Knowledge Base: Six Pillars: Futures Thinking for Transforming by Sohail Inayatullah.
Citation:
Inayatullah, S. (2008), "Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming", Foresight, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 4-21.
Link to Paper:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228634731_Six_pillars_Futures_thinking_for_transforming
Scroll down or click on a question to explore the paper:
What are the six foundational concepts of futures thinking?
What are the six key questions to guide futures thinking?
What are the six pillars that provide a structured approach to futures studies?
What does the mapping pillar involve?
What does the anticipation pillar involve?
What does the timing pillar involve?
What does the deepening pillar involve?
What does the creating alternatives pillar involve?
What does the transformation pillar involve?
Quick Summary
First published in 2008, Sohail Inayatullah's paper "Six pillars: Futures Thinking for Transforming" offers a comprehensive framework for the study of futures, weaving together key concepts, perspectives, and methodologies into a unified approach. It introduces six foundational ideas central to futures thinking: the "used future," the "disowned future," alternative futures, alignment, models of social change, and the practical uses of the future. The paper also provides six guiding questions to shape futures thinking, along with six pillars that form the backbone of futures studies: mapping, anticipation, timing, deepening, creating alternatives, and transformation. This work serves as both a guide and a toolkit for those exploring the complexities of shaping and understanding futures.
The paper emphasises the importance of understanding and preparing for an increasingly complex and heterogeneous world. It argues that futures studies can help individuals and organisations recover their agency and create the world they wish to live in. By mapping the past, present, and future; anticipating future issues; understanding grand patterns of change; deepening analysis to include worldviews and myths; creating alternative futures; and choosing and backcasting preferred futures, futures thinking can lead to more effective strategies and innovative solutions.
The paper also discusses the disruptive context of current global challenges, such as climate change, terrorism, and technological advancements, and how futures thinking can address these issues. Through examples and case studies, it illustrates the practical application of these concepts and methods in various contexts, ultimately aiming to empower individuals and organisations to shape their desired futures.
What are the six foundational concepts of futures thinking?
Inayatullah defines six foundational concepts of futures thinking as:
The "Used Future": This concept questions whether the future we envision is genuinely ours or unconsciously borrowed from others.
The "Disowned Future": This concept highlights how our strengths can become our weaknesses and how the futures we ignore can come back to affect us.
Alternative Futures: This concept emphasises the importance of recognising multiple possible futures rather than being fixated on a single outcome.
Alignment: This concept stresses the need to align day-to-day actions with broader strategies and visions, ensuring consistency between internal and external maps of the future.
Models of Social Change: This concept explores different beliefs about how the future is shaped, whether through individual actions, collective efforts, or other mechanisms.
Uses of the Future: This concept involves using futures thinking for foresight training, strategy development, capacity building, and creating conditions for paradigm shifts.
What are the six key questions to guide futures thinking?
Inayatullah's six questions that guide futures thinking are:
What do you think the future will be like? - What is your prediction for the future?
Which future are you afraid of? - What are your fears about the future? Do you think you can transform this feared future into a desired one? Why or why not?
What are the hidden assumptions of your predicted future? - Are there any taken-for-granted assumptions about gender, nature, technology, culture, etc., in your predicted future?
What are some alternatives to your predicted or feared future? - If you change some of your assumptions, what alternative futures emerge?
What is your preferred future? - Which future do you wish to become a reality for yourself or your organisation?
How might you get there? - What steps can you take to move toward your preferred future?
What are the six pillars that provide a structured approach to futures studies?
The six pillars proposed by Inayatullah to provide a structured approach to futures studies are:
Mapping: This involves mapping the past, present, and future to understand where we have come from and where we are going. Tools like shared history, the futures triangle, and the futures landscape are used to create a framework for future exploration.
Anticipation: This pillar focuses on identifying emerging issues and their potential impacts before they become significant problems. Methods such as emerging issues analysis and the futures wheel help anticipate future challenges and opportunities.
Timing the Future: This involves understanding the grand patterns of history and identifying models of change. It includes exploring different metaphors of the future and recognising tipping point periods in human history when significant changes occur.
Deepening the Future: This pillar seeks to unpack and deepen the understanding of the future through methods like causal layered analysis (CLA) and four-quadrant mapping. These methods help explore different levels of reality, from the superficial to the deeper cultural and mythological dimensions.
Creating Alternatives: This involves generating alternative futures through methods like structural functional analysis and scenario planning. It encourages thinking beyond the present and exploring different ways of achieving organisational functions and goals.
Transforming the Future: This pillar focuses on narrowing down to the preferred future and creating strategies to achieve it. Methods like visioning, creative visualisation, and backcasting are used to develop detailed plans and actions to move towards the desired future.
What does the mapping pillar involve?
The mapping pillar in Inayatullah’s six pillars framework involves creating a comprehensive understanding of the past, present, and future to clarify where we have come from and where we are heading. This process uses several key tools:
Shared History: Participants in a futures workshop write down the main trends and events that have led to the present. A historical timeline is constructed to identify continuities and discontinuities in history, helping to create a framework for future exploration.
Futures Triangle: This tool maps today's views of the future through three dimensions:
Pull of Futures: These are the visions or scenarios that pull us forward. Common archetypal images include evolution and progress, collapse, Gaia (a balanced, inclusive world), globalism, and a return to simpler times.
Pushes of the Present: These are the quantitative drivers and trends currently shaping the future, such as demographic changes or technological advancements.
Weights of the Past: These are the barriers or obstacles that hinder progress towards the desired future. Each image of the future has different weights that need to be analysed.
Futures Landscape: This tool audits the current state of an organisation or society by categorising it into four levels:
Jungle: A highly competitive environment focused on survival.
Chess Set: A strategic environment where clear goals and responsive strategies enhance effectiveness.
Mountain Tops: The broader social context and big-picture view of the organisation.
Star: The vision or ultimate goal of the organisation.
By using these tools, the mapping pillar helps to create a clearer picture of the trajectory from the past through the present towards a range of futures, enabling better planning and decision-making for desired outcomes.
What does the anticipation pillar involve?
The anticipation pillar in Inayatullah's six pillars focuses on identifying and understanding emerging issues and their potential impacts before they become significant problems. This pillar employs two main methods:
Emerging Issues Analysis: This method seeks to identify new social innovations and issues before they become widespread and costly. It involves:
Identifying the places where new trends and innovations start.
Searching for new possibilities and opportunities that could disrupt the status quo.
Futures Wheel: This tool helps to explore the longer-term consequences of current issues or new technologies. It involves:
Mapping the logical implications of a current issue or technology over time.
Considering not just the first-order impacts but also second-order and beyond, to understand unintended consequences.
By using these methods, the anticipation pillar helps organisations and individuals to foresee potential challenges and opportunities, allowing them to prepare and respond more effectively to future developments.
What does the timing pillar involve?
Inayatullah's timing pillar in his six pillars framework involves understanding the grand patterns of history and identifying models of change to better predict and influence future developments. This pillar explores various beliefs and metaphors about how change occurs and how futures unfold. Key aspects include:
Models of Change: Different perspectives on how change happens, such as:
Creative Minority: Belief that a small group of innovative individuals can create new systems.
Institutional Change: Emphasis on changing laws and social structures to effect real change.
Technological Determinism: The idea that technology drives societal changes and creates new economies.
Metaphors of the Future: Different ways of conceptualising the future, such as:
Linear Progress: The future as a straight path of progress through hard work.
Cyclical: The future as a series of ups and downs, where those at the top eventually fall.
Spiral: A combination of linear and cyclical, where progress is made but includes elements of past cycles.
Randomness vs. Conscious Evolution: The future as either a result of random events or as something that can be consciously directed through vision and action.
Macro-historical Patterns: Insights from grand thinkers and historians who have studied long-term patterns in human history, such as:
Linear and Stage-like Progress: The belief in continuous improvement and progress.
Cyclical Patterns: The idea that history repeats itself in cycles of rise and fall.
Spiral Dynamics: Combining linear progress with cyclical patterns to create a more nuanced view of history.
Tipping Point Periods: Critical times in history when the actions of a few can lead to significant changes.
By understanding these models and metaphors, the timing pillar helps individuals and organisations to better anticipate and navigate future changes. It emphasises the importance of recognising patterns and being aware of the underlying forces that shape futures, enabling more informed decision-making.
What does the deepening pillar involve?
The deepening pillar in Sohail Inayatullah's six pillars framework focuses on exploring and understanding the underlying layers of issues to gain a more comprehensive and profound insight into our futures. This pillar employs two main methods:
Causal Layered Analysis (CLA): This method seeks to unpack and deepen the understanding of issues by examining them at four levels:
Litany: The surface level, dealing with commonly accepted headlines and short-term solutions.
Systemic Causes: The deeper level, focusing on social, economic, and political causes of issues.
Worldview: The broader level, examining the paradigms and cognitive lenses that shape our understanding of reality.
Myth/Metaphor: The deepest level, exploring the unconscious stories and metaphors that underpin our perceptions and actions.
Four-Quadrant Mapping: Developed by Ken Wilber and Richard Slaughter, this method maps issues across four dimensions:
Inner-Individual: Personal meanings and feelings.
Outer-Individual: Observable behaviours and actions.
Outer-Collective: Official strategies and policies.
Inner-Collective: The collective inner map or shared beliefs of an organisation or society.
By using these methods, the deepening pillar helps to uncover the root causes and broader contexts of issues, leading to more holistic and effective solutions. It emphasies the importance of addressing problems at multiple levels, from immediate actions to deeper cultural and mythological understandings, to create sustainable and transformative change.
What does the creating alternatives pillar involve?
The creating alternatives pillar in Inayatullah's six pillars framework focuses on developing a range of possible futures to better prepare for uncertainty and to foster innovation. This pillar employs several methods to explore different scenarios and possibilities:
Nuts and Bolts: This method involves a structural-functional analysis of an organisation to identify different ways of performing its functions. The paper provides as example an educational organisation, this might involve rethinking the roles of administrators, teachers, and students, and exploring new structures such as AI integration or remote learning.
Scenarios: Scenarios are a key tool in futures studies, used to open up the present and explore a range of possible futures. There are multiple scenario methods:
Single Variable: Based on key drivers or images of futures, such as technology or demographic shifts, to create different future scenarios.
Double Variable (2x2 Method): Identifies two major uncertainties and develops scenarios based on these. For example, in the context of disability futures, the uncertainties might be the nature of change (material vs. social technologies) and the change agents (government vs. persons with disability).
Archetypes: Developed by James Dator, these include continued growth, collapse, steady state, and transformation, each representing different paths the future might take.
Organisational Focused: Developed by Peter Schwartz, this method includes best case, worst case, outlier, and business as usual scenarios to help organisations plan for different futures.
Preferred, Disowned, Integrated, and Outlier: This method explores the desired future, the rejected future, the integration of both, and an unexpected future.
Scenario Narratives: This involves creating detailed, immersive stories for each scenario to help visualise and understand the implications of different futures.
By using these methods, the creating alternatives pillar helps organisations and individuals to think beyond the present and consider a wide range of possibilities. This approach encourages flexibility, adaptability, and innovation, enabling better preparation for future uncertainties and the creation of more resilient and desirable futures.
What does the transformation pillar involve?
In the six pillars framework proposed by Sohail Inayatullah in his paper "Six pillars: Futures thinking for transforming" the transformation pillar is about narrowing down the range of possible futures to focus on and work towards a preferred future. This pillar involves several key methods to help individuals and organisations envision and achieve their desired future:
Visioning: This process involves creating a detailed and vivid picture of a preferred future. There are three main visioning methods:
Analytic Scenario: Using scenarios to explore different futures and identify the most desirable one.
Questioning: Asking detailed questions about a preferred day in the future, such as what the home looks like, the type of technologies used, work environment, and daily activities.
Creative Visualisation: Guiding individuals to close their eyes, enter a restful state, and visualise stepping into their preferred future, focusing on sensory details and intuitions.
Backcasting: Developed by Elise Boulding, this method involves starting from the preferred future and working backward to identify the steps needed to achieve it. This helps to create a practical and actionable plan to move from the present to the desired future. It can also be used to avoid undesirable futures by identifying the steps that led to the worst-case scenario and developing strategies to prevent them.
Transcend Method: Developed by Johan Galtung, this method is used to resolve conflicts between different visions of futures. It involves spelling out all contested issues and brainstorming win-win solutions that integrate the best aspects of each vision. This approach helps to find common ground and create a shared vision that incorporates diverse perspectives.
By employing these methods, the transformation pillar helps individuals and organisations to:
Clearly define their preferred future.
Develop detailed and actionable plans to achieve that future.
Resolve conflicts and integrate different visions to create a cohesive and inclusive future.
The transformation pillar emphasises the importance of proactive and intentional efforts to shape futures, enabling individuals and organisations to create the world they wish to live in.
How can futures thinking benefit strategy?
Inayatullah proposes that futures thinking can significantly benefit strategy in several ways:
Enhanced Foresight: By understanding and anticipating future trends and potential disruptions, organisations can develop strategies that are more resilient and adaptable to change.
Identifying Opportunities and Threats: Futures thinking helps in identifying emerging opportunities and threats before they become apparent, allowing organisations to capitalise on new opportunities and mitigate risks early.
Creating Alternative Scenarios: Developing multiple scenarios allows organisations to explore different possible futures and prepare for a range of outcomes. This flexibility ensures that strategies are robust under various conditions.
Aligning Vision and Actions: Futures thinking ensures that day-to-day actions and long-term strategies are aligned with the organisation's vision, creating coherence and direction in strategic planning.
Innovative Solutions: By challenging existing assumptions and exploring alternative futures, organisations can foster innovation and develop creative solutions to complex problems.
Building Capacity and Confidence: Futures thinking enhances the capacity of individuals and organisations to think strategically and act proactively, increasing confidence in their ability to shape the future.
Engaging Stakeholders: Involving stakeholders in futures thinking processes can build consensus and commitment to the strategic vision, ensuring that diverse perspectives are considered and integrated.
Overall, futures thinking can empower organisations to navigate uncertainty, make informed decisions, and create preferred futures, leading to more effective and sustainable strategies.
What is the idea of no-concept?
Inayatullah also proposes a seventh concept of futures thinking - the no-concept. The idea of the no-concept in "Six pillars: Futures thinking for transforming" suggests that while listing and categorising concepts can be useful, it can also become limiting. Here’s our summary of the no-concept idea:
Beyond Structured Frameworks: The no-concept approach emphasises moving beyond rigid frameworks and structured methodologies. It encourages flexibility and openness to new ideas and perspectives that may not fit neatly into predefined categories.
Encouraging Creativity and Innovation: By not being confined to specific concepts, individuals and organizations can foster greater creativity and innovation. This approach allows for more spontaneous and intuitive thinking, which can lead to novel solutions and insights.
Adapting to Changing Conditions: The no-concept idea highlights the importance of being present and responsive to changing conditions. It suggests that being too attached to specific concepts can hinder the ability to adapt and evolve as new information and circumstances arise.
Embracing Uncertainty: Futures thinking often deals with uncertainty and complexity. The no-concept approach accepts that not all aspects of our futures can be neatly categorised or predicted. It encourages embracing uncertainty and being comfortable with ambiguity.
Holistic Perspective: This approach promotes a holistic view, where the focus is on the interconnectedness of various elements rather than isolating them into separate concepts. It supports a more integrated and comprehensive understanding of the future.
In essence, the no-concept idea in futures thinking is about maintaining an open mind, being adaptable, and allowing for the emergence of new and unexpected possibilities. It encourages moving beyond traditional boundaries to explore and create innovative futures.
