"The central truth of conservatives is that culture, not politics, is what determines the success of a society. The central truth of liberals is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. " (Daniel Patrick Moyniham)
I. Our attitude towards the future
The attitude we have towards the future very strongly determines the results we achieve.
What does "attitude towards the future" mean?
It is the way we understand, perceive, imagine and desire the future. It is the position that we assume regarding him.
We will synthesize these three attitudes in the three most frequent ways of acting:
1. Preparation of Successful Forecasts.
2. Armed with possible scenarios.
3. Creation of the desired future.
I.1. Making accurate forecasts
It is based on predicting what is going to happen. It is the typical attitude based on the experience of the past to project the future.
It involves a step-by-step action, a work that is not necessarily creative, but rather logical, structured and - above all - objective (in fact, supposedly objective), to develop forecasts based on the extrapolation of information from the past, assuming that the future will be a repetition of the present, but with "touch-ups" caused by different contextual circumstances that can be foreseen ("pre-see": see before). This leads us to the logic that our forecast is correct, which supposes that the future will necessarily "be in a certain way", and those who can "guess" (or "poke") more adequately how this will be will obtain better results.; guess what is "going to happen."
If anything has been learned in recent years, it is that the past is a very poor predictor of what will happen in the future, and furthermore, our role here would be reactive in the face of circumstances that all we do is wait for them to happen.
I.2. Armed with possible scenarios
The setting of scenarios involves thinking about complex realities (made up of multiple variables and their relationships) that - alternatively - can happen.
There are a large number of techniques related to the assembly of future scenarios, some of them highly elaborated and, with the help of highly sophisticated computers in extrapolating trends, combining causes and effects, applying nuances of impact, etc.
Just as making accurate forecasts is useful to see what needs to be done, what future actions can be taken, putting together possible scenarios is very useful to exercise the attitude of what would happen if…?
The scenario-building exercise alone has incredibly satisfying benefits because with reflection on what might happen in the future, scenario-building work involves outlining alternative action plans for each stage level.
Imagining possible scenarios and attributing probability of occurrence to each one allows a highly beneficial conversation environment to develop.
Three possible future scenarios are outlined (one “optimistic”, one “normal” and another “pessimistic”) according to the different probabilities of occurrence of each of the alternatives that are evaluated as possible.
Possible action plans are generated, it is known that nothing will be totally objective, that the future does not necessarily have a single way of unfolding and that the scenarios prepare us for different possibilities of unfolding the future.
The terms adopted serve as a synthesis of their meaning: i. arm: attitude much more focused on "design" than making. It not only implies a step-by-step action, but it also involves different types of thinking that allow us to outline what “can happen”, ii. scenarios: suggests a future made up of more than one variable, all interrelated, with which the analysis of only one of them is not enough to understand what may happen, iii. Possible: he works with more than one scenario, since within his conception of the futurethere is more than one possibility. Sometimes, the “probabilities of occurrence” of the different possible scenarios are used. In summary, we do not know what our future will be, we prepare scenarios to improve the way we can react.
1.3. Creating the desired future
The third attitude towards the future is qualitatively different from the previous two. Also called “Visualization”, “anticipation” or “prospective”, when we refer to the Creation of a Desired Future, we are meaning an attitude that does not start from the present to predict, forecast or build a future scenario, but part of the configuration of a desirable future to, from there, reflect on the present, "re-signify" what happens in it and, finally, guide our development towards the future that we had imagined as desirable.
"The prophecy of self-fulfillment"
This attitude involves systematic work on a desired future scenario. The important thing is that the attention - in the first place - is not focused on "trying to design what is going to happen", but trying to be as clear as possible what it is that we want to happen.
This intention is based on images. It is our imagination that stays in time that is not yet. It is an imaginative construction that attracts us, that motivates us, that invites us to be reached. Construction that is born from our emotions, aspirations, sensations, intuitions.
Once this Desired Future is outlined, it is about making it explicit, making it credible, imagining the behavior of the different variables that intervene in said scenario.
Unlike previous attitudes, when we talk about creating a Desired Future, we are not referring to guessing something that will be true or false. What interests us is that the Desired Future is a vision that is functional and motivating enough to attract us and guide our way of thinking and acting from that vision.
In the Creation of a Desired Future, the most important components of the Creative Process are put into play in an integral way, since we need imagination to imagine this future, discovery to shed light on the different relationships and interactions on which the scenario of desired future, creativity to produce alternatives and ideas on how to achieve that future and innovation to make these ideas and alternatives become concrete transformative actions in our lives.
It is not easy to develop that type of attitude in society, especially in those that like ours are basically focused on a past that they perceive much better. It is difficult not to end in the traditional "let's see what will happen and try to adapt."
It is also difficult to understand the idea of "Desired Future". "In the sense of wishing," many think, "I can rave imagining unrealizable utopias and just wanting them does not mean that they will be fulfilled."
This is how those who have not understood the difference between a “present that pushes us” and a “project that seduces us” think.
The conversations in our society should stop turning only in what differentiates us or in our limitations to better understand reality so as not to be left out and thus move on to a systematic work of "imagining a future to be built, to establish our limits".
If this systematic work is done in a creative, intelligent and participatory way, surely the Desired Futures to be reached will not be “unrealizable utopias”. Yes, they will be challenging projects whose results today are not perfectly clear, but they are beginning to be imagined, delineated, discovered (“uncovered”), glimpsed (“between-seeing”: note the difference with “pre- see ”) in a set of real and imagined variables.
For this reason, the attitude of Create the desired Future is clearly strategic, since it does not require the precision and accuracy of a forecast necessary for daily operational work, nor the speculation of the tactical decisions that need to assume probabilities of occurrence based on a context in which they try to handle themselves.
The Creation of a Desired Future is developed in a time axis in which the first thing is to sketch an image to be achieved, and from there work on the present, generating alternatives and then putting them into practice.
Intention is an imaginative adherence to an end, followed by a conscious tension to realize it. The word "intention" is similar to "purpose" or "design", all speak of the determination of a will in order of an end.
Creating: much more than making or assembling, involves imagining, building, discovering and “making people believe. It is the broad sense of the process that goes from imagining a future to doing what is possible to make it happen.
Future: we are not only referring to a scenario, but to an anticipatory dimension where we “choose” a desired configuration.
Desired: qualitatively different from the notion of probability, we make the desired Future become possible and real, but its main characteristic - for us - is that our intention is there.
Entrepreneur intent
Firstly, we are interested in reaching 500 young people in 2009, each with their Plan for a Desired Future with a horizon of 10 years.
This figure shows how a society closely follows what is happening regarding the so-called “entrepreneur phenomenon”, that is, the launch of businesses, producing different dynamic and commercial social segments.
Five hundred initiatives are five hundred ideas that are launched, five hundred needs (current and potential) for service providers, five hundred offices (or plants or "warehouses" or virtual offices), five hundred new brands, five hundred possibilities for market research, five hundred service networks that will begin to be deployed (with customers, suppliers, employees), five hundred business plans, five hundred bank accounts.
This dynamic of business, entrepreneurs and organizations that form, link, relate and negotiate is what is lived in an environment where the Creative Intention drives the Entrepreneur Passion.
Entrepreneurs and companies looking for coincidences, imagine projects, train. In short, entrepreneurs and companies that "co-evolve" creatively.
Complementing "the world of companies" with that of "business" or "entrepreneurship" is always refreshing, since this brings us much closer to the human beings who run these companies, who create them, who manage them, that make them successful.
We enter the world of Creative Intention focused on business. Not just "Creative Intent". Also "Business Focused".
The dimension of "business" makes us immerse in a dimension of Creativity different from that of individual or organizational creative development. Creativity to approach business, to start businesses.
A series of different risks appear, different rules of the game: the rules of the market, of "hyper-competitiveness", of numbers, weights, associations, franchises, licenses, profit, capital, costs, the benefits.
There is also a need for different complementary skills and abilities: we begin to think of Creativity Applied to concrete Results, innovation in all its dimensions. Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Anticipation, Negotiation, Competitiveness, Strategic Thinking.
Managing a company, managing an area or starting a new business are challenges of different characteristics as they arise in an environment made up of defined units and with clear limits, or in a complex and dynamic environment where these limits and definitions are difficult to grasp..
All this is a challenge that our society is demanding if we want a bright future and not continue to expel and exclude compatriots.
* For the realization of this note, concepts have been extracted from Ric-procrea, a creativity network on the Internet.
