The short-term future in South Africa is the Fifa Soccer World Cup, and at the moment it is really hard to get anyone to see or think beyond it. Football is life. Nevertheless a few hundred intrepid thinkers gathered in Cape Town earlier this month to consider South Africa in 2030, under the auspices of the World Future Society, South Africa Chapter, and its very capable leader Mike Lee.
I was lucky enough to be asked to do the opening address at the conference, and even luckier in that this Web site: South Africa – The Good News summarized some of what I and others said:
“Adam Gordon, Foresight Project Director and author of “Future Savvy” gave us some pointers:
- Beware of sector experts, they are deeply entrenched in the present.
- The consumer and choice is the determinant, not technology.
- Change is about overestimating followed by underestimating.
- Trends are patterns in the data, behind the trend are enablers and drivers, but frictional forces exist and in front of the trend are turners and blockers.
- Trend extrapolation is limited, don’t fall foul of the turkey syndrome.
- There is well behaved and badly behaved change. Both can be predictable and unpredictable. The potential of sudden shifts always lurks.
- Scenario planning wraps up the key uncertainties over which we have no control.
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“The ‘BIG’ question he asks is ‘when do we influence the future and when do we adapt?’ There are big predictable forces out there (like population growth / the diminishing availability of oil etc), and there are big unpredictable forces out there (ja, well no fine!). Importantly, we can design our ability to influence and we can design the way we adapt. It is critical that we are able to do both.
“But managing the future is more than just about scenario planning, it is also about the implementation of the plan. It is about developing a methodology that prioritises, engages with stakeholders, and enables proactive actions on the ground.
So how?
Some important considerations (from various speakers):
- Often we know what causes the problem (poverty, crime, HIV) but we don’t know what to do about it.
- Often the logic that gives rise to the problem is not the logic that will solve the problem.
- Mostly the problem does not contain the makings of the solution.
- Solutions in one area can exacerbate problems in another.
- The current situation has momentum, change to the system should happen concurrently not suddenly.
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“What is critical is the foresight process, it must be well-informed so that the implementation strategies that follow have buy-in, are doable, are relevant and far-reaching. There is a very real danger of visions being disconnected, unachievable and, at the end of the day, a pipe-dream.”
Dr Elizabeth Dostal talked of a stakeholder democracy in which she promoted the design of a matrix that recognised different stakeholder levels on the vertical axis and different environmental dimensions on the horizontal axis. A multi-level, multi-dimensional model.
“Imagine” she said, “putting four Nobel Peace laureates together and asking them what the causes of global conflict are. One may argue poverty, another ideology, another resources, and another greed. In no time, they would all be in different silo’s defending their view, in one sense they are all right, but in another sense they have not looked at the whole picture. A multi-level, multi-dimensional model would reveal this, the gaps in their logic, and the opportunities for agreement.”
