Читать книгу Foxy Futurists and how to become one - Clem Sunter - Страница 6

This is the first of two articles that define a foxy futurist. It reflects a methodology which Chantell Ilbury and I have jointly developed since we published The Mind of a Fox in June 2001. The principal difference between our method and the standard scenario planning technique used and taught in America, Britain and Europe is our insistence that scenarios have to be accompanied by flags and subjective probabilities. Ordinary people are underwhelmed by experts who just offer scenarios or possible pathways into the future. They liken these experts to the Delphic Oracle, who could never be proved wrong. The process gains credibility only if you supply the flags indicating possible movements from one scenario to another, and then attach subjective probabilities to the scenarios based on the disposition of the flags. As much effort has to go into defining the flags and determining the probabilities as goes into formulating the scenarios themselves. Even then, Chantell and I make it quite plain that our flags and probabilities are open to debate. There is no guarantee that we are right. Nevertheless, we firmly believe that, given the inherent uncertainty of the future, it is a great deal smarter to structure a conversation around possible scenarios, flags and probabilities than to attempt to arrive at a single-line forecast on which you bet your whole life or business. Obviously, a company has to have a single set of assumptions on which it bases its plan and budget. But that’s all it is – a set of assumptions. The whole point of our approach is to examine in advance the practical implications of other possible futures, so that you can adapt your plan more quickly than your competitors if any of those futures materialises. We call it ‘road-testing’ your current plan. Checking your resilience just makes sense, particularly in the volatile times that we are currently experiencing. Indeed, whereas a few years ago, during the long boom, companies would tell us it was a waste of time looking at alternative futures because their plans and forecasts were quite satisfactory, now they welcome us with open arms. Another point we underline is that, no matter how exhaustive a conversation you have, you will never capture all possibilities. There will always be ‘unknown unknowns’ – events you don’t know you don’t know – that will subsequently occur (like the volcanic ash cloud over Europe). Yet you still need the flexibility and swiftness of a fox to respond to these totally unexpected events. Three final aspects of our model, to which we refer as our ‘conversation model’, are as follows: Firstly, foxy futurists can, at the most, hold a maximum of four scenarios in mind at any one time. We therefore encourage management to construct a matrix where the two axes are the principal driving forces behind the scenarios. Examples are given early in this book. It helps to put the scenarios into a pictorial context. Secondly, foxy futurists reject scenarios that break fundamental rules of the game. For instance, in one article you will see that it is impossible for a nation to be competitive in global terms and have a civil war at the same time. In other words, scenarios have to be plausible and logically consistent. Thirdly, foxy futurists are as much interested in unusual White Swan scenarios as Black Swan scenarios. Foxes pounce on opportunities as much as they counter imminent threats. A full description of the conversation model is given in our previous book Socrates & the Fox.

When an economist says “on the one hand” and “on the other hand”, you know exactly what the audience is thinking: give me a one-armed economist. The problem with providing different scenarios of the future, but no further information, is that people conclude that you are just covering your backside – exactly as the Delphic Oracle did in ancient times.

So one of the most important points that Chantell Ilbury and I made in our third book Socrates & the Fox is that you have to go further in exploring the future than merely producing a range of scenarios. You have to provide the flags that would indicate that you are moving from one scenario to another and, based on the disposition of the flags, attach subjective probabilities to the scenarios.

What do we mean by subjective probabilities? The answer is that the future is only played once, so you cannot – as in a laboratory – repeat an experiment many times and, from the pattern of outcomes, derive a scientific range of probabilities. It is more a matter of intuition and hunch after studying the flags. The closest we can come to an analogy is to picture scenarios as racehorses and, as the race proceeds, we note the changing position of the horses and amend the odds accordingly.

In other words, before the future unfolds, you have a favourite scenario, a possible scenario and a long shot. As you proceed into the future, the flags either go up or stay down, which gives you an indication of the positioning of each scenario: which one is moving to the front and which one is lagging behind. Thus, a favourite may become an outside chance at the back of the field, and an outsider may burst into the lead. Depending on how far the race has progressed, you begin to get a feel for the result. Except that there is no finishing line, because the future goes on forever. Hence you are constantly revising the odds, coming up with new scenarios and revising the flags. Let me give some examples. In 1986, we said the flag to indicate a more positive future for South Africa was negotiation between the National Party and the ANC. It was a precondition for our High Road scenario. At the time, the flag was firmly down, so the odds were slim and most people thought we were heading for the Low Road.

Then things began to change and a series of mini-flags started popping up, culminating in the release of Nelson Mandela, which was a gigantic flag. The High Road scenario moved from a remote possibility to odds-on favourite.

Then again, in mid-2001, Chantell and I said in The Mind of the Fox that the flag for a major terrorist strike on a Western city was firmly fluttering in the breeze, as terrorist organisations now had access to information about assembling weapons of mass destruction. The event occurred three months after we published the book, but not in the way we envisaged.

More recently, we identified the flag for a possible global recession to be declining asset values in America, since American consumers were only spending more by borrowing more because they were worth more. In January 2007, the flag went up for the first time when the price of property in the US started to decline. After six months of continuing decline, we were giving a 50% probability to a Hard Times scenario.When Wall Street turned later in the year, we upped the figure to 80%. In 2008 and 2009, the scenario became a 100% reality.

Now the flag is around nations defaulting on their sovereign debt. If they do so, we are in for a Perfect Storm. On the other hand, should the flag stay down, we may be at the start of a global recovery.

One final point: The connection between the flags and the subjective probabilities for the scenarios can never be precise. We say 10% is a wild card, between 10 and 20% a slight possibility, 20–40% a definite possibility, 40–50% a strong possibility, 50–70% a probability, 70–90% a strong probability and above 90% a near certainty. That way the odds we are giving are realistically approximate.

The trick is to identify the right flags and to monitor them on a daily basis for any change in their disposition. That is what makes a foxy futurist, but there is one other essential characteristic, which I shall talk about next week.