Futures Literacy
A Universal Rethinking of Futures Literacy
I acquired my initial proficiency in foresight from friends like Napier Collyns, Arie de Geuss, Peter Schwartz and Pierre Wack who founded Global Business Network in Emeryville. Previously they worked together in Royal Dutch Shell, which is where they mastered the classic scenario planning method of Herman Kahn.
Wack and his team had refined Kahn's method and applied it to the company's business strategy, helping Shell navigate significant challenges, including the oil shocks of the late 1970s. I was an apprentice to this thinking, which had proven the practical application of scenario planning in a corporate setting, making it a valuable tool for strategic decision-making.
Scenario planning, as I interpreted it, was to see beyond the narrow confines of the present, in order to imagine not only what's likely, but to anticipate what might be possible. The method demands more than competence in just one particular domain. Scenario planning is a multidisciplinary field of inquiry-based topics; extending all the way from analysing historical events to making sense of what's going on around you in the present moment, and visualising any number of alternatives. The method is aimed at helping us anticipate and prepare for change - a kind of intellectual rehearsal that can be scaled and targeted.
I was intrigued by the world of scenario planning and what GBN called 'strategic' conversation. But there was something bothering me. For too long, our capacity to imagine and design futures has been shackled by agendas that assume a specifically industrial and colonial view of the world - frameworks firmly rooted in the intellectual tradition of the European Enlightenment. And the scenario planning method I had been taught was certainly part of that tradition.
When so constrained, I reasoned, critical factors might be casually overlooked or ignored altogether, even though that wasn't necessarily the intention. Points of view that appreciate links within or between whole systems, for example. Diverse cultural expressions that value uncommon views. Emotional and intuitive insights that are needed to liberate creativity. I was also very aware of the fact that the scenario planning framework I was using struggled to accommodate complexity, too readily compartmentalised knowledge, and emphasised short-term outcomes rather than the 'art of the long view' - ironically the title of a book by Peter Schwartz. Embracing a more holistic, inclusive, interdisciplinary approach seemed much wiser to me.
It was with all of this in mind that I resigned from Australian Business Network, GBN's outpost in Australia that I had co-founded with Oliver Freeman and Richard Bawden, to start work on my own research in the field of foresight. The results of that research were included in my third book, The Five Literacies of Global Leadership, where 'futuring' was proposed as an extensive knowledge domain of patterning and ambient intelligence, and 'futures-literacy' became much more than just scenario planning.
Essentially I concluded that if we're to navigate the cascading crises of our time, we must look far beyond prevailing frameworks to embrace the wisdom of non-Western wisdom traditions—ways of knowing that are intuitive, relational, spiritual, and deeply rooted in the cycles of life. The future we most need will not be built from spreadsheets and strategic forecasts alone. It will not emerge from models assuming infinite growth on a finite planet or from institutions that equate GDP with progress.
Instead, I argued, it will grow from the rich soil of ideas that Western systems had long dismissed as inferior—the cosmological origins, philosophies, and praxes that see the world not as a machine to be optimized but as a living system to be cherished. It is in these models, too often relegated to the margins of futures thinking, that we can find the seeds of metamophosis. This is what I tried to describe in 'The Five Literacies' - albeit still constrained by my European upbringing and frame of mind. I will try to do a better job here:
Time as a Cycle, Not a Line
One of the most profound shifts needed in futures literacy is a reimagining of time itself. Western models teach us to see and experience time as linear, a relentless arc of progress, invariably teleological. But then many indigenous and non-Western traditions view time as cyclical—an underlying pulse with cadences of growth, decay, and renewal. The Māori concept of Whakapapa, for instance, reminds us that the past, the present, and the possible are not separate but interconnected layers of relationship and responsibility.
Studying this I developed 'the expanded now'. To be able to imagine any possible state, I figured we must act consciously in the present, having due regard for the past, but comprehending that what we do now ripples forward in an eternal cycle of consequences. The concept of 'the expanded now' offers a structure for understanding our present reality by integrating insights from the deep past and all possible future states. This encourages us to move beyond our tight present focus - the 'here and now' of each and every moment - recognising that the decisions we make in these moments are influenced by historical contexts, perceived opportunities, probabilities, and path dependence. The 'expanded now' seeks to transcend these limitations by fostering a deeper awareness of our interconnectedness with both our history and our evolution.
At the heart of this concept is the idea that embracing complexity by identifying 'patterns that matter' and that can be visualised is essential for making sense of the unprecedented challenges we face today. By situating today's problems within a broader evolutionary context, the 'expanded now' allows for emergent states to be noticed. The uncertain disruptions and brittle capriciousness of our time present a unique chance for inspiring human evolution, enabling us to evolve towards a more equitable and viable world-system.
This cyclical view of time suspends the obsession with 'solutions' and 'development' that characterizes so many Western foresight techniques, including scenario planning. It demonstrates that the future is not something to be conquered or controlled but a 'state' to be shaped and into which we must blend. This perspective offers us a profound antidote in a world of ecological collapse and social fragmentation: a call to slow down, to listen, to feel, and to align our actions with the rhythms of the earth and the cosmos.
Navigating with Agility
Another lesson from non-Western models is the importance of embracing uncertainty—again, not as a problem to solve, but as a practice to develop. In the Zulu worldview, for example, dreams and intuition are trusted ways of knowing, offering guidance in times of ambiguity. Similarly, many Native American traditions use ceremony and storytelling to navigate the unknown, creating shared spaces where communities can reflect, grieve, and imagine together.
In contrast, Western models often treat uncertainty as a threat, something to be minimised or 'treated' through risk models and contingency plans. But what if the most dangerous thing is not uncertainty itself, but our addiction to the illusion of certainty? What if the future requires not more control or manipulation but more comfort with what cannot yet be named? The people who will thrive in this age of compounding crises are not those with airtight business plans but those who can move through the fog of uncertainty with poise, holding space for what is emerging rather than clinging to what is known, or dying.
Failure as Fertile Ground
It was no coincidence that my mentoring practise was very quickly dubbed a journey 'From Success to Significance' by one of my earliest proteges. We in the West have a one-sided tendency to venerate 'successs' and punish failure, creating systems where mistakes are buried beneath lengthy polished reports rather than treated as a chance to upgrade. This is a profound disservice to the future.
Non-Western models, by contrast, often embed failure into the fabric of the methods, something I witnessed at first-hand when implementing Total Quality Management with W. Edwards Deming in Japan. The Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, or continuous improvement, often requires a shift in organisational culture which, by its very nature, implies that things were less than optimal before the improvement was implemented. Kintsugi teaches us to embrace brokenness, repairing cracks in pottery with gold to create something even more beautiful and resilient than the original. Similarly, indigenous agricultural practices often include experimentation as a natural part of adaptation, understanding that failure is not an exception but a necessary step in the cycle of growth.
To build a future that is resilient, we must stop hiding from failure and start designing for it. This means creating 'failure budgets' and recovery protocols, but it also means cultivating a narrative of empathy—one that sees mistakes not as endpoints but as fertile ground for transformation.
The Wisdom of Many Voices
Perhaps the most urgent shift for futures literacy is the recognition that no single mindset or method holds all or even some of the answers. For far too long, Western models have dominated the practise of foresight, framing futures through the lens of scalability, data, morphological analysis and evidence-based logic. Although tolerating science fiction within the mix more recently, the resulting narrative archetypes are shaped by Western devices.
But there are many other ways of knowing—ways that emerge through tone, rhythm, ceremony, and relational factors, through stories told by grandmothers rather than algorithms. The Balinese concept of Tri Hita Karana offers a powerful example. This philosophy aligns human activity with three harmonious relationships: with the divine, with nature, and with each other. Similarly, the Andean principle of Buen Vivir (a 'good life') prioritises community well-being and ecological balance over individual wealth and consumption. These frameworks challenge our Western obsessions with individualism, affluence, and success, reminding us that the future must be co-created with all beings, human and more-than-human alike.
Futures as Living Systems
A powerful idea emerging from non-Western 'forethought' is the recognition that futures are not static endpoints to be predicted or designed; they are living systems to be embraced. This requires a shift from linear, goal-oriented thinking to anticipatory systems thinking—an understanding of the complex synapses and dynamic relations between people, culture, ecology, and spirit. The Lakota concept of Mitákuye Oyás’in ('all my relations') embodies this perspective, emphasising that every action we take affects the entire web of life.
By adopting this relational mindset, we move away from the Western impulse to dominate and exploit the future in some kind of utopian reconstruction of the present. Instead, we become curators of possibility, co-creating futures that are regenerative, inclusive, and deeply attuned to the rhythms of the earth.
Restoring the Sacred
In a world that often reduces everything to sterile metrics and markets, non-Western models remind us of the importance of the sacred. Ceremony, ritual, and storytelling are not merely cultural artefacts; they are tools for aligning our actions with more profound values and intentions. They invite us to take a deep breath, to pause and reflect, and to reconnect with what truly matters—not profit or progress or success, but harmony, reciprocity, sufficiency, and the bourgeoning of all life on Earth (not Mars).
Although I often say to my clients that the future is in their hands, it's not just a blank canvas waiting to be painted, nor even an outline needing to be finished. It exists today, within each of us, as an integral truth of the human condition. It's a living, breathing entity that we are all part of, one that holds the wisdom of the ages, the dreams of our children, our own actions, and the voices of the rivers and the deserts and the forests. To be ‘futures-literate’ is to respect this complexity, to embrace uncertainty, and to co-create with humility.
Liberating What Has Been Denied
As I discovered when trying to understand what was bothering me when I was part of ABN, at a time when I had been convinced that scenario planning - and a few other tools - was all there was to foresight, the greatest barrier to futures literacy is not a lack of imagination but the systems that silence it—models that assume preeminence, discount non-Western voices, dismiss intuition and alternative intelligence, and prioritise certainty.
To construct transformative futures, we must liberate what has been denied us for too long: the wisdom of cycles, the potency of failure, the voices of the marginalised, and the sacredness of the earth. This is not just a strategy or an extension of what we already have. It's a restoration - a call to reinterpret the illusory state we refer to as the 'future'.
As 'futurists' we stand on the edge of uncertainty. Let us listen—not just to the algorithms or the experts, but to the rhythms and pulse of the earth, the stories of our ancestors, and the dreams of those who are yet to arrive on this Earth. For the futures we most need are not the ones we were taught to craft; they are the ones we've been denied and just beginning to remember.