In this instructional video, futures‑thinking coach Charlotte Kemp presents a simple pyramid model for building a futures‑thinking competency. The base of the pyramid is mindset, which involves how we view agency, the future, and the impact of present actions. The middle layer is the toolset, a collection of models and methods from business, psychology, entrepreneurship, and futures studies that enable us to design possible futures. The top layer is the skillset, the practical ability to learn from mistakes, gather intelligence, and collaborate to craft a preferred future. Kemp argues that developing these three layers restores personal agency, uncovers hidden opportunities, and helps mitigate risks, ultimately allowing individuals and organizations to shape the future they desire rather than merely reacting to it. She invites viewers to join her on this “expedition to the future.”
Chapters
Hi, I'm Charlotte Kemp. I am a futures thinking coach, a keynoter, and a workshop facilitator, and my job is to help people to think about themselves as futurists. The more we do that, the more agency and ownership we have over the future, and the more likely we are to create the future that we'd prefer to end up in. So let's explore one of the easiest, most foundational approaches to how we're going to think about ourselves as futurists. Here's a simple business model that we can use to start our explanation, a good old-fashioned pyramid. And we know that with a pyramid that we need to build a really good foundation. The better our foundation is, the better the chances that we can actually reach the goal that we're aiming for. So what would the foundation be for developing a futures thinking competency? Well, it's going to be our mindset. It's going to be how we think about the future, the past, about, about how much agency we have over the future. Our mindset isn't just being closed mindset or having an open, agile mindset. There's a lot more to that, and whether we believe that the actions we take today can have an influence in the future or not. So once we've explored mindset and really established what it is that we need to think about in order to create a future that we're looking for, then our next stage that we're going to have to look at is going to be our toolset. We need something to craft, to build, to be the architects of the future, and that is a set of tools. Now, there's many great models and tools in the business world, in psychology, as for entrepreneurs, and we can use all of those tools, but there are additional ones in the futures thinking world, and we're going to tap into those as well in a later video. So now we've got the foundation, we've got a good set of tools, we are now equipped to do something. What is it that we're going to create and craft? Well, that's only going to happen when we have started to develop the skill set required to actually build the future that we're looking for. And that skill set means that we are learning from our mistakes, we are gathering intelligence, we are collaborating with others to begin to craft a more preferred future, the future that we're actually looking for. Now, if you've ever started a hobby and you've gone out and bought all of the tools that you need and you've watched some of the videos on YouTube, you know that it's going to take more than that to actually create something that is useful or something that is enjoyable. Whether it's cooking, crocheting, woodworking, we need to develop that skill. And the same thing happens with futures. When we look at the future and we feel like there's nothing we can do because things are happening that are outside of our control, we need to first get the control back. By looking at our mindset. We need to establish what is possible by looking at the tools that are out there, and then we need to start crafting something. And that skill means that eventually we end up in a future we prefer as opposed to the future that we're trying to avoid. This means that we can find opportunities that we have ignored in the past or never even been able to identify. It means that we can see potential problems and find ways to mitigate those problems, either to avoid something entirely or to prepare for it in a way that it doesn't devastate our business or our lives. So all of this means that we're going on an expedition to the future, and I invite you to join me.
