Manifesto

A Futuring Manifesto

We recognise that as a human race we have reached a threshold where the rules and assumptions governing the past are no longer fit to guide us safely into the future. As we reach fundamental limits in energy, economy and environment, we are faced with unprecedented uncertainty and complexity. Our survival will require dramatic changes to the way we live and operate in the world. We believe we need a new approach and that this approach will only be found through deep personal and cultural reflection and change. This manifesto identifies the qualities we see as necessary to make this shift. These are the qualities we stand for and seek to promote in ourselves, in our communities and in our decision-making forums.

1: Openness to not knowing

Leaders who pretend to know put us all in danger. Illustration by Loo Connor

There is great danger in assuming we know more than we do. This attitude leaves humanity at our most vulnerable and prevents us from preparing physically, mentally and emotionally to face the unknown. The spread of COVID19 in the US and the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters show the devastating effects when leaders fail to admit when they don’t know. Admitting to not knowing and revealing our weaknesses is incredibly uncomfortable, especially within a culture that rewards and values the appearance of knowing.  We support a change of culture in our education system, business, media, politics and all other spheres that makes it feel safe and possible for people to admit vulnerability and unknowns. We seek to be confident in what we do know, clear about what we don’t and to find out which is which.

2: Breaking our own frame

To see our limits we need to bring our unconscious biases and assumptions into view. It is as if the whole of humanity is unknowingly living inside a box: an invisible box constructed of beliefs, power structures, practices and political, social and economic forces. The box is invisible because it is constant and all-pervasive. And yet there are people who find a way to see outside it; to see our blind spots which conceal great dangers and possibilities. We seek to listen to those with different perspectives and to draw attention to the invisible structures and forces that influence our world. We seek to question, not just the problems, but the way we are looking at them. We endeavour to bring our own, and our decision-makers, blind spots and implicit biases into awareness and to find ways to overcome them. We are open to the profound discomfort and confrontation this experience may bring.

3. Trusting feelings and embodied instincts

Many great scientists, artists and thinkers have spoken of how their greatest ideas have first arrived in the form of a hunch or a feeling. It was only upon further investigation that these hunches began to make rational sense.  We believe that our feelings and bodily instincts are invaluable sources of new knowledge and portals into the unknown. As American writer and feminist Audrey Lorde said: 

“Beyond the superficial, the considered phrase, “It just feels right to me,”... is the first and most powerful guiding light toward any understanding.”

Audrey Lorde, American feminist

We believe that, in prematurely demanding rational arguments, we cut ourselves off to the seeds of new knowledge. We value feelings and embodied instincts as the most direct and honest experience we have of the world available to us. We seek to learn from cultures who are in touch with intuitive and embodied ways of knowing and to integrate information gathered in this way with a rational scientific approach. 

4. People and relationships before money and outcomes

We see that futuring and planning processes are often crippled by too much pressure, too early, on money and outcomes, expecting people to produce results without putting effort into creating the environments that make this possible. This narrow utilitarian focus on outcomes and external standards is stifling.

If you nurture the soil, you get better plants. We believe that the potential for solving the most complex challenges of our time lies within people but our current culture is stifling this potential and silencing many voices that are needed on the team. We think it is likely we will make our greatest leaps forward over the next century, in our development as humans, not in technology. We need to feed the garden to feed the people. Give people what we need to thrive and the outcomes will take care of themselves.

We seek to prioritise the care and nurture of people and relationships first in order to solve the technical, environmental, social and economic challenges we face. We seek to empower and listen to voices from the margins; to make time and allocate funds and resources to growing relationships, addressing inequities and caring for people. We believe that our ability to navigate the future will depend on our ability to come together with the teams of people that are needed for that moment - incorporating different skills, perspectives and ways of knowing, including the scientific, historical and spiritual. 

5. Going slow to go fast

The scope we allow in our thinking will define the scope of solutions we find. Our brains have two ways of thinking - a grass-hopper brain for emergencies and a deep, slow learning one. By using the grass-hopper brain for other than emergencies we only repeat the past. Our culture and media values expediency, productivity and speed. But we need to look a long way back in order to see forward. It takes a systematic and patient approach to unpack complexity and to identify the assumptions, uncertainties, interdependencies and stabilities that will play into the future. This is the systematic careful work of futuring. As futurist Robert Hickson points out, by skipping the details we end up with empty prophecies, false truths and old opinions regurgitated. But by following this careful process we may arrive in a genuinely new place. 

It also takes time to communicate the nuances; to get decision-makers and communities on the same page. Going fast risks leaving people behind and that slows us down.