The Five Futures Glasses
By Pero Micic
Palgrave
266 pages, $54.00
There’s a mystique about forecasting the future that suggests futurists – like diviners searching for water – need extrasensory perception to discern the unseen. But Pero Micic, who specializes in future management, stresses in The Five Futures Glasses that the future is here today. The trends, technologies and issues that will determine our future in the next 10 to 20 years are already visible, and it’s just a case of sorting through them.
To grasp that future, we need a system. And he provides it: five ways for your organization to systematically peer into your future, without hiring a high-profile futurist or shaman.
Each offers a unique way of thinking about the future. To help, he names each set of lenses with a tint to help us remember its purpose. If that sounds reminiscent of Edward De Bono’s Five Thinking Hats (once popular in many companies for tackling decision-making), you’re right. Even some of the colours are similar, although this approach focuses on future analysis, not a broader range of issues.
THE BLUE FUTURES GLASSES
This is what we commonly associate with forecasting the future, based on the approach of economists and demographers. It involves looking at current facts and figures and developing some assumptions about how those may carry forward. “People use the blue futures glasses to satisfy their age-old need for advance information without having to fall back on a crystal ball or other mystic aids,” he writes. Typical methods include forecasting and the development – and discussion – of scenarios that project possible futures. You are not so much forecasting the future, he stresses, as diagnosing the assumptions you have developed about the future.
THE RED FUTURES GLASSES
Were you surprised by the housing crash in the United States and the resulting recession? Have you ever been blindsided by an action of your competitor? The red futures glasses helps you to prepare for future surprises by thinking in advance of what might disrupt your business or what positive opportunities might unexpectedly arise. Whereas the blue glasses require thinking of probabilities, here you think about improbabilities.
An effective way is to reverse some of the assumptions you developed for the blue glasses projections, and imagine how you would be affected if the reverse occurred. Or play with some of the forecasts you have developed, imagining your growth, for example, was to quadruple. He warns, however, not to go too far: The surprises must be plausible.
THE GREEN FUTURES GLASSES
Use these glasses to think creatively about the future, and what opportunities you might open up for your business. It allows you to expand the potential for success and increase the number and quality of the ideas when you develop a vision and strategy. Toyota used these glasses in the 1990s when it decided to take an idea first patented a hundred years earlier, the hybrid engine, and see if it could make a more environmentally sustainable engine. When using the blue glasses, it helps to have lots of experience to sift through assumptions about the future; but with the green ones, it’s advantageous to look at future possibilities with the eyes of a beginner, using creativity techniques.
THE YELLOW FUTURES GLASSES
With those creative ideas in mind, you need to craft the desired future for your company, devising a corporate vision through your yellow glasses. And the author stresses it’s vision, not visions – it must be a clear, well-integrated approach, not a collection of everyone’s pet ideas. Too bold may also be dangerous. “The best strategic vision is probably somewhere near your current business. In contrast to the widespread desire for sensation, the vision is not better the more it leads you away from your company’s current competence,” he advises.
THE VIOLET FUTURES GLASSES
