Is Foresight a Luxury or a Right?

It was the great civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer that said, “Nobody’s free until everybody is free.” We would add that unless everybody is empowered to think proactively about our collective tomorrows, then we will continue to see foresight treated as a luxury for the privileged few who control the future. In other words, nobody is empowered until all voices are included in futures thinking. Join Yvette and Frank as they challenge governments, businesses and social influencers to stop making excuses when it comes to engaging foresight and the diverse voices that hold the key to better futures. Foresight is more than a right - it’s an obligation!

Transcript

Frank Spencer: Yvette, one of the things that I'm not super happy about during the pandemic is among many, many things, of course.

Yvette Montero Salvatico: We could make a whole long list-

Frank: That's right.

Yvette: -of that's things that sucked.

Frank: I'm not saying that there's really anything I'm happy about the pandemic years. None of it should be, I don't think, but one of the things that makes me super sad is that we used to have status on our airline of choice or of ownership, not that I own the airlines, they own me.

Yvette: No, it's funny to think back, a decade ago when we used to sit there and mock the people that would walk along those red or blue carpets onto the aircraft, and we are mocking them, of course, because we were not elite. We were not of the elite class.

Frank: This is the early years, we started off and they were like, "Hey, we want you to go to Japan and China and Singapore and Russia.

Yvette: It didn't take long before we were being whisked away and then, man, did we buy in to the whole frequent flier.

Frank: Firstly, who does that guy think he is? He just, "Excuse me, I'm first-class global service or whatever?"

Yvette: We're like, "Oh, my God, what a jerk."

Frank: We're all going to the same place on the same airplane, just calm down. Then it wasn't long before I was like, "Excuse me, I'm global."

Yvette: Excuse me. Please do not breathe my air. No, it's a really good test in psychological--

Frank: No, there is a whole-- I could have been an experiment in psychology, university lab experiment.

Yvette: There was one time where our status was so high, that I was at risk of missing a connection and they had a person holding my name assigned with my name on it, when I got to that connection airport, and they whisked me away in a car on the tarmac. I've never been more sure of anything in my life and that is that if I ever became famous, you do not want to live with me, you do not want to be around me. It is absolutely intoxicating. Anyhow that's our story, we're not proud of it but we're just being honest.

Frank: Listen, I'm certainly not proud of it and life has ways of knocking you down a peg.

Yvette: A couple of pegs. A couple of pegs.

Frank: Yes, because now we started to fly again and they're like, babies, people with babies, military members, babies in the military.

Yvette: We're still saying that [crosstalk]

Frank: Babies with military suits on with.

Yvette: We'll get back there eventually.

Frank: I'm way behind all of that.

Yvette: Maybe we will, maybe won't. We're doing a lot of things virtually, so we'll see. Anyway, welcome to the Wicked Opportunities podcast.

Frank: Yes. Welcome. Welcome. My name is Frank Spencer, so glad, are you is so glad? I'm so glad.

Yvette: You're so glad.

Frank: I'm so glad you could join us.

Yvette: We're working on very little sleep. My name is Yvette Montero Salvatico.

Frank: I've been up since 3:00 AM.

Yvette: We're jet-lagged but not because of a flight actually, and we'll talk about that in a little bit.

Frank: That's exactly right, and maybe again, it feeds right into our topic for the day about what is a luxury and what is a right. That foresight should not be a luxury, it should be a democratized right for everyone.

Yvette: The topic is, is foresight a luxury or a right? That's our topic for this week's Wicked Opportunities Podcast. If you've been wondering where we are, where we've been, we've been busy, man, is all I'm going to say.

Frank: We just today wrapped up our flagship foundations and natural foresight for EMEA, and we had an amazing cohort-

Yvette: You're jumping ahead. You're jumping ahead.

Frank: -of people. I haven't jumped ahead, you're the one that just gave away the secret sauce.

Yvette: No, no secret sauce, but we have been up since early because obviously, we did it in London time, EMEA time, closer to EMEA time. We wanted to talk about this idea of what is a luxury? What is a right as it is specifically to foresight because we work with individuals and clients alike. There's the idea with a lot of folks, organizations specifically that foresight it's sexy. If they haven't really established a planning process already, if they don't really have a strategic process, then it feels like maybe foresight is a little bit too much of a reach for them.

Frank: No, I can't tell you how many times I've literally had someone say to me, "The foresight thing sounds great, but it's sexy, and we're not at sexy yet. It's too sexy for us at this moment. We just need strategic planning." Of course, you and I both know and a lot of our listeners know that while you're really missing the whole point here, it's you need to stop with this traditional linear strategic planning and get on the foresight train. It's not sexy. It's actually foundational.

Yvette: Right. I think we wanted to tackle this topic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we know in today's environment, although it is our mission to democratize the field of Foresight, part of the reason why it is our mission is because we recognize that not everyone has currently agency to create better futures. It is a privilege to do so, and it shouldn't be.

Frank: No, it should not be, and you're exactly right. We talk about agency a lot and I just was on a podcast not long ago, where questioning, who has agency and do we really have agency. The point here is not about whether you have agency or not over the universe and can control things, it's about whether or not we are giving agency to others.

Yvette: Or taking it away?

Frank: Well, yes, obviously because what happens in the world that we live in is so few have it because only an elite few want it so they can control things.

Yvette: That's the other piece is like, either organizations feel like foresight is beyond their reach, because they don't have the basics in their minds or there's organizations that operate as gatekeepers and are actually using foresight to keep others out. That's like a plotline of a sci-fi or a superhero film, the fact that you have this incredible superpower, and you're using it for evil and not good, there's a special place in hell for people like that in my opinion.

Frank: It's rough but it's funny that you say that, because I think just like a lot of other things where the elite few have the power, Foresight, one of the gripes about Foresight, by a lot of people who are coming to it now is who has controlled the future, who has had control of the future. We know it's governments, but very few in the government's just, elite, white men mostly, and companies, corporations. That's why in United States we have laws down corporations are now people, and they rule over individuals.

Listen, Yvette and I love working for companies and corporations, and as we've said, on the podcast before, we're almost really working more for the people that we make contact with the change agents than we are for the company themselves. We're always working for these companies in order to help them to make right decisions about the future, exactly what we're saying here. How can we work with a company or a corporation or a business and help them to make right decisions about the future? That means, including others, so this is the flip side of that coin of is too sexy. It's like once they do do it, they're like, "It's too sexy for you." It's like, "I'm the only one who can be sexy here."

Yvette: It's a way for them to drive profits and maintain the existing system. It's a perversion, a strategic [crosstalk]

Frank: It's a complete perversion because what we help companies or corporations to do is to seek their transformation. To truly seeking transformation, it's going to be not only for profit, it's going to be for people, planet, purpose to include others. I love that you bring this up because we're not ever to use foresight to try to remain the same. They try to use foresight to say, "What's coming so that I can maintain the status quo." That is a luxury, not a right for other people.

Yvette: I will also say this is a bit of an aside, but we like to be a bit controversial on the podcast. There are professionals, well-respected professionals in our field, that have this ethical belief, this moral belief, that futurists should not work for for-profit companies.

Frank: Absolutely.

Yvette: Further, if you're charging for your services as a futurist, you're somehow immoral. I'm not going to tackle that second thing because I just don't have the time.

Frank: I will. Let me just say something briefly on it. I respect anybody that approaches Foresight, for any reason, when they're doing it for good reasons, but I can tell you that if you're charging nothing for your foresight efforts, which is perfectly fine, I know that you're doing some other job to make money, you're doing something to make money out there. That's really funny, because foresight is your hobby, and you're being paid for some other purpose so you're still working for something and it doesn't raise foresight to a place of value in society.

I know where you were about to go with this, and I'll let you go talk about this. That is that we need to get in there and play the court jester, we need to be able to speak to these people because you're talking about a swath of people that are ruling the roost, and we're not challenging them at all. I'm not going to go in there and challenge them at all. Well, good luck.

Yvette: Good luck. Yes, I mean, it's just crazy to me to be in a position of privilege to be able to say, "I'm going to ignore the bulk of GDP, the bulk of economic value being produced today because I have some, a moral high horse that I'm sitting on. I cannot work with corporations because they are part of the problem." Well, no shit, they're part of the problem.

That's why you have to work with them. Not to mention, they're made up of people, people who vote and who are part of communities.

Just to blindly or blatantly not even blindly, blatantly ignore this huge swath of our global ecosystem because you feel like it's beneath you, or it's tacky is crazy. We won't ever get to more transformative futures if we don't acknowledge the places that need the work. Then those are organizations, are corporations, those institutions. It's not just for-profit companies, our governments need a whole lot of help. Our nonprofits need a whole lot of help. They're working on the same system structures and actors that the for-profits are.

Frank: That's another funny thing that we could have a whole podcast on. It's like, "Well, I'm a governmental futurist. I don't do corporations, because corporate," governments is some of the most corrupt-

Yvette: It's virtue signaling at its best to say that, "Yes, we do have a line that recently, we've had to identify that we won't cross in terms of the types of organization we won't for.

Frank: You certainly want to work for a company that's doing something that is promoting an unethical practice, but at the core, are people who are trying to make our food or trying to make our transportation, is that an-- No, it's a very ethical thing, and I would add one more thing. The people that we do work with in those organizations are 99% of our change agents who want to do the right thing.

I have worked with some amazing companies and the people we've worked with in there, 99% of them are like, "Help me to make this company an ethical, and do better things and do cool things and green energy." Absolutely, so if you haven't worked with them, you don't know this,

Yvette: The thing about foresight when it's practiced well, is that it will be that change agent within the organizations. Either it's going to change the organization, or it's going to spit out these new people that have been changed to go and create change elsewhere. So it's a win-win. Anyway, that's off-topic. It wasn't even in our show notes.

Frank: I thought it was a great-- it's actually not off-topic because it says, "We're democratizing Foresight. It's not a luxury and for those who think to do that is only a luxury, there's five ways to look at this but everything boils down to getting foresight in the hands of everybody inside companies." Yes, I know, we could take an easy road in this and we are on that road and that is that there's people around the world who are wanting to make social change and social initiatives and all. They need to get foresight too because one of the things that super important is, and I know that we're going to talk about this in a few minutes is having this multiple voices.

Yvette: Let's talk about that personal perspective. We talked about working with individuals within these organizations and I think we wanted to talk in this podcast about a more personal perspective around foresight as a right versus a luxury. This issue hit home for us recently in a significant way because we did just host the EMEA program Foundation's in natural foresight program. It was a program catered to that region of the world, meaning that we were up in the middle of the night to facilitate it. It was made up of individuals from across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It was an amazing cohort.

Frank: If I remotely sound subdued today and all because I'm thinking in my head it's like, "I wonder if that sound subdued on this podcast."

Yvette: It feels like you're talking from underwater.

Frank: All of my dancing and joking and smiling, it's all gone because I spent all my money.

Yvette: Well, one individual that would have wished to have been there to laugh and dance along with us is an individual who was nominated as part of our year free. An incredible, incredible professional who is already changing his community and his country with Foresight. He was unable to join us because of the conflict in the Ukraine. This gentleman is a Russian national, he is in Russia, and he reached out to us a few days ago with what little internet access he had to let us know that he was not going to be able to make it for obvious situations.

I think for me, obviously, I'm very aware of what's happening in the world, and specifically in Ukraine, but to know that one degree of separation that we had with an individual, to know personally somebody who would have benefited who would have been part of our TFS alumni family, but who could not because of this conflict, just really brought home this idea.

I even made a LinkedIn post about it, about this idea that we really have to understand that it's an obligation, more than a privilege, or even a right, that if you are in a position to be able to do and think this way and act on more equitable futures than you really need to. I know you and I both believe in and our TFS family believes that thinking about the future and having agency and creating better futures is a right. Ultimately, unless we all think about the future or have the ability to think about the future, none of us are really free to do it.

Frank: I just had a really heavy thought, which I think that we've said in other ways before, but the way that I'm thinking of working in my mind right now is really impactful. We talk about freedom and rights and the atrocities that go on in the world against people, slavery even still exists today in many forms, organized slavery, and more traditional forms of slavery all still exist in 2022 but when you think about it, this is like a bellwether. Like a signpost.

If people aren't thinking about the future, and you see a group of people who are like, "Yes, we never think about the future. It's just not even in our vocabulary. It's not in our purview to do so." You know something is wrong there. There are rights being trampled. There are lives being suppressed. It's a sign it's a bellwether. Immediately, we should look at a grouping and say, "We might not have thought there was something wrong here", but it's a symptom of a disease.

Just seek out the people who are like, "Yes, there's no futures thinking going on here," and I can show you where there is something really wrong.

Yvette: Oppression of some sort.

Frank: That's right.

Yvette: You recently wrote a post about the idea of foresight and futures thinking and freedom.

Frank: I did and I wanted to just say really quickly that that email from that individual in Russia was surreal. It's surreal.

Yvette: Well, the whole exchange if you look at his nominator application, and I was the one that actually spoke to his nominator and she was-- this is before the conflict started and she was so excited. They had been business partners for a long time, she was so excited to nominate him, and we're still hopeful that we'll get him into a program.

Frank: Well, that's what I'm going to say was surreal, because he was like, "I'll have to join at a later date when things are better." I was like," Wow", and that is a surreal statement. That's a surreal statement.

Yvette: You and I, we've been to Moscow. We have friends that live in Russia.

Frank: It has nothing to do with the people on the ground.

Yvette: No, I'm just saying that we have personal connections there and in the Ukraine, and so we were already feeling, obviously, in solidarity with what is happening there but this just brought it home in another way. Did you want to talk a little bit about what you had written in your piece?

Frank: Yes. I thought it was pertinent too because I did recently write an article, I think it's on Medium, but it probably is on our website as well about the power of foresight to bring freedom and there really is no freedom without foresight and that's what I was hinting at just a minute ago. It's like there's this fundamental idea that thinking about the future shows that there's freedom afoot, and not thinking about the future shows that there's a lack of freedom afoot.

We can even point to us being the United States, we know there are certain groups of people and minority groups who don't think about the future as much as the luxury people because they're just trying to think about how to survive today.

Yvette: Well, they don't think they have future.

Frank: That's right.

Yvette: How do you think about a future you don't believe you have?

Frank: That's exactly right. So you're just fighting everyday tooth and nail just for that day or yesterday. I love this because, really, we have to think about foresight producing freedom, because foresight creates a collective experience of empathy, and equity, and prosperity, and social movement, and those things are freedom. foresight at its very core is a technology and mental technology of freedom and I even said, I'll just read this little part that I wrote here, and it says, "Foresight and features thinking is more than just a critical skill that can help improve our decisions in business or organizational development. foresight is a fundamental mindset. It features consciousness for imagining and enacting brighter futures for all. To democratize the future means putting this empowering mindset in the hands of everyone so that all have a voice, all can engage, all can co-create." Sounds like freedom to me.

Yvette: I think it showcases why those in power, however they're defined, seek to diminish their access to foresight and futures thinking in a number of different ways. In outwardly obvious ways and in more or in less obvious ways as well. In systemic ways. There's a reason why, I don't know how many of them consciously know that they're trying to subvert foresight and futures thinking but in essence, if you want to maintain power, that's a good way to do it. Make sure that people don't have the time, the energy or the ability to think about the future. Don't feel like they have agency to create the future.

Frank: That's a fire statement right there. I was just saying to you earlier that unless we could all think about the future then none of us are really thinking about the future.

Yvette: Yes. There's no freedom.[crosstalk]

Frank: Meditate on that for a minute.

Yvette: Wherever you're sitting listening to this with your apple device or your Android device, maybe taking a walk around your neighborhood where there's not bombs going off. Where you feel safe, where there's not an environmental disaster that's polluting the water and the stream and you are drinking water. If you are hearing my voice and you are experiencing this podcast this way then you are not as free as you think you are because not everyone has that right or that privilege right now. It takes away everyone's freedom when everyone is not available or able to think about the future.

Frank: That's right. Let's hit on a couple of because what we like to do on these podcasts in this year free and our 52 weeks is to really talk about some lessons or takeaways from what we're talking about. Obviously, we started with a lighthearted, our luxury to jump on the plane and then it being taken away from us. Obviously, this has gotten a lot more heavy but I think it's so powerful. What are some of the lessons that we might take away here?

Yvette: I think you had touched on one, this idea of truly democratizing foresight means incorporating multiple ways of knowing.

Frank: Yes and I love. Today we heard from somebody in one of the programs saying an inclusion of indigenous knowledge and understanding multiple ways of seeing and knowing the future. Again, when voices are excluded and when there's only luxury voices talking about the future, then you're really missing the potential. There's unused futures that should be used. There's missed futures, hidden futures. We're only looking at this sliver of things. We know when you don't look at things holistically, you're looking at corrupted futures. The future is corrupt when people don't have access, multiple ways of knowing aren't included in our future ways of knowing.

Yvette: If you are practicing foresight either within an organization or within your community or by yourself and if you aren't including multiple ways of knowing, you're missing out and you're part of the problem in essence.

Frank: Part of the problem and I think that's the really heavy part. I'll say something important but I don't think it's quite as heavy as what you just said. Also, your organization is missing out on tremendous ways of being moral and benefiting the organization itself at the same time because you're like, "Let's just sell this thing." You don't understand the DNA that you have the power, you have to make things, the world a better place. Stop thinking that the only way forward is this raw capitalistic way of making money. There's so much potential for your organization to do amazing things. Hear from multiple voices and you'll do those things.

Yvette: We hear a lot these days about being an ally. An ally for those that are marginalized, an ally for minority groups, an ally for those that don't have a voice. If you're looking to be an ally, if you're looking as an organization, and we have a lot of folks that listen to this podcast that are in the HR profession, don't host another Hispanic heritage month. Do not paint a rainbow on your driveway or your sidewalk. If you want to be an ally, if you want to practice diversity, inclusion, and belonging, then you should be practicing foresight and you should be incorporating multiple ways of knowing.

Frank: I love that. I just read a post today on LinkedIn from one of my LinkedIn friends. I'll have to let her know that I'm saying her on here. Her name is actually Future Kane, Future. I told her once, I said, who gave you that name? She said, my mom. [laughs] I was like that's amazing. I thought you gave yourself. It's really her name. She's always posting about diversity inclusion and the Black voice. She said exactly that same thing today. She was like, "I don't want to hear that you're an ally because you listen to a podcast. I want to hear you're an ally because you got up and did something." What better things can you do is to empower people to have a voice in the future.

Yvette: That's lesson one, to truly democratize the foresight means incorporating multiple ways of knowing. Lesson two, if you have privilege in creating and thinking about the future, you better damn use it. Again, if you are listening to this podcast, you definitely have agency in creating the future. You definitely have privilege. Please do not tell me that you don't have the budget. Please do not tell me that you do not have the time. If there are currently not drones hovering over your head and targeting schools and hospitals, then you better believe you have access and ability to create better futures for all, and you better be doing it.

Frank: You posted that on LinkedIn this week. I thought it was your most powerful post ever. You've posted some good stuff before but I read that and I fell out of my chair practically. I almost really did because it's such a strong statement and it's so right on. It's like, if you have the ability to think about the future, you're not doing it, shame on you. Shame on you for other people, shame on you for your organization because you're shortchanging it. I know that we're being really super aggressive on this one but this is heavy.

Yvette: You know what, I'm done. I'm tired. I'm not tired because I've been up since 3:00. I'm tired because I'm tired of hearing all the excuses. If you work for an organization or if you are an entrepreneur or whatever your situation is, you can do something about this. You can include voices. You can take the ownership of doing this. You need to stop asking for permission because if you're asking the current power holders, if you're asking the current system holders for permission to think this way, you will never receive it.

Frank: That's right. "Oh, they said we can't do it." Oh, well then whatever befalls you let it befall you at this point because we're living in a time [crosstalk] where the wild cards aren't wild anymore. Voros added preposterous to his cone and nothing's crazy. Whatever's going to happen to you let it be following you.

Yvette: Stop it. Stop letting it be someone else's job to think about climate change. Stop letting it be someone else's job to think about these big issues. Get out there, put your oxygen mask on and help others. That's the bottom line. If you're looking for resources to do that, if you're looking for inspiration and if you're looking for training to do it, you can get it through us.

Through Our Year of Free. There's absolutely no excuses left. Every week we're releasing new tools, new templates, go to our resource center and download for free. We're still running Our Year of Free celebration where you can nominate someone to receive the gift, a Foresight. We just released this week a template. If you are seeking someone to nominate you, great. Here's a template. There's a template for you to go ask someone to nominate you.

That's great. Let's do it. Let's get to it. Inspiration-wise, we still have our GFAC lines every quarter. We go live with the podcast every month. Actually, I think if you're listening to this, you might still have a chance to catch us on our next live stream which is, Make The Metaverse Great Again. Even if you miss that one, there's one every month. Sorry if we got a little bit--

Frank: We were on our soapbox.

Yvette: A little bit, but you know what, sometimes you need a kick in the pants from your friends.

Frank: Especially the times that we're in. What you're hearing from us is not anger. What you're hearing from us is a very pointed view about the power, the power of foresight. If you haven't tapped into it yet then it's time. It's past time.

Yvette: When you talk about freedom, you want to be free? Practice foresight. You want to be free. You want to be free of the guilt? You want to be free of the shackles of the past, of the racism, of the things that our ancestors have done. You want to be free of that? You can be. Practice foresight.

Frank: Absolutely. Just a quick shout out because I heard our timer go off that says like, "Hey, you guys shouldn't be recording too long of a podcast. Just really quickly, I would say that the EMEA Cohort, not an individual person but the entire cohort.

Yvette: Is our shout-out.

Frank: Is our shout-out this week, because every one of them were absolutely amazing. We had people from the UN and people practicing design and social change agents and people inside of organizations that are innovating. They were amazing and they did amazing scenarios and even the ones, not even the ones, but the people in there who were from corporate organizations every single one of them was like, "How can I be a change agent for good?

Yvette: I'm going to change the world.

Frank: Change the world yes.

Yvette: I cannot wait to see what those professionals do armed with the training and the support of the future schools.

Frank: They were amazing.

Yvette: Please if you're interested in joining us in any of our learning events or taking part in any of our events, please let us know. We'd love to hear from you. We'd see you there. Thank you, Mr. Spencer, for another week of incredible discussion and illumination and being fired up.

Frank: Oh yes, it was a good one. I hope some people tag this on social media and say like, "Oh my gosh, there's some good stuff in," because I think there was. We can't wait to be back with you next week. Yvette, thank you as always. We love you guys who are listening in. We will see you soon.

Yvette: Bye, bye, everybody. Stay safe.