When 5 Years Are Not Enough
Most companies trust the rhythm of five-year plans and annual budgets, but without governance of superposed futures, they risk pacing the same cage while calling it strategy.
Latest
On futures we mistake for change
When the present grows too heavy to move, organizations often reach for the same answer they always reach for, the promise of more control. The reflex is almost automatic. Prutures.
Too Much to Move.
We often imagine change as a clean swap of parts, one process out, another in, and we keep telling ourselves that with enough focus and discipline the machine will run better.
The Art of Letting Go Without Falling Apart
Transformation isn’t subtraction. It’s not about taking something out to make space. It’s the reconfiguration itself that changes everything. Letting go isn’t absence, it’s a shift in how things relate so something new can begin.
After we build: The Ethics of Scaffolds
Most structures are built to last. But what if that isn't the point? Sometime care looks like building, and sometimes care looks like stepping aside.
The Limits of Design: Why Emergence Can’t Be Engineered
We like to believe that if we build the right structures, policies, teams, strategies, or incentive systems, something good will emerge. We hold on to the hope that good intentions paired with solid design will stabilize the future. But if we’re honest, we often don’t know whether they will.
On Frames and Fences
We say we want less regulation—until we need it. The real tension isn’t between freedom and control, but between rules that trap and rules that enable.
The Art of Deconstructing Futures
Helping my child understand quadrilaterals taught me this: real understanding—and real futures—come from breaking things down, questioning assumptions, and rebuilding with meaning and glue.
Simple Thinking in Conversation
In this interview with Sarah Biendarra, explore the approach of Simple Thinking—how it helps navigate complexity and shape future possibilities.
Why Futures matter to me
Futures thinking has always been part of who I am. For me, it’s about seeing beyond the immediate. This is my journey and its learnings.
The Futures Telescope
The Futures Telescope is a tool for uncovering the blind spots in our vision and the assumptions that guide us.
Of Bridges and Vessels
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the notion and see the beauty in all the “Build bridges, not walls” kind of metaphors. But when it comes to strategy and futures, I’m afraid a bridge isn’t the answer.
Strategy
Because Strategy needs Conversation.
Conversation is not the same as communication. Conversation can create friction. And it is friction you need to create a spark.
Futures
What Happens When We Engage with Futures Thinking?
Anticipation is not prediction—it's the art of sensing, adapting, and shaping possibility. But have we forgotten how to use it? Futures Thinking is not a luxury; it’s a societal necessity.
complexity
The Banyan Approach
The problem with traditional strategy is not just its rigidity—it’s its assumption about time. The idea that we can move from ‘now’ to ‘next’ as though history were a straight road. The Banyan approach rejects this.
Adaptive
The Dawn of the Pinkpaper
Pink is one of those colors that has always had a strong presence, though it often evokes mixed reactions. Historically, pink was seen as a softer, more delicate color—often linked to femininity or sweetness. But over the years, it has evolved into something more powerful.
Poetry
If This Season Speaks
If you can find warmth in the longest night, seeing light not as certainty but as motion, a shifting glow against the vast unknown. If you can hold the weight of silence without naming it fear, letting the absence become a form of presence, an invitation to breathe. If you
complexity
A Season of Paths
December is full of contradictions—the year closes, yet the world feels impossibly full. Lights shine on long nights, reminders that even darkness holds a spark of hope. Christmas invites us to reflect on the tangle of past, present, and future, offering pathways not to predict but to participate.
Poetry
The Cyclops' Gaze
The Cyclops, one eye fixed on the world, sees only what lies before it. Depth dissolves into certainty, a singular truth, unbroken but incomplete. Complexity shimmers beyond its gaze, an intricate weave of ripples and roots, where nothing stands alone, where every part speaks to another. Hierarchies cling to their
Strategy
On Participation
Participation is key to Futures Work, yet often resisted by hierarchies valuing efficiency over collaboration. Its value lies in complexity's nature.
Poetry
Where Futures Wait
We carry the yet-to-come in the marrow of our being, woven deep, unseen, a pulse older than time. The world is not a machine. It breathes, it bends, it breaks. We thought we could tame it, chart its paths, name its stars. But the stars are wild, their light a
Adaptive
Beyond linear paths
Why do we think about futures? As anticipatory beings, we’ve evolved to imagine and prepare for what’s ahead. But in today’s complex world, is traditional strategy enough—or is it time to evolve?
Future
On Hope.
Between tides, we face uncertain futures and the weight of complex challenges. Yet hope rises—not as a lone flame but as a wildfire, igniting resilience. Hope empowers us to move forward together, a shared light guiding us toward what lies beyond the unknown.
The Ballad of Coherence and Alignment
written by Dall-E Open AI This ballad is the result of an unfinished prompt by myself. I wanted to create a visual with Dall-E for my latest LinkedIn post and pressed the enter button already after "The Ballad of Coherence and Alignment" without adding the visual instructions. And