Dr Cheryl Doig combines a background in education with wide experience in leadership, governance, and futures thinking. She is the Director of Think Beyond, Chair of Ako Ōtautahi Learning City Christchurch, and founder of the Ōtautahi Futures Collective.

Interviewed by: Amanda Reeves

More about Cheryl

Transcript

Amanda Reeves 0:14

Hello, welcome to FuturePod. I'm Amanda Reeves. FuturePod gathers voices from the international field of futures and foresight. Through a series of interviews, the founders of the field and emerging leaders share their stories, tools, and experiences. Please visit futurepod.org for further information about this podcast series.

Today, my guest is Cheryl Doig.

Cheryl combines a background in education with wide experience in leadership, governance, and futures thinking. She's currently Chair of Ako Ōtautahi Learning City Christchurch, and trustee on the Food for Thought trust. She is founder of the Ōtautahi Futures Collective and a professional member of the Association for Professional Futurists.

Cheryl is Director of Think Beyond and a co-host of the Future of Learning conference. She challenges the status quo and is a proactivist for ethical, equitable, and sustainable change.

Welcome to FuturePod, Cheryl.

Cheryl Doig 01:08

Thank you so much for having me.

Question 1

Amanda Reeves 01:09

Let's start with the Cheryl Doig story. How did you find your way to where you are?

Cheryl Doig 01:15

I guess I've always been curious, but my journey started a long time ago, actually. I was a student at high school. And on the weekends, I used to work in a shoe shop in New Brighton in Christchurch. And one day I was working in the shop and this man walked in this American and he got talking. And then later in the day he said, oh, I've got something for you.

And he had bought me a new book, Future Shock. And I don't know why he thought that I needed that. But for me, that was of the journey that started my pathway into futures and although it took years for that to percolate, I look back and think, I don't know who that man was. I've tried to find John R Lucky Larson but who knows where he disappeared to.

That started my journey, but I guess I've always been interested in complex change and innovation. My first career was as a teacher and then a school principal, that's where I used that work in my sort of everyday work. But at the same time I was studying. So all the time I was in the teaching and principalship roles, I was studying to be a lifelong learner. Then I started my doctorate through Griffith University on the Gold Coast of Australia, and that was where I undertook some foundation courses with Richard Slaughter.

And probably that was the pivotal change. Richard won't remember me, but he made a difference in terms of steering me to my next career.

Amanda Reeves 02:54

Were you a principal at the time that you met Richard?

Cheryl Doig 02:58

Yes, all the time I was finishing my doctoral studies, I was still a school principal. And you know what it's like when you're the frog in the pot of boiling water, you just carry on and don't know any different. Now I look back and think I'm not quite sure how I managed to be a reasonably high performing principal and do that work.

But all the time I knew that I was going to move to something else.

And so I looked around at traditional jobs and work in a university, or Ministry of Education or something else. And I just thought, they are very constricting and conforming.

So I set about just slowly building up my own business and left principalship, and started Think Beyond which is the business I still have today just working for myself, but networking with other people when there's work to be done on a wider scale.

Amanda Reeves 03:52

Have you done much work in the space around education, or was that really a sort of a hard shift for you?

Cheryl Doig 03:57

If I just worked in education, I'd be really bored. But the reality is that when I left my principal's job, I was well known in education, and so that's where the work came most easily in the early days, and probably still does form a reasonable amount of my work.

I guess the good thing was I could experiment in a field that I knew, but I also was amazed that my colleagues were shocked that I was leaving and didn't have a job to go to. And I used to say, "Hey, look, if you want help with your policies and your linear processes and appointments and all those sorts of things, don't call me." And so right from the beginning I was really clear.

If you want to work with me, it's because you're interested in things beyond business as usual. Challenging and exploring opportunities in the future space is what I do. Not only were they shocked, but when I said, "You know, we are talking about our young people in schools - who knows what they will do, how many jobs they will have?"

And yet we stay in this comfortable role called a teacher, unless you do something really bad, you can stay as a teacher. And that's a very safe career that doesn't walk the talk.

So that for me is pretty important cause that T-shaped worker or the X shaped worker is that integration of horizontal and vertical ways of working, but also the integration with technologies that to me makes perfect sense.

Areas such as health and education, they're very slow to change. I think it's sometimes easier to make a difference as an outsider going in, but with some connection, because you can say different things that jolly people along.

Amanda Reeves 05:45

Absolutely. that's some of the appeal and some of the value that foresight provides. Sometimes it's valuable to be able to bring someone else in who can say the things that we can't say inside

Question 2

Amanda Reeves 06:04

So Cheryl question two. In your practice, what are your go-to frameworks or methods?

Cheryl Doig 06:10

Well, I've got a few, a few tried and true. One of those is the Futures Triangle. What I like about that is it's a really good starting point for conversation. So I've often used that in the space of really getting to know the client, but also in the future space, it's sometimes easy to focus on what's next, but without taking into account the here and now, but also the history, the weight of history. In the complex change environment, if you don't consider the weights of history, the push of the present, as well as the pull of the future, then you are not really meeting the needs of an organization because the reality is all of those three are so intertwined. Every time you make a change in one something else pops or has to be considered. And that looks really really different from organization to organization. The other reason I like it is it reminds me of the importance of past present and future being woven together. My colleagues, my indigenous colleagues, here in New Zealand, say that we walk backwards into the future, and our ancestry and all of our histories, are part of our future. It just reminds me how important that is. It's not something out there ahead of us and it's not a linear process. That's a kind of cool framework that I like often to start with when I'm working with people and to come back to when we're starting to design actions - to look at the histories and where we're at now, as well as where we want to head.

The one that springs to mind most recently is some work that I've been part of in the Futures Literacy Lab. I was lucky enough, several weeks ago to take part in a Futures Literacy Lab with Loes Damhof. So that's an approach from UNESCO and Loes is the Chair of the Futures Literacy part of UNESCO, so I had a real privilege to work with her, some of the other team members and a group of 20 or so others who were like me wanting to dig deeper into the craft of running a Futures Literacy Lab. The methodology is in four parts.

The first part is the reveal space. That's the space where you're really looking at probable and possible futures. With the topic that you're exploring in mind, what are the possibilities? And what's out there and having a bit of fun around it. Once you've worked past the possible and probable, the next stage of reframe means that you are really focusing on your preferred future. Digging into ideas a bit more deeply, but also the continued conversation about your assumptions. Questioning your own thinking: "I wonder why I prefer this rather than that?" and talking to others in the group so that you get the richness of the diversity. So for me, in a Futures Literacy Lab, the diversity really adds value rather than talking in an echo chamber.

So stage two, is the reframe and then the really hard bit where the rubber hits the road is the rethink. Here there usually is a curly scenario, an unpredictable event, a zombie apocalypse sort of approach. This explores the same topic, but with a reframe that completely blindsides you.

And you go through the same process again, but this time with a really different lens and different sorts of conversations. I found was the benefit after going through a rethink stage was that you end up with new questions and new thoughts about what were the assumptions that you had that led to those first sessions and the reveal and reframe frame part of the process?

Because I think futures is so much about mind frame or mindset, that constant challenge of " What was I thinking, and what has changed now? What would I do differently?" That then leads to the fourth stage, which is the Act stage, the 'so what', and 'how will I use that new thinking?' Those new questions to carry on this journey or to start narrowing down where to head next. For me, that's a really useful tool and way of flexing your future's muscle.

Amanda Reeves 10:26

That sounds so interesting. It sounds like there's some scanning going on in that first stage, looking at, you know, what's probable what's possible. then moving to that, you know, the really important questions of, well, where do we want to be going? and when we decide what our preferable future is, well whose preferred future is that and how do we reconcile different people, having different takes and different needs and different preferences. And how do we create a, a shared preference? How do we consider future generations?

Cheryl Doig 10:54

It's sort of a philosophical conversation, but it's also for me because I have a strong equity driver whose voices aren't heard and, how am I viewing things differently, but also how am I viewing things through my particular lens and biases. I think we need in the futures space to be continuously challenging our own thinking, because otherwise we can't do that of others.

It's a great process, I definitely recommend it. You can make it a short form or a long form over days. The workshop I took part in was all completely online using Miro boards and so on, and that worked fine.

The three horizons was one of my early tools that I used and used. And what I like about that is, again, it fits in with my work on complexity. The idea that you've got these multiple things happening at once, and it's not a linear process of strategy.

So yes. Knowing where you are today and where you want to head, but also the things that you're going to let go of and that you are strategically looking to either dampen or amplify or keep because they are the critical values that will still underpin your organization or your thinking. And now the thing I really love about it is that, in moving forward that whole pocket of promise idea of what's happening now that is already working in moving us closer to where we want to head and finding ways to amplify that. So I find it's a really good strategic place for organizations to get their heads round the strategy, but especially great conversations around what they're going to let go.

Amanda Reeves 12:35

Yes

Cheryl Doig 12:36

That connects them with the use.

Amanda Reeves 12:38

Absolutely.

Cheryl Doig 12:39

And the other thing I'd say is that it's a really good tool that I've used with organizations that are looking at change, but it's also a really good tool that I've used with individuals who are wanting to change where they're heading or just to focus on themselves and their next steps maybe in business or personally. Personally and organizationally, it's a great tool.

Amanda Reeves 13:01

Absolutely. And I think there's a really lovely connection with Futures Triangle, how you were touching on that these three things are happening at once. Both of those tools are such great ways to help people have conversations about the future, that still acknowledge what we're carrying with us from the past, what we're ready to let go of. And how do we, how do we get to where we want to be going while also keeping the lights on today?

Cheryl Doig 13:24

Yeah, I think the other thing too, about the Three Horizons is it values different types of thinking

Amanda Reeves 13:30

yes.

Cheryl Doig 13:31

So it's not saying well, if we had all people that just thought about the future and were focused on horizon three, today's world wouldn't have it's today's needs met. It requires acknowledgement of different ways of working in different stages and valuing people with those different strengths.

Question 3

Amanda Reeves 13:55

So I'd like to speak to Cheryl, the human, not Cheryl, the foresight professional. I'm interested in, what are you seeing that's emerging around you and how are you making sense of this?

Cheryl Doig 14:08

I think the world is in a very agitated state. What I'm noticing is people are very easily overwhelmed with mental health. But also the intense focus on now. And that's exacerbated through social media and through media generally. So if you turn on the radio or the TV or a podcast or a social media channel, you've got this constant flood of here and now, especially in that COVID sort of environment. Here in New Zealand, it'll always start with, this is going wrong. These are the numbers of Omicron cases and so on. And so you are sucked back into this world of not only today, but here and now, and the fight or flight sort of mode. And I think that's a perfect opportunity for those of us that work in the futures space to try and lift ourselves above that and look at the multiple futures and opportunities. Otherwise, we'll just get sucked into the here and now. This is a lifelong journey. We need to be able to think about what's going to happen in the next 5, 10, 20, 50 years, et cetera, and do the preparation in a both and way. I sometimes struggle with that myself.

This is about reducing the noise, providing focus while still scanning and looking for weak signals and so on being really open, but at the same time filtered, yeah, so sometimes I just find it overwhelming and just need to retreat. One of the things that I have always been aware of, but it's been really exacerbated in the last few years is the equity gap. So globally the equity gap between who can get resources and who can't, and the equity gap in the space of digital equity in particular, has increased the gap even more. This is something that will impact the future in a whole lot of different ways. I'm thinking in particular about the whole colonisation of the world. So the colonisation of the future, if you think about that from where we're hitting next and who gets to say what happens? It's a particular narrow sector of society who has a say, and even in things like all of the hype in the space race. You're talking about a small group of people. Where the equity gap really isn't thought about in lots of respects and in the space race, we are at the moment using the language of colonisation in doing the same things that we've done to damage earth. So that whole space of equity and colonising the future, is one thing top of mind.

And I guess the third thing is one of the areas of my interest this year - the metaverse.

What is the metaverse? I'm really interested in all of the different aspects, but particularly from a commoner point of view. So there's lots out there from tech people, and in particular, when you do a search online, virtually all of the people who've written blogs etc in that area, are men. Everyone's got an opinion depending on whether they want to make money out of things, or they're into the learning space of metaverse. I am trying to make sense of this from an intergenerational viewpoint. My family ranges in age from an eight month year old great-granddaughter to a mother who's 91. And so what I'm thinking is how does metaverse look for each of those people, and how will it influence the next generations, what does it mean for my eight month year old, she's probably going to be more involved in the metaverse perhaps than my 91 year old mother.

I hope to do some more exploration of the metaverse in a way that is intergenerational and practical. Let's get rid of all of the hype and the language, and just wonder about it from a common sense, normal person, point of view.

Amanda Reeves 18:07

Combining those ideas of this space race that's happening and colonising other planets with the metaverse this idea that yes, there are these different ways to create other spaces, whether it be physical or virtual. But if we're creating them with the same culture and the same mindset and the same rules that we have in the present, then we're just further perpetuating how things are that actually, we can't just create another space, be it physical or virtual, and have it be different without also addressing those structural aspects too.

Cheryl Doig 18:40

Yeah, well, that's that's right. We think about it from the equity perspective. There are children, some as young as eight, who are buying shoes, paying money in the metaverse for their avatars doing all sorts of things that really, in my worldview, just replicate what's happening in the world, the real world of consumerism. Actually I'd want to be creating a new future. Anyway, I'll know a lot more about it by the end of the year, because I've got a little project happening in that space.

Amanda Reeves 19:15

So you started by talking about this state of fight or flight that we've been in, and this constant hyper-focus on now, while also talking about scanning and looking at what's happening out there, trying to stay broad, but also trying to filter. One of the challenging things that I find about being a futurist in this space. And I'm curious about how you're handling this, you know, on a good day, the futures field can be, we can be talking about things that people aren't necessarily ready to talk about. We can be looking at a wide range of futures, some of which are, you know, less than desirable. How are you as a person handling this idea of, you know, being in our second year now of constant fight or flight, feeling like there's a sense of existential threat, dread, while also still keeping your eyes open, looking at where we can be going, how are you, how are you managing that?

Cheryl Doig 20:07

I think it's an incredibly hard space to manage on one hand, the fight or flight, intense focus on now. The pragmatic side of me says, you know, sometimes there's a time for withdrawing from futures space to the here and now and just being. And so I think that's intensely personal for all of us.

For me, interestingly enough on my VR headset there's some really good apps for slowing down and meditation. Now some people hate that approach in VR, but for me it adds another dimension. And so just to be able to even take time using the technology, but just to slow down sometimes disengage from technology quite, significantly makes a big difference. So I think each of us has to find the rhythm of when that works. I don't work on Fridays and I try and have time with my husband and a thinking time and time in' green space or whatever, so that I'm getting both-and. And I think that's a really important space for all of us. We've had two years of COVID and that's likely to carry on for some time. I find myself oscillating in the Polak game. So, you know, that whole idea of how much control do I think I've got over what? And sometimes feeling as if I don't have any control and it's just all too hard, then at other times feeling I can make a difference in the small pockets that are my circle of influence.

And so I think it's okay to be oscillating in those spaces and really useful if you're aware of what you're doing and maybe how to move in or out of different spaces.

Question 4

Amanda Reeves 21:52

So how do you explain what it is that you do to someone who doesn't necessarily understand what you do?

Cheryl Doig 21:59

This is just the hardest question. I've never been one for elevator pitches. But, what I generally say is that I help people imagine different futures that they can use to be better prepared today. I usually start with something generic and then ask questions and dig deeper into what I do in the futures space, depending on what sort of a thinker they are and what they really want to know. Because sometimes their eyes glaze over. It's like, oh, yeah right. And other times they're intensely interested and want to know more. So there has to be different approaches for those people, but there are three things that I try and say, or I find myself repeating a lot.

One is I don't have a crystal ball. We always talk about futures, not future. And the third thing is that I work in the space of anticipation not prediction.

Amanda Reeves 22:55

Ooh, I like that one.

Cheryl Doig 22:57

For me, that is a critical, and again, that connects back to the whole futures literacy idea is that, there are some people who do work in the predictive space. That's not me. I spend my time in the space of emergence and possibilities. T hat's where I do my best work.

So in sometimes I also talk about why you'd employ me, and that's to do with challenging your thinking about new possibilities for the future and exploring new questions that maybe you wouldn't have explored by yourself.

So if you aren't prepared to be challenged, and you want help with a strategic plan. That's not the work I do. If you want help to think more broadly to consider future options and to do some strategic thinking, then that is my work.

Question 5

Amanda Reeves 23:54

So we've made it to our open question, and I'd really like to hear some more about the Ōtautahi Futures Collective that you're involved in in Christchurch.

Cheryl Doig 24:02

We're doing some really interesting things here in Ōtautahi Christchurch. So, Ōtautahi is the Māori word for Christchurch. So, I use them both in recognition of Ngāi Tahu, who are our local iwi or tribe Māori tribe, here in an Ōtautahi. This work for me is really really interesting because I've always been interested in the learning ecosystem space and as you mentioned, at the beginning, I'm a trustee of Ako Ōtautahi, Learning City Christchurch, that's a whole learning city movement focused on equity, access and innovation. So the idea of creating a local futures movement just made sense to me.

And it really happened that the kernel of the idea started during lockdown and, it started with Sohail's Metafuture space. It's really useful when you're in a country that's 'down under' to have some online asynchronous programmes available, because sometimes things aren't accessible to go and take part in face-to-face especially at the moment. But Sohail started developing his resource Metafuture, really an introduction to futures studies and being a fan of Sohail and really just wanting to see what was happening, I went and explored the online program and I thought, there's something here that would be great to introduce new people into the futures space. And so I just put it out there, through my, social media, "Hey, I'm going to sponsor some people from Ōtautahi Christchurch to grow their futures understanding."

So, I sponsored 10 people to do Sohail's program. And what I did was provide the glue and really a community of practice approach. So, because we were in lockdown at that stage, we met online every two weeks for eight sessions and we explored loosely some of the work in the Metafuture program, but it became a really, really vibrant place of connecting people interested in futures.

What I loved about that was they were really diverse backgrounds and industries. And when the group finished we were able to meet face to face, and we sat in a room and Sohail came online and we had a chat to him. He challenged us personally, but also as a group that if we were going to move forward together, we needed a metaphor.

Amanda Reeves 26:22

Of course.

Cheryl Doig 26:23

That's probably not a surprise. So, we decided that we would continue meeting so that we could keep developing our futures muscles. From a practicing futurist who has worked in this field for a few years, what I loved was the fact that I'd have some friends who knew futures in the city.

So our metaphor is a braided river. In Christchurch, we're on a plain and one of the distinctive features that's not found in very many places in the world is the concept of a braided river. And so, you know, sometimes it's swollen with water and other times it's a trickle. But there are always pieces off to the side and dead ends, et cetera.

Sometimes we're working together or coming together. And sometimes we're just lurking at the side or just so intensely involved with our own work that there's no time to think of it. And that's fine, it's not that we have disconnected. We're just lurking and we'll come back into the mainstream when something interests us or we've got questions. So that metaphor is what underpins our work. We are a loose network which started off with those 10 people. And since then I've run another one of these, what's now called a Futures Activator, of people who actually got together and said, you know what, we hear you've been doing this Cheryl, we'd like to do it, and they self organized a group, again, from really different backgrounds and industries - HR, engineers, academics, each person uniquely amazing.

That second cohort met fortnightly face-to-face and that was a really social cohort. So we'd often meet early and have a beer or something to eat, and at the end of the program they joined the Ōtautahi Futures Collective. So we now have twenty, and we just meet once a month or have opportunities where we might be able to work together.

Ben, who's one of the group, is the managing director at a firm called Hamilton Jet and he wanted to put his senior staff through a futures process. So he designed it, and some of us volunteered to go and help facilitate the tables for him. He ran that in Christchurch with his local people.

Then he repeated the process with his global team with about 70 people. So what we got was the benefit of our collective continuing their development and the conversations and what Ben got was members of his team who were able to ask some critical questions and had some basic futures training. And so we're looking at those sorts of opportunities to continue coming together, sharing ideas, challenging our thinking, introducing some new ideas. We met a couple of weeks ago and I introduced people to artifacts from the future. And we had a play with those sorts of things. So who knows where that leads, but Ōtautahi Futures Collective is a group of now 21, because we had another person who has some experience in futures who came to live in Ōtautahi Christchurch and didn't know many people.

So I said "Come along!" So it's not quite an exclusive group, but it is for people who have either done their training with me in that space or who have done some work in the futures group. Our third cohort is underway, we've been meeting face to face, we're going online for our next gathering next week.

And again, we're using, the Metafuture as a bit of a spine, but our conversations go all over the place. And I just think I'd love to grow a city of futures literate people who are then going and seeding the future in their own particular industry.

So it's a really cool space and I love it.

Amanda Reeves 29:56

Oh, that sounds like a wonderful model and so practical. There's so much value that comes from these conversations and, you know, gentle sparring as well. I think that sounds like a wonderful way to take these online courses and make them more tangible and social.

Cheryl Doig 30:15

Yeah. It's developed some really good friendships, and has been useful for me. I work for myself. And if I'm working with others, that's in a network way coming together for projects and then having the best of both worlds, I think. And so the opportunity to interact with people from really, really different industries and sometimes explore opportunities where we can work together and bring the strengths that I bring, that they bring, from different backgrounds and industries and do some work together, I think is a really good place to keep developing the futures pathway and also for me, it's also about leaving a legacy.

Amanda Reeves 30:55

Mmm

Cheryl Doig 30:58

I think that means I'm getting older.

Amanda Reeves 31:02

Just that we're all, you know, slowly coming to terms with the fact that we won't live forever.

Cheryl Doig 31:07

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Amanda Reeves 31:08

Thank you so much for being our guest today Cheryl, it's been such a delight hearing about the work that you're doing in Ōtautahi, to hear about your journey, and I'm so interested in this, this futures literacy framework that you've shared with us. Thank you. It's been really generous.

Cheryl Doig 31:23

Thank you so much.

Amanda Reeves 31:40

This has been another production from FuturePod. FuturePod is a not-for-profit venture, we exist through the generosity of our supporters. If you would like to support FuturePod visit the Patreon link on our website. Thank you for listening. Remember to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. This is Amanda Reeves saying goodbye for now.