Futurist Tracey Follows explains the Futures Triangle, a model that maps three forces shaping what comes next: the weight of the past, the push of the present, and the pull of desired futures. Groups use it to surface disagreements, decide what history to carry forward, and build a shared vision in the center.
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But I think just add to that point you're making and to give you a model that I think is quite interesting, it's the Futures Triangle. Because when you work with groups of people and you're looking at a Futures Triangle, I mean, I take the point about the death of an old identity and the birthing of a new one. I do agree with that. Although it's quite a complicated matter, that is. With the Futures Triangle, you can try and look at insight, hindsight, and foresight. You can try and look at all of those. So in each corner of the triangle, You've got like the push of the present, the pull of the future, and the weight of the past. And I think it's really great if you can get groups of people to really work around that. You're trying to get them to understand that future is contested. We've all got different points of view, come together, but can you create or agree at least on a plausible possible future in the middle of that triangle? But what it does do is give, it acknowledges the importance of the past, the weight, but it calls it the weight of the past. This is Sir Hayo's kind of model and well, one of his amazing models for Future's Work. And the question is, how much of the past do you want to drag into the future? How much do you want to bring with you? You might want to bring something, but not all of it. Not everything that got you to where you are today isn't going to serve you going forward. And of course, you've got to have a vision of the future. Otherwise, if you don't have a vision of the future, you've no idea where you're going. So you can't really make any decisions about anything. And then you've got the push of the present, which is like all the trends and the kind of stuff that's propelling you, nudging you in certain directions. I do think that is an interesting tool. I don't mean in a sort of, you know, workshop environment. I just think as a mental model, that's a good tool.
