Patricia Lustig , Ceo Of Lasa Insights, Bestselling Author In Conversation With Futurist Ian Khan

Welcome to the Ian Khan show. I'm so thrilled to have you. How are you today? Very good. Excellent. So we are talking because we're both contributors to aftershock book put together by a good friend, john shorter tons and tons of really nice articles that lightning that are invigorating. I've read what you and Jill have written in aftershock. And I'm we're going to talk about that today. In this episode, tell me a little bit about what you do, Patricia? Well, I'm what's called a futurist. So many of the people in this book are and the thing I'm really about is helping people to think more long term, because individuals and businesses and organizations tend to think very much in the short term and not enough long term, and it will come and bite them in the bum as it is doing right at this very moment. It's very interesting as people are realizing it. Absolutely. And one of the things that really stood out for me when I as I read your piece is our ability to cope up with change how we're coping up with change, and we're going to talk about that a little bit. You also have a co contributor, Gil ringland, who couldn't join us today. And Jill has really amazing career. Both of you are contributors to multiple publications and multiple books. How did this collaboration come about? We both worked for ICL, and we started by writing an article together about scenario planning. And we have been writing partners and I've written three books and we're on our fourth together in the last 20 years. That's incredible. And it's hard writing me someone else's very hard. But when you get used to it, we write very well together we have what is called robust discussions, a lot of argument, and we get much better stuff out because we've got two of us working on it that way. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about some of the things that you've written. Let's talk about Toffler. And if that was an influence for you, or what your thoughts were about future shock, when you first read it, what do you think about Future Shock? 50 years after it has been written? You still feel some of the things and were bang on? Some of them were not how do you think we're living today? As you know, written in Future Shock so many years ago? Yeah, I think, well, it really excited me when I read it. So I must have known I was going to become a futurist. But I think the thing for us is the thing that we wrote about, which was that he just made an assumption, which was easy to make, in the time that it was written that people were not going to be able to cope with the amount of change that was coming. I don't think he underestimated the amount of change. But I don't I do think that they underestimated together because we mustn't forget, he wrote it with a writing partner as well, with Heidi, we mustn't forget the time he was in, and that we look back. And we always think that less change has happened and really has happened. And we think looking forward that less change will happen, then will really happen. And human beings can cope, and most of us do. But as we said in the chapter, it is more difficult for older people, the older you get than it is for younger people. And so why is that? Is it because we're holding on to our mindset? Or is it because we have access to some new things. And you've written a lot in the article about some of the newer things that are happening in the world, some of the revolution, some of the social things, some of the crowd sourced things that are happening? Let's talk about that. You talk about Greta Greta Thornburg, you talk about the earthquake in Nepal, help us understand how people have coped with change, or maybe lived in a different way right now than they were in the past. And those examples, what happened was they embraced the change better, I think, or more easily than some older people. I mean, I can I'm two generations before them. You know, we were talking about people born after 1980. So my kids and I don't automatically think about using social media in the way that these kids who have had it for most of their adult lives, do it. It isn't that I can't use it or that I don't eventually think of using it. But what is the case is that I don't think of it First off, it just it was a no brainer, as you would say that they would use this and that they would use it in this way. And, you know, in particular, I I did know quite a bit about the Yellow House because I was involved. They just, they just did it without seeing that this was different or new. Whereas for me, somebody who's older, it is different than you and I have to think about it, I have to struggle to think about it. It's not as automatic. And for them, they grew up with it. And I think we probably had that with every generation going forward. It's just the change happens more quickly, and in shorter cycles now than it used to. I hear you on that. And I think there's definitely that aspect of, and I don't know, if it's not just technology, that people are not technology savvy, it's not that anymore, because we all are using technology, computers, they're just part of life. I think maybe the reason could be that where it you know, it's not embedded into us, like, I have a four year old son, and I'll tell you a personal story. And his entertainment when we allow it is maybe spending time on the iPad playing a game or you know, doing some work. So he's already working with technology from from such a young agent, all kids today are, at our time when I was growing up, we didn't have an iPad, we had those small Nintendo games with a black and white screen, or we're coming up. And so I think it's generally what are we exposed to in our environment? Now you talk a lot about, you know, how people are, can do more in with what they have and reach more people and create more change of RV becoming bigger value creators today, because we have access to all of these things. That's a typical one. Yes. And there's another piece to it because we are capable of creating more because of it. And you can say, is it a big step or not, you can look at the steps that happened before they were big, too. I mean, just look at the step that happened, the real watershed when the printing press was invented. And the thing that's different now is that those sort of watersheds happen much more frequently. And it is what your story about your son shows is that it is what we are used to. So what we are used to is front of mind. And with me who didn't I mean, the computers when I was growing up, didn't even have transistors, they had those lights, you know, like old television sets did those tubes. That's how it was. So we didn't see any of those. So for us, although I worked in it, it wasn't given as it is for a child now working with an iPad. So you have to go through to a different depths in your brain, I suppose to use it. It's not the first thing that comes up. It isn't. I won't say that it's not normal, because it is normal, but it's not front and center like it is with our kids and grandkids. Now, when you're a futurist, you have a foresight as an area where you work help us understand what can an average person who in order to really look into the future, and I've spoken with so many amazing people over the last couple of months, all of whom have been contributors to to aftershock. I'm drinking from the firehose, I'd love to know your perspective on, you know, how do you go about helping people understand the process of proactivity, creating the future or understanding the future or foresight, help us understand? Well, in very, very simple terms, you need to understand that there isn't a future there is most people think of the future as a continuation of the past. And that's not real. That never happens. So the best thing you can do is think about different uncertainties that you face. And if this were to happen, and uncertainties use a continuum from, you know, say inclusive government to exclusive government and say, Well, if it was inclusive, what would that mean for me? And if it was XClusive, what would that mean for me? What would be different so that you aren't just making a plan for the future? A because that's the one you think, you know, the continuation business as usual, you are saying, Okay, well, we could have different futures, there's a range of them, what would I need to do to be successful in each one of them? And how would I know that one of them was happening, and you can read science fiction, although most of it seems to be dystopian and negative? Because that sells, you know, you've got Star Trek? That's, that's a very positive future. And you can look at those and say, that's an example of the future. What would I need to do to be successful and enjoy living in that future? An individual doesn't necessarily have the time to go into all the research and look at all the trends and say, Okay, here's a future that's plausible and probable, but you can by watching science fiction on television, by reading books, and by actually giving it a bit of thought, think of some different ones, and figure out how that would be thing. So here's an example. And I love what you just said. Here's an example if we watch a lot of let's say, movies, or Hollywood, there's so many movies that are sci fi, the you know, going from 10 2050 years to scenarios that that are just mind blowing, right? movies with time travel, movies, with so many different things that it's impossible to under Right now now today as of right now, we're living in the era of COVID-19, where we're battling something that has come out of nowhere. Humanity is not ready for it. We haven't been enhanced. So many people have died and they're struggling with with COVID-19. Hopefully, it's going to go away soon. How do you deal with things that just hit you like a rock, you're you're planning your future, you come up with your scenarios? How do you deal with, you know, so called Black Swan events? If this is a black swan event, and people are arguing that as well? How do you deal with events that come out of nowhere as a disrupter? Well, I would, what I what I do. And what I teach is that you always play with a wildcard event, a black swan, is something that has that exists somewhere. And this is a black swan, but I'm not so sure that it is because we knew. And I've never written a scenario where we didn't say there will be a pandemic, we just don't know the year it is something we know. And it's been ignored at people's pedal. But what we do is we pick, we put together a crazy, wild card, and we play with, what would we design for that? Not because it's going to happen, their high impact but low probability. But because it's sort of exercises your foresight, brain, you force that muscle, just to try to see what would happen if you got hit by something totally unexpected. What would you do? And how would you make that work? And where would there be advantage? And what would you need to mitigate and adapt to, if you've done that once, you might, it might be quicker off the mark for you when it really happens. So foresight is not just about predicting the future, it's not just about coming up with it's not ever about predicting the future, because you can't. So it's really about helping understand where you could go, let's talk about business leadership, you know, business leaders that want to understand where their organization will go in the next two 510 1520 years, they can sit down and do the process of foresight, figure out scenarios that can arise right and go through this process with people such as yourself. And many of the amazing exploits that are in future shock to kind of lay out that here is here are four things that can happen tomorrow, because of the decisions we take or not take because of market disruption because of an event a black swan event that we never knew would come or an event that we know, potentially would come in. And so it's a way to plan your response to what happens in the future. Two things that can happen. And then you you go with one, do you then go with one of the scenarios? Or what do you do? Well, it's two things, you by looking at the different scenarios, you can figure out where you can do something and where you come. So where do you have influence? How can you you know, we all have a preferable future that we'd like how could we make that happen, because there's some things you can do something about. And there's other things you can't you don't none of the futures when you make a set of futures, however many it is none of them will come true, all but a piece from this one will come true and a piece from back from will come true, right? And you learn you you talk to how you would know which future you are at. And then you identify Oh, it's this part of that future. And when that happens, we needed to that's our plan for this part. And then another part of the future another future comes you have a plan for that. So it's not going to be I have scenario a and I've got my plan for scenario a, you've got your plan for the parts of scenario a and if you recognize one of them happening, you do that part of the plan. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. It does make sense. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help our viewers and listeners understand what foresight is that the process of foresight is so that they can think about it and get used to it. Now, are there some specific tools that we use? I know a lot of people generally will take a marker user whiteboard, post it notes, there's so many, you know, very low tech ways of doing it. And I think those are the ways that that are really nice, because you're very flexible. Are there any tools that you specifically use or not? Well, it rather depends on the client and the need what the need is, but one that we use a huge amount of time is a tool called three horizons, which looks at Where are we now? And what are the trends we see now? Where do we see? That's the first horizon that's kind of managerial, and then we're visionary. We look 30 to 40 to 50 years out, what do we see happening there? That's the horizon three. And then we look at what's the bridge between so where's an assumption that we're making today? That is challenged by one of the assumptions from far out, that's just not a great big piece of butcher paper with, you know, stickies, little posit notes, and we developed a game for a game board for doing scenarios. The two by two matrix, a two by two matrix is something we can use. There are very many tools. I've written a book about this, that people can use and they depend on who the group is what they want to do. How much They've got, you know, there's just a whole list of them for tools, I think you could go to the Association of Professional teachers, it's called ap f.org. And I'm a board member. So I have to hold my hand up and say that and there are lots of things in the open domain on that, you know, you should be able to find some tools there are lots of people use different tools. I mean, there are tools that can help you do horizon scanning, that can mind for data, there are tools that can use that use an AI to take the data and do something with it. So there's a huge amount of things you can you can look for. And it really depends on what the outcome is its desired. And the one thing I would say is that in an organization, certainly, when you're doing foresight, it needs to be participatory, it means that a lot of people need to be part of it. So that you have lots of people on the lookout, as well as helping you with the plans, of course, want to read something from the book from your chapter, in the book, where it says, The combination of powerful technologies, and prosperous economies and genders choice that's empowered, the luxury of choice includes the way we build our networks, to energize our respective communities in order to get things done. And this is what I wanted to ask is, and you mentioned it as well, is the power of community is the power of consensus is the power of getting other people involved. So futurism or foresight cannot just be done with just one person, you've got to engage other people and make them part of the process. And that also helps you with your creativity and innovation around it not just in thinking about different potential futures, but also in how could we create advantage out of this? How can we navigate it, navigate our way from here to there to that future, particularly if you have a specific thing you want to happen? A preferred future, or preferred way for it to go to you need? You can't do it on your own? There isn't anybody who can make a future happen by themselves? Good. You mentioned that you mentioned your books. Tell us about your books up at Fisher, I'd love to learn more. I've written one that's won some awards. And this is for people who are not futurist. It's called strategic foresight, learning from the future. And it explains how you get to think in the way that teachers think. And is this book available online within PBS on Amazon? Okay, it's on Amazon. Okay. Yeah. So what it does, I've taken so explain them the way you think and how you move your mind out of our normal mindset into being more open and thinking much longer term. And identifying because we all have different envelopes, is what I'll say for what we think about and how to expand the envelope. And then it gives examples of tools that you can use. So the three horizons is one of them. And the two by two matrix is another. But there are lots of different tools. And it's not all the tools. It's just here's a project, and there's a case study in it. And here's the tools you can use as you move through the project from start, where you're doing your research and your horizon scanning, to finish helping implement the changes that need to be implemented. I love it. I'm going to post a link to your book in the description of this video. So if people want to buy it, you can go to the Amazon link and buy it. I haven't read it yet, but I'd really recommend all viewers and listeners to check it out. It's always valuable to gain this knowledge and information. We also have aftershock I believe aftershock is also available on Amazon and it's available wherever you are. And I'm highly recommending everybody to buy a copy and start reading end to end chapter one to the last chapter. Producer. I know we're short on time, but I'd love to speak with you for a longer time. We know you have other things to do. Tell us where people can find you look up your work, look up Jill's work and hopefully get in touch with you. The best way to get in touch with the two of us is through the website, www. Global mega trends calm. But I'm also reachable through www dot lazur l a s a dash insight calm. Okay, so two websites global Mega trends.com and Lhasa insights.com. And I'll know as insight one plus insight.com. I'll post links to those two sites in the description of this video. Any last thoughts on where we're headed in the next five to 10 years generally, as we come out of this shock that COVID-19 has created on the world it's definitely shocked us What do you anticipate in the next five to 10 years? Well, for sure it will not be the same. This has been a watershed moment and a watershed moment is when what happened before and what happens now is different. There's one moment and everything changes. What's going to be interesting is to think about what will stay the same and what will change. So we think travel will change we think so many people are living at home or living at home with working from home now. And you know, they may not want to go back to work. And we may find that this is a better way to do it. And what do people do already, the investment funds that work in the area of real estate, at least in the UK have stopped trading for now until they can figure out what's happening. I think that's going to be a shake up. Because I think office space is going to be it you know, and especially in big city centers, like London is going to diminish a great deal. And travel is going to change. You know, I mean, look, I don't know where you're based us. I'm in Toronto, Toronto, Canada, Toronto, sorry, I Oh, no, see me. So Toronto, so you're not that far in time away. But we can have this discussion. And, you know, 20 years ago, that would have been quite difficult. It was possible, but it would have been very difficult and very expensive. It changes the way we work, the way we work and what we work on is going to change. I know a lot of people are really frightened. And of course, it's frightening that people you know, are going to die. I can't tell you what that's like, and you have kids, and I have children and grandchildren. And it scares me silly. But I do think that what's going to come is going to be very interesting and can actually be something quite good if we make it that way. Thank you, Patricia. I really like how you ended it tomorrow. Well, we know it will be different, but let's hope it's good. It's best for us or friends or families and humanity in general. Keep inspiring people and keep helping us understand where we're headed. Thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate it and wish you all the best. Okay, thank you. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. If you like what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com