It has been about a month since I released my four scenarios looking at the impact of COVID on the future of work out to 2025 (if you haven’t already read them, you can access them here).
If you have read the scenarios, I’m keen to know what you’ve noticed since reading them? Are you more aware of the scenarios as you go about your day-to-day work? Are you seeing evidence to either support or contradict scenarios in the news or conversations with colleagues, family and friends?
Are you now witnessing the future unfolding before your very eyes?
For example
- Does the Evergrande crisis in China point towards a possible global recession? (As per the scenarios The Great Regroup and Flexibility First)
- Do the anti-vax protests in Melbourne indicate a growing vax divide? (As per Us vs Them)
- Do the 15 million people who’ve quit their jobs in the US alone since April signify a permanent shift in employee expectations? (As per In this together)
If you have had an increased awareness of what’s going on around you, then what you’re experiencing is ‘foresight’. As explained in the scenarios e-book, foresight is similar to the concept of hindsight except it plays out in the future.
Just as hindsight is our ability to make sense of past events by seeing how they unfolded after the fact, foresight is an ability to make sense of the future by seeing how events might unfold towards a particular outcome.
And as powerful as foresight is, collective foresight is even better. The variety of perspectives and different information sources people have access to means that exploring the scenarios with your colleagues will provide a richer and more complete view of the future as it unfolds.
So, if you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to share the scenarios within your workplace. Use the strategic questions at the end of each scenario to engage others in a conversation and then set-up a shared space (Slack, Teams, intranet, Signal, WhatsApp) to put articles and ideas as you find them.