The Emergent Future

Kate Ebner interviews strategist, teacher and executive coach Neil Richardson who specializes in smart government advocacy and integral thinking. They discuss how leaders can read weak signals and proactively create the future as opposed to waiting for it. Their conversation covers the importance of dialog and trust in creating the new, why it's important for leaders to feel uncomfortable in times of uncertainty, and how we can emerge from our present crises as a more creative society.

Neil is the co-author of the recently released, Preparing For A World That Doesn’t Exist-Yet. He is an instructor and speaker in Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership and George Washington University’s Center for Excellence in Public Leadership and he is Deputy Director at DC Appleseed, focusing on Workforce Development, Special Education, 0-3 Pre-K funding, Long-Term Care issues and managing operations.

Show links:

• Website: Emergent Action
• Book: Preparing for a World that Doesn't Exist Yet

Transcript

Narrator: 0:06

The Nebo Company presents Leading the Emergence with your host, Kate Ebner.

Kate Ebner: 0:22

Welcome. I'm Kate Ebner, your host, and I'm delighted to welcome my colleague and friend Neil Richardson. Neil is a strategist and futurist who specializes in policy advocacy and integral thinking. He's led strategic planning, policy development, and civic engagement initiatives in Washington, DC for three different mayors. Neil's also worked across the United States on projects that researched and sparked community rejuvenation efforts, including Flint, Michigan, and Youngstown, Ohio in Ghana, Neil, co-led an effort to provide parallel vote tabulation to ensure that all ballots were being counted in the country's first democratic election. Neil's consulting business is appropriately called emergent action, and you can visit him there at emergent action. That com he is the co-author of preparing for a world that doesn't exist yet. This book was released in 2016 and it has bit as an intriguing book to read. I highly recommended. Um, and today I've invited Neil to leading the emergence, to have a conversation with me, to help all of us better understand how to see a future and a world that doesn't exist yet. So Neil, you were the first person I thought of when I had the idea for this podcast, I find your work just fascinating. And I would love to ask you I'm at a time when we're all having such a difficult time seeing the future, um, how should leaders navigate? So it's hard when you're a leader, you're expected to take people somewhere, but right now it's very hard to see what that somewhere looks like. Um, I'd love for you to take a moment to just talk about emergence as you work with it and lay some groundwork force.

Neil Richardson: 2:09

Well, thank you, Kate. I'm really pleased to have been invited onto the podcast and to reconnect with you and your team. I know the important work that Nebo is doing, um, um, across the United States. Um, so the way, you know, the way I think about this, um, and think of when I think about future trends and what I call, you know, more specifically weak signals. I really think that unless a future's context is developed by leaders that any strategy for any issue that we can think of that's based on, um, traditional tools of experience are not going to work. Um, you know, as far as I can tell, you know, when I look at how communities and organizations can, can thrive in such an unpredictable time, um, I think that we've gotta be really comfortable working, uh, in uncertainty. And that is, you know, that's uncomfortable for, you know, a lot of leaders and, and, and people obviously, um, it makes us all anxious. Um, I think one of the things that the pandemic has actually brought to leaders and, and, and, and ordinary folks like us, um, is, uh, this anxiety of living in a more unpredictable world, a more unknown world than we could have imagined before last, you know, until last month March. So, um, I think it's going to be important to have as many people as possible become interested in thinking about the impact of future trends and weak signals and that that's the work that we have to do together.

Kate Ebner: 3:47

Yeah, that's absolutely right. And, you know, it's interesting because what I see is a lot of our organizations we work with are returning to look at what was a pretty strong looking strategic plan. And they're realizing, okay, you know, the vision that we once had is still relevant. We still want to go there, but how are we going to get there in light of how the world is shifting has got to be different? And so, you know, as I've worked with our clients, I've noticed that actually, um, if we can actually see more than we think, and I say, see in quotes, right. I don't know if we can see it per se, but I think there's more information available to us than we really realize. And so I would like to talk to you for a little bit here about this concept of weak signals from the future. And this is something you've written about, worked with extensively. And, uh, my question for you is what is a weak signal from the future?

Neil Richardson: 4:44

Uh, well, that's a great starting question. Um, it's, it's, it's a term that I didn't, uh, or, you know, when my colleagues at the, in the communities or future network invented ourselves, there's actually a concept that came the guests, the weak signal. The first for people that started to begin talking about weak signals were folks in Silicon Valley in the 1990 nineties. Um, and it kind of was a term that was used to designate kind of emerging technologies and, and bodies of knowledge and skills, um, that had not previously existed, but they had a sense of, and so hence the term weak signal, but I've, I've, I've been attracted to the term since I heard it. I think it was probably, um, it was right before the turn to the tooth, to the two thousands to the 21st century that I really became captivated by this term, because again, we can't predict the future, but we can certainly anticipate it. Um, and the weak signals, uh, you know, it was a perfect, uh, reference to that. Um, you know, there's the way I see it. Uh, there's four different stages to acceptance of weak signals and I've, I've been wrong on a whole lot of things that I thought that I saw were emerging and I've certainly go into detail on all those things, you know, but there's a, I think there's an initial resistance to change and there there's like that period where, okay, uh, maybe this pandemic is going to be around for a while. Um, and then there's an aha moment with pandemics here not going anywhere. And then of course it is, you know, uh, you know, uh, life is, is going to be different. And so, uh, those four stages of engaging change and unpredictability, I think we all go through or most of us go through,

Kate Ebner: 6:38

You know, I, I think you're really right about that. And, you know, I remember that experience myself, where we got the word, you know, that we needed to work from home and, and begin to, um, self isolate and it'd be socially distant. And what's really interesting to me is the slow dawning realization that this isn't going to be the three weeks that this is going to be months. This actually could be the whole year. This might even be the better part of two years. It could even be longer if we can't of course get it under control. And so it's, it's been, um, it's been interesting to watch us grapple with, I think understanding what's actually happening. And one of the ways that I think about this is to notice language, like it's really hard to talk about the future. If we don't have the words that go with the reality we're experiencing or the future we're anticipating. And so there's been, I think, a whole plethora of language that's developed, um, we started with, this is a time of uncertainty, right? That was the first phrase that everybody was using. Um, but I want to back up for a moment. And I'm curious, like in, uh, in this pandemic environment where we're in these unprecedented times to use more of this language, um, I'm curious, you know, as someone who does this work, what are the signals that you started to track and where did you look to figure out sort of like the data points or the indicators that would give you some insights about the future?

Neil Richardson: 8:15

W the first thing I'll say is we can't do this alone. Um, I, uh, have advocated, I'm going to be doing this for years. I've advocated that we all need to be looking at all kinds of information across the spectrum. You know, not only, um, you know, from conservative to liberal and progressive. Um, but we have to be looking at a variety of types of information from technology to spirituality and religion, um, to, to cultural research, the more variety of things we can expose ourselves to the more we're going to be able to pick up some of these weak signals by, uh, noticing common languages or near common words, you know, uh, that, that are beginning to emerge, but that's, that's my responsibility. And I buy myself, uh, what I need to do, but the important thing, and the thing that actually creates a sense of understanding about weak signals in the future, it's actually being part of a community of thinkers who are also, uh, spreading themselves, uh, far and wide, trying to absorb information from every context, you know, sort of the more context, the better, um, the way I think about it. And, uh, and then through these dialogues, which, uh, you know, we've talked a little bit about in the past, these futures, generative dialogues, um, I think that when you add in thoughtful people who, uh, have really explored all the, uh, contexts possible, you know, I think that we can come to the, to the, the best place to find some truth. Um, you know, and so of what the emerging reality is.

Kate Ebner: 9:59

Yeah, it's a great point, actually. And I love your reference to the futures, generative dialogue and the idea of a community of conversation, really, to explore the signals into sort of collaboratively work on interpreting them. It's interesting. I did a project last year where I worked with a board of an, of a conservation organization. And, you know, we actually took the concept of weak signals and identity. Our first step was to identify the kinds of sources of signals that we could be looking at, and then how to triangulate what those signals were saying to develop a hypothesis, if you will, about the emergent future. And it was really interesting because like you said, some of what was really helpful was, uh, from the business world, you know, sort of economic forecasts and sort of looking at employment data or jobs, data, some of it was, um, sort of looking at the political climate, not just nationally, but globally, and thinking about the implications of that. Some of it was, um, industry specific. So really looking at what, um, what, uh, conservation, what museums and, um, those types of organizations were doing in light of the pandemic. And then some of it was societal really understanding, for example, the implications of the, uh, the movement for social justice and how that might shape the future. And so all of this, in addition to the pandemic itself, we also looked at data related to the pandemic, but it was really interesting to put these, I don't know, informational, um, downloads together and ask ourselves, what does this tell us you, what does this mean? And I'm curious, you know, as, as we, as we continue on, um, people are starting to talk about a post pandemic world, and I'm curious, what are your predictions of a post pandemic world? And I know you're, you're not, um, you've already indicated that you can't, you don't believe in seeing the future, but just as you take in what's happening, do you see any things that you think are likely to, um, signal the emergence of change somewhere?

Neil Richardson: 12:22

Yeah, I think it's, you know, I think a lot of things are happening all around us. Um, you know, they, I think it's some folks say certainly my personal trainers always said that 30 days can build a habit, you know, we're in the new year. And we're a lot of us are thinking about building a new habit, but this pandemic unfortunately, is probably going to be going on for 30 months. And so as a society, uh, managers, as people living and trying to thrive as best we can in an unpredictable society, um, these weak signals, um, in these emerging trends that are beginning to emerge and have already emerged are going to be really important. But I think that, um, I think in the foreseeable future, I think that, um, we're going to have a lot of anxiety about going back to really crowded places, whether they're their stadiums or concerts over filled classrooms for, for our kids and for our college students. Um, I think that virtual education and virtual training and virtual learning and living in a virtual world, um, is going to stay, you know, and I think you don't have to be a genius to kind of sense that, but one of the, there's been a couple of positive things. And I think, uh, from what I'm understanding from folks across the spectrum from doctors to patients, um, tele-health appears to be working a lot better than anybody thought, and there's been this movement, and this is, uh, an emerging trend that we've been tracking for about 20 or 30 years, where, um, for a long time we were going through big hospital systems and that way we're, and we're focused on, on treating a disease, uh, as an afterthought. Now we're much more focused on preventive medicine and also, and tele-health provides almost that old fashioned way where a doctor can come into your house and help you understand why you're not feeling great. Um, so there's a, there's a positive there. Um, also I think that, uh, you know, particularly around equity issues, particularly, you know, perhaps, you know, racial equity and economic equity, I think that, uh, the pandemic has hypersonic really moved education and learning online, and it's not working perfectly, anybody who's been on teams and anybody that's been doing online education with, uh, with their, with their children that it's far from perfect. And the technology's not where it needs to be at. But I think that in the next few years, there's a lot of incentive for technology companies to really, um, take advantage of that. It's also going to bring down the cost of education, you know, like students, not on campus, you know, uh, you know, at a university, there's going to be an opportunity to bring costs down for parents and, and, and, uh, you know, adult students. So it's not all bad news that's for sure. But, you know,

Kate Ebner: 15:23

What do you see as the future of work? I mean, I think that's another area where we many, many people, not everybody was able to, but many people, uh, began working remotely and, um, some organizations will return to the workplace. Others will do a hybrid, others, not at all. Um, and I think the very definition of work, you know, what does it look like? How do we do it? Um, I think is, uh, in the process of being defined and developed, um, and I've been exploring the other question, what is a company, right? Is it a concept how, in a virtual environment, do people who belong to a company, feel connected, feel morale that feel a part of the mission and purpose of the organization, and how do leaders create that? Um, I don't know that, that emotional commitment and that, uh, sense of, uh, momentum in their organizations when it's all done virtually, I believe it can be done actually, but I think it's requiring some really creative thinking. What do you think?

Neil Richardson: 16:32

Well, it's really hard, you know, I mean, going back to the, kind of the first inference in the question is the pandemic has the CRA and there's, you know, I believe it, you know, there's some synchronicity here, you know, we've got this social justice movement and we've got this pandemic happening at the same time. And one of the things that the pandemic has revealed to us is the two vastly different kinds of societies we live in, in the United States and other developed countries, we've got Mo most of many folks are thriving or, you know, not have, if not really been economically impacted, particularly among, uh, college educated white folks. Um, quite frankly, um, but we're seeing a really stark divide between the essential workers who were literally dependent on, upon taking care of disabled and taking care of, um, all of our vulnerable residents, um, you know, and they worked glamorous jobs before, but they, I think many of us have realized, you know, what that grocery store worker, um, is about as essential as any other job there is, you know, the per the folks picking up the trash and they've put themselves and their families at risk every day that they do that work. And so, um, the pandemic along with the social justice movements have kind of converged into this. Um, again, I'll use the word synchronicity. I mean, there's a lot of different meetings around that, but synchronicity where, um, we're realizing we've caught two, at least two different distinct societies, and we're gonna have to, we're going to have to engage that, but there is going to be long-term impacts on work. And that's why I mentioned the two different societies. I mean, the hospitality, the travel, the entertainment industries are largely, um, uh, successful because we've got folks who were, you know, taking the tickets at the door, um, um, cleaning the museums, cleaning the stadiums and those jobs, um, are not going to be coming back for a long time. Um, cause again, I don't think people are gonna want to go to a soccer stadium and sit in there with 50,000 people, um, that they don't know for a long time. And I think we're going to continue to have that same thing, like the museum that sounds like you've been doing some, some work with cultural institutions. Um, I think we're going to be, uh, limiting the number of repeat number of people. And so that's going to have an impact on jobs for the society of folks that are not already in living in the, in the tech dose society of the 21st society, whatever, however we wanna phrase, uh, the world. So we have, when we ask about the future of jobs and work, um, there's two different, uh, there's two different conversations to be had.

Kate Ebner: 19:21

Yep. Great point. And it's interesting, isn't it? How, you know, you, when you, when we get into the conversation, you can kind of pull one strand. So we pulled the strand of work, or you pulled the strand of education or health care, and you can see, um, shifts and changes. Right. And I think that the key, it seems to me with reading weak signals is to pull more than one piece, um, to pull several strands, um, and look at the interrelated ness of those, um, pieces, but also look at some of the distinctive features that they may have as we think about the implications of current events on the future there. And I'm curious, you know, the, the idea, you mentioned the idea of the futures, generative dialogue. If, uh, one of our listeners was thinking, I really want to be in a conversation with people and see if we can, um, get kind of good at reading weak signals and do a fairly, uh, effective job of, of tracking this emergence. Um, what advice would you give him,

Neil Richardson: 20:26

Um, to, uh, meet new people, uh, meet new and become engaged in new networks and particularly people and networks and communities that make you a little bit uncomfortable. Um, I think, you know, as we're, we're all experiencing the divide in this country, that's, you know, that's obvious, um, and a lot of, and there's been a lot over the last four years ever since Donald Trump was elected. I think there have been good people from both sides that have reached out searching from common ground, but unfortunately there's been a chip that has been a problem with that. They've been searching for common ground because they wanted to bring that person from the other side over to their way of thinking. And, uh, I think if we enter, if we try to engage that kind of dialogue, what we're, we're gonna remain stuck, which is fundamentally what's happened in this country. I think we have to get folks and, you know, the, the countries fairly split down the middle and there's, there's good folks on both sides. Um, I think we're really going to authentically need to bring people together. And this is when you were talking about, um, how to create organizations, um, you know, businesses that, that can have a sense of community about, um, I think we have to bring folks together, um, in ways. And, uh, there, they may involve zoom calls and regular phone calls and, you know, and hopefully, you know, eight or 12 months, uh, we could have some in-person gatherings, um, but we're going to have to come together and create new ways to move forward. And it's not a compromise it's, it's, it's much more complex than that. If we compromise and you give up something and I give some give up something, then what happens? We walk away, uh, move forward, but we're still kind of upset because we didn't get what we thought we wanted. We need to have authentic dialogue, um, with a variety of people with, with all the variety of information and data and facts and truth, um, where we create something new together that we can't just, um, abide by, uh, you know, because we want to get along with our neighbor, we have to create something that we can't see right now. And you can only do that through, um, uh, through these future generative dialogue where you bring in the right information and a facilitator or folks at least that are conversant on what it means to have that kind of dialogue.

Kate Ebner: 22:49

I think if I were, you know, just sort of falling on your, your, your, um, advice, I probably would think about sort of how to do, as you said, invite or, or reach out to people. I don't have as much exposure to or contact with to create that initial conversation. And, you know, these days, of course, everything's virtual. So maybe it's a zoom futures, generative dialogue, or maybe it's teams or something else, but it's going to be a conversation. And maybe people begin by, um, identifying sort of what are the, what are the sources of their insight? You know, what do they know, what do they know about? Um, because if we have a really interesting and, uh, diverse set of perspectives, we're going to collectively have a lot more available to us than if we've all sort of been, uh, coming from the same angles on everything. So I, I wanna, I love this idea and I'm curious futures, generative dialogue. Um, can you very quickly just explain what, what those words mean and where that came from?

Neil Richardson: 23:56

Uh, yeah. Futures generative dialogue is, uh, as, uh, as a conversation, you know, uh, that folks come together around a table, whether it's on a wooden table or a virtual table, and they, uh, have scanned the horizon of weak signals, um, and, and emerging trends. And, um, they begin to throw out ideas and they brainstorm, um, about how to provide solutions to really complex issues. Um, you know, if we get overly focused on best practices or the way that things have been done, um, well, we, we can see that in most certainly complex issues there, hasn't been a lot of progress, um, on really kind of what we call wicked issues. But if folks can come together and are truly, uh, truly believe in this notion of creating something new together and, you know, they've, they've come to the table, scanning the horizon for these weak signals. Um, I think we, through dialogue, we can, uh, we can create these things, but the thing is, they're not, they're not as efficient as some folks would like, you're not going to like, okay, we're going to have a futures generative dialogue for the next hour or maybe the next half day. Um, and we're going to fix, uh, you know, gun violence in America, you know, where your community, um, you're going to have to allow time because every single person's coming from different starting points. And again, there are those four different, uh, movements we go, as we begin to accept a new reality from like complete resistance to that. Aha. I got it. Um, it takes some time. And, um, I think when we try to speed up change, um, you know, we, we have a, we have a lot of challenges, but in future's generative dialogue, uh, you know, until you've, if you've got a really experienced facilitator or if you have a group of folks that are in using these concepts for awhile, um, you get sort of a little bit faster and faster, um, uh, coming up with new ways of seeing the world. And, uh, that's what I would say.

Kate Ebner: 26:05

I really appreciate that perspective. And especially that you've just reminded us that we aren't going to solve the world's problems in one dialogue conversation, and that it actually takes time to get to know each other and build that trust and connection that we can really, um, think creatively and differently together. And, um, I want to highlight for those who are listening, that Neil's really planned out, the purpose is not to figure out what's already been done and best practices, but actually to create something, create new ideas, new thinking, um, new insight about the future, about, um, about what could created and generated. And, you know, this is to me, um, as somebody who's really studying this emerging future, it, it's, it's exciting to think that although we can't control very much, we certainly could get very curious and really start to explore and do it with people who can eliminate for us, um, perspectives that we wouldn't normally have. So I absolutely love, um, the guidance you've given us today, Neil, and, and we're at the end of our time together, but I want to really thank you and just give you the last word. Is there, um, you know, one piece of advice you'd like to offer us about how to keep our bearings as we are navigating this emergence in 2021 and beyond.

Neil Richardson: 27:28

Um, I would say that, uh, every organization, every institution of any kind and, and including our families, um, I think that I, I think that we have to be embracing and allowing the future to emerge through us by seeing, um, you know, more clearly. And, um, I would say that we need to really focus on accepting and being comfortable in unpredictable time, because I think the next 10, 20 years, we're going to continue to see that. So we can't resist it. We need to accept, uh, the emerging future. And again, with, uh, with a community of folks that are looking across the spectrum of ideas and concepts, um, I think that the future will be a little bit less scary than it is. I think there's a lot of folks that are reacting to the world out of, um, out of fear and as long as there's a lot of fear in our society in the way that, uh, we are, as we act as parents and, and colleagues, uh, we're really not going to read or to create a creative society.

Kate Ebner: 28:44

Yeah, really wonderful point. My guest today is Neil Richardson. He is the author of a very interesting, coauthor, a very interesting book called preparing for a world that doesn't exist yet. Um, Neil, thank you for joining me today. Really appreciate it. And I wish you all the best heading into 2021.

Neil Richardson: 29:06

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Kate Ebner: 29:09

Take care. And thank you everyone for being with us today, stay tuned for our next episode of leading the emergence. We are going to be exploring sense-making with Debbie Ancona of MIT. And I can't wait to have that conversation. Look forward to talking to you all again,

Narrator: 29:34

Leading the Emergence is sponsored by The Nebo Company. If you would like to talk to me about how support the leaders in your organization, please contact us at www.nebocompany.com. Thank you.