Emeritus Professor George Burt

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Note on the Australian artist Joan Brassil

On a recent holiday to Australia, I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney, and an artist caught my eye, as she unintentionally triggered thoughts about scenario, futures and foresight work. The artist was Joan Brassil. Joan Brassil is widely recognised for her multi-media installations exploring sensory perception and the magnitude of the natural world.

The Joan Brassil art installation entitled ‘Randomly – Now and Then’ (1990) shines the spotlight on linking the past to the present to the future. As MCA curator Anna Davis explains this piece of art as follows: “tracing environmental events in timeframes that are almost inconceivable compared to the human lifespan, we are reminded of the transforming worlds beneath our feet (and surrounding us) that can alert us to possible futures. Connecting the earth and the cosmos in an instrument for listening to deep time and the energies of the universe”.

For scenario, futures and foresight work these words are profound. First, we only recognise fragments of the past, constrained by our conditioning in chronological time. However, the past is not fixed. It is open, emerging and can be continually interpreted and re-interpreted. What does this mean for our understanding of the present, and the future? Our understanding of the present is at best limited, and at worst, flawed. This should alert us to decisions that we take that are likely to have unintended consequences, and these may not be immediately evident.

Second, to improve scenario, futures and foresight work it is important to recognise the limitations of our assumptions about events across time and space. The challenge is to search for local and non-local outliers, events across time and space, that have the potential to undermine our assumptions about the basis of organisational success. Looking for and sensing these outliers will help reveal hidden or unseen drivers of change. For example, the conflict in Europe and its impact on food chains and food security.

However, many managers are too busy problem-solving yesterday’s issues to be able to make space to question why such problems occur and often-re-occur. This the role of scenario, futures and foresight work, is to help individuals and collectives in organisations challenge and free themselves from the constraints that limits creative and critical thinking. Scenario, futures and foresight work helps: (i) to see problems from a new perspective, (ii) to make unexpected connections across time and space, (iii) to see the hidden or unseen, and (iv) to develop shared understanding and narratives that enable better decision making about the future in the present.

As managers, we should constantly ask ourselves these questions: (i) is my personal sensing antenna fine-tuned and working? (ii) am I educating my colleagues to improve their sensing skills? (iii) am I building consensus with my colleagues about the future, or (iv) am I constrained by day-to-day operational issues and problem-solving?