Part of my personal burnout recovery and wellness journey has been redefining success for myself. In place of external validation — all of the striving to impress others, being as busy as possible, taking on as much as possible, seeking the limits of my “potential” to the detriment of all else — what is there? Having your mental model of how the world works challenged can throw everything into question. Adding all of this questioning into the context of COVID in a society built on deeply imperfect systems and it can be hard to tell which way is up, let alone where all of this is headed. What should I be working towards? What does that future even look like?

Without a clear vision, it is nearly impossible to lead towards a desired future state. It’s what makes corporate vision statements, personal goal setting, and plans in general such common practices. It’s why we have leaders and how we get people motivated and aligned around a strategic direction. But if we don’t have a context for what the future state will look like, personal or organizational-level vision and goal setting can be futile at best and detrimental at worst.

For this reason, I’d like to challenge you to think broadly for a few minutes. Rather than readying ourselves for a future beyond our control or focusing on building resilient systems — both important topics for another time — let’s dream. Let us put on our visionary hats and shape what that future will look like. Beyond your own responsibilities and expertise areas — what might the future look like? What would you want it to look like? Better yet- what would you wish for it to look like? This is where future thinking and change management come in.

For those of you familiar with future thinking, this will be a very familiar and simplified explanation that may serve as a refresher. For those new to these concepts, I hope this tip-of-the-iceberg introduction will inspire you to click through to the links included here and beyond. Let’s explore these concepts today in three parts: Dream, Map and Act.

Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash

Dream: Imagination and creativity in future thinking

A great deal of time and energy is placed on trying to predict the future — which we will get into shortly — but first it feels prudent to focus on envisioning what you want and wish the future could be, constraint free. The way I think about this is that if we focus on prediction rather than possibility, we won’t be setting high expectations to strive towards as leaders and the outcome won’t be a desirable future state. In this way, using idealism, imagination, and creativity is a powerful place for visionary leaders to start.

First, Scenario Planning, a strategic foresight tool that can be used to create stories about possible futures. In essence, this is best conducted as a group activity with the conversation around a central posed question, such as “What might a day in your life look like in 2045?” I once participated in a scenario planning activity where the prompt was “What would your surroundings look like if you lived in a future where you could ingest a pill to learn an entire course?” I would implore you to do this activity with respect to something you hope for, perhaps “What would a truly equitable future state for all people look like?”. And while it is very hard to do this without binding ourselves with constraints, I urge you to not hinder yourself by not dreaming big enough.

Through storytelling and progressive conversations, the scenarios that evolve become clearer pictures of what and how the world could be at a point in the future. A goal for these stories is that they be clear and comprehensive; get creative, throw in details, and free yourself from constraints. While the scenarios are not predictors of the future, this process of challenging the status quo and existing values and thought processes is a provocative one. By creating and fleshing out scenarios, perspectives can be shared and new understandings created. The stories can later be useful in conversations between leaders and for decision-makers and in the long term, leaders might leverage these possible futures to influence the actual future. While there are plethora of facilitation guides freely available online, I’ve linked a few here:

• MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics: Scenario Planning Toolkit
• MIT Sloan Management Review Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking
• Chartered Professional Accountants Canada: Scenario Planning: Applying a Six-Step Process to Your Organization — Guideline

Next is a tool more geared toward personal utility: Odyssey Planning. Taken from Designing Your Life based on the similarly named Stanford class by Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, Odyssey Planning is a tool to explore potential futures, going forward 5 or 10 years, for you specifically. Better explained by one of the creators himself in this video series on Creating Odyssey Plans, the high-level premise is to use their template three times, each time exploring a different future state. One — might be your current path; Two — whatever backup option you might be holding on to if one falls through; and Three — the life you’d live if money and image were no object. The idea is to title each plan and gauge how you feel about it in hopes that it might help guide you to what’s next.

There are dozens more methods and tools for spurring on creative thinking and ideation. And I firmly believe that the most creative moments come from taking inspiration from other sources (which fittingly is not a unique idea!). So whatever tool you use or wherever you look for inspiration, I hope that the desired future state you find is motivating, inclusive, and deeply satisfying. Every leader needs to start with why; may this process lead you to yours.

© 2016 Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

Map: Discipline and rigour in future thinking

Now that we have dreamed, we can start to bring that vision into the context of today and map a path to our desired future state. No easy feat! I’ll use the words of University of Toronto and OCAD University professor and futurist Alexander Manu who frames this as the Imagination Challenge:

In the current cultural and technological paradigm, the development model calls for something different. It calls for understanding and mapping of behavior — understanding the current limits of knowledge and wisdom, as well as the limits of people and their environment. This is not a technical challenge, nor is it a tactical one; it is a strategic challenge to our limits as humans and to our desire to transform them into possibility. This is the Imagination Challenge.

Before moving on, I’d suggest anyone interested in this topic check out his resources page filled with excerpts from his publications and examples of visual thinking models.

By understanding some overarching principles about the rate of technical innovation, identifying weak signals and trends existing today that highlight what may be on the horizon, and being realistic about constraints and slow rates of adoption (both in terms of technology and social ideas), we leverage what we have now to get to where we want to go. And hopefully, have a better idea on how long it will take to get there.

For a quick introduction on how to do that, I’d recommend the very short course series from the team at be radical on Practical Futurism. The first in the series, Part 1: Practical Futurism, presents:

• An explanation of exponential change and what laws can be leveraged to predict future enablement (e.g. Moore’s Law);
• A overview on how to balance strategically across three time horizons, now, next, and beyond; and,
• An introduction to weak signal thinking to think divergently and seek out artefacts from our present that can indicate what may be possible sooner than originally thought and how.

The fourth course in the series, Disruption mapping, walks through the process of facilitating a mapping session to help unlock disruptive opportunities that may come from indirect consequences of developing tech. Starting with a seed idea of a trend to explore in detail, walk through the implications of that seed idea in a series of cascading consequences. In the video, its remote work; they also suggest AI for HR; you might try this with a trend that glimmers in the direction of your dream future. Once again, we are encouraged to be brave in exploring “sci-fi for now” ideas.

Change is accelerating. There is early data on business responses to COVID impacts showing hopeful approaches to building agility and resilience as we move forward. In the MIT Sloan Management Review article, The Age of Accelerating Strategy Breakthroughs, this is distilled into four main strategies that dozens of the world’s top chief executives are taking to build a better future:

1. Prioritization of People: Prioritize and empower people with an eye to tapping their collective intelligence
2. Utilize Megatrends: Seek relative certainty in the context of megatrends
3. Build Resilience through Accelerated Change: Increase resilience through strategic networks and novel partnerships, even collaborating with competitors where it can reduce risks or offer benefits
4. Champion Multi-Stakeholder Capitalism: Move beyond the shareholder model to embrace a multi-stakeholder view of value creation and sharing.

Once again, there are a multitude of mapping options out there to plot the path from today into the desired future. Whichever you use, I hope those illuminated points draw your forward with curiosity and intention. Now to take that first step.

Alexander Manu

Act: Change management in service of that vision

Change management offers us some great techniques to get from dreaming and mapping to making the vision for the future a reality. Once again the approaches and techniques are abundant on the subject. However, this will undoubtedly require the involvement of people in addition to you. While change management might sound tactical on the surface, much more of it involves an understanding of human behaviour than you might think.

A great jumping off point for this conversation is the Organization Change Management Insights webinar with Professor Rafael Chiuzi hosted by UofT. Professor Chiuzi offers an introduction into the design, politics, and psychology of organizational change management and what is required to be a change leader. He makes the distinction between change management as the toolkit for change — the how — and change leadership, about inspiring, identifying champions, and creating stewardship — the why. Here, four qualities of change leadership are offered:

1. Communication: Consistent reinforcement of the change ideas, pathway to get there, and benchmarking to understand what success looks like
2. Engagement: The leaders and change management team believe in the change and the path to get there
3. Map: Stakeholders and groups across silos are considered and involved
4. Share: Best practices and learnings are incorporated to the plan as you go

All of this must exist simultaneously to understanding the informal environment in which the change management is acted upon. There are common tactics for undermining change efforts, like fear-mongering, delays, confusion, and ridicule. Recognizing that these detractors may derail change management in advance should prompt risk mitigation and identification efforts to strengthen your plan.

To create a change management strategy, I suggest a few templates from XPLANE. Three particularly helpful templates are:

1. Eight Dimensions Worksheet: Applicable in the early stages of change management to identify what changes might need to be prioritized in order achieve a longer-term vision. This template encourages brainstorming which of the eight elements of the company are currently hindering the desired future state from being realized: Talent, Structure, Systems/Tools, Behaviour, Knowledge/Skills, Vision/Strategy, Process, or Culture/Values?
2. Change Lever Worksheet: Helpful in mapping a realistic view of change capacity for a given organization, this template is based on the idea that the current state of an organization, it’s attitude towards change, and barriers to change are variables that dictate what magnitude of the change is possible with what level of activation and effort required.
3. The Understanding Chain Worksheet: Useful in shifting from a content focus to an audience focus, this worksheet will help to identify meaningful requirements to communicate to all stakeholders: Who are they, what do you need them to understand, and what behaviour do you want to enact?

These considerations will ready you for activation and set you on a course towards your desired future state. While this is most certainly an oversimplification and will require frequent monitoring, re-evaluating, and pivoting, moving towards a desired future state in place of following the crowd will set you on a path of visionary leadership.

Rafael Chiuzi

Visionary Inspiration

We all have superpowers and we can all be visionaries; that’s not just a term for a select few. Yet it can be overwhelming to even know where to start. The idea of dreaming big, especially in our current societal context, might feel futile. Or the scope we are considering too vast and messy to fully comprehend. While it can feel daunting, we can seek strength from those visionaries who inspire us to stay focused, motivated, and authentic on our own objectives. Let us learn from their example that we don’t need to solve every problem, just start with one. And know that we won’t solve that problem alone but as part of a team or community. With all of us working together, we’ll not arrive at just any future, but a desired future that we may be proud of.

Here are a few of the philosophies and visionaries who inspire me continually:

• Ibram X. Kendi and How to be an Antiracist: Author, Historian, Leader. In his book How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi writes about problems associated with race in parallel with his own story of becoming an antiracist. In an effort to go beyond educational efforts into the realm of action, Kendi founded the Centre for Antiracist Research at Boston University to leverage knowledge into policy research and development to enact and realize change. If you haven’t already, read this book, perhaps with a group of colleagues or friends, and use the book club discussion guide to further the conversation.
• The Seventh Generation Principle: Based on an ancient Haudenosaunee philosophy, this philosophy is about making decisions that will result in a sustainable world, seven generations into the future. Though this principle has been misappropriated by misleading corporate green-washing campaigns, the true application of this sustainable way of thinking has informed decision-making regarding energy, water, and natural resource consumption. Read more and access resources at the Indigenous Corporate Training here.
• UN Sustainable Development Goals and the B Impact Assessment: Established in 2015, these 17 goals were set with the overarching aim of ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity in 15 years. Ambitious, yes, but meant to set high expectations for our future. While progress towards these goals has been slow, even seeing regression is some areas, now is the Decade of Action, with ten years to change our world. You can also learn more about the goals and access resources at the Global Goals Week website. One of the best tools I’ve seen for organizations wanting to act in service of these goals is the B Impact Assessment and its SDG Action Manager. With a focus on measurability, a group of any size can use their tools to understand where they are starting from, what their impact is, and how to set goals, track improvement, and stay engaged.
• Hans Rosling, Factfulness, and Gapminder: This book, full title Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, presents a hopeful way to look to the future given the progress observed around the world in recent decades. It calls for an updating way of thinking and how we might celebrate wins while striving to always make things better. Bill Gates, an action-focused visionary himself through his work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, described it as “one of the most educational books [he has] ever read”. Though he passed away in 2017, Rosling’s work continues on through Gapminder, a self-described “fact tank”. They fight misconceptions about global development, produce free teaching resources based on reliable statistics, and promote a fact-based worldview everyone can understand. Their data visualization tools might just change the way you think about everything.
• Andrew Yang and Universal Basic Income: Entrepreneur, Politician, Advocate. Something I’ve enjoyed as a source of inspiration over the last few months is the Yang Speaks YouTube Channel, where he invites leaders from tech, sports, entertainment, and politics to have meaningful conversations and share their ideas for moving forward in a human-centered way. Yang’s movement, Humanity Forward, is all about creating an economy that works for people, not the other way around, with the central idea of Universal Basic income at the core. To hear Yang speak directly on the topic, I suggest the recent Labyrinths podcast episode Money Is Winning; Humans Are Losing, recommended to me via the Escape Pod newsletter (a thought-provoking read for anyone who thinks there must be something better than our current conception of capitalism).

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Where I’m starting

Over the summer months, I took time to pause and assess if I was pointing myself in the right (or a clear) direction. For me, deliberately going into an unlearning, learning, and questioning mode helped determine what is deeply important to me to focus my efforts. Here’s where I’m starting:

• Dream: A world with equitable access to venture capital financing for all entrepreneurs by 2025 (ambitious? check; specific? check)
• Map: Leverage my skill set and network access in combination with a research and measurability focus to create a benchmarking tool that enables a transparent, values based, informed, and equitable VC process
• Act I: Run a series of pilots to validate the benchmarking tool’s effectiveness and accuracy and iterate accordingly while collecting data

For any founders looking for clear insights regarding their Culture and Team to put their best foot forward ahead of seeking investment, our Culture Assessment Tool: Pilot Program may be of interest. We are looking for small teams to test this tool with us. For more information, you can access a brief overview of the Pilot Program here or reach out anytime.

To everyone else, may you dream, map, and act in service of your desired future state. Best of luck!

Shout Outs!

• Giants Network: A collective of passionate facilitators and organizations dedicated to developing youth leaders through experiential learning and networking. This month, my visionary friend Emilie and her Giants Network team launched The Giants Network Community Slack with the intention of helping leaders connect. It’s a place for youth, young adults, and industry leaders to share, discuss, collaborate, ask questions, and learn from one another. Curious to learn more? Check them out here and see how you might get involved!
• Erica Scobie: My brilliant and inspiring friend Erica officially launched her Movement & Wellness Coaching business this month — congratulations Erica! A certified certified Personal Trainer, Fascial Stretch Therapist and Nutrition Coach, Erica wants to inspire people to move more and move better and find their optimal wellness through building healthier lifestyle habits. For anyone looking for support in their wellness journey, I cannot recommend Erica enough. Go find out more!
• Spotlight: Spotlight allows employees to automatically create HR cases anonymously through Microsoft Teams or Slack and HR Managers can chat in real-time to verify problems and resolve challenges. Sophie and her team recently hosted a three-part Master Class series examining the D&I/HR trends for 2021. Want to learn how to ensure D&I initiatives don’t get forgotten? When is external expertise necessary to resolve culture challenges? If your remote employees know where to find HR information? Find out here, here, and here. The Spotlight team is also looking for partner organizations, specifically those with a customer base of companies with approximately 50–400 employees, and who are interested in improving their internal People Operations processes. Think you might be a fit? Reach out to learn more!

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

About us

Hillier Culture Studio is a design-based consultancy on a mission to help leaders create healthy and productive workplaces. We specialize in working with early-stage founders eager to put their best foot forward ahead of seeking investment. Curious how best to retain what you love most about your company prior to scaling? We’d love to hear from you.