Heart of the Art

Another is the three horizons model. There are two versions of it. The earlier McKinsey & Co version talks about investing in current products, incremental innovations and breakthrough innovations.

The International Futures Forum brings a later version. They suggest that all three horizons are currently with us and we can find the future in what is happening now. Their first horizon is the dominant paradigm that is viewed as losing viability, their third horizon is a desirable future state and the second horizon balances the need to keep things functioning with the desire to bring the future nearer.

These models draw nice clean curves, the International Futures Forum version offers at least some option for bumps in the transition, yet reality is never this clean. These are models that always making sense looking back on events. When you are in the middle of events, although they might still make sense, they can be seductive. We find the signs for the future we would like. There are also many signs of futures that are less attractive. Who is to say which, if any, will emerge? Let’s explore further.

The current reality is not a smooth curve. There is constant variation in our living world. The line is characterised by continuous bumps and dips. What constitutes a bump and what a dip varies depending on your perspective. One person’s disaster may be another’s success. So, the idea that we are now in the downturn of a curve that describes the decay of our existing paradigm is a point of view, not necessarily a reality. It is also influenced by time. Human progression (if such a thing exists) takes place over centuries. Dips could last years or decades. If you are describing a dip how do you know you are seeing a trend downwards and not a blip on an upwards trajectory? Your emotional attachment to the current reality and thus your mental construction of it will have a very strong influence on what you describe.

The curve that is described by the first horizon also looks rather different if you zoom in. Many facets of our world are interwoven to create this curve, social systems, financial systems, environmental systems. They are intimately connected. Changes in one will cause adaptations in the others. Seeing one system heading in a particular direction is not a harbinger that all will follow. The other systems may instead ‘correct’ a deviation and reinforce the collective, pre-existing trend.

Therefore, understanding the first horizon requires a view over multiple time periods and from multiple systemic perspectives. Describing the existing world order as breaking down is an assertion, from a particular viewpoint in time and space (do all cultures see this the same?). It may be very true or not, it may be welcome or not, but we should be wary of stating it as a fact and even more wary in a complex living system of stating its causes. Just because people are dissatisfied with how things are currently and wish the world to be changing doesn’t mean that this is happening or that even if it is, the changes will be ones they might aspire to.

When we look back in time, we can see how the current world arose, or at least we pretend to. Again, the nature of complexity is such that direct causality is impossible to attribute, there being so many variable factors at play over a wide range of time. None the less, you can trace a third horizon’s emergence from the vantage point of hindsight and from within your chosen perspective.

The challenge with the third horizon is that at any point in time there are a multitude of potential third horizons in existence. If we look at what is happening right now, we can always find multiple examples of ‘promising practice’ that entrepreneurs are developing. Again, what counts as promising is a point of view. Nobody speaks for the world on this. Almost without exception these fade and die. They are consumed by the dominant current paradigm and adapted to maintain its identity and existence. They cannot find the funding in the dominant paradigm and fizzle out. Or some of them were just plain crazy and nobody backed them.

Picking the right third horizon is in reality impossible. The nature of emergence, which is what this process describes, is that the agents in it will not know what is emerging. Our anxiety about the future and our aspirations for it tend to lead us straight past this. Describing our aspiration for the future does not make that future happen. It allows us all a little more hope but the idea you can control a living system is not true. We have some influence, but we know not what. Our positive ideals can also play a role in negative outcomes. Again, what constitutes positive and negative can vary greatly by perspective and circumstance. We should be wary of the ego trap when we decide we are a force for good in the world.

Naming our aspirations creates hope and energy. We should be wary of attributing to ourselves the power necessary to create those aspirations.

The real work is not in describing either the current world or a new one. It is in accompanying those who are trying to change in this current one. This is the second horizon or the act of bridging. The original authors of some of these models recognised the criticality of this. Many others since have been seduced by the desire to describe and create their vision of the new.

The key to this is in working with the variation in the existing world, particularly but not exclusively, within the first horizon or dominant paradigm. Deepening understanding of this helps people make new sense of what they observe as well as helping them observe new things. They begin to see differently the range of opportunity in front of them. If you see the people working in our existing paradigm as obstructive or uninspiring you will be unable to bridge from them. You will not see that they are feeding billions of people every day. You may need to question your person-centred values.

Accompanying people across what may appear a very uncertain bridge requires them to place their confidence in you. Not only must we be seen to be competent in their eyes, we need to be able to meet them right where they are now. This means being familiar with the context and construct of their existing work. It means taking time to get to know this and to get to know them. It means appreciating too what they manage to get done every single day. Appearing to arrive from a position of criticism or claimed moral authority seriously inhibits your ability to do this work. Describing their world as decaying is a criticism. Saying you are creating an aspirational world is a claim to moral authority.

And the bridge we are building has no known destination. The only foundation we have is the one we are on now, however uncertain. Building a bridge from a place of security into a perceived void is an act of huge courage. We do not encourage people to do this by criticising them for their reticence. We do not help those who dare to by scolding them for the caution.

We can only accompany people across this space if we are willing to subsume our ego, our impatience for something better and focus on their needs not ours. This is an act of generosity and commitment. It challenges us and provokes us. Building bridges in this way encourages movement towards something different, in the world, in the bridge builder, in ourselves. We are never the same once we step into the void.