Presentation to "Follow the Sun" Digital Futures Conference April 2010

1. Transcending the learning futures flatland: a
futures-orientated perspective for higher
education leaders.
Luke van der Laan
University of Southern Queensland
Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development

2. Follow the Sun – learning futures
• ‘Spaceship Earth’ – humanity hurtling through space
• ‘Time machine Earth’ – inexorable movement through time
(Bell, 2003)
An inspirational challenge to leaders – not only are the people
mapping learning futures,
space travellers;
they are also time travellers.
BUT only have a one way ticket toward the future.

3. Structure
• Flatlands – a critical view
• Sustainability: the challenge and the imperative
• Futures Studies: an alternative perspective
• Foresight, futures thinking and strategic thinking.
• Evidence of how to smother innovation.
• Leadership model for realising creative emergence

4. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
Lord Kelvin, British mathematician, physicist, and president of
the British Royal Society, spoken in 1895.

5. Flatlands – A Critical Approach to Futures
• Early Futures / Futurology: Prediction, forecasting and control.
• Led to a reductionist framework for futures work – the ‘flatlands’
of futures work (Wilber, 1995)
• Implication: Insufficiently understood and problematised change.
• Technology-LED paradigms remain dominant.
• Consequence – constrained futures / futures paradigms.

6. Flatlands: the background
• Instrumental rationality discovered by Western industrial civilisation
led to raw technical power – the power of emerging technologies.
• Notions of growth, optimism and vitality and economic dominance.
• Western-style progress and design has overwhelmed contemporary
developmental models: ‘the way things are’, unquestionable,
hegemonic (Slaughter, 1998)
• ‘Pop Culture’ and ‘Pop Futures’- reinforce the paradigm Flatlands.

7. Flatlands: now
• Metamorphosed power – shift from ‘Western’ to ‘globalised’
designs embedded in dominant paradigms (Still predominantly
controlled by traditionally Western culture)
• Underpinned by western-style culture, society and economic
models.
• Technological civilisation carrying with it success & dynamic
opportunity BUT also creating significant polarities and
broadening gaps in distribution and access.
• Global Forecasts largely fail to list major changes in the higher
education sector in the top 10!

8. That idea is so damned nonsensical and impossible that I'm
willing to stand on the bridge of a battleship while that nitwit
tries to hit it from the air.
Newton Baker, U.S. secretary of war in 1921, reacting to the claim of
Billy Mitchell (later Brigadier General Mitchell) that airplanes could
sink battleships by dropping bombs on them.

9. Flatlands: Learning Futures
• Terminology acknowledges the domain and work in Alternative
Futures
• Caveat
• Possible examples:
– ‘Generation Theory’ based research
– ‘Past Success’ breeding failure
– ‘The’ future of education
– ‘Dominant Approaches’ to education
– ‘Language’ dominance
– ‘Technology led’ as opposed to technology enabled
– ‘Universal Connectedness’ not really connected

10. Sustainable Higher Education
“Sustainability and sustainable development are not
problems or projects amenable to reductionist thinking
leading to a solution or an end point, indeed no-one
knows what the conditions are for sustainability or
sustainable development” (Loveridge, 2009)

11. Sustainability
• Ability of systems and organizations to continue indefinitely while
consistently exercising provident care (Senge et al, 2006)
• Common counter-intuitive responses to the future
– Reductionist thinking to make sense of complexity?
– Short-termism to manage complexity?
“you will realise that you cannot reduce your risk by simply letting the long
term take care of itself … for in complex systems, even doing nothing
could have escalating consequences” (Stacey 1992, p. 18)
Leadership imperative to transcend dominant paradigms and open
up the emergence of innovation.

12. Obstacles
“Given a choice between changing and proving that it is not necessary,
most people get busy on the proof.” John Galbraith
• Future phobias, paradigm paralysis, info mania, reverse paranoia
(Gelatt, 1993)
• Sense-making is done in terms of families, tribes, religions and
nation states – organisations reflect the same self-interested focus /
myopia.
• Strategies for sustainability will fail if myopic views are not
transcended.
• Connection between human consciousness and physical world is
not esoteric – it is an imperative and leads to living organisations.
Senge et al., 2006, Learning for Sustainability

13. A severe depression like that of 1920-21 is outside the range
of probability.
Harvard Economic Society, Weekly Letter, November 16, 1929.
Why have so few economists foreseen the credit crunch?
Her Majesty the Queen’ question to the London School of
Economics, 2009
In recent years economics has turned virtually into a branch of
applied mathematics, and has become detached from real-
world institutions and events … What has become scarce is
a professional wisdom informed by a rich knowledge of
psychology, institutional structures and historic
precedence
Prof. G Hodgson et al. in a formal response to the Queen’s
question, 22 July 2009

14. ‘The Future’
"The future doesn't exist, never did, and never will. By definition,
the future hasn’t happened. And when it does happen it
becomes the present, and then quickly becomes the past"
(Gelatt, 1993)
• Removed from empirical observation and from present choices?
• Too random and complex to be understood (bounded
rationality)?
• An open epistemological space / domain of uncertainty?
A ‘blank canvas’ for expressing viable images of the future shaped
and influenced by decisions and actions in the present.

15. Is man at present a self-willed being who creates his own futures; or is
he a time-bound creature clinging desperately to today for fear of
what tomorrow may bring?
There is no volition without an object, and the object of a volition is that
a fiction of the mind becomes a fact. de Jouvenal, 1967
Humans have the innate creative ability for imagining the future. Polak,
1961
MOVE FROM PREDICTION OF THE FUTURE TO SHAPING HOW
THE FUTURE MAY EVOLVE

16. Futures Studies?
“The methods of futures studies include tools for describing
possible, probable and desirable variations of the present and
drafting possible images of the future. By looking at the variety
of different possibilities, we can come closer to shaping the
future – rather than predicting it. Future studies offer valuable
tools to understand and shape the development of our
societies.” 13th International Conference, 2011, Finland Futures
Academy University of Turku

17. Understanding the Future
• Plurality of discourses / epistemology
• Foundational Futures Concepts
– Used Future
– Disowned Future
– Alternative Futures
– Alignment
– Models of Social Change
– Uses of the Future

18. Foundational Futures concepts
Foundational Concept Question
Used Future Have you purchased a used future? Is your
image of the future yours?
Disowned Future Have what we excelled at become our
downfall? Have we pushed the future away?
Alternative Futures The same future means making the same
mistakes – Future Shock. Have we explored
alternative viable futures? Have we prepared
for uncertainty?
Alignment Have we aligned our futures landscape? Is our
inner alignment in-step? BAU – Strategy – Big
Picture - Vision
Your Model of Social Change Do we believe the future is positive / bleak,
open-ended or out of our control? Do our
actions today create the future? Have we
explored the impact of our future?
Use of the Future How and to what extent do we use our insight
and foresight? What levels of the future are we
engaged in changing?
Inayatullah, 2008

19. Levels of Using the Future
What level of ‘using the future’ do you desire?
• Training? Helping to create new skills?
• More effective strategy? Facilitating innovation?
• Creating capacity? Decolonising, deconstructing the anticipated
future?
• Emergence? Paradigm shifts? New Futures?
• Meme change? Changing the ideas that govern institutions,
society? (Dawkins, 1989)
• Microvita change? Changing the fields of reality? (Sarker, 1991)
“Futures Thinking ultimately can go so far as mapping and
changing memes and fields of reality” (Inayatullah, 2008)

20. Futures / Futures Studies / Futures Research /
Prospective
A PRACTISE TO TRANSCEND THE DOMINANT, LITANY
BASED PERSPECTIVES OF
THE FUTURE
BY DISCOVERING, PROPOSING, EXAMINING AND
EVALUATING POSSIBLE, PROBABLE AND
PREFERABLE FUTURES

21. Why a futures studies perspective?
• Need for broader preferred futures:
– Need for transdisciplinary systematic view of the future.
– Need for viable integrated views of the future (Integral Futures)
– Need for a causally layered views of meaning (Causal Layered
Analysis)
– Need for multiple views of the future (Alternative Futures)
– Need for a ‘memory of the future’ (Foresight: individual and
methodological)
– Need for epistemologically viable views of the future (Futures
Literacy)

22. So what?
• Post-normal times / post-normal capabilities.
• Futures management for a futures-orientated time.
• Competitive advantage or differentiation?
• Stimulating creative emergence / innovation / strategic thinking.

23. I think there is a world market for about five computers.
Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

24. How forward?
A pragmatic hybridisation of disciplines to achieve the Triple-V approach
(van der Laan, 2011)
LOGIC:
1) Open up creative / imaginative VIABLE possible futures (foresight
capability and futures thinking)
2) Enhance Strategic Thinking to capture and make VISIBLE a preferred
future
3) Formulate VALUABLE innovative strategies – and shape future
NEED:
Leaders that can activate the process and have;
• Future Orientated Thinking
• Individual Foresight
• Strategic Thinking capability
IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE;
• Social Foresight - developing foresight capacity in a critical mass of
members of organisations, systems, societies.

25. Foresight / Strategic Thinking
• Role of foresight (make VIABLE) and strategic thinking (make
VISIBLE) recognised as imperative (to making VALUABLE).
• Investigation of relationship between individual foresight,
strategic thinking and strategy formulation.
• Structural Equation Modelling (SEM)
• 101 CEOs (34%), 110 Senior Managers (37%) of large Aus and
South African organisations
• 62.5% Post-Graduate level qualification

26. Foresight / Strategic Thinking
Findings:
• Foresight and Strategic Thinking are a)distinct and b) positively
associated cognitive capabilities.
• K-12 and undergraduate education positively moderates the
relationship between foresight cognitions and analytical cognitive
capacity within the context of formulating strategy.
• Exposure to futures concepts / methods positively moderates the
relationship between foresight and the generative / creative
cognitive capacity within the context of formulating strategy.
Van der Laan, 2010

27. • Organisations that have a predominantly rational / transactive
strategic mode are likely to suppress the generative / creative
strategic thinking of its leadership.
• Those elements of strategic thinking that are creative,
innovative, time-orientated, ambiguous and yielding greater
levels of emergent strategy are suppressed (-.25 correlation)
Consequences:
Innovation / creative emergence is less likely
Available human capabilities are suppressed
Organisational strategy remains static and directive

28. • Future-orientated thinking :
– Creatively imagine infinite hypothetical future possibilities in order
to foresee and adapt to environmental changes.
– Generative process of creative problem solving and divergent
thinking in order to detect gaps in knowledge, patterns and trends.
(Fortunato and Furey, 2009)
• Individual Foresight
– human ability to creatively envision possible futures, understand
the complexity and ambiguity of systems
– provide input for the taking of provident care in detecting and
avoiding hazards while seeking to achieve a preferred future.
(van der Laan, 2010)
• Strategic Thinking
– strategic thinking is regarded as a synthesis of systematic analysis
and creative (generative) thought processes
– that seek to determine the longer-term direction of the
organisation.
(van der Laan, 2010)

29. Leadership Model for Innovation
• Significant empirical evidence suggests importance of foresight
and strategic thinking in facilitating generative / creative /
innovative emergent strategies.
• Plus need to transcend ‘flatlands’
• Requires a leadership model that is viable, visible and valuable
(Triple-V) in mapping sustainable learning futures.

30. Triple-V Model
STRATEGY FORMULATION
STRATEGIC
FORESIGHT
THIN KIN G
Analytical /
Orientation to Systems
Time Education orientated
Level Cognitions
Industry ORGANISATIONAL
Experience STRATEGY
Foresight PROCESSES
Education
Age
Creative /
Framer
Generative
Foresight Style
Cognitions
VIABLE VISIBLE VALUABLE
(van der Laan, 2010)

31. The Futures of Learning Futures?
• Familiarity with symbolic and methodological aspects of futures
(how are alternative futures produced and examined)
• Enhancement of ‘foresight’ literacy (using futures concerns as
sources for projects and creative initiatives)
• Encouragement of constructive and empowering attitudes (shift
negative attitudes to constructive preferred futures)
• Development of future-orientated thinking and leadership
• Support ‘ big picture’ thinking (and the continuity of change)
(Slaughter, 2002)

32. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist…
General John B. Sedgwick, Union Army Civil War officer's last
words, uttered during the Battle of Spotsylvania, 1864
But we can hit the sun!