SUPPORT
Support for Leaders under Pressure from Complex Issues
Strategic Planning, Resilience and Coherence Testing,
and Systemic Research Projects
TECHNOLOGY
Virtual Tool-set that Takes the Heavy Lifting of Culture Change
On-line Capacity Building in Critical and Systemic Thinking
ENGAGEMENT
Unprecedented Staff and Stakeholder Engagement
Innovation Through Idea Development and Testing
Future Insight Maps – Upcoming Professional Development Course
We are a consulting firm with offices in Australia, California, and Thailand. We work with national, state, and local governments. We work with the largest global companies and small, rural communities. Our experience is actively evolving over the decades of our work. We co-create systemic research projects as well as lead in-house teams in strategic planning and testing the organization’s resilience and coherence. Complexity frustrates many of today’s leaders and we bring new ways of seeing and new techniques so that more options emerge for us to consider.
We are offering a two-month blended course/practicum for managers and executives in July and August, 2019 in Sacramento, California. We need confidence to introduce new methodologies and we need to practice to gain that confidence. We will meet for three full days over July and August, with weekly online coaching and accelerated knowledge sharing using our own WindTunneling software and learning platform, TheFULCRUM. $1600 for one, $1325 per person for two or more. Participants will be practicing techniques and refining their understandings in a rigorous learning environment. Email Barbara@FutureInsightMaps.com to register or phone 510.865.5075.
Our clients tell us that by engaging their people in ways that inspire and challenge them to think freely and rigorously, new patterns, options, and choices emerge for their leaders under pressure.
Our Methods
All Eyes Open and All Hands on Deck.
Systemic Methods are a rational path for improving our complex issues. We can’t “solve” complex issues: they are not “problems,” however, we can optimize our position and continuously improve through collective intelligence gathering and application. This is a disciplined process, although a non-linear one.
Systemic Principles* inform Systemic Practices. Collective intelligence from diverse participants is safely and effectively gathered, aggregated, and emergent new options are leveraged against complex, messy issues. We work personally with large groups and we have developed an exciting Virtual Tool-Set, WindTunneling, to support groups from a distance using a “principled technology.”
We also work with individuals and organizations to build capacity in Applied Critical Thinking and Self-Knowledge for Taking Initiative. Through TheFULCRUM, individuals and organizations can access these opportunities that are both cost and time-effective.
* Systemic Principles include transparency, candor, diversity of perspectives, egalitarian engagement, designing for time to think, trust the group, holistic imaginations, focus on the relationships, rhythmic review.
Our tools are Systemic Methods, WindTunneling,
and TheFULCRUM
Our tools respect today’s demands for the time, attention, focus, and energy of adults. We have designed methods and tools so that they build, incrementally, capacities and habits in thinking that can open doors, and enable knowledge workers to be more effective in areas that they care about.
Our tools are for those who are ready: 70% of the US workforce reports being “un-engaged” at work. There are legitimate reasons for this that are systemic: our tools are designed to support those 30% of the workers who are currently carrying much of the load, as well as invite those in the 70% to bring their ideas and experiences safely into the service of the organization. No one gets up in the morning wanting to be un-engaged at work: our tools open new windows for ideas to flow and healthy relationships to emerge.
Everyone knows something: no one knows everything.
Every participant sees every idea: no one knows who shared which idea.
WindTunneling is an exciting, web-based yet non-linear application that enables organizations or communities to quickly gather and make sense of the embedded knowledge of its participants. This is a disciplined and private social media toolset that helps us be more human and promotes open-mindedness and intellectual humility.
Whether the WindTunneling project takes 30 minutes or 3 months, everyone learns by reading all contributions, and emergent ideas and patterns form the basis for new options to be developed and tested for resilience and coherence.
WindTunneling is a “principled technology” that is informed by and promotes Systemic Principles.
TheFULCRUM is a social learning platform, community, and path of development for young leaders or individuals who seek to take initiative in the world.
TheFulcrum is not a university, corporate training program, or “drop in” community, although it has aspects of each.
At heart, TheFulcrum is “guided self-education” that is highly social and profoundly impactful. It is based on trust of the learner, social commitment to supporting the learning of one’s cohort for a month. It is also based on our experience that for those who are ready, Applied Critical Thinking, Systemic Thinking and Methods, and Self-Knowledge for Taking Initiative offer dozens of month-long, powerful topics for a lifetime path of personal and professional development.
Systemic Research Projects
Everyone is familiar with the Scientific Method of Research. It works when you have a narrow focus and the outcomes are quantifiable. No one can deny the power and efficacy of this method, when used appropriately.
The Systemic Method of Research has a parallel structure to the Scientific Method. It is useful when the issue that needs research is complex. By complex, we mean an issue where there are many variables, the variables are constantly changing, and the relationships among the variables are, of course, constantly changing. We do not know the causation relations among the variables. We are not in control of many of them. We don’t even know all the variables that are influencing us. Therefore, those with decision-making authority, along with their teams, live in a chronic state of high uncertainty about the issue. This is where a Systemic Method of Research can be helpful.
This disciplined, rigorous process brings forth new knowledge, new options for decision-makers, and a high level of new learning for all those in the organizations, and its stakeholders. It will not “solve the problem” because complex issues are not “problems.” To frame them as “problems,” sets up decision-makers for failure and masquerade because they cannot be solved: at most, a continuous path of improvement is the best we can do. Indeed, that is hard enough. We co-design and co-lead Systemic Research Projects with our client teams.
Build YOUR Culture of Confidence
We can help.
We have helped organizations, worldwide, for decades.
Our mission has never changed. We wish to show you, as leaders, that you have powerful resources nearby who can help you navigate uncertain futures, in ways that empower individuals that you care about, and strengthen relationships among them.
Our team members are located in California, Thailand, and in Australia–they have bags and will travel.