The future should not be a lottery.

When some people learn that I am a futurist they often ask if I can give them the winning lottery numbers.  Although I know they are (at least half) joking my usual reply is that I can give them the correct numbers but I can't give them the date they will come up!

My point is that with futures thinking and futures work in general it is not so much about prediction but more about creation.  Sure it would be nice to win the lottery and yet even though most people realise they only have a 1 in several million chance of doing so they willingly spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars each year in the hope they will eventually be that 1 in the many millions winner. "If I win the lottery I will be happy forever" syndrome.

Much of the work we do is to help individuals, communities and organisations to create the future they really desire, not as a lottery, but as a reality. Futures thinking is not just another management theory but a way of opening up the possibilities that exist if we are prepared to make the effort.  It is another way of navigating the productive range of anxiety - the adaptive challenge, to continue to challenge the assumptions we all make on the nature of reality based on moving from this reality to possibility.

To achieve this we need to disturb, undo, create, the very strategies that have been put in place. By doing this we can start to accomplish our goals without it being a lottery.