:49:38.530 –> 00:49:41.469

and the CEOs in there and all of the top brass

00:49:41.469 –> 00:49:44.070

are in the room and they’re building out some

00:49:44.070 –> 00:49:46.210

of the scenarios but the CEOs had a very kind

00:49:46.210 –> 00:49:51.800

of dedicated kind of strategic direction. And

00:49:51.800 –> 00:49:53.800

he’s going to buy up other gold companies, and

00:49:53.800 –> 00:49:56.800

that’s what he’s going to hear to do. And in

00:49:56.800 –> 00:49:59.659

the scenarios comes the question, what happens

00:49:59.659 –> 00:50:03.380

if the gold prices turn and go south? And that

00:50:03.380 –> 00:50:07.559

would kind of be a bad result of the strategic

00:50:07.559 –> 00:50:12.139

plan that’s sealed. Anyway, after the session,

00:50:12.380 –> 00:50:15.179

the CEO was able to identify the people in the

00:50:15.179 –> 00:50:19.820

room who had different opinions about his strategy

00:50:19.820 –> 00:50:25.550

direction. and he fired him, right? And Peter

00:50:25.550 –> 00:50:27.650

Schwartz didn’t know that this was going to happen,

00:50:27.750 –> 00:50:30.449

right? But he did it anyway, right? And then

00:50:30.449 –> 00:50:33.289

lo and behold, doesn’t take much long after that.

00:50:33.369 –> 00:50:35.250

And then the actual, the prices of the gold go

00:50:35.250 –> 00:50:38.369

south, right? And the CEO gets fired by the board.

00:50:38.670 –> 00:50:42.449

So, I mean, it’s, but the facilitator in the

00:50:42.449 –> 00:50:44.989

room, Peter’s trying to create the safe space

00:50:44.989 –> 00:50:46.949

for the people to speak their minds and explore

00:50:46.949 –> 00:50:50.429

freely. That’s the irony though. Where it wasn’t

00:50:50.429 –> 00:50:54.420

the case. That it was actually being used as

00:50:54.420 –> 00:50:59.059

a moment where the CEO could identify the people

00:50:59.059 –> 00:51:05.179

who might be against his strategy. That’s a good

00:51:05.179 –> 00:51:07.860

one, though, because the facilitator is the one

00:51:07.860 –> 00:51:09.679

who’s brought in and asked to create this safe

00:51:09.679 –> 00:51:16.420

space. And then it can be used for purposes like

00:51:16.420 –> 00:51:19.400

that. I mean, that’s an ethical issue. But you

00:51:19.400 –> 00:51:21.519

got a lot of this. Yeah, a lot of it’s this value.

00:51:21.579 –> 00:51:23.139

The other way you could go with a question like

00:51:23.139 –> 00:51:25.980

this is this kind of value free exploration where,

00:51:26.059 –> 00:51:29.079

look, we don’t have dogs in the fight in a sense.

00:51:29.159 –> 00:51:31.139

Right. So the scenarios are up on the wall and

00:51:31.139 –> 00:51:34.280

we try to treat them rationally. Right. Whether

00:51:34.280 –> 00:51:36.119

or not we want them to happen is not kind of

00:51:36.119 –> 00:51:38.360

the point of the exercise. It’s whether or not

00:51:38.360 –> 00:51:40.559

they can plausibly happen and what we should

00:51:40.559 –> 00:51:43.119

we do if that’s the case. Right. And that’s a

00:51:43.119 –> 00:51:46.539

different discussion. Right. Where van der Heiden

00:51:46.539 –> 00:51:49.510

very much is in. the movement of we should create

00:51:49.510 –> 00:51:52.510

value -free scenarios, where we don’t necessarily

00:51:52.510 –> 00:51:57.409

take ethical positions on them. But then you’ve

00:51:57.409 –> 00:52:00.690

got things like Popper coming in from the back

00:52:00.690 –> 00:52:03.130

door saying, look, if the solutions to those

00:52:03.130 –> 00:52:07.130

puzzles or those scenarios are ethically challenged,

00:52:07.469 –> 00:52:10.349

then that’s justification for the refutation

00:52:10.349 –> 00:52:13.949

of that. So there’s a moral in -context moment

00:52:13.949 –> 00:52:18.849

of ethical types of, say, reasons to get rid

00:52:18.849 –> 00:52:22.929

of maybe the unethical strategic options, right?

00:52:22.989 –> 00:52:25.610

In the moment, rather than judge the scenarios,

00:52:25.610 –> 00:52:28.469

you judge the options, right? And I don’t know

00:52:28.469 –> 00:52:30.110

if you want to go there with the question, right?

00:52:30.210 –> 00:52:31.869

Because the question, you can go in a number

00:52:31.869 –> 00:52:33.190

of different ways. You know what I mean? When

00:52:33.190 –> 00:52:38.210

you bring ethics in. In your experience, what

00:52:38.210 –> 00:52:41.050

are people right now, what are people not talking

00:52:41.050 –> 00:52:43.750

about that you think they should be talking about?

00:52:46.480 –> 00:52:49.219

Well, I’ll take the first swing at this one.

00:52:49.579 –> 00:52:54.280

And it loosely relates back to our paper, but

00:52:54.280 –> 00:52:56.719

not exactly. I would say that probably one of

00:52:56.719 –> 00:52:58.739

the most important trends that’s being discussed

00:52:58.739 –> 00:53:02.699

both publicly and in scholarship for strategic

00:53:02.699 –> 00:53:05.000

foresight and scenario planning in the entire

00:53:05.000 –> 00:53:09.860

future -oriented planning area is the rise of

00:53:09.860 –> 00:53:13.820

AI and specifically what that means for facilitators.

00:53:14.480 –> 00:53:16.719

If you want to talk about something that stirs

00:53:16.719 –> 00:53:19.219

some strong emotions amongst facilitators, it’s

00:53:19.219 –> 00:53:21.380

whether or not their jobs could be replaced by

00:53:21.380 –> 00:53:28.019

  1. And one of the themes that I seem to sense

00:53:28.019 –> 00:53:32.480

in this area is that a lot of scholars, and it

00:53:32.480 –> 00:53:34.760

turns out ourselves included in some of our earliest

00:53:34.760 –> 00:53:39.639

work on this topic, engaged with different AI

00:53:39.639 –> 00:53:44.400

tools. And the underlying current was more or

00:53:44.400 –> 00:53:46.460

less some version of, well, these machines will

00:53:46.460 –> 00:53:48.320

never be able to do what we are going to do.

00:53:48.380 –> 00:53:51.719

And there was a kind of low -key celebration

00:53:51.719 –> 00:53:54.659

of human exceptionalism in those conversations.

00:53:54.760 –> 00:53:56.800

But I think a lot of that needs to be returned

00:53:56.800 –> 00:54:01.480

to, and we need to think a lot more deeply about

00:54:01.480 –> 00:54:06.099

what… can be done with AI and where and when

00:54:06.099 –> 00:54:08.500

and really have a much more structured and strategic

00:54:08.500 –> 00:54:11.039

conversation, which I say, obviously, without

00:54:11.039 –> 00:54:15.519

irony. That said, in all of the discussion about

00:54:15.519 –> 00:54:18.360

AI as it pertains to strategy and planning, just

00:54:18.360 –> 00:54:21.119

like the broader discussions, Megan, that you

00:54:21.119 –> 00:54:24.920

brought up before, also almost exclusively missing

00:54:24.920 –> 00:54:26.960

from those discussions is any role of emotion

00:54:26.960 –> 00:54:31.780

and affect. And to be clear, Matt and I have

00:54:31.780 –> 00:54:33.940

been writing about AI. Matt and I have been writing

00:54:33.940 –> 00:54:37.800

about emotion and scenario planning. And I don’t

00:54:37.800 –> 00:54:42.219

know that even we ourselves noted that part of

00:54:42.219 –> 00:54:46.300

our reaction to the rise of AI is starting to

00:54:46.300 –> 00:54:48.380

think through some of these emotional regulation

00:54:48.380 –> 00:54:54.420

pieces in facilitation that I’m not sure how

00:54:54.420 –> 00:54:58.260

AI figures into just yet. But that’s where I

00:54:58.260 –> 00:55:01.179

think. I think we should be going as trying to

00:55:01.179 –> 00:55:05.460

understand that piece for facilitators, for scenario

00:55:05.460 –> 00:55:08.320

planning related to AI and emotion. I think there’s

00:55:08.320 –> 00:55:14.679

some real work to be done there. Okay. And to

00:55:14.679 –> 00:55:18.940

you, Matt, what do you think? I think Nick said

00:55:18.940 –> 00:55:21.800

it the best. So thanks for having me on your

00:55:21.800 –> 00:55:25.099

podcast. Okay, well, I agree. Not going to take

00:55:25.099 –> 00:55:29.730

a swing, Matt? No. I mean, that’s some heavy

00:55:29.730 –> 00:55:32.050

hitting stuff. That’s the question, right? I

00:55:32.050 –> 00:55:33.889

think Nick did a great job there. I don’t think

00:55:33.889 –> 00:55:37.429

I want to add anything to that. Okay. Sorry if

00:55:37.429 –> 00:55:42.070

I stole your thunder. No, no, no. Nor thunder

00:55:42.070 –> 00:55:44.989

stolen. Everything else is, I mean, the question

00:55:44.989 –> 00:55:46.889

is, what should we be talking about? And there’s

00:55:46.889 –> 00:55:49.489

lots of little things that are coming in the

00:55:49.489 –> 00:55:54.610

pipeline, but stay tuned. Right. Okay. We will.

00:55:55.130 –> 00:55:58.269

Everybody stay tuned. It was great having both

00:55:58.269 –> 00:56:02.309

of y ‘all here today. I’m glad we could get through

00:56:02.309 –> 00:56:06.530

a bunch of the topics we had floated around ideas

00:56:06.530 –> 00:56:09.530

about before, but just never had the time to

00:56:09.530 –> 00:56:12.190

really just have a chat about them. So that’s

00:56:12.190 –> 00:56:16.449

great. Hopefully our audience laughed and cringed

00:56:16.449 –> 00:56:20.670

as much as we did. And yeah, I will see you at

00:56:20.670 –> 00:56:23.050

the next conference. So thank you very much.

00:56:24.010 –> 00:56:28.090

You know, I teach cringe. I teach cringe. I have

00:56:28.090 –> 00:56:31.789

a lecture on cringe and why we should be looking

00:56:31.789 –> 00:56:35.190

for it. Right. Very good. Thanks, Megan. Amazing.

00:56:35.949 –> 00:56:38.469

Scenarios for Tomorrow is produced by me, Megan

00:56:38.469 –> 00:56:42.230

Crawford, with invaluable feedback from Dr. Isabella

00:56:42.230 –> 00:56:45.750

Riza, Jeremy Creep, Brian Eggo, and as always,

00:56:45.949 –> 00:56:49.340

my kids. This is a production of the Futures

00:56:49.340 –> 00:56:52.139

and Analytics Research Hub and Pharr Lab affiliated

00:56:52.139 –> 00:56:55.239

with Edinburgh Napier Business School. You can

00:56:55.239 –> 00:56:57.699

find show notes, references, and transcripts

00:56:57.699 –> 00:57:02.940

at scenarios .pharrhub .org. That’s scenarios

00:57:02.940 –> 00:57:06.449

.pharrhub .org. You can follow us across social

00:57:06.449 –> 00:57:09.289

media by searching for scenario futures, all

00:57:09.289 –> 00:57:12.250

one word. You can subscribe to Scenarios for

00:57:12.250 –> 00:57:14.050

Tomorrow wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:57:14.590 –> 00:57:17.769

Today’s track was composed by Rocket, whose links

00:57:17.769 –> 00:57:21.130

are provided in the show notes. This is Scenarios

00:57:21.130 –> 00:57:23.690

for Tomorrow, where tomorrow’s headlines start

00:57:23.690 –> 00:57:25.030

as today’s thought experiments.

00:00:00.000 –> 00:00:02.680

We have a proverb in the Jimba, actually, in

00:00:02.680 –> 00:00:05.980

my mother tongue. Well, father tongue, technically.

00:00:06.780 –> 00:00:12.759

That literally means, if you eat a lot, you shit

00:00:12.759 –> 00:00:15.320

a lot. I’m not kidding you. That’s really what

00:00:15.320 –> 00:00:18.079

the proverb is about. That’s what my parents

00:00:18.079 –> 00:00:20.500

used to explain how the tax system functions.

00:00:21.320 –> 00:00:26.100

Now, joke aside. Welcome to Scenarios for Tomorrow,

00:00:26.260 –> 00:00:28.379

a podcast where we turn tomorrow’s headlines

00:00:28.379 –> 00:00:31.320

into today’s thought experiments. This first

00:00:31.320 –> 00:00:33.700

series includes conversations with the authors

00:00:33.700 –> 00:00:37.000

of our latest book, Improving and Enhancing Scenario

00:00:37.000 –> 00:00:40.119

Planning, Futures Thinking Volume, from Edward

00:00:40.119 –> 00:00:43.880

Elgar Publishing. I’m your host, Dr. Megan Crawford,

00:00:44.020 –> 00:00:46.100

and throughout this first series, you’ll hear

00:00:46.100 –> 00:00:48.840

from my guests the numerous global techniques

00:00:48.840 –> 00:00:51.539

for practicing and advancing scenario planning.

00:00:51.700 –> 00:01:04.469

Enjoy! Kwamu Eva Fankaa is the head of the African

00:01:04.469 –> 00:01:08.469

Center of Expertise and co -runs the Decolonial

00:01:08.469 –> 00:01:10.650

Comparative Law Project at Max Planck Institute

00:01:10.650 –> 00:01:13.450

for Comparative Private International Law in

00:01:13.450 –> 00:01:16.780

Germany. She previously worked as the Africa

00:01:16.780 –> 00:01:19.840

Coordinator for Futures Literacy at UNESCO for

00:01:19.840 –> 00:01:23.459

four years. She has also organized her own practice

00:01:23.459 –> 00:01:27.620

as a head futurist for such international organizations

00:01:27.620 –> 00:01:32.840

as UNICEF Innocenti, the OECD, and United Nations

00:01:32.840 –> 00:01:35.540

Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,

00:01:35.739 –> 00:01:39.280

and with other universities as well. She is also

00:01:39.280 –> 00:01:42.120

directly invested in artistic interdisciplinary

00:01:42.120 –> 00:01:47.900

projects such as Lagos Yaoundé Biennials and

00:01:47.900 –> 00:01:51.519

the Taipei Arts Festival. The main inquiry behind

00:01:51.519 –> 00:01:54.980

her work has been the question, how to allow

00:01:54.980 –> 00:01:58.040

space for the negotiation of meaning to deepen

00:01:58.040 –> 00:02:01.620

conversations. Welcome, Kwamu. It’s great to

00:02:01.620 –> 00:02:06.609

have you here. Thank you for having me. Our circles

00:02:06.609 –> 00:02:08.710

have crossed a few times over the last couple

00:02:08.710 –> 00:02:12.449

of years, but this is really the only, I think

00:02:12.449 –> 00:02:13.969

it might be the first official time we’ve had

00:02:13.969 –> 00:02:16.469

a chance to just sit, but the second chance we’ve

00:02:16.469 –> 00:02:19.889

seen each other on a computer screen, to be honest.

00:02:19.969 –> 00:02:23.460

So I really appreciate it. Your work across the

00:02:23.460 –> 00:02:27.479

globe has impacted so many industries and disciplines.

00:02:27.699 –> 00:02:31.719

It’s incredible. And I’m excited that you are

00:02:31.719 –> 00:02:34.180

joining our audience today and that I get to

00:02:34.180 –> 00:02:36.759

join your audience today to learn more about

00:02:36.759 –> 00:02:39.979

your work and perspectives on the field of futures

00:02:39.979 –> 00:02:43.310

and foresight more broadly. As mentioned in the

00:02:43.310 –> 00:02:45.349

introduction, we just published a book together

00:02:45.349 –> 00:02:47.590

about scenario planning in the 21st century.

00:02:47.750 –> 00:02:52.289

And at today, almost the middle of 2025, we’re

00:02:52.289 –> 00:02:55.090

here to talk a bit about that. We understand

00:02:55.090 –> 00:02:57.270

that not all our listeners are familiar with

00:02:57.270 –> 00:03:00.449

scenario planning, though many may have been

00:03:00.449 –> 00:03:03.169

introduced to it a bit during the pandemic when

00:03:03.169 –> 00:03:07.590

our jobs became extremely popular. But one of

00:03:07.590 –> 00:03:10.199

the motivations to this podcast. is to bring

00:03:10.199 –> 00:03:12.860

our world of futures and foresight science outside

00:03:12.860 –> 00:03:16.620

the walls of academia where we largely work and

00:03:16.620 –> 00:03:20.000

where language is closely controlled, understandably

00:03:20.000 –> 00:03:24.300

so, but knowledge is not as easy to access as

00:03:24.300 –> 00:03:26.919

we generally wish it to be and we assume it to

00:03:26.919 –> 00:03:30.560

be quite often, which just means we, the two

00:03:30.560 –> 00:03:32.159

of us, are here to have a chat with the public

00:03:32.159 –> 00:03:35.930

today. Your chapter in our book is titled Reframing

00:03:35.930 –> 00:03:38.969

and Futures Literacy, Tackling the Poverty of

00:03:38.969 –> 00:03:42.370

the Modern Imagination. So let’s get right into

00:03:42.370 –> 00:03:50.469

  1. Thanks. I will do two things. I will first

00:03:50.469 –> 00:03:55.770

explain what anticipatory assumptions are, and

00:03:55.770 –> 00:03:59.930

then I will talk about how we can play with them.

00:04:00.750 –> 00:04:05.830

And so to define anticipatory assumptions, I

00:04:05.830 –> 00:04:08.430

will say that those are basically our entry points

00:04:08.430 –> 00:04:13.229

to thinking about the future. So what does it

00:04:13.229 –> 00:04:17.269

mean concretely? If you are being asked to think

00:04:17.269 –> 00:04:21.089

about what the world would look like in 2030

00:04:21.089 –> 00:04:25.230

or let’s be crazy in 2060, the first thing that

00:04:25.230 –> 00:04:28.079

you will do is obviously, well, You’ll think

00:04:28.079 –> 00:04:30.000

about whether you’ll be there to begin with.

00:04:30.120 –> 00:04:31.939

So, you know, what will be your potential potential

00:04:31.939 –> 00:04:35.339

perspective on this but also you’ll then can

00:04:35.339 –> 00:04:38.060

retrieve any information that is available to

00:04:38.060 –> 00:04:41.480

you may be grandmother stories may be what you

00:04:41.480 –> 00:04:45.680

read on the news or heard from a neighbor or

00:04:45.680 –> 00:04:48.139

what you were taught at school or what you have

00:04:48.139 –> 00:04:51.300

discussed with colleagues recently and this will

00:04:51.300 –> 00:04:54.800

be the type of Data that you will then try to

00:04:54.800 –> 00:04:59.829

project onto the timeframe that you wish to go

00:04:59.829 –> 00:05:03.870

  1. And this is a very normal process. For any

00:05:03.870 –> 00:05:06.670

conversation that you have with people, you always

00:05:06.670 –> 00:05:10.870

have to rely on something that’s the essence

00:05:10.870 –> 00:05:13.949

of it. So to talk about anticipatory assumption

00:05:13.949 –> 00:05:18.310

is not to shame people for having them. It’s

00:05:18.310 –> 00:05:22.230

about people being aware that those exist. and

00:05:22.230 –> 00:05:25.170

therefore that those can tell us a lot about

00:05:25.170 –> 00:05:29.889

how people think and what I found to be really

00:05:29.889 –> 00:05:32.389

exciting about anticipatory assumption which

00:05:32.389 –> 00:05:35.889

has been at the core of what my future’s work

00:05:35.889 –> 00:05:40.829

has been about is how we can actually be put

00:05:40.829 –> 00:05:44.329

in a position where we can question the reasons

00:05:44.329 –> 00:05:48.509

why we do things but we can also connect and

00:05:48.509 –> 00:05:53.579

relate more to the people in the room oftentimes

00:05:53.579 –> 00:05:57.959

even if you think about conflicts the minor conflicts

00:05:57.959 –> 00:06:01.720

those originate from both having assumptions

00:06:01.720 –> 00:06:07.199

and not communicating upon them and all of that

00:06:07.199 –> 00:06:10.839

can be to a certain extent mitigated and so if

00:06:10.839 –> 00:06:13.980

you think about how to be part of the society

00:06:13.980 –> 00:06:16.079

to be part of a group or to be in a relationship

00:06:16.079 –> 00:06:20.410

is about imagining the future together it’s important

00:06:20.410 –> 00:06:23.430

to do the work of not necessarily assuming that

00:06:23.430 –> 00:06:25.470

we have the same idea of what the future is about.

00:06:26.910 –> 00:06:31.829

And even when we may have a similar idea, there’s

00:06:31.829 –> 00:06:33.870

also moments where we might need to question

00:06:33.870 –> 00:06:38.069

why those ideas are similar. And that could also

00:06:38.069 –> 00:06:43.029

be the problem in itself. And so earlier, many

00:06:43.029 –> 00:06:48.600

were referring to… anticipatory assumptions

00:06:48.600 –> 00:06:53.259

and how those can be similar to mental models

00:06:53.259 –> 00:06:57.100

that were discussed in senior scenario planning

00:06:57.100 –> 00:07:02.120

field in the scenario planning fields and that

00:07:02.120 –> 00:07:04.180

is true there is a connection between the two

00:07:04.180 –> 00:07:11.779

i would see a difference that is that there’s

00:07:11.779 –> 00:07:14.620

a playfulness with anticipatory assumption that

00:07:14.620 –> 00:07:18.459

allows us to be kind to ourselves. And I think

00:07:18.459 –> 00:07:22.199

that is something that is indeed needed when

00:07:22.199 –> 00:07:26.779

we produce science. And so that allows me to

00:07:26.779 –> 00:07:29.360

explain a little bit how do we play with anticipatory

00:07:29.360 –> 00:07:33.399

assumptions. So in the article, I do refer to

00:07:33.399 –> 00:07:36.839

two use cases. where we were playing with the

00:07:36.839 –> 00:07:39.720

future of waste. But another one that is also

00:07:39.720 –> 00:07:42.540

a heavy topic on matters such as the future of

00:07:42.540 –> 00:07:47.480

racism. And in both contexts, those have practical,

00:07:47.839 –> 00:07:52.439

economic, emotional, political implications.

00:07:52.740 –> 00:07:56.579

So one may seem lighter than the other, but at

00:07:56.579 –> 00:07:59.519

the end of the day, both have quite severe implications

00:07:59.519 –> 00:08:04.600

for many people. And because the future is actually

00:08:04.600 –> 00:08:07.360

a very serious matter, it’s also sometimes difficult

00:08:07.360 –> 00:08:10.220

to see how playful we can actually be with the

00:08:10.220 –> 00:08:14.120

future. Because, you know, we are accountable,

00:08:14.379 –> 00:08:16.980

we have a duty to hold, and that’s really important.

00:08:17.360 –> 00:08:21.139

I just don’t believe that having a sense of duty

00:08:21.139 –> 00:08:24.720

or responsibility prevent us from seeking ways

00:08:24.720 –> 00:08:29.399

to connect playfully and in a smart fashion as

00:08:29.399 –> 00:08:34.379

well. For me, the advantage of anticipatory assumptions

00:08:34.379 –> 00:08:41.379

is the possibility to ask ourselves the question

00:08:41.379 –> 00:08:45.700

as to why? Where does it come from? And to really

00:08:45.700 –> 00:08:50.039

do some type of both personal and political inquiry

00:08:50.039 –> 00:08:53.779

and put them both together. I’ll start with the

00:08:53.779 –> 00:08:58.750

future of race. we discussed how we were looking

00:08:58.750 –> 00:09:01.490

at the future of waste with different participants

00:09:01.490 –> 00:09:07.149

from Central and Eastern Europe. Now, the matter

00:09:07.149 –> 00:09:11.009

of waste is that quite evidently, if we think

00:09:11.009 –> 00:09:13.549

about the connotation of the world itself, not

00:09:13.549 –> 00:09:16.470

even thinking about waste studies and scientific

00:09:16.470 –> 00:09:20.950

discourses on waste management, waste is usually…

00:09:21.909 –> 00:09:25.409

well, connotated with this idea that it’s something

00:09:25.409 –> 00:09:31.669

that is useless. And if I say that, you’re going

00:09:31.669 –> 00:09:33.789

to actually believe, well, that’s pretty straightforward.

00:09:33.950 –> 00:09:38.330

Yes. Thank you for coming. But it has implications

00:09:38.330 –> 00:09:42.250

as to how we deal with it. Whenever something

00:09:42.250 –> 00:09:45.330

is connotated as something that is negative or

00:09:45.330 –> 00:09:49.389

useless, the policies that result from that usually

00:09:49.389 –> 00:09:52.299

reflect that as well. And here you can easily

00:09:52.299 –> 00:09:55.440

connect that with some security matters or even

00:09:55.440 –> 00:09:57.899

matters of migration or conversation that goes

00:09:57.899 –> 00:10:00.159

in that direction where connotation that we have

00:10:00.159 –> 00:10:04.519

on people or things tend to make us act in a

00:10:04.519 –> 00:10:07.639

particular way. And yet again, that sounds like

00:10:07.639 –> 00:10:12.379

common sense. But we realize that common sense

00:10:12.379 –> 00:10:16.139

has not always shared by everyone, but also that

00:10:16.139 –> 00:10:19.059

it has more implications than what we think.

00:10:20.110 –> 00:10:27.269

So, on waste. One of the examples that was given

00:10:27.269 –> 00:10:30.889

was how when we ask people to think about 2050

00:10:30.889 –> 00:10:35.769

and the future of waste, we get things such as

00:10:35.769 –> 00:10:41.370

the importance of strong waste management for

00:10:41.370 –> 00:10:47.250

public health matters, or the fact that in a

00:10:47.250 –> 00:10:51.259

desire to be part of a more sustainable economy,

00:10:51.539 –> 00:10:54.659

there’s a need for waste to either be recycled

00:10:54.659 –> 00:10:59.919

or to be eradicated. Immediately, those type

00:10:59.919 –> 00:11:02.519

of behaviors that are induced by a particular

00:11:02.519 –> 00:11:07.019

assumption of what waste is for, or preventing

00:11:07.019 –> 00:11:11.480

some conversations from happening, automatically

00:11:11.480 –> 00:11:15.320

what you hear from those different policies is

00:11:15.320 –> 00:11:18.289

that waste is a problem. and a problem that needs

00:11:18.289 –> 00:11:22.450

to be fixed so you’re being put in a position

00:11:22.450 –> 00:11:25.350

that does not necessarily allow us to think of

00:11:25.350 –> 00:11:28.169

waste as something that is quite natural in the

00:11:28.169 –> 00:11:31.350

overall ecosystem something that is natural in

00:11:31.350 –> 00:11:33.590

an ecosystem is not something that needs to be

00:11:33.590 –> 00:11:36.129

fixed something that needs to be fixed is an

00:11:36.129 –> 00:11:40.889

error and that’s different from a system um and

00:11:40.889 –> 00:11:44.190

and so that very small assumption that i told

00:11:44.190 –> 00:11:47.710

you about that sounded Obviously, very reasonable.

00:11:47.909 –> 00:11:51.070

Yeah, waste is useless. Waste is something that

00:11:51.070 –> 00:11:54.669

we do not want in our lives. It allows us to

00:11:54.669 –> 00:11:57.110

immediately understand the type of policy measures

00:11:57.110 –> 00:12:00.370

or the type of behaviors that we have vis -a

00:12:00.370 –> 00:12:04.710

-vis something as small as waste. And that was

00:12:04.710 –> 00:12:08.029

just for waste. Imagine what it means for anything

00:12:08.029 –> 00:12:10.029

else when we’re doing things on the future of

00:12:10.029 –> 00:12:12.090

learning, when we’re doing things for the future

00:12:12.090 –> 00:12:14.590

of security, when we’re doing things on the future

00:12:14.590 –> 00:12:19.490

of… technology, if you go to those topics that

00:12:19.490 –> 00:12:25.090

appear to be larger, obviously the type of assumptions

00:12:25.090 –> 00:12:29.470

that are underlying will be just as large. And

00:12:29.470 –> 00:12:31.830

that’s the moment where we do need to have this

00:12:31.830 –> 00:12:33.629

type of conversation that allows us to actually

00:12:33.629 –> 00:12:36.269

see, well, let’s imagine that waste is actually

00:12:36.269 –> 00:12:39.549

the system itself. And so if waste is a system,

00:12:39.649 –> 00:12:42.090

you cannot solve it. And waste is like, not only

00:12:42.090 –> 00:12:44.529

everywhere, so it’s not waste as a variable.

00:12:45.070 –> 00:12:47.809

but we’re actually in a waste society and so

00:12:47.809 –> 00:12:50.730

the way we interact with one another is basically

00:12:50.730 –> 00:12:54.330

um the same way as what we do and how we deal

00:12:54.330 –> 00:12:58.809

with waste what does it mean or a situation where

00:12:58.809 –> 00:13:01.629

we actually see that waste is wealth actually

00:13:01.629 –> 00:13:05.230

there’s a good example from um so i’m cameroonian

00:13:05.230 –> 00:13:11.090

um and uh my group of affiliation is called venerate

00:13:11.090 –> 00:13:14.509

king and there’s different bani neke kingdoms

00:13:14.509 –> 00:13:19.210

now one of them was a bit further north from

00:13:19.210 –> 00:13:23.570

where i come from was known to have a king who

00:13:23.570 –> 00:13:29.929

would have a pile of waste and the reason for

00:13:29.929 –> 00:13:37.909

that is because waste was the symbol of accumulated

00:13:37.909 –> 00:13:42.870

wealth And so from that perspective that some

00:13:42.870 –> 00:13:44.950

have been using before, you know, with this idea

00:13:44.950 –> 00:13:47.789

of waste can be actually a form of wealth. And

00:13:47.789 –> 00:13:51.250

if you go for a capitalist understanding of waste

00:13:51.250 –> 00:13:54.990

as well, it might just then lead you to just

00:13:54.990 –> 00:14:00.450

trying to accumulate waste and then recycle that

00:14:00.450 –> 00:14:03.570

waste, which does not necessarily put you in

00:14:03.570 –> 00:14:05.690

a sustainable practice and just puts you in a

00:14:05.690 –> 00:14:09.480

very accumulative an accumulation -based type

00:14:09.480 –> 00:14:14.279

of system. But by actually shifting around, what

00:14:14.279 –> 00:14:16.279

could be the different examples? So is it waste

00:14:16.279 –> 00:14:19.519

as well? Is it waste as the overall paradigm?

00:14:20.019 –> 00:14:24.940

Is it about waste suddenly not even being managed?

00:14:25.320 –> 00:14:28.580

So waste is not even a variable that we actually

00:14:28.580 –> 00:14:31.120

want to care about. What type of society are

00:14:31.120 –> 00:14:33.659

we producing every time? And so suddenly you

00:14:33.659 –> 00:14:36.299

realize that by going back to the assumption,

00:14:37.070 –> 00:14:39.549

you can actually produce different types of behaviors

00:14:39.549 –> 00:14:42.330

or policies. Or sometimes you produce the same,

00:14:42.549 –> 00:14:45.809

and then you get to understand one. And I think,

00:14:45.830 –> 00:14:49.269

especially in the society that we live in, I’m

00:14:49.269 –> 00:14:51.710

not going to go back even to what’s going on

00:14:51.710 –> 00:14:54.409

in the world, so you all have your own idea of

00:14:54.409 –> 00:14:59.690

what that means. It’s important to have tools

00:14:59.690 –> 00:15:02.490

that allow you to relate to other people and

00:15:02.490 –> 00:15:06.250

to understand yourself as a person better. and

00:15:06.250 –> 00:15:08.389

to understand your context, how it influences

00:15:08.389 –> 00:15:11.350

you, how you may have gotten manipulated in one

00:15:11.350 –> 00:15:13.669

way or another. And to what extent it’s not always

00:15:13.669 –> 00:15:16.169

a problem because we all get manipulated somehow,

00:15:16.590 –> 00:15:20.009

but are you able to play around with what you

00:15:20.009 –> 00:15:24.350

were taking for granted is really the type of

00:15:24.350 –> 00:15:28.750

skill that I wish we could develop more. Something

00:15:28.750 –> 00:15:33.029

that came up in my mind, and I don’t know if

00:15:33.029 –> 00:15:35.500

I would have ever experienced this. had i stayed

00:15:35.500 –> 00:15:38.759

in my hometown or my home state for all of my

00:15:38.759 –> 00:15:42.799

life but moving out of the country I jokingly

00:15:42.799 –> 00:15:45.720

call it like a constant exercise in having my

00:15:45.720 –> 00:15:48.740

assumptions challenged. And it’ll be small assumptions.

00:15:48.940 –> 00:15:51.200

Like I thought the sidewalk was supposed to always

00:15:51.200 –> 00:15:53.360

look like this. I had no idea, you know, like

00:15:53.360 –> 00:15:55.379

little stuff like that. But then it can get very

00:15:55.379 –> 00:15:56.779

big, like exactly what you’re talking about.

00:15:56.820 –> 00:15:58.659

I would call waste management probably one of

00:15:58.659 –> 00:16:00.860

the biggest things and important things on this

00:16:00.860 –> 00:16:03.519

planet because every society collapses the second

00:16:03.519 –> 00:16:08.169

waste management collapses or ceases. But I digress,

00:16:08.169 –> 00:16:11.490

right? So it was even being aware that I had

00:16:11.490 –> 00:16:14.330

assumptions, just not, I think that’s one of

00:16:14.330 –> 00:16:18.330

the biggest tasks for people in our field who

00:16:18.330 –> 00:16:23.169

are being brought in to other groups who are

00:16:23.169 –> 00:16:26.169

hoping that, you know, we could use our expertise.

00:16:26.309 –> 00:16:29.789

It’s first thing is trying to convince them that

00:16:29.789 –> 00:16:33.049

they have assumptions. And then. what those assumptions

00:16:33.049 –> 00:16:36.450

are, as you’re saying, when it comes to exercises

00:16:36.450 –> 00:16:39.490

of, yeah, well, in futures, it’s anticipation.

00:16:39.549 –> 00:16:41.830

We’re always looking towards the future. It’s

00:16:41.830 –> 00:16:45.350

literally in the title. But yeah, I had no idea

00:16:45.350 –> 00:16:48.029

how that was even a thing until experiencing

00:16:48.029 –> 00:16:51.690

it, that people could just be blind, like hard

00:16:51.690 –> 00:16:54.750

blind to their own assumptions. And most of the

00:16:54.750 –> 00:16:56.789

time that is benign. You know, most of the time

00:16:56.789 –> 00:17:00.230

it’s just a goofy moment, but it can scale to

00:17:00.230 –> 00:17:04.579

much larger. So what you’re saying is one of

00:17:04.579 –> 00:17:06.460

the techniques, one of the efforts that helps

00:17:06.460 –> 00:17:11.440

to challenge those assumptions is a reframing

00:17:11.440 –> 00:17:17.539

of reality, of imagination, of the assumptions

00:17:17.539 –> 00:17:21.380

of a variable. So waste was used as a variable

00:17:21.380 –> 00:17:25.309

there. That’s a tried and true. method in psychology

00:17:25.309 –> 00:17:28.690

isn’t and behavioral economics is um connected

00:17:28.690 –> 00:17:31.549

with priming right you prime them with a message

00:17:31.549 –> 00:17:38.509

or a view of the world and then you um have reframed

00:17:38.509 –> 00:17:41.670

you see how how that can help you what you’re

00:17:41.670 –> 00:17:48.289

hoping yeah and that’s you know you see this

00:17:48.289 –> 00:17:50.990

used in media media is probably one of the most

00:17:50.990 –> 00:17:57.980

common um what would you say, I wouldn’t say

00:17:57.980 –> 00:18:01.460

beneficiaries, but users of this priming, reframing

00:18:01.460 –> 00:18:09.220

method on the public scale. So with all that,

00:18:09.319 –> 00:18:11.279

I don’t want to step too far into your time,

00:18:11.380 –> 00:18:14.980

but with all that, you bring in this idea that

00:18:14.980 –> 00:18:18.480

is I mean, a lot of people talked about it, but

00:18:18.480 –> 00:18:20.200

not a lot of people have given a lot of definition

00:18:20.200 –> 00:18:24.700

to it. And it’s this, what does it take to reframe?

00:18:24.759 –> 00:18:30.599

What does it take to, and I really wanted to

00:18:30.599 –> 00:18:33.680

get back to your playful idea of imagining alternative

00:18:33.680 –> 00:18:39.799

futures and stuff. And it’s the variety that

00:18:39.799 –> 00:18:42.299

we end up being around. I’m trying to think of

00:18:42.299 –> 00:18:44.619

the word. You bring in this idea of collective

00:18:44.619 –> 00:18:49.039

intelligence, right? And that’s through a sort

00:18:49.039 –> 00:18:54.160

of participatory method, which can mean any number

00:18:54.160 –> 00:18:57.559

of things, right? But clearly an action -based

00:18:57.559 –> 00:19:05.180

effort of changing these assumptions, challenging

00:19:05.180 –> 00:19:07.920

however it is. I’m going to pass this back to

00:19:07.920 –> 00:19:11.240

you. If you could walk us through your ideas

00:19:11.240 –> 00:19:14.599

of that collective intelligence method. So on

00:19:14.599 –> 00:19:18.299

the playfulness and maybe also going back to

00:19:18.299 –> 00:19:20.960

the technique, just to get a better sense of

00:19:20.960 –> 00:19:24.180

how does it work? Because really, hopefully by

00:19:24.180 –> 00:19:28.420

now we understand what and why. Why do we do

00:19:28.420 –> 00:19:33.039

this work of trying to find out more about relationship

00:19:33.039 –> 00:19:36.680

to power? One thing that actually I’d like to

00:19:36.680 –> 00:19:41.089

say. And actually, it will be part of the reason

00:19:41.089 –> 00:19:45.230

why we had issues finding this session. I will

00:19:45.230 –> 00:19:48.369

have my first exhibition at the end of this week,

00:19:48.569 –> 00:19:53.829

where we do work on technomagics. And basically,

00:19:53.890 –> 00:19:58.930

the work at CoDesign was on the reproduction

00:19:58.930 –> 00:20:02.470

of Unreal Times. And I think that connects very

00:20:02.470 –> 00:20:04.529

nicely with what we’re discussing right now.

00:20:04.849 –> 00:20:07.569

And where is that going to be, by the way? in

00:20:07.569 –> 00:20:14.210

Freiburg, in South Germany. And, well, promotion

00:20:14.210 –> 00:20:16.470

on this one, so it will be from May until July

00:20:16.470 –> 00:20:21.369

2025 in Freiburg at IVEC, or Galerie für Gegenwart,

00:20:21.509 –> 00:20:25.910

so the gallery for the present in Germany. And

00:20:25.910 –> 00:20:30.630

as part of this work, so we’re kind of interrogating

00:20:30.630 –> 00:20:32.589

the connection between technology and magic.

00:20:36.009 –> 00:20:38.049

What I found to be really interesting when we

00:20:38.049 –> 00:20:41.529

talked about technology or magic is that there’s

00:20:41.529 –> 00:20:46.210

some things that feel real and other that just

00:20:46.210 –> 00:20:51.109

don’t. And usually, for some reason, technology

00:20:51.109 –> 00:20:56.210

appears to be more real than magic. And the first

00:20:56.210 –> 00:20:58.589

thing that I think was important for me to say

00:20:58.589 –> 00:21:04.400

was how what we… What feels real has less to

00:21:04.400 –> 00:21:07.779

do with what is actually probable and more to

00:21:07.779 –> 00:21:13.799

do with what we are told to feel or what we are

00:21:13.799 –> 00:21:17.859

allowed to feel. So technically speaking this

00:21:17.859 –> 00:21:21.660

idea that technology is a very tangible thing

00:21:21.660 –> 00:21:25.160

even though if I ask anyone what do you see as

00:21:25.160 –> 00:21:27.160

the future of technology nobody’s going to think

00:21:27.160 –> 00:21:30.579

about the people who are behind technology such

00:21:30.579 –> 00:21:35.329

as the cobalt miners in the Democratic Republic

00:21:35.329 –> 00:21:38.130

of the Congo or the manufacturers in Vietnam

00:21:38.130 –> 00:21:40.890

or in China. They’re going to think about the

00:21:40.890 –> 00:21:44.289

users, even though I would say those making the

00:21:44.289 –> 00:21:49.890

tools should be the most tangible aspect of the

00:21:49.890 –> 00:21:53.529

matter. But somehow that aspect does not really

00:21:53.529 –> 00:21:56.869

feel real. But the idea of having smart houses

00:21:56.869 –> 00:22:01.640

feel very real in a way, magic. will feel also

00:22:01.640 –> 00:22:05.079

less real because we don’t see the process but

00:22:05.079 –> 00:22:07.660

for tech we don’t see the process either and

00:22:07.660 –> 00:22:10.400

so this this ability to see what’s real and what’s

00:22:10.400 –> 00:22:13.799

not has very much to do with power and so for

00:22:13.799 –> 00:22:15.880

any conversation where we want to connect with

00:22:15.880 –> 00:22:18.380

other people starting from the position of just

00:22:18.380 –> 00:22:21.220

you know even if you cannot name where power

00:22:21.220 –> 00:22:25.200

comes from you’re still able to feel it and that

00:22:25.200 –> 00:22:27.180

is enough to have a conversation with other people

00:22:27.180 –> 00:22:29.980

because we’re not just here to blame people We

00:22:29.980 –> 00:22:31.980

just want to be able to better understand ourselves.

00:22:32.640 –> 00:22:36.039

And that is a political move already, not political

00:22:36.039 –> 00:22:38.700

in the sense of the partisan move. I’m not asking

00:22:38.700 –> 00:22:40.980

who you’re voting for, but just political in

00:22:40.980 –> 00:22:44.079

terms of committing to being part of society.

00:22:44.640 –> 00:22:47.359

And I think that’s something that we do need.

00:22:47.819 –> 00:22:50.660

And if you’re committing to being part of society,

00:22:50.900 –> 00:22:54.160

you’re committing to putting a bit of yourself

00:22:54.160 –> 00:22:57.700

to society. And so that’s where collective intelligence

00:22:57.700 –> 00:23:01.049

actually plays a role. I remember recently a

00:23:01.049 –> 00:23:04.829

conversation with an Egyptian colleague, well

00:23:04.829 –> 00:23:07.630

an Egyptian colleague, an Ethiopian colleague

00:23:07.630 –> 00:23:11.250

and a German colleague and we’re all based in

00:23:11.250 –> 00:23:15.470

Germany. Now for the first time our Ethiopian

00:23:15.470 –> 00:23:18.890

colleague was hearing that we needed to have

00:23:18.890 –> 00:23:25.529

an insurance for moments when if we basically

00:23:27.019 –> 00:23:30.220

cause any damage to the property of somebody

00:23:30.220 –> 00:23:33.980

else that would be covered by insurance who would

00:23:33.980 –> 00:23:39.819

basically compensate the other party and he was

00:23:39.819 –> 00:23:46.200

really surprised if I can put that in milder

00:23:46.200 –> 00:23:50.920

terms by that fact it was like well why do we

00:23:50.920 –> 00:23:54.660

need to be insured for this type of damage, wouldn’t

00:23:54.660 –> 00:23:58.099

it be just good to have a conversation with one

00:23:58.099 –> 00:24:03.579

another? And, you know, it was interesting because

00:24:03.579 –> 00:24:07.200

as he raised that question, suddenly we had to

00:24:07.200 –> 00:24:10.339

think about what our insurance is for. And it

00:24:10.339 –> 00:24:13.000

leads us to other conversations such as, you

00:24:13.000 –> 00:24:15.559

know, the fact that we choose to hide ourselves

00:24:15.559 –> 00:24:18.930

behind laws. um in order not to talk to anyone

00:24:18.930 –> 00:24:21.250

you can just say well that’s what’s written in

00:24:21.250 –> 00:24:26.710

the civil code please apply article x um and

00:24:26.710 –> 00:24:30.069

um and so suddenly the point is not necessarily

00:24:30.069 –> 00:24:34.190

to say that suddenly you should not have an insurance

00:24:34.190 –> 00:24:37.109

um especially if there’s an insurance company

00:24:37.109 –> 00:24:39.609

listening to us and then suddenly blocking this

00:24:39.609 –> 00:24:43.440

podcast um But the point is just to better understand

00:24:43.440 –> 00:24:45.440

why did we actually come up with an insurance

00:24:45.440 –> 00:24:48.119

based system in Germany? And then you actually

00:24:48.119 –> 00:24:50.839

go back to how the culture functions and the

00:24:50.839 –> 00:24:55.220

type of precautions and how risk adverse people

00:24:55.220 –> 00:24:57.180

can be, et cetera, et cetera. So you actually

00:24:57.180 –> 00:24:59.140

are given the opportunity to better understand

00:24:59.140 –> 00:25:02.880

how you function. But it’s easier done when you

00:25:02.880 –> 00:25:05.619

have somebody who is not from the system telling

00:25:05.619 –> 00:25:07.900

you about this or somebody who is from the system,

00:25:07.960 –> 00:25:10.960

but not looking at the system the same way you

00:25:10.960 –> 00:25:14.910

  1. And so having the opportunity to just relate

00:25:14.910 –> 00:25:18.369

better is usually just a way to understand yourself

00:25:18.369 –> 00:25:21.789

better. And so for anticipatory assumptions,

00:25:22.450 –> 00:25:28.190

the way we go about it is that we’re not just

00:25:28.190 –> 00:25:30.309

going for anticipatory assumptions. The point

00:25:30.309 –> 00:25:32.549

is not just to have a list of anticipatory assumptions.

00:25:32.710 –> 00:25:35.309

Like how many biases did we have in the room?

00:25:35.390 –> 00:25:37.690

And then be happy because we counted, I don’t

00:25:37.690 –> 00:25:43.019

know, 16 or 64. um the point is to say okay um

00:25:43.019 –> 00:25:46.380

we’re all coming together there is an objective

00:25:46.380 –> 00:25:48.559

that we have we want to discuss the future of

00:25:48.559 –> 00:25:50.359

waste we want to discuss the future of racism

00:25:50.359 –> 00:25:54.759

in the context of a particular organization that

00:25:54.759 –> 00:25:58.059

targets um something in particular we want to

00:25:58.059 –> 00:26:04.789

make sure that um people of african descent anywhere

00:26:04.789 –> 00:26:07.809

in the world can actually feel like they’re part

00:26:07.809 –> 00:26:10.930

of the country that understands their history

00:26:10.930 –> 00:26:14.329

and in which they feel respected okay that’s

00:26:14.329 –> 00:26:18.950

our goal now um the question is what are we currently

00:26:18.950 –> 00:26:21.750

thinking about the world so how are we looking

00:26:21.750 –> 00:26:25.130

at what we’re doing from the perspective of what

00:26:25.130 –> 00:26:30.380

will happen in the future so okay in 2060 I see

00:26:30.380 –> 00:26:35.079

how history will be taught in history books or

00:26:35.079 –> 00:26:41.039

how it’s okay to have courses on how to do your

00:26:41.039 –> 00:26:46.400

hair in a classroom. Okay, usually the stories

00:26:46.400 –> 00:26:49.460

that you’re going to hear are based on things

00:26:49.460 –> 00:26:53.519

that people have experienced very recently. So

00:26:53.519 –> 00:26:56.539

people discussing hair politics may be due to

00:26:56.539 –> 00:26:58.609

the fact that you know they realized that they

00:26:58.609 –> 00:27:00.950

needed to pay 100 euros to get their hair done.

00:27:01.190 –> 00:27:03.529

And so that’s the topic that came on the next

00:27:03.529 –> 00:27:07.029

day. The same way when we organized the Futures

00:27:07.029 –> 00:27:13.250

UTC Live, so a futures workshop on energy with

00:27:13.250 –> 00:27:16.869

people who were based in Western Europe in February

00:27:16.869 –> 00:27:22.549

2022, which also happens to be when the war between

00:27:22.549 –> 00:27:25.500

Ukraine and Russia started. Well, the matter

00:27:25.500 –> 00:27:30.059

of energy self -sufficiency, world security came

00:27:30.059 –> 00:27:32.660

up quite often, even though we’re talking about

00:27:32.660 –> 00:27:37.000

the future of the rule of manufacturing, which

00:27:37.000 –> 00:27:40.819

can be related to energy, but it’s not really

00:27:40.819 –> 00:27:44.660

the focus. But somehow it was on everybody’s

00:27:44.660 –> 00:27:48.019

minds. So that’s what we discussed. and you see

00:27:48.019 –> 00:27:50.440

how using the future can just be a way to talk

00:27:50.440 –> 00:27:53.519

about the fears anxieties or associated sources

00:27:53.519 –> 00:27:56.720

of excitement that we have at the moment when

00:27:56.720 –> 00:28:00.700

the activity is organized so first we united

00:28:00.700 –> 00:28:05.339

by common sense of purpose and we allow for contemporary

00:28:05.339 –> 00:28:09.480

matters immediate matters to also be there because

00:28:09.480 –> 00:28:11.779

they’re already there so might as well welcome

00:28:11.779 –> 00:28:15.779

them Now, we know that there’s a big elephant

00:28:15.779 –> 00:28:19.119

in the room or several big elephants in the rooms,

00:28:19.180 –> 00:28:22.119

which are those anticipatory assumptions. So

00:28:22.119 –> 00:28:26.220

the type of data or data in the way it stands

00:28:26.220 –> 00:28:29.140

on, it’s not only statistics, like any pieces

00:28:29.140 –> 00:28:32.920

of information that we mobilize about coming

00:28:32.920 –> 00:28:35.660

from the past, coming from the present, coming

00:28:35.660 –> 00:28:38.440

from our understanding of the past and the present

00:28:38.440 –> 00:28:40.960

and what we believe other people in the room

00:28:40.960 –> 00:28:45.230

are ready to hear. And we bring all of that to

00:28:45.230 –> 00:28:48.230

the future. Okay, what is blocking us in that

00:28:48.230 –> 00:28:51.150

process? Are there things that we hear, association

00:28:51.150 –> 00:28:54.269

of ideas that we’re making that are preventing

00:28:54.269 –> 00:28:58.589

us from seeing what is the matter at hand? I

00:28:58.589 –> 00:29:01.410

usually like to frame it under like association

00:29:01.410 –> 00:29:04.329

of ideas because that’s usually easier. So, you

00:29:04.329 –> 00:29:07.849

know, waste and usefulness to reuse the example

00:29:07.849 –> 00:29:11.700

from before. Waste and wealth. um so what are

00:29:11.700 –> 00:29:14.740

the connection if you think about racism what

00:29:14.740 –> 00:29:17.299

do we usually connect that with based on what

00:29:17.299 –> 00:29:19.740

people are saying well if they’re talking about

00:29:19.740 –> 00:29:23.259

history books they usually have make a connection

00:29:23.259 –> 00:29:27.420

between racism and slavery um so that there’s

00:29:27.420 –> 00:29:31.259

particular episodes in history that are responsible

00:29:31.259 –> 00:29:35.440

um for the way people look at one another and

00:29:35.440 –> 00:29:38.539

so we want to document those processes And then

00:29:38.539 –> 00:29:42.160

we realize by connecting racism and history that

00:29:42.160 –> 00:29:46.299

we actually usually frame racism as only being

00:29:46.299 –> 00:29:49.059

a matter of awareness. It’s because people don’t

00:29:49.059 –> 00:29:53.200

know that they do the things that they do. Which

00:29:53.200 –> 00:29:57.579

could be true. Could also not be true. And so

00:29:57.579 –> 00:30:00.000

it’s then interesting to think about those different

00:30:00.000 –> 00:30:03.319

layers. Because maybe if you want to talk to

00:30:03.319 –> 00:30:07.339

particular people, that layer won’t work. And

00:30:07.339 –> 00:30:09.500

so you have to think about other types of layers.

00:30:09.759 –> 00:30:12.339

So the idea is to, yet again, think about this

00:30:12.339 –> 00:30:16.019

exercise as, you know, letting you go explore

00:30:16.019 –> 00:30:20.039

what is possible. Bear in mind that, once again,

00:30:20.119 –> 00:30:24.759

I insist on the political nature of this work,

00:30:24.839 –> 00:30:28.339

not to make it all heavy because, you know, sometimes

00:30:28.339 –> 00:30:30.900

we’re afraid. We hear political and we want to

00:30:30.900 –> 00:30:36.180

run away because it sounds scary, like many things.

00:30:36.700 –> 00:30:38.500

uh unfortunately i don’t believe that we can

00:30:38.500 –> 00:30:41.640

avoid it many people’s lives or political just

00:30:41.640 –> 00:30:44.319

the choice to have a family or not to have one

00:30:44.319 –> 00:30:46.180

is a political one or just the fact that you

00:30:46.180 –> 00:30:48.460

don’t have a choice is also a political method

00:30:48.460 –> 00:30:51.420

um the fact that you go to school they don’t

00:30:51.420 –> 00:30:56.759

go to school the fact that you choose to um talk

00:30:56.759 –> 00:30:59.440

to particular people all of those different methods

00:30:59.440 –> 00:31:03.019

or heavily political even who you love is political

00:31:03.019 –> 00:31:07.039

i was going to say my state is now made just

00:31:07.039 –> 00:31:10.299

existing as certain types of people a political

00:31:10.299 –> 00:31:15.920

um issue so it’s it’s difficult to avoid it and

00:31:15.920 –> 00:31:18.859

and so that’s why i use that term not to scare

00:31:18.859 –> 00:31:22.740

people away but just to contextualize the work

00:31:22.740 –> 00:31:25.579

that we do and so when it’s a matter of talking

00:31:25.579 –> 00:31:27.440

about the future talking about the way society

00:31:27.440 –> 00:31:31.160

is organized or can be organized obviously this

00:31:31.160 –> 00:31:34.599

is definition of what is political and so um

00:31:35.099 –> 00:31:39.920

um we can play around with topics that don’t

00:31:39.920 –> 00:31:41.940

necessarily sound very political and suddenly

00:31:41.940 –> 00:31:44.599

turn out to be i did things on the future of

00:31:44.599 –> 00:31:49.440

bread and we had a lovely conversation not necessarily

00:31:49.440 –> 00:31:52.940

with bakers where people ended up talking about

00:31:52.940 –> 00:31:56.039

how they don’t want to see bread no more because

00:31:56.039 –> 00:32:00.099

wheat has been taking over any type of conversation

00:32:00.099 –> 00:32:02.700

and so They want to actually talk about other

00:32:02.700 –> 00:32:06.319

ingredients or other cereals. And then that’s

00:32:06.319 –> 00:32:08.559

obviously very much connected to food distribution

00:32:08.559 –> 00:32:16.019

systems, who get access to the agribusiness industry.

00:32:16.400 –> 00:32:19.180

So all of those matters you realize, you were

00:32:19.180 –> 00:32:21.799

just talking about baguettes and you ended up

00:32:21.799 –> 00:32:25.460

talking about how our economic systems are built.

00:32:26.099 –> 00:32:30.880

And so from the perspective of techniques, we

00:32:30.880 –> 00:32:34.880

always bear that in mind that being said we do

00:32:34.880 –> 00:32:38.940

this work in smaller groups and so this is then

00:32:38.940 –> 00:32:41.700

the opportunity to just have a conversation with

00:32:41.700 –> 00:32:44.660

that little group being in mind that we belong

00:32:44.660 –> 00:32:51.720

to a larger world well okay so with that said

00:32:51.720 –> 00:32:55.240

which is um an incredible amount of wealth there

00:32:55.240 –> 00:32:59.640

of information and ways of looking at how as

00:32:59.640 –> 00:33:03.819

individuals and when we identify as members of

00:33:03.819 –> 00:33:07.460

communities we can apply these concepts of futures

00:33:07.460 –> 00:33:11.500

literacy and reframing techniques in daily lives

00:33:11.500 –> 00:33:13.960

you know that’s um because that’s one of the

00:33:13.960 –> 00:33:16.599

big questions right how how do we take this on

00:33:16.599 –> 00:33:20.259

or how do we help others take this on so with

00:33:20.259 –> 00:33:23.500

that in mind and across this whole conversation

00:33:23.500 –> 00:33:26.740

have one final question for you and this is just

00:33:26.740 –> 00:33:29.000

you this is just about from your point of the

00:33:29.000 –> 00:33:31.220

world what you’re seeing maybe in your profession

00:33:31.220 –> 00:33:37.160

um but what are you seeing that people are not

00:33:37.160 –> 00:33:39.920

talking about that you think they should be talking

00:33:39.920 –> 00:33:48.480

about i think in general people are trapped by

00:33:48.480 –> 00:33:53.470

a certain sense of hype whose origins they don’t

00:33:53.470 –> 00:34:00.549

even know. And then part of the most basic conversations

00:34:00.549 –> 00:34:05.950

just do not take place. I’ve already referred

00:34:05.950 –> 00:34:08.489

to what that means for technology. So the fact

00:34:08.489 –> 00:34:12.210

that we focus on the end users or how amazing

00:34:12.210 –> 00:34:14.409

it is to do all the things that we thought were

00:34:14.409 –> 00:34:18.750

impossible to do and suddenly those seem to be

00:34:18.750 –> 00:34:21.889

feasible and we stop talking about it. But wait

00:34:21.889 –> 00:34:24.650

a minute, how do we produce those things? What

00:34:24.650 –> 00:34:28.969

economy is actually required to sustain whatever

00:34:28.969 –> 00:34:31.769

we need to do? So, you know, where do minerals

00:34:31.769 –> 00:34:36.590

come from? How are they negotiated or not negotiated?

00:34:38.190 –> 00:34:41.969

Who has to sacrifice their daily lives for that

00:34:41.969 –> 00:34:46.550

to happen? And is it the cost? Are those costs

00:34:46.550 –> 00:34:51.860

that I’m ready to bear as ecologically? Those

00:34:51.860 –> 00:34:54.099

type of conversations are just never asked. You

00:34:54.099 –> 00:34:56.739

just ask between, you know, choosing between

00:34:56.739 –> 00:35:02.179

two smartphones. That’s not a choice, if I may.

00:35:02.360 –> 00:35:06.219

Like, usually with the way we describe our post

00:35:06.219 –> 00:35:08.380

-capitalist societies or whatever terminology

00:35:08.380 –> 00:35:11.179

we want to use, we believe that we live in societies

00:35:11.179 –> 00:35:14.739

of choice. And usually, for example, examples

00:35:14.739 –> 00:35:18.610

that we have of… right at the end of the Cold

00:35:18.610 –> 00:35:23.710

War, when he describes Soviet countries. One

00:35:23.710 –> 00:35:26.349

of the examples that comes in this type of movies

00:35:26.349 –> 00:35:29.429

or books or testimonies that we have from people

00:35:29.429 –> 00:35:32.769

is how suddenly they went from the monopoly of

00:35:32.769 –> 00:35:36.889

state on particular brands to having a plethora,

00:35:37.230 –> 00:35:41.809

like just a set of different brands, formats,

00:35:41.949 –> 00:35:46.610

sizes and everything. And so we have this kind

00:35:46.610 –> 00:35:49.070

of assumption that we live in a society where

00:35:49.070 –> 00:35:54.650

there’s an abundance of choice. And I do want

00:35:54.650 –> 00:35:58.730

to actually challenge that notion, which was

00:35:58.730 –> 00:36:01.210

what this idea of poverty of the imagination

00:36:01.210 –> 00:36:04.610

has been all about, which is that it’s not because

00:36:04.610 –> 00:36:06.230

you have plenty of brands in your supermarket

00:36:06.230 –> 00:36:09.369

that you’re very rich in terms of the type of

00:36:09.369 –> 00:36:13.300

choices that you can afford to make. Not only

00:36:13.300 –> 00:36:15.440

because you cannot necessarily afford all of

00:36:15.440 –> 00:36:18.300

the products that are in the supermarket, but

00:36:18.300 –> 00:36:22.219

also because there’s some initial choices that

00:36:22.219 –> 00:36:25.079

you were not even allowed to make. You’re being

00:36:25.079 –> 00:36:29.139

exposed to those final end choices and not the

00:36:29.139 –> 00:36:34.500

very basic ones. And being able to reclaim those

00:36:34.500 –> 00:36:39.860

basic conversations is for me a source of wealth.

00:36:40.320 –> 00:36:43.139

that is for me a source of abundance and that

00:36:43.139 –> 00:36:45.019

is something that we can definitely tap into

00:36:45.019 –> 00:36:48.460

because that’s where the bread of the money like

00:36:48.460 –> 00:36:51.480

that’s that’s where real things happen like i

00:36:51.480 –> 00:36:54.460

remember doing things on land law and who gets

00:36:54.460 –> 00:36:57.500

access to land and somebody telling me well thank

00:36:57.500 –> 00:36:59.760

you for raising our conversation because i realized

00:36:59.760 –> 00:37:02.659

we’re doing lots of work on urban structures

00:37:02.659 –> 00:37:05.500

and how cities should be organized in a way that

00:37:05.500 –> 00:37:08.780

account for uh well smart cities so you know

00:37:08.780 –> 00:37:14.239

how tech can um support um houses um thinking

00:37:14.239 –> 00:37:19.039

about um um how you know how we can have building

00:37:19.039 –> 00:37:25.380

that or um can be more easily face um disasters

00:37:25.380 –> 00:37:29.380

like natural disasters which is of course an

00:37:29.380 –> 00:37:32.179

important take but this very idea that we could

00:37:32.179 –> 00:37:35.320

have architecture that responds to our needs.

00:37:35.559 –> 00:37:38.940

So, you know, what do we use a house for? Well,

00:37:39.099 –> 00:37:42.119

my house is about, I like to actually produce

00:37:42.119 –> 00:37:44.599

my own fruit if I can, but I’m not that good

00:37:44.599 –> 00:37:46.880

at it, so I’ll just do maybe the tomatoes, but

00:37:46.880 –> 00:37:48.699

actually tomatoes are hard, so it’s a bad example.

00:37:49.380 –> 00:37:53.179

But, you know, okay, basil. Or I want to use

00:37:53.179 –> 00:37:57.760

my house to welcome people, because I usually

00:37:57.760 –> 00:38:00.610

have family around at least once a month. Okay,

00:38:00.829 –> 00:38:03.130

so what part is actually more important to you?

00:38:03.210 –> 00:38:06.070

Is it the living room? Is it having more bedrooms?

00:38:06.650 –> 00:38:10.289

How do people just like sit around? This sounds

00:38:10.289 –> 00:38:13.429

like a very silly matter, but it’s actually,

00:38:13.469 –> 00:38:16.929

I think, practical conversation that most architects

00:38:16.929 –> 00:38:21.630

should have. And I believe and trust based on

00:38:21.630 –> 00:38:25.449

some of the traditional architectural work that

00:38:25.449 –> 00:38:27.090

many architects are actually interested in this

00:38:27.090 –> 00:38:29.679

conversation and do hold that space. But you

00:38:29.679 –> 00:38:31.820

see that when you start with very basic items,

00:38:32.119 –> 00:38:37.260

those more dominant matters comes up. The same

00:38:37.260 –> 00:38:39.099

thing as the waste conversation. It’s something

00:38:39.099 –> 00:38:42.019

that may sound silly, but you realize that there’s

00:38:42.019 –> 00:38:46.619

a series of significant policy and behaviors

00:38:46.619 –> 00:38:52.119

that are directed by this way of looking at the

00:38:52.119 –> 00:38:55.800

world. So I would start with the method first

00:38:55.800 –> 00:38:58.079

in terms of… What are people not talking about?

00:38:58.260 –> 00:39:00.239

Well, it would depend on whatever the matter.

00:39:01.099 –> 00:39:05.800

But I would say the generic problem that we have

00:39:05.800 –> 00:39:09.539

comes from that. And then it affects all of the

00:39:09.539 –> 00:39:12.440

subject matters. It affects the way we think

00:39:12.440 –> 00:39:15.840

about migration in Lebanon and we just think

00:39:15.840 –> 00:39:18.320

about sending people back to where they come

00:39:18.320 –> 00:39:20.519

from without actually interrogating the type

00:39:20.519 –> 00:39:22.679

of needs that they have. how do they organize

00:39:22.679 –> 00:39:25.320

their daily lives what are their their aspirations

00:39:25.320 –> 00:39:27.440

for the future what do they want for their families

00:39:27.440 –> 00:39:30.360

where do they protect the idea of a dynasty for

00:39:30.360 –> 00:39:33.619

the family we start from there when you get answers

00:39:33.619 –> 00:39:35.840

that may be very different from what you might

00:39:35.840 –> 00:39:39.019

expect or similar for reasons that you did not

00:39:39.019 –> 00:39:43.519

suspect um it’s true for waste it’s super agriculture

00:39:43.519 –> 00:39:46.860

it’s true for the way we organize our educational

00:39:46.860 –> 00:39:51.420

systems but for sure let’s start with very simple

00:39:51.420 –> 00:39:53.920

practical matters that bring us to all of those

00:39:53.920 –> 00:39:58.000

abstract and meta conversations that are, of

00:39:58.000 –> 00:40:02.760

course, deeply needed. Okay. Thank you so much.

00:40:02.860 –> 00:40:06.500

I’m going to do my part to listen to this interview

00:40:06.500 –> 00:40:10.760

again and see how I can bring that into the practice,

00:40:10.860 –> 00:40:12.559

because that’s what this is about, right? These

00:40:12.559 –> 00:40:14.739

conversations about learning from each other,

00:40:14.820 –> 00:40:18.349

as well as hopefully spreading. more knowledge

00:40:18.349 –> 00:40:20.650

about what we do. So thank you so much. That

00:40:20.650 –> 00:40:25.610

was really, really just for me, that was an emotional

00:40:25.610 –> 00:40:31.110

rollercoaster of a ride. So very much. And I

00:40:31.110 –> 00:40:35.090

appreciate you coming today. Thank you for that.

00:40:35.670 –> 00:40:38.250

Scenarios for Tomorrow is produced by me, Megan

00:40:38.250 –> 00:40:41.989

Crawford, with invaluable feedback from Dr. Isabella

00:40:41.989 –> 00:40:45.550

Riza, Jeremy Creep, Brian Eggo, and as always,

00:40:45.730 –> 00:40:49.570

my kids. This is a production of the Futures

00:40:49.570 –> 00:40:52.389

and Analytics Research Hub and Pharr Lab affiliated

00:40:52.389 –> 00:40:55.469

with Edinburgh Napier Business School. You can

00:40:55.469 –> 00:40:57.929

find show notes, references, and transcripts

00:40:57.929 –> 00:41:03.230

at scenarios .pharrhub .org. That’s scenarios

00:41:03.230 –> 00:41:06.710

.pharrhub .org. You can follow us across social

00:41:06.710 –> 00:41:09.530

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00:41:09.530 –> 00:41:12.489

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00:41:12.489 –> 00:41:14.309

Tomorrow wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:41:15.130 –> 00:41:17.989

Today’s track was composed by Rocket, whose links

00:41:17.989 –> 00:41:21.269

are provided in the show notes. This is scenarios

00:41:21.269 –> 00:41:23.929

for tomorrow, where tomorrow’s headlines start

00:41:23.929 –> 00:41:25.289

as today’s thought experiments.

Select episode references:

Kwamou Eva Feukeu

TEDx talk (English)

TEDx talk (Français)

Today’s track “Experimental Cinematic Hip-Hop” was composed by @Rockot

00:00:00 Megan

With lectures, I realise I say so a lot, so we’re doing this. So we’re doing that. So I’m trying to stay away from that and of course.

00:00:08 Shardul

So here so.

[both laughing]

00:00:11 Megan

Welcome to Scenarios for Tomorrow podcast where we turn tomorrow’s headlines into today’s thought experiments. This first series includes conversations with the authors of our latest.

00:00:21 Megan

Book improving and enhancing scenario planning, future thinking volume from Edward Elgar publishing. I’m your host Dr Megan Crawford and throughout this first series you’ll hear from my guests, the numerous global techniques for practising and advancing scenario planning. Enjoy.

00:00:39 Music

Yeah.

00:00:48 Megan

Shardul Phadnis is an associate professor of operations and supply chain management at the Asian School of Business in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Shardul explores the intersection of supply chains and strategic management. Specifically, how scenario planning influences.

00:01:07 Megan

The adaptability of supply chain configurations and how organisations create value by orchestrating supply chain operation.

00:01:15 Megan

Is 2022 book strategic planning for dynamic supply chains preparing for uncertainty using scenarios describes first-hand accounts of applications of scenario planning for strategic supply chain planning in 3IN depth cases involving businesses and government planning agencies.

00:01:35 Megan

He received the 2015 Guarantano Rising Star Award from the Industry Studies Association for his research and apparel supply chains. Welcome Shardul.

00:01:47 Shardul

Thank you, Megan, and thanks for that wonderful introduction.

00:01:50 Megan

Yes. Well, you I honestly enjoyed being able to read your book. What was it about was, I think it was two years ago and getting a chance to write. Yeah. Getting a chance to. To write a reply for it. That was really exciting because.

00:02:00 Shardul

Almost three years ago, yes.

00:02:05 Megan

I’ve never worked.

00:02:06 Megan

Scenario planning and supply chain together, but they.

00:02:10 Megan

What we’ll be talking about?

00:02:11 Megan

Today, how well they go.

00:02:12 Megan

Together.

00:02:13 Shardul

Absolutely, Yep. And you wrote the review for that as well. It was a very nice review that came out in, I think, futures and foresight. Science didn’t.

00:02:22 Megan

Yeah, it was again a really great one. Everybody should read both of them, but it’s great to finally get a chance to sit down with you one-on-one, because I think the bulk of our chats for years have been relegated to emails and possibly just one conference that we saw each other in passing.

00:02:42 Megan

I’m not sure.

00:02:43 Megan

If we’ve even made the same conference.

00:02:45 Megan

This for years.

00:02:47 Megan

Which seems quite extraordinary, doesn’t it, given the?

00:02:50 Megan

Size of our field.

00:02:52 Megan

Exactly. So here we are.

00:02:54 Shardul

Very small community, I mean, seems like the people whose papers we read, we kind of know most of those people, and many of those people haven’t even met in person, especially since we have been living in Kuala Lumpur for almost 10 years and the Community seems to be very.

00:03:11 Shardul

Much focused heavily in Europe, I would say like like where you are and parts of the United States, but not so much.

00:03:20 Shardul

In Asia, actually.

00:03:22 Megan

Yeah. And we’ll be talking about that a little bit, which is why I was really glad that you joined our book. Your perspectives were something I really, really wanted to get into this particular book. So now we finally get to deep dive right into our our little understood world of scenario planning.

00:03:42 Megan

And foresight science. And we get to do it at our own pace, which is nice.

00:03:48 Megan

So as mentioned in the introduction, we’ve just published a book together about scenario planning in the 21st century, and it was nearly exactly 2 years in the making. In fact, I think our first interview together on this was February 2 years ago, 2023.

00:04:07 Shardul

Oh wow, two years ago.

00:04:08 Megan

And right was looking into that.

00:04:11 Megan

And today at the quarter century Mark 2025, we’re here to talk a bit about our our joint work, but particularly your chapter. We understand that not all of our listeners are familiar with scenario planning, though many may have heard more about it since the pandemic when it got.

00:04:32 Megan

When our jobs got really popular and one of the motivations to this podcast is to bring our world of futures and foresight science.

00:04:41 Megan

Outside the walls of academia, where within the language is very closely controlled for understandable reasons, that’s just the nature of science, communication and knowledge is not as easy to access as we generally wish it to be. So we’re here to have.

00:04:58 Megan

A chat with the public.

00:05:00 Shardul

That’s great, that’s.

00:05:01 Shardul

Great. I think it is really something.

00:05:05 Shardul

Very important thing to do to bring this really critical process of scenario planning right and as I think about it as we talk about it, it seems that scenario planning is getting even more and more important for the world that we live in. Now. We are swimming in all kinds of uncertainties these days, right? Think about the trade wars and the tariffs.

00:05:26 Shardul

The issues that are going on the geopolitical.

00:05:29 Shardul

Mentions, but also now just. Even beyond that, the whole thing with AI which now your book is so timely scenario planning for the 21st century.

00:05:39 Shardul

We don’t understand how it’s going to affect organisations or, even more broadly, society.

00:05:47 Shardul

And that’s your scenario. Planning can be really helpful.

00:05:50 Shardul

And also the another thing about the net 0, the whole environmental sustainability.

00:05:56 Shardul

Companies are struggling to kind of embark on the Net Zero journey successfully, and one of the biggest things there are stumbling blocks is really the uncertainty and they’re struggling to figure out how to make kind of long term investment decisions under that uncertainty.

00:06:14 Shardul

So it is.

00:06:14 Shardul

Absolutely. The perfect timing for you and Josh to come up with this book.

00:06:19 Shardul

And I think it’s it’s very timely that we are doing this podcast as.

00:06:25 Megan

Great. I’m glad you and I agree. So you, you touched upon a lot of points there that I really, really wanted to get into and some of them being what we even mean by uncertainty. It’s a word thrown around a lot like innovation and everybody has an opinion on what it means in every business.

00:06:46 Megan

As a specific focus on a realm of uncertainty or innovation, as it were, and so yeah, it would be cool to see if we can.

00:06:57 Megan

Your your chapter in particular gives some very concrete examples of this.

00:07:02 Megan

And let me go ahead and introduce your chapter your your contribution to this book was titled or is titled Evaluating Effects of Scenario Planning Lessons from Medical Research. Your chapter is the only one that brings in the medical field as.

00:07:22 Megan

Focus for the practise of scenario planning, so I wanted to open with that. In particular what let’s just start with what motivated you to explore the effects of scenario planning through the lens of medical research methodologies.

00:07:40 Shardul

OK, so let me I think it is worth.

00:07:42 Shardul

Giving some background.

00:07:43 Shardul

So I’m an engineer, so when I started applying scenario planning in the context of supply chain strategy and supply chain management.

00:07:54 Shardul

My orientation was not so.

00:07:57 Shardul

Descriptive to see how this actually works in the companies that apply.

00:08:01 Shardul

Right. But it was a fairly strong prescriptive orientation to say, look, the executives, supply chain executives specifically that we are dealing with that we are working with.

00:08:14 Shardul

Are dealing with some extremely challenging situations. They are focused on the day-to-day job, but they also have to think about what kind of.

00:08:25 Shardul

Let’s say supply chain infrastructure and what I mean by that is factories distribution, network distribution centres, investing in fleet of vehicles.

00:08:35 Shardul

Making long term partnerships with suppliers and so on and so forth. These decisions often go beyond your few quarters. They last. Now you have to think about next five years, 10 years in some projects that we have done for freight infrastructure now, now you you have to think about next 30 years.

00:08:55 Shardul

So that’s the kind of.

00:08:57 Shardul

Application context I was working with.

00:09:00 Shardul

And then we go in that context.

00:09:03 Shardul

It is a prescriptive orientation in the sense that you are bringing in scenario planning as a decision making aid, something that’s going to help you overcome the limitations that you currently have, limitations of existing decision making processes.

00:09:21 Shardul

So by nature, we need to show that it actually works.

00:09:25 Shardul

So that was kind of A1 motivation that to really see is it beneficial to use scenario planning. So that was one question that I had during my doctoral studies and in my dissertation I have one paper that that does use field experiments to answer that question partly.

00:09:45 Shardul

But also The thing is that the.

00:09:50 Megan

I was just thinking I was going to say it’s a that is a very, very real and salient issue in the field of scenario planning is is it effective? If it is, how do we show that it’s effective? And I think that was the entrance for a lot of us into our doctoral studies.

00:10:09 Megan

That’s it. Really fascinating to find out that you had the same motivation. Considering we entered the field very differently and in very different places, but we have the same motivation there and others in our field.

00:10:24 Megan

As well, but go ahead. I’m sorry.

00:10:26

Yeah.

00:10:27 Shardul

Yeah. So you know when you think about scenario planning, there are some questions that.

00:10:35 Shardul

Sometimes the same. Maybe not everybody thinks about them. So just to give you some examples, let’s just say if you if you are saying if you are thinking for the long term and there is enough uncertainty in the sense that you cannot really predict or you cannot really foresee how things might evolve in the future.

00:10:56 Shardul

But the investments that you’re making today, let’s say you’re building deciding to build a factory.

00:11:01 Shardul

And you want to know, should I build that factory in?

00:11:03 Shardul

The United States.

00:11:05 Shardul

Or Canada or Mexico? Or should I build it in Asia? Or should I not even build a factory at all, but kind of outsource my production to a contract manufacturer? But when you’re making decisions of that nature, you have to think about.

00:11:21 Shardul

Now, next 5-10 years, because if I start building a factory, it’s going to take a couple of years to build it.

00:11:27 Shardul

And once you build it.

00:11:29 Shardul

You’re not going to close it down since six months later. I thinking that, oops, I made a mistake in deciding to build this factory. You’re going to operate it for three, five years, so you have to think about that long term planning horizon.

00:11:42 Shardul

And that’s why we bring in scenario planning, right.

00:11:45 Shardul

But then you think about it in terms of application areas?

00:11:50 Shardul

So is this process of scenario planning? Is it equally useful for a, say, a new startup that’s thinking about next two to three years versus say, a multinational corporation that could be using scenario planning for its corporate strategy or?

00:12:07 Shardul

Operations or supply chain strategy which might have a planning horizon of 5-7 or ten years.

00:12:12 Shardul

Or let’s say a freight infrastructure investments such as the Department of Transportation and when they’re building highways and investing in ports and rail, rail lines and so on, they’re thinking 20-30 years out.

00:12:26 Shardul

So it’s the same process. Is it same process? Equally useful? Does context matter? That’s number one second? If it is then should you create the scenarios and apply them in the same way in all three cases?

00:12:39 Shardul

Or should there be new variations?

00:12:42 Shardul

Then another thing that we talk about is it’s not a one time use of scenarios, but you want to use it on an ongoing basis.

00:12:50 Shardul

So what is? What are the pros and cons of that?

00:12:54 Shardul

And if you want to use it on an ongoing basis, how frequently should you use it? Do you reuse it every three months once a year, once a month? What’s the right frequency?

00:13:03 Shardul

And then we can, especially in my field where in operations and supply chain management, the executives.

00:13:12 Shardul

Are often consumed by issues of the short term nature.

00:13:17 Shardul

Did we meet this monthly target for the target for this month? Are we meeting?

00:13:21 Shardul

The quarterly target.

00:13:23 Shardul

And if the same executives are thinking using scenarios that go 5 or 10 years out.

00:13:28 Shardul

Does that hinder their ability to think for the short term, which is also equally important, right. So there’s and then there is the whole, you know, emergence of AI in last two or three years when we are thinking what decisions could be left to AI and what could be made by executives using tools like scenario planning.

00:13:48 Shardul

So there are all these questions and.

00:13:50 Shardul

I don’t think in our field we have a.

00:13:55 Shardul

Very scientifically valid answer to these questions.

00:14:00 Shardul

Right. And that’s where the question, how this evaluation comes in is how should you answer these questions? How should we answer these questions? What are different methods for doing that? And there was a whole motivation behind my doctoral research as well as your research as you said as you said.

00:14:15 Shardul

And the reason for and to kind of?

00:14:19 Shardul

Make the Long story short, the reason for bringing medicine is that.

00:14:25 Shardul

When I was doing my doctoral studies, I had a professor from mechanical engineering, Dan Frey at MIT. He was on my doctoral committee.

00:14:36 Shardul

And he had written a paper that borrowed medical research methods for evaluating design methods.

00:14:44 Shardul

With a very similar prescriptive orientation.

00:14:48 Shardul

And that kind of motivated this and I saw look, there are parallels between medicine and scenario planning.

00:14:55 Shardul

At least in my application, scenario planning is prescriptive just like.

00:15:00 Shardul

Medicine, just like in medicine, you cannot just try any unproven treatment on a human being.

00:15:07 Shardul

Or there is a very systematic way for doing that?

00:15:11 Shardul

No. In scenario planning, you cannot just go and test these things on a corporation because there are some huge implications for the success of the failure of.

00:15:20 Shardul

Better. So there are ethical issues that that are common to both medicine and scenario planning. It’s a prescriptive orientation and that’s why I think borrowing the ideas from medicine, which has a very established way of.

00:15:36 Shardul

Evaluating new treatments we can learn from that in scenario planning and that’s what this chapter tries to do.

00:15:44 Megan

Oh, OK. So yeah, a lot of people when they first saw this thought it was the other way around. It was using scenario planning to advance.

00:15:54 Megan

Medical questions, problems, you know, risking things like that where you’re saying it was the other way around. It was learning from a well established and robust system that is medicine.

00:16:11 Shardul

Mm-hmm.

00:16:12 Shardul

Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

00:16:14 Shardul

And that’s what we do in this book is that we talk about, we kind of motivate the need for learning from medicine and kind of justify why we can do that. But then we talk about medical research methods first and also in medicine there are.

00:16:30 Shardul

About 13 methods that we cover in this book book chapter and that they fall in kind of four different categories. So they go from really basic fundamental research to there are clinical trials. Then there are observational studies and then there is epidemiology, epidemiological studies, right and then.

00:16:50 Shardul

We say, OK, how does the medicine?

00:16:54 Shardul

Practise these different kinds of research methods to evaluate new medical treatments, and then we kind of analogously say, OK, what can we learn from that scenario planning and how can we design research methods analogously by learning from medical research methods?

00:17:14 Megan

Well, what are some of the answers you found or observations?

00:17:19 Shardul

OK so Maybe it will be useful just to give a very brief overview of miracle research methods, because not everybody may be familiar with it.

00:17:32 Megan

So I’m not sure here.

00:17:34 Shardul

Yeah. I mean, neither was I until I started now kind of looking into this angle. And as I got deeper.

00:17:40 Shardul

To it.

00:17:42 Shardul

I was actually quite impressed by how methodical the whole process is.

00:17:47 Shardul

It just all starts with, say, basic or fundamental research.

00:17:51 Shardul

And you can think about there are about four different categories of basic research. So there is the theoretical research right when you are looking at the fundamental sciences like biology, microbiology and so on, and you’re using the theoretical knowledge to develop new hypothesis.

00:18:11 Shardul

So that’s kind of one thing. Second after that is what is called in vitro studies.

00:18:18 Shardul

So that’s where researchers will take samples of cells and tissues and try things on that. So if there is a new molecule that they want to try out, they can just try in a test tube. That’s how it is in vitro, right? So it’s a very small scale.

00:18:21

Old.

00:18:35 Shardul

But what works for at the tissue or cell or tissue level may not work for the whole entire animal.

00:18:42 Shardul

So on the third level, it’s called in vivo studies, where medicine uses animal models, right? Because now you are not dealing with just one kind of cell, but now about 400 different types of cells, different types of tissues and so on. And see how this treatment works in the whole body. And then there is lastly computer modelling which is called.

00:19:02 Shardul

In silico studies, right. So computer modelling, simulation and so on. So that is all kind of the.

00:19:09 Shardul

Theoretical.

00:19:10 Shardul

Research you can establish causality because you are working in a very controlled environment.

00:19:17 Shardul

But to establish kind of external validity is difficult because you’re still in the lab.

00:19:24 Shardul

So the second.

00:19:25 Shardul

Group of medical studies is what we are. What is known as clinical trials.

00:19:31 Shardul

And some of these are done before a treatment is approved and released, and there’s kind of one that is done afterwards. So it starts with phase one where you’re not even working with patients or people who are suffering from a condition, but you are working with healthy adults.

00:19:49 Shardul

And you’re just trying to see what is the right dosage. What is the safe dosage, a very small group of healthy individuals?

00:19:56 Shardul

Once it passes that stage, then you go to the medicine goes to the second phase of clinical trial, then you are working with a small group of of people who are living with that condition.

00:20:08 Shardul

And we find out, OK, is this effective? Does.

00:20:10 Shardul

It really help these people.

00:20:12 Shardul

And if that passes, then you go to a third stage of clinical trials when you’re looking at a much larger study. And this is where you might have a control group, you will have a double-blind study and so on. And what what medicine is trying to decide here is, is this new treatment just as safe and justice as effective as the current alternative?

00:20:32 Shardul

That we have.

00:20:34 Shardul

And if it passes, then the drug gets released. But then there’s there’s stage 4 clinical trial, which is you don’t stop there.

00:20:42 Shardul

So they will continue evaluating to see how is this drug working in the longer term, not just in a few weeks that you had for this these phase 1-2 or three clinical trials.

00:20:53 Shardul

That says a very methodical way of clinical trials. And then there are observational studies.

00:20:59 Shardul

So observational studies come in when you cannot prescribe something.

00:21:04 Shardul

It could be too dangerous, not ethical.

00:21:08 Shardul

Prescribe this treatment or it could be, let’s say if you want to see the effect of living near a chemical plant, you cannot ask.

00:21:19 Shardul

Or to go live near a chemical plant, right. But you are using secondary data, kind of retrospectively, to see how does it affect who people who lived near this chemical plant or what was the effect of radiation or having lead in the paint and things like that.

00:21:35 Shardul

It’s it’s kind of a secondary data retrospective.

00:21:38 Shardul

Studies, which is observation.

00:21:40 Shardul

And there’s a fourth category of study that is called the epidemiological, and even then there are about 3 or 4 categories.

00:21:50 Shardul

So 1 is just ecological studies where they find the medical researchers are trying to see how prevalent is a certain condition among certain group of people.

00:22:01 Shardul

Maybe by ethnicities, by their geography and so on is just observational. Now. You’re not looking at any individuals you know, you’re looking at kind of a large aggregate group of people. Then there are cross-sectional studies which are similar to ecological, but you also collect some individual level data to see.

00:22:21 Shardul

Do any individual attributes affect this?

00:22:25 Shardul

Then there are case control. Then you say. OK, well, let’s take a group of, you know, when you’re choosing people based on their based on the dependent variable, right. So you’re saying, OK, look, there’s a group of people who are suffering from a medical condition.

00:22:39 Shardul

Let’s choose a control group who do not have that condition, and let’s look backwards and see what independent variables might affect, or might predict why they why this control group has a condition. Sorry, the treatment, or rather.

00:22:55 Shardul

The suffering group or the patients have this condition but control group.

00:23:00 Shardul

And lastly, there are cohort studies where you where you study over long term that that just longitudinally and the most one of the most famous examples of cohort studies is the British Smoker study which we mentioned in this book as well. The book chapter as well is that longitudinally starting from 1951.

00:23:19 Shardul

They studied doctors who were smokers versus non-smokers.

00:23:23 Shardul

And they looked at the fatality rate, how it varied, and there was a very convincing proof that smoking actually is not good for you. So there is this whole array of research method.

00:23:36 Shardul

To understand, evaluate different medical treatments, understand the seizures, and so on.

00:23:42 Shardul

So now we borrow from that and say, OK, can we can we learn from this?

00:23:49 Shardul

And design.

00:23:52 Shardul

Interventions, not not and designs, let’s say research.

00:23:58 Shardul

To understand how scenario planning affects these different how the practise of scenario planning influences the decision processes of the individual judgement, team judgement outcomes and things.

00:24:12 Shardul

So what we have done in this chapter is we next we talk about the scenario planning research methods.

00:24:20 Shardul

But also I wanted to see how once we once I looked at, OK, 13 medical research methods, then there are 13 analogous scenario planning research methods.

00:24:33 Shardul

And I want to.

00:24:34 Shardul

Say, how widely have these been studied in our literature?

00:24:39 Shardul

And it is now. It’s actually there are studies that fall in these different buckets now and those are mentioned in.

00:24:45 Shardul

The book chapter.

00:24:47 Shardul

There are also a few of these research methods for which.

00:24:50 Shardul

We don’t have any studies.

00:24:52 Shardul

So it kind.

00:24:52 Shardul

Of you know, the book chapter opens up and says look.

00:24:56 Shardul

There is a vast feel.

00:24:58 Shardul

All of scenario planning which we can evaluate using a variety of methods. For some, there’s already an established kind of precedence and we have things that we can build on, but there are some other areas that are completely, you know, it’s like Wild West. Nobody has ventured there and those could be great opportunities for new researchers.

00:25:18 Shardul

To explore.

00:25:21 Megan

Yeah. And that’s that’s something I think is what brought possibly all of us into the world of.

00:25:29 Megan

Futures and foresight more broadly, but scenario planning specifically is we’re kind of we’ve we are the lucky few is sort of at the edge of the field. Some people use the term vanguard if you will. But I think we’re a bit late for that one that would have been more in the 50s.

00:25:49 Megan

When this was being scenario, plan was being spearheaded by Herman Kahn.

00:25:56 Megan

And there’s the early crew, but yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of gaps. There’s a lot of gaps in knowledge. And sometimes people think it’s because there’s no interest, but I have a feeling, and I did at the start, and I remain with this feeling that it just hasn’t been enough time and enough people.

00:26:16 Megan

It just takes time.

00:26:18 Megan

To for people to stand up and say, Oh yeah, I have that question. Let’s look into it as you have done with this, with the information that you shared for this chapter.

00:26:31 Megan

So one thing I took from what you were saying was that medical research is very structured and understandably so, because we’re talking about people’s lives, right. And we’re talking about severe.

00:26:48 Megan

Not in a bad way, but just severe concerns of Ethicality and, you know, ethical practise. And as we always should, when we’re when we’re looking at treatments that could help or harm human life or just life in general.

00:27:06 Megan

But as well with that, it sounds like it’s what we call an iterative process.

00:27:14 Megan

Where one thing is tested, the next thing that’s tested is built off of the knowledge of that, and sometimes they go back because of the new discoveries they find is like OK, we need to step back and test this again, is that is that one of the the the, the, the the methods or the methodology that you were looking at?

00:27:34 Megan

To support scenario planning, use and research.

00:27:39 Shardul

Absolutely, yeah, because any research method has no, it has some strengths. It has some limitations, right. And then medicine that is understood that if you’re using, let’s say if you’re conducting let’s say in vitro or in vivo studies, let’s say with animal models.

00:27:58 Shardul

The external validity of those models is going to be questionable, right? Because you’re working on mice per say, not human beings, right? But that is still valuable. What you’re learning from those animal models, that knowledge is value.

00:28:12 Shardul

Same thing we have to understand in the scenario playing literature as well, yes. So for example, if I’m doing experiments with say MBA students, of course the decisions that are made by MBA students in using a particular case in a in a course in a in A1 semester long course.

00:28:31 Shardul

It would be difficult.

00:28:35 Shardul

It will be difficult to so there are external validity of those decisions would be questionable for real world decisions, right?

00:28:42 Megan

And just just for our listeners who aren’t in academia and especially experimentation, would you take a second to tell us what you mean by external validity?

00:28:54 Shardul

Yeah. Great. OK. So thanks, I’m glad you asked that because sometimes we take these terms for granted, right?

00:29:02 Shardul

I do. Yeah. So we kind of use these terms all the time, but they may not be common.

00:29:07 Megan

Because it’s part of our profession, right. It’s something we have to constantly acknowledge in everything we write. When it comes to studies, right? And and gathering data so.

00:29:10

Uh.

00:29:21 Megan

I’ll pass the mic back to you.

00:29:23 Shardul

OK, OK, I’m glad you asked that.

00:29:25 Shardul

Meghan, so external.

00:29:27 Shardul

Validity.

00:29:28 Shardul

Is. Let’s say we conduct a study. Let’s say we are testing the effect of scenario planning is used on how students choose between, say options 1-2 and three. Let’s just say hypothetically.

00:29:44 Shardul

And we find out that students who use scenario planning.

00:29:48 Shardul

Opted for Option 3 which is say more flexible investment in a certain project and so on, versus students who did not use scenario planning went for, say, option one, which is a very concrete rigid investment. Once you invest, you cannot deviate from that. But just say we.

00:30:07

That.

00:30:08 Shardul

Now external validity means what we have seen in this classroom project classroom experiment rather.

00:30:15 Shardul

With that work in the real world as well. So in other words, can we claim that by using scenario planning a real world decision maker and often these decisions made are made by executives who are very senior, have now couple of decades or maybe even more experience?

00:30:35 Shardul

Would they behave the same way or would the scenario planning have the same effect on their decisions?

00:30:42 Shardul

As what we saw in the classroom with MBA students.

00:30:46 Shardul

Or even under thread.

00:30:48 Shardul

Gases.

00:30:49 Shardul

So that’s the question of external validity. Can we take the findings from our small setting and say that apply in the real world setting of corporations and?

00:31:01 Shardul

Say public sector organisations and so on.

00:31:04 Megan

You mentioned in there that the causal effects often in in not often every time in scenario planning practise as well as medical practise. We’re looking for causal relationships did this thing.

00:31:18 Megan

Change something in the business environment. Change something in the human’s biological system. Did it change something within the makeup of of the bacteria? The drug? Whatever we’re working with?

00:31:36 Megan

But from what you’ve discovered in your work, particularly, you know, with this what what you shared in the chapter, what are some of the biggest barriers that you found to conducting rigorous empirical, which means evidence gathering studies in?

00:31:55 Megan

Or her.

00:31:56 Shardul

Field I think the biggest challenge in our field is getting access to access to a setting right. Working with an organisation that is willing to.

00:32:09 Shardul

Work with you, but also is willing to.

00:32:12 Shardul

Kind of allow you to maybe do controlled experimentation in a very controlled manner, but just willing to do that right as opposed to just saying, OK, create scenarios and then we we can start using them, kind of that experimentation part where we can vary things.

00:32:31 Shardul

OK, maybe the way we create scenarios, maybe the way we apply scenarios, but by creating variation we can see which one works better, right? Which is more effective or if it is not right, but that is that is challenging and to your earlier point, Megan, when you mentioned that a lot of the work in our field in scenario planning has been observational.

00:32:52 Shardul

You’re absolutely spot on.

00:32:54 Shardul

Right. So there are four kind of broad categories of medical research methods that I mentioned. You have the theoretical research, then there are the clinical trials that we very popular. Everybody knows about them or they’re in the news. We we hear about them. Then there are observational studies and then there is epidemiological, right?

00:33:15 Shardul

OK so.

00:33:15 Shardul

Kind of more.

00:33:18 Shardul

Retrospective or could be prospective studies as well. But if you look at some of the classic works in scenario planning, the work now the works are from peer work for example. And what we learned learned from use of scenario planning at Shell right. These are perfect examples of observational studies.

00:33:39 Shardul

We know what happened or we have read about what happened and based on that we believe that scenario planning is very.

00:33:46 Shardul

Useful.

00:33:47 Shardul

There are other cases of, say, UPS. For example, there’s a very famous Harvard Business Review case about UPS’s use of scenario planning.

00:33:56 Shardul

And I use that in my in my courses because it is scenario planning and UPS as a supply chain company. So it’s a perfect combination for my course.

00:34:06 Shardul

But these are observational studies. They are useful. They are certainly valuable because they tell us that, look, this method scenario planning can actually be quite useful.

00:34:18 Shardul

It can help companies get ahead of their competitors. What? What I what I say in this chapter is that it is great. Those studies are valuable, but we shouldn’t restrict ourselves just to the observational studies. We also need to do theoretical research. We need to be inspired by the way clinical trials are conducted.

00:34:39 Shardul

And use analogous methods for testing scenario planning. You can even do even epidemiological studies, right?

00:34:48 Megan

Yeah, I think and understandably so. I think that is something not really well understood. The value of bringing.

00:34:59 Megan

A facilitator on who understands research methods because it’s not that this is a research project, you know, it’s not like we are.

00:35:12 Megan

Even going to write a paper from our consultings often it’s that we have this background that helps us understand how to evidence our work, how to lay out the game plan. You know, in a very project management kind of way.

00:35:32 Megan

But with that research.

00:35:35 Megan

Panache to it if you will where where we are caught because because in research we constantly have to think about and justify before we’re even allowed to step into our project. What we’re looking for, how we’re going to try to find it. We don’t know if we’re going to find it or not.

00:35:37 Shardul

Mm-hmm.

00:35:56 Megan

Right. And even often, how we’re going to analyse all those data that we get in the ends, we have to have a really good idea.

00:36:07 Megan

Of our space, while also leaving ourselves open for surprises, because if we’re closed off to surprises, then we miss. We miss. Really what comes down to valuable, valuable information. And that’s like getting into the nitty gritty of what uncertainty, what it means to work in uncertainty.

00:36:29 Megan

Of what it means to work in risk and risk analysis. You know, we have to understand that we don’t have all the answers, but we still have to articulate how are we going to get there, right? So I think that’s that’s.

00:36:44 Megan

That’s something obviously a self promotion to aspect, but that’s any any academic you bring into the private organisational you know space is that’s what you’re bringing in. Somebody who has a mind of who can break down the process step by step and see elements of the future.

00:37:04 Megan

That will help us right now in our efforts and not waste them right? That make wasted efforts.

00:37:09

Yeah, yeah.

00:37:12 Shardul

Yeah, can kind of to to to that point of maybe it is self promoting, but that’s the value of academics, right. So you bring in academics, you work as an organisation, you bring in academics, you bring this in a sceptical mindset. We bring this research mentality and say, OK, I’m not just going to go through the motions and deliver something.

00:37:34 Shardul

I also want to step back and say what was the actual value of this work, right? How how did it actually affect you?

00:37:43 Shardul

So also I will say work with now work with academics. Don’t just go to a big consulting firm. No. Come, come, come to us academics and then you can get this kind of additional research knowledge as you mentioned.

00:37:57

Yeah.

00:37:59 Megan

Yeah. OK. So I have a.

00:38:02 Megan

Question at the end.

00:38:03 Megan

Now I’d like to ask everybody in scenario planning and and in the foresight field we we constantly are seeing things that we have at best come out in random conversations in pubs or at dinner or conferences, but we never really find a perch.

00:38:24 Megan

For him and that I would like to make this one of our purchase and my question is in the field you’re ending in the work you do and the everything that is your environment as the the expert that you are in, the research that you are, what trends are you seeing in your work in your area of work that are happening?

00:38:45 Megan

Right now or but just barely budding.

00:38:49 Shardul

So right now, AI is such an overwhelming trend, right? So that is use of AI and really the uncertainty about how it’s going to affect our work, both in terms of.

00:39:03 Shardul

Education. So how we teach, right? How we should incorporate AI?

00:39:09 Shardul

Lots of questions about that.

00:39:12 Shardul

But also in our research, how it is going to affect our research.

00:39:16 Shardul

I mean.

00:39:18 Shardul

Should should you use it for research design? I mean there are so many things that I can do. Sometimes it is scary that especially if you’re working with secondary data.

00:39:27 Shardul

Right.

00:39:28 Shardul

You you don’t need to spend several months gathering and analysing the data. I can do that like this, right? So that is definitely an overwhelming trend about use of AI. The second thing that that I see and that is more specific to my field of supply chain.

00:39:48 Shardul

Is the whole idea of dealing with uncertainty.

00:39:54 Shardul

In the long term, but also in the short term, so for example.

00:39:59 Shardul

Kind of related to scenario planning.

00:40:02 Shardul

So if it if we kind of go back historically in my kind of 1970s, sixties, even 1950’s, the origins of scenario planning the method.

00:40:13 Shardul

It was created and evolved to make really long term decisions, right? So let’s say we we know in 1950s Rand Corporation the use of scenario planning was to say, OK, what kind of defence defence infrastructure we need, right? So really long term decisions saying which shell right, really long term.

00:40:33 Shardul

Messages.

00:40:35 Shardul

And that’s where the method is. Has been really useful, but the question that I get in in supply chain is that.

00:40:44 Shardul

Can we use the same approach for dealing with uncertainties in the short term?

00:40:49 Shardul

Because if I am dealing with the, let’s say if I have to organise.

00:40:55 Shardul

A, say ocean carrier to carry several containers of goods that my factory in Asia is producing to its destination in North America.

00:41:07 Shardul

And they’ll say that I need to book this in advance at two months in advance.

00:41:12 Shardul

How should I know how much capacity should I reserve?

00:41:16 Shardul

What carrier should I raise, or what rate should I reserve it at, right? What path should it take? Should it go through, say, the Suez Canal, or should it go around the no through the Pacific, right? So there are questions like that that that are very short term nature. We’re thinking about uncertainties in next three to six months.

00:41:36 Shardul

And these things used to be more predictable. You can say no next three months are going to look fairly similar to what I’ve seen in the past. I can take no I can create a forecasting model based on historical data.

00:41:50 Shardul

Now I can project it forward, say three months out. You know, simple exponential smoothing models. Now you combine them with machine.

00:41:57 Shardul

Learning and so on worked beautifully for the short term kind of horizon, but even now we are seeing massive uncertainties in that, so at least in supply chain management, that’s a.

00:42:08 Shardul

That’s a trend that we are seeing some kind of.

00:42:11 Shardul

In maybe insoluble, or if that’s the right term, insoluble uncertainty, it’s something that you cannot just say.

00:42:18 Shardul

Next three months will look like you know what? What I’ve seen in the last three months or long historical data.

00:42:24 Shardul

Mm-hmm. So that is, that is a trend, definitely. We see in supply chain management some unstructured uncertainties are also shaping the long short term decision making.

00:42:36 Megan

OK, it’s pretty big, pretty weighty.

00:42:42 Megan

But that’s the point, right? That’s some food for thought. What? What? What is the expert on the inside? Seeing that isn’t really making it out to the general conversation yet? And this is what we do, isn’t it? This is we are Trend watchers. We are horizon scanners.

00:43:02 Megan

Your red flag.

00:43:03 Megan

Like identifiers, if you will. OK. Well, thank you, Cheryl, for coming today. This is has been fascinating. Like I’ve read your chapter. I gave you feedback on your.

00:43:17 Megan

Chapter.

00:43:18 Megan

Your chapters in a book together with and with us, and I still have learned.

00:43:23 Megan

An incredible amount of information from this so I I hope this.

00:43:30 Megan

Really gets out in the field more. This is incredible stuff and I will be in touch, by the way, about some future research because without going into it any further, I mean I that’s all I do is research and then field work, right. And you’ve brought in some exceptional.

00:43:51 Megan

Venn diagramming kind of concepts that I’m excited to jump into further.

00:43:58 Megan

Oh, thank you. Thank you for coming.

00:44:01 Shardul

No, thank you. Thank you. It was really fun.

00:44:03 Megan

Scenarios for tomorrow is produced by me, Megan Crawford, with invaluable feedback from Dr Isabella Risa, Jeremy, Cripe, Brian, Eggo. And as always, my kids.

00:44:15 Megan

This is a production of the Futures and Analytics research hub and Far Lab affiliated with Edinburgh Napier Business School. You can find show notes, references and transcripts at scenarios.farhub.org.

00:44:30 Megan

That’s scenarios dot farhud dot org.

00:44:32 Megan

Or you can follow us across social media by searching for a scenario features all one word you can subscribe to scenarios for tomorrow wherever you listen to your podcasts. Today’s track was composed by a rocket whose links are provided in the show notes. This is scenarios for tomorrow where tomorrow’s headlines start as today’s thought experiments.

Show notes:
This is a production of the Futures & Analytics Research (FAR) Hub.
Today’s track “Experimental Cinematic Hip-Hop” was composed by ‪@Rockot‬.

Select episode references:

Shardul Phadnis https://shardulphadnis.com

Order your copy of “Strategic Planning for Dynamic Supply Chains: Preparing for Uncertainty Using Scenarios” https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-91810-1

Crawford & Plant-O’Toole https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ffo2.167

Pier Wack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Wack

Shell scenarios https://www.shell.com/news-and-insights/scenarios.html

Garvin & Levesque. (2006) “Strategic Planning at United Parcel Service.” Harvard Business School Case 306-002. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=32845

00:00:25 –> 00:00:33
In our lifetimes, we will see revolutions of such unfathomable proportions that they change the very notion of our concept of reality. Bioengineered solutions to global hunger, whole cloth relocation of capital cities, a radical coup d ‘etat on data harvesting. These aren’t prophecies, they’re possibilities. We are the sci -fi of our ancestors after all.

00:00:57 –> 00:01:00
My name is Dr. Megan Crawford, and this is Scenarios for Tomorrow. where tomorrow’s headlines start as today’s thought experiments.

00:01:10 –> 00:01:13
As a data scientist and foresight researcher, I study how organizations strategize for the future. But let’s be honest, scenario planning sounds like the driest of corporate jargon. That is until you see it in action.

00:01:23 –> 00:01:26
Like when healthcare teams around the world embrace foresight to outmaneuver pandemics, or watch in real time the ethical realities of our government’s scenario planning through military invasions, or witness how scenarios developed at the turn of the century changed the literal landscape of today’s infrastructure.

00:01:43 –> 00:01:46
That’s the alchemy we will explore in this podcast, transforming abstract, unknowable futures into collective action and what that means when our future becomes our past.

00:01:56 –> 00:02:00
Each episode, we’ll sit down with global futurists, intelligence and defense policy architects, scenario planners, strategists, and yes, the little people backstage like me to unpack how we build strategies with governments, NGOs, and private firms, turn behavioral science into actions of change, and design hope in the face of radical uncertainty. but always questioning

00:02:24 –> 00:02:27
What could happen, what should happen, and how do we get there?

00:02:27 –> 00:02:31
This is a production of the Futures and Analytics Research Hub and Pharr Lab, affiliated with Edinburgh Napier Business School. You can find show notes, references, and transcripts at scenarios .pharrhub .org. That’s scenarios.farhub.org.

00:02:48 –> 00:02:51
You can follow us across social media by searching for @scenariofutures, all one word. You can subscribe to Scenarios for Tomorrow wherever you listen to your podcasts. Today’s track was composed by Rocket, whose links are provided in the show notes. This is Scenarios for Tomorrow, where tomorrow’s headlines start as today’s thought experiments.

Show notes:
This is a production of the Futures & Analytics Research (FAR) Hub.
Today’s track “Experimental Cinematic Hip-Hop” was composed by ‪@Rockot‬.

Select episode references:
Severn Suzuki speech to the United Nations
Greta Thunberg speech to the United Nations
A Letter to the Future From Kid President
Panama canal – Reuters
U.S. Department of Defense
China Military – Getty Images
COVID Ebrahim Noroozi – Associated Press
COVID pic – Hilary Swift New York Times
Ronald E. McNair’s last space flight – CBS Evening News
“Daisy” campaign for Lyndon B. Johnson