In recent conversations with our mission-driven clients and partners, a recurring theme has emerged: a feeling of disengagement and disconnection from the forces and conversations shaping the future.
This is understandable. Organisations are under pressure, balancing tight resources with increasing need. People are less focussed on shaping the future, and more focussed on surviving the present.
But if you don’t create the future, who will?
If the general sense within your organisation is that everything is getting worse and nothing can be done about it, then you might have a Futures Gap.
What is a Futures Gap?
An organisation with a Futures Gap no longer has a point of view about the future, nor its place in it.
The assumptions it makes about the world have become entrenched and unchanging. It can feel like it is running to stand still.
It no longer makes the time and space – nor gives itself the permission – to look over the horizon and ask the challenging, ambitious and difficult “what if?” questions.
It has lost its connection with the people, networks, spaces and conversations that are actively shaping the future.
It will be a passive recipient of a future it played no part in shaping, instead of an active participant in creating the future it wants.
What are the signs of a Futures Gap?
We see four common symptoms that diagnose the existence of a Futures Gap, or the risk of one opening up.
- Disconnection. The organisation has lost connection with the stakeholders and debates shaping the future of their space. The products and positions of the organisation are no longer helping to shape or inform those debates. The organisation has lost connection with the key networks, groups, and partnerships looking to explore and shape the future.
- Disengagement. The organisation has become disengaged from its key stakeholders and is no longer an active convener or coordinator of the most important communities and conversations. Whilst team members might be motivated by the promise of the mission, there might be a nagging sense that their work is not focussed on the most important issues, or most compelling solutions.
- Disillusionment. Stakeholders have become disillusioned with the work of the organisation, and team members within the organisation have become disillusioned with how their work contributes to the world. They have a scarcity mindset. There’s a sense that things are never going to be enough. In the worst case, the organisation has begun a slide towards irrelevance.
- Distance. The organisation is no longer central to the thinking about what the future could look like and how it can help shape that desired future. It has become a fringe contributor and is no longer looked towards as a leader or collaborator. It has become detached from the experiences, voices and perspectives of those the organisation exists to serve.
For any organisation these signs can spell disaster, but this is especially the case for mission-driven organisations that are looking to deliver stretching ambitions in a fast-moving and uncertain world. This makes bridging the Futures Gap an existential question.
What happens when you bridge the Futures Gap?
For organisations that were set up for social impact, to change systems, or build a better world – a Futures Gap can be fatal.
Closing it requires effort, uncomfortable conversations and challenging deeply-held assumptions.
The effort is worth it, because in our experience bridging the Futures Gap offers organisations three big benefits:
- Reshaped mindset: People with a point of view about the future have a clearer sense of their place in the world. They better understand the agency they have to serve their vision and mission. They understand the constraints, but will see new opportunities, partners and innovations.
- Reframed strategy: This work creates context and momentum for an organisation’s strategy. It makes deeper and richer connections between its activities and the future they want to see. It helps to create a common language within an organisation and across their wider community.
- Reinvigorated engagement: Leading conversations about the future can re-engage important communities and relationships. By convening, hosting and contributing to important conversations, they can again become central to shaping the future.
Closing a Futures Gap should leave your organisation more optimistic, clear-eyed about its contribution, and perceived differently by its peers.
How can you bridge the Futures Gap?
In our experience, we see that the key determinants of success are all always about mindsets and attitudes, not tools or techniques.
There are 3 principles which we always come back to:
1. Be deliberate and explicit about creating the time, space, and freedom to explore the future.
It can be difficult to step outside of the day-to-day pressures to create the space to think ahead, but this is even more the case for organisations with a Futures Gap.
There’s never a good time. Waiting for circumstances to create the space will never work. Instead, organisations must be deliberate and explicit about creating the time and space. Additionally, organisations must create the freedom to allow people to think differently, to challenge historic assumptions, and ask the difficult questions about the organisation and its place in the world. This isn’t easy. Doing it properly means uncovering, confronting, and exploring long-standing and deeply held assumptions.
In our experience, if at times it feels difficult and uncomfortable, it means you are doing it right.
2. Actively create and convene communities and conversations.
The Futures Gap cannot be bridged through research and reports. It’s about getting out into the world.
It’s about reconnecting and reengaging with the communities and conversations that are actively working to explore and shape the future. This is a journey of both discovery and rediscovery, identifying and engaging with new communities and conversations or reconnecting with ones the organisation has lost engagement with. The aim is to be part of an engaged and energised conversation about the future and the different ways of shaping it.
We have found that this creation and curation of communities to be the area that often delivers the deepest impact for our clients, as it starts conversations that continue long beyond a dedicated project.
3. Let process and structure be a guide, not a constraint.
The right processes and structures help to guide and shape futures conversations in a productive and constructive way, whilst ensuring that a diverse range of voices, perspectives, and experiences can be brought into the process in an equitable, inclusive way.
Where these processes and structures become a constraint – not allowing for flexibility, adaptability or reflection – they can end up widening the gap as opposed to bridging it. The best route is to have robust and well-tested structures that are used to help guide the process, but then to work closely with key stakeholders to adapt and flex these structures to reflect the particular context of the organisation.
Bridging the gap
At its worst, a Futures Gap can be an existential risk for an organisation’s relevance, especially for mission-driven organisations.
The gap can be bridged, if the organisation is ready to recognise the gap and commit to the reflection and work to bridge it.
By making this commitment, you can help transform your organisation’s relationship to the future away from reactively responding, toward actively shaping and creating it.
(cross-posted from Firetail)