LeadingMinds Tip 147: Creating the Future - in advance

This week's tip comes to you from Alastair Olby of Kaizen Training.

So, we're more than half-way through 2009, and what a great time to pause and reflect on progress towards the goals most of us set at the start of the year.  What sort of progress are you making?  Are your goals still the same?  Have shifts in the context in which we live and work caused you to rethink or reprioritise what you want?  Is the future you envisioned still the one you want?  What sort of changes would you like to see by the end of the year, and what does this now require of you?

Having a crystal-clear vision of the future is a great starting point for groups who need to come together to bring about positive change.  It's something that most change leaders and facilitators will be very familiar with - and it's likely that you have already done some kind of visioning sessions with people you've worked with.  Perhaps you've created vision statements, or maybe rich pictures of what the future will look like.  Maybe you've created future newspaper articles reporting what's in the headlines for your team or organisation, or some other variation of these themes.

You may be interested to learn about another very powerful variation:  an approach we call "Future Histories".  The term seems to have been coined by John W. Campbell Jr back in 1941, and we originally started to use it for our own personal development.  Each year, every member of the Kaizen team creates their own future history for the year ahead (or for some, the next 2 - 3 years). We share our future history with the whole team (a remote team) and this creates an even greater level of understanding of each other, and an increased sense of community.  Our personal future histories provide useful insights into our values, changing priorities, motivators - and how we can better support each other in bringing about the life we've imagined.

 It's quite a simple process to do individually.  All you do is fast forward to where you'd like to be in 12 months' time.  Get a full sense of what your life will be like - for example, what you'll be doing, experiencing, the kind of work you're doing, the relationships you'll have, what's happening with your health, finances, leisure and so on.  Think about your spiritual and contribution goals too.  Write in the present tense - as though it is July 2010.  Add inspiring pictures and music (easily done in PowerPoint)

The wonderfully scary thing about creating these is that they have a habit of coming true.  The clearer we are on the detail of where we'll be in the future, the greater the likelihood of it coming into being - and as we've all experienced the power of doing this, it's something we pay attention to every year.  It's become a fun and compelling habit.

So, how could you use this in your context?  It's one thing to create an individual future history - but what about using the idea with your team, or whole organisation?  Here's one way that's worked for us:

• Create individual future histories (before the group event)
• Draw a huge visual of where you want to be as a team in 12 months' time.  With around 9 sheets of flip chart paper taped together on the floor, gather round and draw images and words representing where you want to be.  This is done individually, without consultation at this stage.  You just add whatever's important to you.
• When the creative outburst is complete we take a step back, take in what's been created and then invite team members to start with questions such as "Tell me about X.  What does it represent?  What compelled you to include this?" and so on.  Sometimes there are challenges, and if so that's great:  it helps the team agree what to do in advance of it happening.  This links to Roger Schwarz's work on Transparency and his ground rule of jointly designing next steps and ways to test disagreements.
• Once everybody's delighted with what they've created, the visual becomes a powerful motivator for the whole team.
• Then move into pairs, coaching one another on what this means for you.  What are your priorities now?  What learning and development do you need?  What help and support from others?  Who do you need in your 'success team'? (a group of individuals who inspire and generally get the best from you)
• Create your own milestones for the year ahead, describing exactly how it will be when you've achieved each of these milestones.
• Share your 'route map' of milestones with the team, getting feedback and challenge from them.
• Celebrate - and make sure everybody has a visual reminder.