Roger believes that we need to allow the disruptive patterns to emerge to make the wisest choices. He also speaks of embracing the beginners mind to lead ourselves, our organisations and our societies through an increasingly disruptive world.
Roger Spitz is a merchant banker who found that complexity science helped him to understand the emerging external present, and existential philosophy helped him understand the internal journey too. Operating in concert the two sit at the core of his practice. He believes that our true essence is found through our choices, experimentation and creativity.
Based in San Francisco, Roger Spitz is the founder of Techistential (Foresight Strategy) and the Disruptive Futures Institute (education platform). Roger sits on a number of Advisory Boards of Companies, Venture Capital funds & Academic institutions worldwide.
As the former Head of Technology M&A [Mergers & Acquisitions] with BNP Paribas, Roger has two decades leading investment banking businesses, advising CEOs, Founders, Boards and Shareholders of companies globally. Roger is a contributing writer to MIT Technology Review, an advisor and speaker on Artificial Intelligence, and has invested in a number of AI startups. He is also a member of the Association of Professional Futurists, Foresight Institute and World Futures Studies Federation.
Interviewed by: Peter Hayward
More about Roger
Twitter: @disrupt_futures
References
Roger’s recent articles mentioned in the Podcast:
“The Future of Strategic Decision-Making” (Journal of Futures Studies)
“Innovation starts when you fall off the edge of the playground” (MIT Technology Review)
Other references mentioned:
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Cynefin Framework: David Snowden
Three Horizons Framework: Andrew Curry & Anthony Hodgson
Quotes:
Zen Master Suzuki: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few”
Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism is a Humanism): "Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards”
Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism is a Humanism): “Existence precedes essence”
GE’s Sue Siegel: “The pace of change will never be as slow as it is today”
Movies:
Smoking / No Smoking (Alain Resnais)
Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieślowski)
Organisations mentioned:
Santa Fe Institute (Complex Adaptive Systems)
University of Houston (Foresight)
Institute for the Future (IFTF, Palo Alto)
Audio Transcript
Peter Hayward
Hello, and welcome to FuturePod, I'm Peter Hayward. FuturePod gathers voices from the international field of futures and foresight. Through a series of interviews, the founders of the field and the emerging leaders share their stories, tools, and experiences. Please visit futurepod.org for further information about this podcast series. Today, our guest is Roger Spitz. Roger Spitz is the founder of Techistential and the Disruptive Futures Institute. As the former head of Technology, Mergers and Acquisitions with BNP Paribas, Roger has two decades experience leading investment banking businesses, advising CEOs, founders, boards, and shareholders of companies globally. With an early career in venture capital, Roger remains an ardent supporter of venture-backed ecosystems. He's a contributing writer to MIT Technology Review, an advisor and speaker on artificial intelligence, and has also invested in a number of AI startups. Roger is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists, the Foresight Institute, the World Futures Study Federation, and most importantly, he is a Patreon of FuturePod. Welcome to FuturePod, Roger.
Roger Spitz
Hey, Peter, it's such a pleasure to be on FuturePod with you. If I may say as an introduction, and when I think about the list of eminent colleagues and founders of the foresight field you've had other conversations with, I'm really honored to be included in that.
Peter Hayward
It's fantastic to get the breadth of the community appreciated by the community, Roger. So question one, the Roger Spitz story, what is it?
Roger Spitz
So there are two almost distinct phases to it. And I think for your discerning listeners, I'm tempted to give both of those, the more recent story and the professional side, but also the real drivers and looking at the longer time frames. As you said, I spent a lot of time working in the more corporate environment, advising on strategic transactions, M&A, and other things. And I felt during much of that time that the way things were moving in terms of accelerating, whether it's technology or for want of a better word disruption, I just felt that it was more and more difficult to be limited to that narrow scope and short time horizons, which went with a lot of the strategic advice or the strategic playbooks when you're looking at organizations and how you can help them future-proof and somehow felt that the real challenges and debates for the boardroom were no longer around these transactions. And so as I looked at these industries, which could pretty much disappear, or be reshaped overnight, startups coming out of nowhere with new platforms and eating everybody's lunch, and the incumbents being sometimes very brutally and quickly displaced. For me, the question was really, okay, how do I really understand the real drivers to that? How do I connect the dots as to what's really happening? And that was the beginning of the journey for me, the recent phase of the journey; I'll get back to the origins a bit later. And that was probably six or seven years ago when I wanted to really understand radical transformation. At the time, I was still based in London but travelling globally. For the past few years, I've been in San Francisco. And I took the opportunity to really spend time with institutions and organizations around understanding better disruption and innovation. And that journey led me to spending a bit of time with Santa Fe Institute for Complexity and Systems Thinking, Institute for the Future here in Palo Alto, our friends at the University of Houston, and also a little bit with MIT on Artificial Intelligence and Strategy. And that was effectively where I felt that an umbrella of futures and foresight, the way I understood it, was a good way of looking at longer timeframes, more radical transformation and those broader themes. But the real genesis, and this is where I just I want to spend a few minutes because it's actually the interesting thing, is that I discovered existential philosophy and the concepts of agency and contingency when I was at school, and I was fascinated by that, and actually anecdotally, Techistential, which is the name I gave my foresight practice, is “technology” and “existential”. And I didn't think at the time, when I moved to becoming a maybe more capitalist investment banker with a more narrow perception of the world, that I would be able to reconnect so well with these overriding concepts of how, in a way, defining agency and contingency when you're thinking about the different plausible futures or what one prefers, how intrinsic that is to that process. And so for me, I studied economics at university. I then spent 20 years investment banking. But the real time I spent at university and at school and even more recently was really reading into existentialist philosophy and the likes of Heidegger and Kierkegaard and such. It's only more recently that I almost came full circle. When I think about Sartre's lecture on existentialism as humanism, you know, man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world and defines himself afterwards. Understanding that that is really the crux, you're defining yourself with agency for your futures, and that is not deterministic. And so that is really the kind of more full circle journey that I went through.
Peter Hayward
It doesn't always happen, but certainly I saw it a number of times, teaching people foresight. People, while they had an external interest, also had a deep internal longing to be able to understand themselves and their circumstance, as well as understanding this emerging thing around them.
Roger Spitz
It's so true. And you know, I was thinking back, and it's funny how all this, it's almost like I blanked out years of my life, and it's coming back to me, but one of my favorite movies of all time is Smoking No Smoking, which is, as you probably know, and if anyone doesn't, it's Alain Resnais and he has two movies, where at the beginning in one, a person goes outside in the garden and smokes a cigarette and doesn't hear the doorbell ring and everything for the next two hours, based on, in the movie is on that premise, and that outcome that they didn't hear the door ring, and then the other one, they hear the door ring, and so a number of alternative events take place. And for me, when I think back, that's really an illustration of contingency. And I remember just being so fascinated with that. And for the same reasons as I was with existential philosophy and agency, it's that sort of different outcomes and the variability.
Peter Hayward
Yes, and one of the films that caught my personal sense of confusion, which is probably the abiding sense that I have about things is Lost In Translation, which is this notion that there is something going on around you; you know you're kind of part of it, but at the same time, you're also just an observer. So yes, you are a participant, and you have a form of agency, and there's contingency, but there is also this sort of, it can feel as helplessness, or it can feel as this kind of observed position. Which again, I think goes with the Eastern philosophical perspectives, you know, like Buddhism, and certainly Zen, which, one way to understand it is to step out of even the notion of agency and contingency.
Roger Spitz
Yeah, that's an amazing movie. And you're right, if we dig in, then we could probably spend a few weeks on this, it kind of reminds me - I'm going to mention anyway, although, should we move on? If not, we're going to spend an hour on movie buff things, but The Double Life of Veronique by Kieslowski , which again, has that underlying theme around contingent outcomes and people and are you an observer or are you the agent? And anyway, a number of the things you're mentioning, it's fascinating.
Peter Hayward
So that's a personal journey, which I appreciate. The question I often ask is are there people, which might be people that you knew or knew you or people that never knew you, that actually supported, or kind of somehow scaffolded or encouraged the journey?
Roger Spitz
Yeah so, the first phase I mentioned, the older phase in terms of philosophy, I actually had an excellent philosophy teacher at school. So this is, you know, years ago, and I was in the French schooling system for my Baccalaureat, I was in Monaco at the time, where fortunately even if you studied sciences you still had some philosophy. And, and he brought me a lot of what I was thinking and fed me a lot of, different elements, because actually, I studied philosophy very superficially compared to, you know, if you use the term study, I didn't study it deeply at university. I certainly didn't do a PhD. But I'd say in the more recent journey, both Andy and Peter brought a lot in terms of the University of Houston in Foresight, that's, that's more recent, but you know, obviously, very, very important to me. And then within Santa Fe Institute, although I don't know him, but people like Scott Page, when you listen and follow around complexity, these are obviously, they have a big impact on you, or me they certainly did, and I'm going to give you an anecdote, I know there are different views on, you know, technology, and I don't want to narrow to it, but I spent a few sessions with Singularity University here in the valley. And there was one morning I think, in the same morning, I had Ray Kurzweil who has a very interesting perspective on many things, and not least that he's running, pretty much building Google's brain as he runs the machine learning activities there. And then I think, had Paul Saffo who's you know, sits on the The Long Now Foundation, and has decades exploring dynamics of large change, and long term change and all that, and John Hagel, who also is, I think, on the board of Santa Fe Institute, and obviously founder of the Deloitte Center of Edge and that, and I can tell you, when you come in for breakfast in the morning, like that, and you have three or four of those, kind of, all those back to back, you don't leave that, at the time it was at the NASA Research Center, you don't leave in the same kind of mindset that when you arrived, and that, you know, that was a big influence for me.
Peter Hayward
It's always struck me how we are attracted to enormous, enormous brains, they are intensely attractive, but often wonder if they seem to have a grasp and a confidence, and we are attracted to as much their seeming grasp and confidence as much as the things they talk about.
Roger Spitz
That's a very deep and good question. Yeah, it's really the eternal question, right? I think when you look at some of the thinking about some of the readings on Plato, and relating the discussions with Socrates around some of these themes, these are very good, ultimately how confidence is more of a modern term. But, you know, the existential questions are kind of overriding everything, right, including around the self and one's beingness.
Peter Hayward
Let's go to question two, because obviously, there's a bit going on for you in how you make sense of the world, you've got a lot of experience and some interesting frames on both the external world and the internal world. So the second question, I encourage the guests to talk about methods and frameworks that are core to their practice. So what do you want to talk to listeners about?
Roger Spitz
So there's a huge amount to draw on. And admittedly, compared to many of, most of my peers, I'm relatively new to the field, you know, it's years instead of decades. So maybe that's easier, actually, to choose because of how rich and nuanced the future studies are, and what I know of it. But from my perspective, where I'm spending a lot of time, and it's been very helpful to have some of these frameworks, is around complex adaptive systems, and constantly thinking, really, in terms of systems. And, in particular, complexity. I think it's Stephen Hawking, who said that the 21st century is the century of complexity. And one framework for me, which I constantly refer to is Dave Snowden's Cynefin Framework. And in particular, the distinction between complicated and complex and the sense-making, depending on what domain you're in, and, for me, the important thing there is really the ramifications as to then all the emergent practices and the problem solving which go with that kind of feedback loop, the amplifying, the dampening, and everything we know, but for me, the reason why I find that so important is because I've tried to use it from a practical perspective, number one, so I've developed a lot of adaptations to the framework and developing those for, what does it mean, the unknown unknowns, no right answers, and where things are messily coherent. And what I've tried to do is use it a lot, that distinction between complex and complicated, because I somehow sense that more and more whether it's, you know, individuals, organizations, or companies, or governments, we are almost permanently and messily in that complex quadrant. And so that then, for me, leads me to not just thinking about, when are we in complex, but more the fact that it's a constant. And so when I think about, within that, how important innovation is to allow the structure of patterns to emerge. And so for me, then it comes to really innovation and understanding the inflection points, the tipping points, the S-curves, which are understanding the nonlinear relationships and trying to think about everything in that context of complexity, because I personally feel that that is the way the world is evolving. And I recently wrote a piece on AI, on that assumption that, you know, AI, I think today is quite good in complicated quadrants, to use Dave Snowden's framework, but less so in complexity. But the question I raised, and the reason why I really try to spend time on this, is AI is learning somehow to deal with some of the variables around complexity and are we as humans spending enough time managing that better? And how might, not that it's a race, but how might those dynamics of AI maybe possibly getting some traction around how it evolves around complexity and humans? And so that brings me to the last piece to your question, well, to the last framework, which is the Three Horizons. I really love the framework by Sharpe, Curry and Hodgson around that. I use it a lot all the time, because it's very intuitive, but it's not less powerful nonetheless. And so when we look at some of the things we've talked about, I kind of project what might it mean if you take those Three Horizons, for AI or for humanity or for different scenarios.
Peter Hayward
It's a fascinating idea. I read a lot of science fiction, I'm currently rereading a lot of the classic science fiction. It's lovely to go back to, but you're touching on a notion of what AI can teach us, which up until now, we're definitely thinking that we're the ones that are designing AI to serve us. But I'm interested in this pivot of how might machine learning cope with complexity? How might that happen? How could we even just lean into this notion of what can machine learning teach humans to do?
Roger Spitz
Well, the way I look at it, and again, it doesn't mean it's the right answer, I'm sure it isn't. But it's acknowledging what AI is good at, which is primarily, AI is extremely good at when there's cause and effect, and when there are known unknowns, and where there's a range of right answers, it's processing that data. So that typically is AI's comfort zone, the complicated. And once you realize that, you realize that you as humans, maybe shouldn't be spending too much time on only knowledge or expertise, or having the right answer or being a specialist, or areas where there's a good understanding of cause and effect, because ultimately, that's where AI will thrive on. Conversely, it means that you need to think about what's required to be able to evolve and cohabitate in a fruitful way with AI in the more complex because what's sure, is that AI, it's not a sort of given that AI will thrive in complexity. But what is a given is that AI’s going to continue to try and learn. And I think as humanity, we need to think about upping the game maybe in terms of what it means to do well in complex environments. And so to answer your question for me, what can AI teach us? I think AI can teach us that we should be more discerning in terms of where we bring value to that relationship with AI, like it or not. And if you think about the current institutions and the leadership skills and education system, which is knowledge based, I'm not sure it's cognizant of what we should be registering, which is, what are the areas we need to beef up? And what are the areas which probably, it's going to be more difficult for humanity to be differentiated and have the right kind of relationship with AI? If we just, you know, take education, if it's just knowledge driven, I'll let you think about how valuable knowledge is in the complex domains, right?
Peter Hayward
Yeah, I'm hearing a version of Ricardo's comparative advantage economic theory in that argument. But I'm also interested, as I'm sure you are, in the work that's happening where they're using AI in areas like poetry and music, and they're letting technology create what we would characterize as artistic work, and measuring the relative quality of the what ostensibly seems to be a creative act out of nothing. Because I'm fascinated by that, whether people think the poetry is any good, or the music is interesting, or beautiful, or whatever. I mean, I'm very interested in the possibility of there being an aesthetic dimension to artificial intelligence.
Roger Spitz
Yeah, and I think the short answer is there is starting to be. I think AI is starting to tackle even what was considered to be an area of exclusivity for humans, which is creativity. And there was actually a very interesting, the British choreographer in ballet called Wayne McGregor, who is an amazing choreographer, and he basically worked for Google Arts to train AI to do the choreography of dancers. And it's debatable as to whether it's better or worse, wrong, right or whatever. The fact is that it has artistic value, and that people like Wayne McGregor are teaming up with that, for that relationship, which he considers to be synergistic, and as you correctly say, there's a large number, from music to dance to all kinds of things. So, it again, I guess the debate then becomes, there's a value element as to how that compares to what humans can do. There's a question of who's on whose turf and does it matter in terms of the symbiotic or otherwise relationship. But there's also a question of where does that leave humans define work as you currently do in terms of the spectrum of roles and the value chain with work and humans can do to earn a living or what have you.
Peter Hayward
The other aspect here, which is the if I say that the Western cultural fear of technology, and I want to juxtapose that with what seemingly seems if you look at the Japanese treatment of technology, and it's much more, what apparently seems to be a more symbiotic relationship with technology. To what extent are we culturally limited to embrace technology? In other words, will we always fear it if it gets too smart, so to speak?
Roger Spitz
Yeah, it's a big dilemma. And you're right, that's interesting in Japan, how with longevity and with empathy and different roles you're giving machines. It's a different relationship. But I think there are different levels of the discussion, and we could spend a lot of time on it. These are interesting discussions. And I personally am, my biggest worry with AI is really in terms of how radically transforming it is for areas which, today the world is not prepared for. And you redefine work and revenue and basic necessities in a different way in the future, that's fine. But today, we haven't done that yet. And so, I get a little bit concerned when it's a bit like climate change, when people tell you oh, Alexa I can't even understand what my shopping is and make that sort of immediate rash assumption as to how useless AI is, which is true to a degree. But I think they forget the speed with which things can evolve and how radically transforming it can be and the impact it will have on so many things. And that's where, for me, that debate is important, because that's people's livelihoods and its education system. And it's a lot of things which we're just not ready yet to address.
Peter Hayward
I'm hearing in that, Roger, that it's actually not the fear of the impacts of the technology. It's the fear that our current governance systems and educational systems and support systems are ready to support people who are affected by such disruption.
Roger Spitz
Yeah, I think that's right, and how are we preparing the next generations; a lot of the education is so knowledge driven, right? So what does it mean, to go into something which you're teaching, by the time they come out of school, the professions or whatever they're learning to do have radically changed? Or disappeared or what have you, so that's a real consideration for billions of people. And that's where I kind of spend time worrying from a practical perspective, if you fast forward, and it doesn't matter whether you reach artificial general intelligence, it doesn't matter whether it's 5, 10 years, or 12 and a half years, the point is the direction which that is going and the lack of preparation or change, which is required to cohabitate with whatever direction technology and AI is taking. It's not doing that at a slow pace.
Peter Hayward
Thanks, Roger.
I think we're heading towards the third question, which is, how does Roger Spitz make sense of the emerging futures around him?
Roger Spitz
Yeah, so I've tried to improve on that recently, over the years, I've tried to, and that's mainly through reconnecting with the existentialist philosophy I mentioned. I think I had a phase in my professional life where I just felt, to do certain things, it brings you to certain outcomes, and it gives you certain visibility, and the world is pretty straightforward in that. And what's happened more recently, over the past few years, which for me has been phenomenal, is to be able to reconnect with existentialist philosophy and which I almost apply an existential framework to my own decision-making into my life. And so it's really thinking about Jean-Paul Sartre and people like Gilles Deleuze around the frameworks, which for me, are actually directly linked to emergence and to things we talked about with complexity because, in a way, if you look at properties such as our ability to define your own beingness, you exist and then you create your essence. You do that through curiosity and innovation and experimentation. And in a way, by allowing our essence through these instructive patterns to emerge in these complex systems, and so because I'm more and more believing that the world is not predetermined and is complex, and there's no right answer, necessarily, cause and effect, and you can throw the playbook out of the window. So I draw parallels with existentialist philosophy and I consider, okay, if you have a problematic, it exists; then you define your emerging essence through the choices and the decisions you make. So in a way, when Sartre formulated existence precedes the essence, and of course, he did that standing on the shoulders of Kierkegaard and Heidegger and the likes. What he meant is, the essence of being human is his existence through which the essence becomes defined through choice. And therefore, our agency emerges through these choices. And so it's a little bit of a funny way of describing it. But for me, it's just to continue to make the choices, to embrace this emergence, and not to relinquish those decisions and to the fact that you're defining yourself. So if I was thinking in terms of Deleuze's terminology, existence is unknowable, and indeterminate. And therefore, it's through the problem solving framework we discuss, defining your essence as it emerges, moving into defining the direction you're dampening or amplifying the things you do, that effectively helps me evolve day to day without worrying about, is it the wrong thing, because there is no right or wrong thing. It's not the causality is not so simple, etc, And so, I have literally found that a very, very refreshing way, which is directly linked to what we started with around agency to think about my future. And in a funny kind of way, that's what also tied me to what I decided to professionalize a few years back around thinking about futures and foresight, because for me, it's almost one in the same concept.
Peter Hayward
Can you apply that approach to the big issue that's around all of us right now, is, of course COVID, and both the the impact is having on us as individuals, and then happening on us as societies, but also having an impact on the organizations that were engaged with, and also having an impact on the relationship across the world that we're in. So can you sort of move from that situation, which most people would understand through their current structuring of agency and contingency? How do you draw an essence perspective to that?
Roger Spitz
Yeah, because the thing about one of the sort of philosophical debates around creating your essence is that, it's not to say that you can do what you want, in the sense of being a magician, or altering reality or perception or whatever that might be; it's really a question of your choices in terms of how you respond to events as well. So some of what you have agency in terms of the event itself, but you still have agency in terms of creating your essence by the choices you make, and even if it's just a reaction to something that's external. So that's how I reconcile it. So for me, the pandemic is obviously external, and I'm not able to alter it. But I can have agency around how I choose to respond to it. And personally, I'm trying to be more experimental and tinker, I'm trying to be more curious and to consider that there is no playbook. And if it's basically through my every minute I'm there, I exist, I make choices, I make decisions. And effectively, I see how these instructive patterns emerge, how that evolves. And I continue to make that. And the opposite of that would be the assumption that maybe things are deterministic, or that I might make mistakes, because there's a right answer or a reductionist view of the world or trying to predict things and to assume, okay, it's because there's a pandemic, it means that I can't do anything or that because I can't do public speaking and fly to Sao Paulo, and do that talk that I can't do other things that are equally interesting, so I'm trying to kind of avoid thinking in terms of necessity for deterministic models or prediction. Yeah, not sure if that answers the question, but that's how I think about it.
Peter Hayward
Again, I'm hearing in that this notion of, you're allowing essence to emerge as a learned exercise rather than a pre-conditioned response.
Roger Spitz
Exactly. Because, again, I don't want to bore you or anyone else too much on this, but the way I look at the juxtaposition, right, is that on one hand, you have, if the essence precedes the existence, it's really to use usual terms, it's a more kind of stable, predictable, linear world, right? So you have a playbook. There's a right answer, there's a wrong answer. Causality is more direct, you have known unknowns, you can predict things. It's more deterministic. It's a reductionist view of the world.
Peter Hayward
It's what Dave Snowden calls the Place of Normal.
Roger Spitz
Exactly.
Peter Hayward 30:22
And also what Nicholas Taleb calls Mediocristan.
Roger Spitz
Exactly right. And what I do in my framework, and actually, it's interesting that you raised Nicholas Taleb because I'm like many I am a huge fan, what I've just described, I consider it to be fragile. And I've just submitted a chapter on this, I hope it'll get published, put a sort of existential conception on antifragile, where I consider fragile to be what I just mentioned, which is essence precedes the existence, you have prediction, deterministic reductionism. And in a way, that's a complicated control structures, which are trying to control a simplified environment, and then to go back into a Taleb framework, I'm taking antifragile, which is where existence precedes the essence, and I'm saying, okay, that's a simplification of the control structures in order to be more responsive to complexity. And so that's the decentralization and all that; and that's where for me, to use Deleuze's terms. It's the unfolding. So the reoccurring responsibility of the choices you make for emergence. And that's Taleb's terminology. It's the experimenting, the tinkering, it's the number of things he talks about which are directly linked to Snowden with emergence and that, so it's you have the problematic that's there. And that effectively, you're defining your emerging essence through the choices and decisions. And so, yes, there's a pandemic, but I'm fully able to do all that. And actually, I find it quite refreshing rather than- and I think it's refreshing for the entire world, because instead of thinking, oh, I didn't do this school, or I didn't get that degree, or I didn't get into this particular employer or what have you. And therefore, a set of events will be dictated from that. Reality is that it doesn't matter.
Peter Hayward
Yeah, we can't do this wrong, because we haven't done this before.
Roger Spitz
Exactly. And what is wrong when there's the unknown unknowns? And there's no right answer, right.
Peter Hayward
On the other side, there are of course, things that we should reject as possible futures. So for example, we've seen around many, many countries, there has been a significant pushback on the notion that we should somehow accept that we let the virus do what it does, in order for us to continue our lives. And there has been a genuine push back on countries that have allowed the virus to rip, which is not simply trusting emergence. It's actually saying now there are some things that we will actively prevent emerging.
Roger Spitz
You're right. However, what I would say is that it's never so simple, to isolate a specific individual or country and that, and I think that collectively, if you look at how the world has- emergence in its own right, the framework I put around emergence and I wrote a little piece in the Journal of Future Studies on this, is that for emergence to work well, one of the things you need is, I talked about anticipatory, being antifragile which we just talked about, and agility. And in the anticipatory piece, it's really not putting your head in the sand and lacking complete preparation, I think collectively, one of the reasons there's been such a problem with the response to the pandemic is that effectively, you have China which has certain views on privacy and ethics or otherwise. And so they're able to kind of do things in a way which they're dictating how that works, and it keeps a certain control of things. And then for a lot of the rest of the world, on one hand, they have the freedom which is very important. But on the other hand, the governments and a lot of the decision-makers didn't have the kind of anticipation to think that these things could happen or that you need to prepare for them, that there's certain things you can do that are more emergent at the earliest stages. So for me the scrambling in March, once it was already too late on something which was being kind of visible and etc. is not emergent. For me, the emergent is something which you're doing in a reoccurring way. You have a reoccurring responsibility. I think it's Deleuze who uses those terms. And so what I think lacks with the emergence around the pandemic, is that there wasn't this reoccurring responsibility over time in terms of allowing what you've described to happen in a more kind of emergent way, let's say, and because suddenly nothing was anticipated, everything was randomized, and then people scrambled and then fine they're calling it emergence, I call it improvisation. That's the debate for me.
Peter Hayward
Yes, you can't say you're trusting emergence when you're simply abrogating your responsibilities.
Roger Spitz
Right, yeah exactly. That's it.
Peter Hayward
Thanks, Roger.
I'm looking forward to question four, because how do you explain what you do to people who don't understand what you do?
Roger Spitz
Indeed, as a former investment banker, I'd say that I maybe shifted from trading in financial markets to trading in the field of uncertainty.
Peter Hayward
That's not bad.
Roger Spitz
Not bad, right. Now more seriously, although there's some truth to that, it's hard. But I think it's really an important point for all of us to try and find ways of getting the world to understand what we do with foresight and futures. And the reason I think it's extremely important is because it supports a lot of the transformative change that needed and the agency we talked about. So I have three pieces to the explanation. One, which is to explore signals, including very weak signals on the fringe, try to uncover patterns, doing that with maybe a historic lens around previous drivers of change, previous drivers of disruption. And then I consider the next order implications and see how they connect the dots. So that's kind of one level. There's a second piece which might seem paradoxical, but which at the same time is to expand the foresight zone by challenging assumptions, with the what-if questions, but at the same time narrowing the level of uncertainties. And so by doing so you're exploring potential outcomes, maybe through scenarios while providing agency in terms of understanding that you have a role in terms of having some of those scenarios maybe being more likely for the preferred ones. And so I usually then try and wrap it up, which is, for me, it's really opening doors, helping to make better decisions, providing perspectives on patterns and inflection points with the very important reminder of how much agency one has around defining one's possible futures.
Peter Hayward
Where does the notion of the preferable, or the choice of what futures we prefer for who?
Roger Spitz
Yeah, yeah, it's a big question, right? In whose interest is it for, for some outcome? And I guess, even at the individual level, is it the individual for you, Peter, or for Roger? Is it the individual in terms of the family? Is it just the husband and wife or the kids as well, all generations, and then if it's a company is that Peter within a company, or Roger within a company, or the whole organization? There's that subjectivity, but I'd say ultimately, and this probably brings us to something we talked about in the past, which is around collaboration; ultimately, you do need to think about on whose behalf you're doing that, and how you make sure that quote, unquote, not colonizing someone else's future. And that you're getting all the input and the collaboration that's needed to build for whatever, whether it's a client or whether it's for you or your family, that perception of both possible futures and the ones you might prefer. So it's a very interesting question you raised because that is really the crux of, in addition to all the difficulties we have in terms of thinking about the future, that specific one in terms of who's driving that perception for whose benefit, whose preferred future is it, is really a very interesting additional layer to the whole exercise.
Peter Hayward
Yeah, ultimately, for many of the people, that is the sole reason why we're doing the work we're doing. It seems noble, but it also seems to be the best we can do, which is to not make things worse, and to do our best to make things better, because the people who came before us probably tried to do their best as well.
Roger Spitz
Yeah, it's definitely the case. But I think, these are, to my mind, at least, still tools, which are- nothing is foolproof, but I guess if you have the right engagement and collaboration and seek out the diversity of perspectives, you know, everything is in the planning, not necessarily in the plan itself. And so I think that's still a helpful process, right? Because none of us are dealing in actual predictions. So there's an element which is a process of engagement around turning to the future and thinking about these things.
Peter Hayward
Thanks Roger.
So we're at the last question. What do you want to discuss with the listeners for your last point?
Roger Spitz
So thanks for the opportunity for this. I often think about Sue Siegel, who was at GE said two, three years ago, the pace of change will never be as slow as it is today. And she said that before the pandemic, and I've been thinking a lot about that even myself before the pandemic around what it means and for want of a better word, all this disruption, right, what does it mean, in terms of accelerating technologies as they converge and fuse which will transform pretty much all industries? What does it mean, we talked about education, you know, the world is still pretty much relying on knowledge-based education systems; longevity, the way we define work today. And I think there's a real concern that one can have around the preparation for what is billions of people around the future. And I think it's an existential moment to reimagine the world right? To sort of think about what reset can make sense and to your point in terms of collaboratively with a collective imagination, to be able to let go, and to have the agency of thinking about what one's rebuilding. So for me, the final point is really a hope that the chaotic times we're going through can be a catalyst for change. And some of it might be, you know, revisiting the likes of Schumpeter with creative destruction. But a lot of it is also, you talked about Zen Buddhism earlier, I'm also a huge fan, when you think about the concepts of Shoshin, which is the beginner's mind. And in the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. But in the experts, there are few. Right, and that was, I think, the Zen master Suzuki, who talked about that, and many of his disciples were people like Steve Jobs, and I really think about, where are we doing any of that? Where are we taking a step back? Because the leaders who are meant to look after us- I don't have, I don't know about you, but necessarily the feeling that they're covering that. I think, in countries and in particular, the US, when you think of education, you wonder how you can change education, when no one stands to benefit in terms of the current people who are, you know, setting the system and milking the system? Why would they be prepared to change it to what Finland does, or any other things, right, because it's in their benefit, to have the accreditation and the poor schooling so that people can pay for additional classes and that, so, I think, for me the final word is just for us to understand how much change there will be, and that will probably continue. And this, I think, will accelerate, even with the without pandemic, and even with the resolution to the pandemic, and think about how much agency we have around changing and radical transformation. And I'm generally a positive person, because, you know, throughout discussion earlier around existentialism and the agency we have, but I'm that much less positive, if there isn't a sort of collective understanding of where we're at, and what's required and the change that's needed and the role we can all have in that. So that's kind of my final little point, I think most of your audience are acutely aware of all these considerations, but it's really just getting the message out, things like what Peter Bishop and others are doing around Teach the Future and really creating, starting at schools, starting in a playground, that mindset so that hopefully future generations will be doing a better job at emerging then then maybe we are.
Peter Hayward
Right, for me, I talk about hope and hope theories have been one of the important theories that helped me understand what it is I do and why I do it. And I think a suggestion I have to you is that is this notion of essence and agency that we have, but also pivoting that over to, can you find one other person that you can help them find their agency, as agency is not, of course, a competitive process. If I have my agency, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have less. I fully understand why agencies often start at a personal existential point, but as a collective, I just wonder how much more we could do with the people who find their own agency, then just find one other person who they can help that person find their agency and the exponential effect that could have.
Roger Spitz
Yeah, I agree with that. And one of the things I wasn't necessarily going to talk about, but one of my objectives with a something I've labeled Disruptive Futures Institute and admittedly "disruptive" is a bit of a dubious word for many but I generally think that we are in that phase and a lot of what I'll be trying to do is is really working with a few people to try and give that, to help understand the things that are happening and talk about this concept and have some ecosystems and collaborations. Nothing in its own right is a solution, but a lot of that I'm planning to do for free, and precisely not for the corporates or the entrepreneurs or for all of these people, but for anyone, any age, anywhere in the world, because I couldn't agree more with you. There's a sort of understanding of these things which is important, and which has not necessarily a given in the current institutions. And when people go through the normal kind of families and schooling and what have you, it's not necessarily taught as maybe not the word, but these aren't necessarily the takeaways where I think these youngsters have. And I think it's incumbent on all of us to try and see how we can change that, especially for the next generations. Because once it's more pervasive, and across the board, as you say, one by one, it reaches a kind of critical mass and exponential effect, and the tipping point hopefully.
Peter Hayward
Hear, hear, Roger. Well, on behalf of the FuturePod community, I'd like to thank you for finding some time to have a chat with us and share your ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview.
Roger Spitz
Pleasure was all mine, Peter, it was really nice. And thanks so much for what you're doing. I think it's really amazing for everyone out there that you're giving this field this voice.
Peter Hayward
Thanks Roger.
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