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MARVIN WEISBORD AND SANDRA JANOFF
Future Search
Common Ground Under Complex Conditions
Nobody can force change on anyone else. It has to be experienced. Unless we invent ways where paradigm shifts can be experienced by large numbers of people, change will remain a myth.
—Eric Trist
Future Search in Action: IKEA and the FAA
Two large systems, each with a complex problem and a myriad of technological, organizational, geographic, economic, and human pressures, discovered creative solutions in a single meeting called Future Search. One was IKEA, a global furniture company, and the other was the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a U.S. government agency whose mission is to keep the skies safe. The leadership of both IKEA and the FAA had to make rapid changes in systems too complex for anyone to know all the connections. They chose to bring “the whole system” into one room for three intense days of work that led to unprecedented new directions for each organization. Below we describe the challenges each faced, the people they needed to involve, and the results they achieved. We conclude by describing the principles and methodology that make possible dramatic outcomes in one meeting.
CASE ONE
IKEA, a global furniture retailer, sought to head off a crisis brought on by rapid growth. In early 2003, they had 10,000 products, 1,500 suppliers in 55 countries, 180 stores in 23 countries, 365 million customer visits a year, and 20 more stores on the way. Despite a preference for flat structures, the company over time had centralized its product design, manufacturing management, inventory control, and distribution in Sweden. They were, in the words of their CEO, creating “silos” that made coordination harder and drove up costs in a company famous for high quality and low prices. They chose Future Search as the right planning method because of the congruence of principles with their own. A small planning group hit on the idea of building a Future Search around a single product—the Ektorp sofa—making it a stepping-stone toward redoing the whole system. In March 2003, 52 stakeholders met in Hamburg, Germany. They reviewed the existing system, developed a decentralized design, created a strategic plan, and formed seven task forces for implementation. The plan was developed and approved by the company president and key people from all affected functions, with active support from several customers, in just 18 hours of work over three days.
Participants included the company president; the business area leader for seating products; top staff from product design and development, inventory management, sales, supply and distribution, trading, purchasing, and information technology; finance and retail managers; suppliers from Poland, Mexico, and China; and six Ektorp sofa customers.
They created a flatter organization that involves customers and suppliers from the start in product development, encouraged direct contact between suppliers and stores, and changed central staff roles to resources rather than controllers. IKEA changed the way new products would be test marketed and modified information systems to give everyone greater influence on coordinating and controlling their own work.
A year later, the business area leader reported that the Ektorp had exceeded all expectations, increasing volume, cutting costs, preserving profit margins, maintaining product quality, and reducing prices. The innovations were extended to other products and, by 2005, had far-reaching consequences for the whole company.
CASE TWO
Airspace, FAA’s highway system in the sky, is finite. The number of aircraft in the sky is increasing exponentially. By 2004, it was clear to the FAA that, without cooperative solutions among all stakeholders, there was a near certainty of impending aerial gridlock. FAA leaders were attracted to the idea of having all airspace users in the room to look together at the coming crisis. They decided on a Future Search for March 2004, to see whether the parties were willing to make significant course corrections.
Participants included FAA executives and staff, major and regional airlines, the National Business Aviation Association, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, transport carriers, the military, controllers and their union, government agencies, and aviation technologists. The following changes were made:
• A new System Access Plan enabled the FAA to relieve congestion daily based on systemwide data. Flyers would accept short delays and longer routes when this made the overall system work better.
• An “express lane” strategy to be invoked when any airport experienced a 90-minute delay, opening “holes” in the airspace, allowing delayed planes to be airborne instead of waiting hours on the ground.
• Elimination of a decades-old “first come, first served” policy of routing airplanes, enabling controllers to make systemic decisions. Users agreed to “share the pain” of short delays for some to the benefit of the larger whole.
SUMMARY
The systemic changes noted in the cases above were made possible by principles different from those underlying analytic models and expert analysis. In an age of nonstop change—when a system’s shape changes like the weather—a short, intense, whole-system meeting may enable results not accessible any other way.
The Basics
Why Future Search? As a society, we have painted ourselves into a technological corner. We have more ways to do things than ever before, yet a lot of what matters to us is not getting done, despite the large sums we spend. We experience high walls between haves and have-nots, experts and amateurs, leaders and followers. In Future Search meetings, we take down the walls. We take control of our own futures. We take back responsibility for ourselves. We discover that we can learn from and work with people from many walks of life.
In a Future Search, we become more secure knowing firsthand where other people stand. We discover resources in ourselves and others that we didn’t know were there. We begin to accept our differences—in background, viewpoints, and values—as realities to be lived with, not problems to be solved. We are more likely to let go of stereotypes. New relationships emerge. Surprising projects become possible. Future Search is a simple way of meeting with profound implications for organizations and communities everywhere.
Future Search brings systems thinking to life. The method provides people a way of acting systemically. By uniting diverse parties who are each other’s “environment,” we enable people to experience themselves connected to a larger whole rather than talk about it as something “out there.” When people all talk about the same “elephant,” putting together their perceptions of the head, tail, trunk, legs, and tusks, they enable actions none thought possible going in.
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? DATA SUGGEST AN EMPHATIC “NO!”
It is against common sense that much implementation would flow from one short meeting of people who have not met before. Nevertheless, unusual, ongoing action has been documented worldwide following Future Searches. We believe that this could not be happening unless Future Search enabled people to use capabilities they already have, skills always there and rarely accessed. Extraordinary results happen when people follow a few key principles.
FUTURE SEARCH PRINCIPLES
• Have the right people in the room—that is, a cross-section of the whole, including those with authority, resources, information expertise, and need;
• Create conditions where participants experience the whole “elephant” before acting on any part of it;
• Focus on the future and seek common ground;
• Enable people to take responsibility for their own learning and action plans.
USES OF FUTURE SEARCH
Future Search helps diverse groups find common ground, develop action plans, build commitment, and plan implementation—all at once. Some examples:
THE PROCESS
One conference typically involves 60 to 80 people. We consider 64 an optimum number—eight groups of eight. We run conferences in parallel or in sequence to accommodate more people. The purpose is always joint action toward a desired future for “X”—that is, a community, organization, or issue.
We do five tasks in the approximate time frames, shown below:
Day 1 Afternoon
Task 1—Focus on the Past
Task 2—Focus on the Present, External Trends
Day 2 Morning
Task 2 Continued—Stakeholder Response to External Trends
Task 2 Continued—Focus on the Present, Owning Our Actions
Task 3—Ideal Future Scenarios
Task 4—Identify Common Ground
Day 3 Morning
Task 4 Continued—Confirm Common Ground
Task 5—Action Planning
The Focus on the Past, Ideal Future Scenarios, and Confirm Common Ground are done in mixed groups, each a cross-section of the whole. The Focus on the Present is done by “stake-holder” groups, whose members have a shared perspective. Common Ground is the business of the whole conference. Action Planning employs both existing and voluntary groups. Every task includes a total group dialogue.
The task sequence and group composition are not optional. These set up powerful dynamics that can lead to constructive outcomes. We experience the conference’s peaks and valleys as an emotional roller-coaster ride (figure 1), swooping down into the morass of global trends, soaring to idealistic heights in an ideal future. Uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion are necessary byproducts; so are fun, energy, creativity, and achievement. Future Search relies on a counterpoint between hope and despair. We believe good contact with our ups and downs leads to realistic choices. In a Future Search, we live with the inevitability of differences, the recognition that no meeting design can reconcile them, and that people are capable of riding the roller coaster to important new action plans without “more data” or “more dialogue,” if they agree to keep working together.
Figure 1. Riding the Roller Coaster
ECONOMIC BENEFITS
In the business world, there is no way to calculate the benefits of Future Search in economic terms. Indeed, these conferences make possible levels of integration not achievable by other means at any cost. At the Hayworth, Inc., Future Search, employees, customers, and suppliers in dialogue with company members discovered and solved a cascading waste-disposal packaging problem. They reduced both cost and environmental impact in a few hours. However, this was only one of dozens of key issues addressed in the Future Search, many of which, such as work redesign, had long-term economic benefits.
Future Searches also generate dollars not previously available. We have seen money flow from haves to have-nots in an eyeblink, as people connect needs and resources. In one conference, a foundation executive offered substantial support for an action plan that he said would not have been funded had it come through regular channels. In an eastern city, the mayor’s office offered a community $2 million in public funds that had sat idle for lack of practical plans. A Connecticut school district increased teachers’ salaries when the community declared education a major priority. These examples are the tip of a large iceberg that could turn our assumptions about how to assure wise use of money in constructive new directions.
Table of Uses
Getting Started
In a Future Search, we seek to take that first important step by:
• Getting the “right people” in the room—people with authority, resources, information, expertise, and need.
• Creating a learning environment for participants to experience the whole system before acting on a part.
• Focusing on common ground and future action, treating problems and conflicts as information only.
• Enabling individuals to take responsibility for acting on common ground.
The change begins in the planning. Future Search requires no training, inputs, data collection, or diagnoses. People face each other rather than concepts, expert advice, or assumptions about what they lack and should do. The method involves comparing notes and listening, sometimes to a mishmash of assumptions, misinformation, stereotypes, and judgments rattling around in all of us. Amazingly, it is not necessary to straighten all this out to succeed. Commitment builds as we encounter chaos together, hang on despite our anxiety, and come out the other side with some good ideas, people we can trust, and faith in our ability to work together. In short, we uncover buried potential that already exists.
Roles and Responsibilities
SHIFTS IN ORGANIZATIONAL POWER AND AUTHORITY
During the Future Search conference, participants work as peers to build an information base, communicate what they learn, make decisions, and plan next steps. Afterward, there may or may not be formal changes in power and authority throughout the organization or community. Such changes would depend on the nature of the action plans and implementation strategy.
Conditions for Success
Our conference design embodies a set of mutually reinforcing criteria:
• Practicing the Future Search principles;
• Attending the whole meeting;
• Meeting under healthy conditions;
• Working across three days (i.e., “sleeping twice”);
• Taking responsibility publicly for follow-up.
To help people act boldly and creatively, we have to get out of the way. Therefore, we do not strive to reduce complexity to a few manageable issues, to resolve disagreements, or to solve longstanding problems, nor do we give people management models for organizing their varied perceptions. Instead, participants engage in a series of open dialogues on where they’ve been, where they are, and what they want to do. Future Searches often include total strangers or people with a history of conflict who come with confusing and contradictory information. As they experience each other’s diverse agendas, they realize that change means accepting each other where they are in order to go forward together. Those who stay the course find that quick action is inevitable.
WHAT WE CAN’T DO WITH FUTURE SEARCH
Shore Up Ineffective Leaders
We cannot make up for weak leadership. A worldwide religious service organization’s lawyer wanted to head off a union drive by disgruntled central staff. A reluctant CEO went along with “legal” advice to sponsor a Future Search that would enable people to devise the workplace they wanted. People welcomed a chance to make their own plans. They were not surprised, though, when the boss acted on none of them. Nor was their attorney surprised when the staff voted in a union to fill the leadership vacuum.
Convince Skeptics to Go Forward
We have had no success “selling” Future Search to people paralyzed by worry about losing control. One troubled corporate giant planned to put thousands of people through a training event staged by a prestigious business institute. To the staff’s proposal that the company substitute Future Searches—on the theory that people could get the company out of the box if given a chance—top management turned a deaf ear. They opted for expert training. Nothing new happened. Having two years to “transform the culture or die,” they gave up on their way after a year. Several departments ran successful Future Searches, but the company continued its downward slide and later was sold to a rival.
Reconcile Values Differences
We don’t know how to reconcile intractable values differences through Future Search. When people disagree about deep-seated religious, ethical, or political beliefs that they hold sacred, a Future Search is unlikely to help them reconcile their ways of thinking. In a school conference, people brought up highly charged feelings about sex education. The differences between those who did and did not want particular curriculums were fierce, deeply felt, and long-standing. The parties believed each other to be wrong. At the same time, they agreed on a host of other goals, such as better use of school facilities and more involvement of parents in learning and teaching. They found that they could not reconcile their moral values in this forum, but had a priceless chance to make progress on matters of benefit to all if they cooperated.
Change Team Dynamics
We can create new dynamics quickly only if we bring together a new group and give it a new task. Systems expert Russell Ackoff pointed out long ago (1974) that systems change only in relation to the larger systems of which they are a part. That explains why peer-only events—training, T-groups, team meetings—have little effect on the larger system. This seems to be true even when the narrow group does a broad task, such as “scanning the environment.” Therefore, our guiding principle is always the “whole system” in the room.
Theoretical Basis and Historical Roots
Future Search is based on theories and principles derived from decades of action research into effective group problem solving and planning. Our main sources of inspiration come from parallel innovations on both sides of the Atlantic. One inspiration comes from Ronald Lippitt and Eva Schindler-Rainman’s large-scale community futures conferences held in North America during the 1970s. Another is the pioneering work of Eric Trist, an Englishman, and Fred Emery, an Australian, in developing the Search Conference (hence, the name Future Search). From Lippitt and Schindler-Rainman, we learned to get the whole system in the room and focus on the future, not on problems and conflicts. From Trist and Emery, we learned the importance of thinking globally before acting locally, and of having people manage their own planning (Weisbord et al., 1992). We share with all of them a commitment to democratic ideals and their embodiment of the “action research” tradition of the famed social psychologist Kurt Lewin (Lewin, 1948).
PEOPLE, WHOLE SYSTEMS, AND PLANNING
We see Future Search as a learning laboratory for getting everybody involved in improving their own system. It is not the complete answer to anything, yet the principles apply to many kinds of meetings and change strategies. Our society has hardly begun to explore what we can do when diverse parties work on the same task despite their differences. Future Searches enable people to experience and accept polarities and to bridge barriers of culture, class, age, gender, ethnicity, power, status, and hierarchy by working as peers on tasks of mutual concern. The Future Search process interrupts the human tendency to repeat old patterns—fighting, running away, complaining, blaming, or waiting for others to fix things. And it gives everyone a chance to express their highest ideals.
Instead of trying to change the world or each other, we change the conditions under which we interact. That much we can control, and it leads to surprising outcomes.
In Future Search, major systemic changes occur in the planning. A diverse group of six to ten people meets periodically from a few days to a few months. They agree on a task and invite a spectrum of stakeholders. They also accept a novel set of conditions, for example, meeting for 16 hours over three days, skipping speakers and expert input, putting off action until near the end, and working interactively. In a meeting structured this way, people discover new capabilities no matter what agendas come up. This opens the door to new, unpredictable, highly desired, and long-lived cooperative action that is a high order of systems change.
We don’t work to improve relationships among people or functions. Rather, we set up conditions under which people can choose new ways of relating. We don’t abstract out social issues (e.g., diversity, trust, communications, collaboration) from economic and technical ones. We are unlikely to run a conference on “the future of diversity in X.” Rather, we’d propose that a diverse group of people explore together what kind of X they want to live and work in. Whatever people’s skills, education, or experience, they already have what they need to engage in this process. As facilitators, our main job is to maintain boundaries of time and task and to make sure that all points of view are supported.
SHARING THE WORK
Ours is an encounter with the whole—self, community, and organization. We do not provide an expert systems analysis. Instead, we set up a situation where people experience themselves in action as part of a larger whole. They talk over issues they have not raised before with people they have never met. They take responsibility for matters previously avoided or ignored. They dramatize ideal futures as if they have actually happened, thus anchoring them in their bodies. They identify what they really want. They voluntarily commit to actions made possible only because of the other people in the room.
Our procedures evolved while working mainly with people who can read and write. However, the underlying principles do not require literacy. The work could be done entirely with spoken and/or symbolic communication. The results have been repeated in many cultures and in culturally diverse groups all over the world.
Sustaining the Results
The most worrisome aspect of planning is implementation. No process, however comprehensive, guarantees action. Still, we have seen more plans implemented from Future Search than any method either of us has used in 30 years. People act quite apart from whether or not they had a good time, liked the facilitators, collected handouts, resolved their differences, or felt that they had finished. Nor is success a function of how complete an action-planning format we use. People find ways to carry out their plans if they have clear goals, the right people are in the room, and they take the whole ride together. Action requires people who understand and believe in their plans and trust each other enough to join in new steps. We think Future Search fosters understanding, belief, and commitment.
What factors contribute to sustainable results? We believe periodic review meetings that bring together stakeholders from the original conference and other interested parties provide a simple, congruent way to keep action planning fresh, connected, and relevant. What happens after a Future Search depends largely on what people sign up to do. No sign-up, no action. We do not know how to get other people to do things they don’t want to do. Future Search theory holds that we get more implementation when we attend to each stage of the process, giving people ample opportunity to engage each other, create an umbrella of shared values, commit publicly to action steps they believe in, and get together regularly to share what they are doing.
Burning Questions
DO WE HAVE TO INVITE ALL THOSE PEOPLE?
We strongly urge it, if you want to succeed.
DO WE HAVE TO STAY TOGETHER THAT LONG?
Many people have tried, to their regret, to shorten this process. Two and a half days seems to be the minimum time to get lasting changes that were not possible before, despite numerous other meetings.
CAN’T WE DROP THE PAST AND GET TO ACTION PLANNING SOONER?
If you move too fast, you are less likely to get the hoped-for commitment and implementation. We believe action planning goes quickly when people find common ground. If they move sooner, they use action planning time to work out their differences, thus reinforcing the belief that more time is needed.
WHAT IF PEOPLE CAN’T PUT IN THE TIME OR GET “THE WHOLE SYSTEM IN THE ROOM”?
We apologize for not being able to help. The only way to have “change” is to do something you never did before.
WHY ARE YOU SO RIGID?
We love success too much to give up on it.
Some Final Comments
We see Future Search as a building block of theory and practice for a house that will never be finished. Practitioners are infusing Future Search principles into everything they do, and enriching this process with many other perspectives. We cannot contrast what we do with other processes because we believe that processes that hold to the principles of inclusion, dialogue, discovery, and responsibility for action are independently valuable. The roller-coaster ride is inevitable in human affairs. Conceptual schemes and meeting designs come and go. The business of muddling through life’s ups and downs together strikes us as a universal process. We believe Future Searches are good for us and good for society. We hope this work enables thousands of constructive action projects everywhere.
About the Authors
Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff are codirectors of Future Search Network, an international service nonprofit and coauthors of Future Search: An Action Guide, 2nd edition (2000). They have trained more than 3,000 people worldwide in using Future Search.
Marvin Weisbord ([email protected]) was an organization development consultant from 1969 to 1991, with business firms, medical schools, and hospitals; a partner in the consulting firm Block Petrella Weisbord; and a member of NTL Institute. He is a fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science and author of Organizational Diagnosis (1978), Productive Workplaces (1987), Discovering Common Ground (1992), and Productive Workplaces Revisited (2004).
Sandra Janoff ([email protected]) co-developed an experimental high school from 1974 to 1984 and ran workshops in Pennsylvania schools on alternative practices in education. She also was a staff member in Tavistock conferences sponsored by Temple University in Philadelphia and the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in Oxford, England. She is coauthor with Yvonne Agazarian of “Systems Thinking and Small Groups” for the Comprehensive Textbook of Group Psychotherapy (1993). She has consulted to communities, international agencies, and corporations around the world.
Where to Go for More Information
REFERENCES
Weisbord, Marvin. Productive Workplaces. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987.
Weisbord, Marvin, et al. Discovering Common Ground. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1992.
Weisbord, Marvin, and Sandra Janoff. Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Community. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1995.
INFLUENTIAL SOURCES
Agazarian, Yvonne. Systems-Centered Therapy for Groups. New York: Guilford Press, 1997.
Berman, Maurice. Coming to Our Senses: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
Buzan, Tony. Using Both Sides of Your Brain. New York: Dutton, 1976.
Lawrence, Paul R., and Jay W. Lorsch. Organization and Environment, Managing Differentiation and Integration, research assistance from James S. Garrison. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1986.
Lewin, K. Resolving Social Conflicts: Selected Papers on Group Dynamics. Edited by G. W. Lewin. New York: Harper & Row, 1948.
Sheldrake, Rupert. The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature, repr. ed. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 1995.
OTHER RESOURCES
Discovering Community. Livonia, MI: Blue Sky Productions. (800) 358-0022.
A video of the Santa Cruz Community Future Search on housing.
Search for Quality. Livonia, MI: Blue Sky Productions. (800) 358-0022.
A video of the Haworth Furniture Manufacturing Future Search.
Weir, John, and Joyce Weir. Self-Differentiation. Livonia, MI: Blue Sky Productions. (800) 358-0022.
ORGANIZATION
Future Search Network—www.futuresearch.net; 4700 Wissahickon Ave, Suite 126; Philadelphia, PA 19144; (800) 951-6333, [email protected]