EP 198 - Natural Foresight - Frank Spencer

 
 

A return conversation with Frank Spencer that covers a lot and specifically the new book Natural Foresight.

Interviewed by: Peter Hayward

Links

Transcript

Peter Hayward:  What is Natural Foresight?

Frank Spencer:  Organizations are built with a safeguard against thinking about the future. They're built in very mechanistic and linear systems that really doesn't align with the anticipatory cosmic way of of the universe that when you speak of foresight being a biological, a psychological and a sacred dynamic of all living things, human, non human and more than human that's the Natural part. And our organizations aren't built in the context of that cosmic way of of living and thinking that generative way.

Peter Hayward: That is my guest today on future pod, Frank Spencer. Who is the co-founder and creative director of TFSX returning for a chat

Peter Hayward: Welcome back to future pod. Frank.

Frank Spencer: Oh, it's so great to be on again, Peter, as always.

I love to be able to say that I'm honored to be on the podcast because I'm honored to speak with you. I love our time when we just get to speak before and after the recording. And it's always amazing. And the work that you do with this podcast alone, besides all the other work you've done just helps us all tremendously.

So it's an honor always to be on with you.

Peter Hayward: If we had the cameras on you, people would see me blushing. It's but it's good to talk. Frank, it's over three years since the last time we spoke. Can you believe that?

Frank Spencer: That can't be right. That just can't be right. It's just, where's the time go?

Where

Peter Hayward: does the time go? So three years ago, We talked post COVID, and the three things that we talked about last time that were big in the life of Frank and Kedge were the Year of Free, so we did that in the Year of Free. You were talking about democratizing foresight.

Frank Spencer: That's right.

Peter Hayward: And you had a third thing that you were talking about, which was natural foresight.

Yeah, let's just maybe just quickly catch up on how those. Had those other two have been,

Frank Spencer: yeah, as long as we're catching up in that time period we, the sort of mothership, the umbrella of everything that we do, which includes, advisory services, consultation and all this stuff.

Plus the learning ecosystem, which is just continue to grow and the we can't stand the word training around here. So the mentoring, the the learning, the. The mutual context learning that we do through the foundations programs. And I want to save some of the rest for later.

Cause I want to talk about where natural foresight gone. We changed names. We now are known as TFS X and that includes Kedge, but also the future school. That's why it's TFS this feature school. And more people started knowing us by the future school than Kedge, which should not have been.

It should be the other way around. But obviously. For obvious reasons, because more people were flowing through that learning ecosystem as individuals than they were, in the client work going through the advisory services of Kedge. So we got to be known more for the feature school, and we put everything under the umbrella of TFSX, which includes.

The spirit of and the spirit of the future school and everything we do. So that's 1 change that took place. And then I remember last time we were talking, we did get to talk about the year of free and we continue to do that kind of work, but that resulted in some people around the world be more connected to.

The learning ecosystem that we have and we continue to do that, our foundations training or three day training online. We've only recently last year gone back in person again, and that's happening some more before this year is over. And then there's the natural foresight framework.

And I think that's what we're focusing on somewhat today, but in that time we were able to release. The guide to the natural foresight framework, and now it's offered in a hardback version and with some updates to it as well. And so we've been really excited over the last couple of weeks to reintroduce that to people and put it out in the world as this new book.

And you were saying to me before we started recording, book, why does somebody need a new book? So I'm excited to dive into that because, besides being, a tone that, helps people just to understand what foresight is, the natural foresight framework itself has really been more implemented and integrated and companies that we work with and people's lives, the certification that's being offered.

But also it's transformed in a way that we probably 3 years ago, didn't expect it to. And we can get into that in just a moment. I'm really excited about that part.

Peter Hayward: Okay. So I'm going to start you with the same thing I started with you three years ago, which is the term natural foresight is oxymoronic.

It's both a true statement because of course, foresight is completely natural. Yeah. We wouldn't be, we wouldn't have survived as a species and many species have a natural foresight capacity. That's right. But why I say it's oxymoronic, of course, is if you look around us and we look at our organizations and we look at our political institutions and someone says, wow, where's the foresight?

There's nothing natural about foresight.

Frank Spencer: Yeah, that's right. And of course, my immediate answer that we can dive deeper here in a moment. I'm talking to, I'm talking to an expert in foresight, learning and teaching is that our organizations are not built to be.

Organic in that way. As a matter of fact. Yvette, who I believe that you also interviewed for a podcast I did. At least a year ago, if not longer, but time goes by so quickly. She's fond of saying, having come from that corporate world, being the head of foresight at the Walt Disney Company that, these organizations are built with a safeguard against thinking about the future.

Yeah. And so they're built in very. Mechanistic and linear systems. And so I think that we look at, our organizations and we say there they are, they're right in front of this and therefore that's natural. But that really doesn't align with the anticipatory cosmic Way of the universe that when you speak of foresight, being a biological, a psychological and a sacred dynamic of all living things, human, non human and more than human.

That's the natural part. And our organizations aren't built in. The context of that cosmic way of of living and thinking that generative way. And so I think we have to, one of the things that we have to think about when we're thinking about the concept of natural foresight is introducing to organizations who may very well not want to bend the knee to this at all.

And we'll fight it tooth and nail is that foresight is a natural. Is a biological, psychological, sacred, natural, if we use that word element and can we present foresight in that way instead of allowing it to be as a client said to me just this morning in a call who we've been working with in this organization for the past year and they're getting ready to present this big piece of work they did based off the natural foresight framework to the larger part of their company.

As a matter of fact, it's one of the, it is the largest educational curriculum builder in all of Europe and they've just been working with the natural foresight framework. And she said, I realized going through this process, how even foresight itself, which should be a natural biological, psychological, sacred element, because it is gets co opted as another planning tool.

And then gets put through the grind of being unnatural and being mechanistic and being linear. And so even though these things exist, these organizations exist, these governments exist. It doesn't mean that they are aligning themselves with the cosmic anticipatory pathways that foresight really is, comes out of.

And so another great thing that she said that I would Say is so powerful about natural foresight. And the way that we can think about it this way is that how do we transition foresight away from being just another planning tool and being co-opted and therefore emasculated to being a a dynamic of heart and soul.

It's not about changing systems. I think, somebody that you've had on the program over and over again, reel Miller would say. Systems? Can we really change systems anyway? It's about touching hearts and souls. And it's at its very essence, biologically, psychologically, and sacredly. Foresight needs to touch heart and souls, not systems.

The systems will follow suit if the heart and souls. Our touch by that, right? Einstein, or at least it was attributed to him. A famous quote from Einstein was we cannot solve the problems that we have with the same level of consciousness that created them. But what do we do over and over? Unnaturally, we try to solve the problem.

Inside of the problem, and I think you and I have talked about this before that can't happen. It's not going to happen. It's just a hamster wheel. And so natural foresight is really built around this 1st around a philosophy. And then, secondly, around a framework that helps people to understand how to get off that hamster wheel and to 1st, accept foresight as a naturally cosmic.

Reality and then how can they use tools, methods and processes that actually align with that way of thinking to change the way organizations would even be modeled or the purpose that they would have period. And so that's what that framework and first of all, first and foremost, the philosophy and then the framework are really aiming for,

Peter Hayward: I love philosophy. And you've introduced a very interesting trinity that I can certainly accept and nod to, but do you want to just maybe just expand a little bit on foresight as the three elements you described? Both the biological, the psychological, and the spiritual. Just to lay out the proof, so to speak, as to why you say those three elements are all part of natural foresight.

Frank Spencer: Absolutely. I, one of my favorite questions of all time, honestly and I don't get asked it very much. So this is the perfect environment for that. So biologically we can look at mental time travel. We can think about the cognitive alert. Neurological evolutionary process has taken place. It's not just in humans.

I think, the way that our world is shaped, we understand it as consciousness in a way that, it's human when anything else, but as you just referred to, it's really a cosmic concept. It all depends on where you land on the consciousness debate, which is the hardest part.

Problem of all time, but, if you fall, somewhere with plank or chalmers, more updated you would think that consciousness is a fundamental element of the universe. This biological foresight, mental time travel is something that over time we have been able to evolutionarily develop.

And that's something that's been proved by lots of different people sitting door for the book. Not too long ago on this. And the work that they've done over time with chronesthesia, this idea of mental time travel, or actually having a type of ability in our intellect and that others had this as well.

Other species and all of life has this as well to be anticipatory. So it's biological. And that's been there's plenty of proof around that it's certainly psychological because as we have developed that biological trait, then our psychology over time has developed this cognitive ability to think about the future and more expressive kinds of ways.

And this is, really the crux of future studies that is a psychological concept, right? And the more that we actually introduce this, and I like to say, unlock it, not download it because I think a lot of foresight today and there's no accusation here because I certainly understand where this comes from, but it's I think it's much better if we're purposefully and intentionally trying to unlock this and people, because you already have it rather than saying that something needs to be downloaded into you.

You don't have it. You do have it. It just needs to be unlocked. And I think the systems that we live in, lock it up, Imprison it a lot. And so in that sense, it's psychological. And then the sacred piece is honestly my favorite. I don't think you could have it without the other two, but this sacred spiritual piece is so important.

And I'd been on this kick for years now of helping or trying to help myself first and then other people to understand that facts, people don't really, they're not really moved by facts. Anyway, we're really moved by the sacredness of life and the story and the narratology and the awe, the wonder, the enchantment, that's what really moves us.

And That's why, I refer to again, as my client did today, there's a heart and soul process foresight is because it really moves all wonder and enchantment. And when we strip that from foresight, we've stripped its very essence, its very power. And so that's why I love this term future empowered rather than future ready, because I think those terms future approved for future ready.

Those are planning. Terms, but future empowerment is about the on the water enchantment. And so the sacredness of life itself is what really drives us towards transformation. Go listen to Bonita Roy and Nora Bateson and Sophie Howe. And there's so many great people yourself talking about this that is really at the core of the essence of what drives transformation and change.

And that's the, that's a part of natural foresight. Natural is biological, natural, psychological. Natural is also sacred. And so I love that you love that Trinity. I think it's at the core of this natural foresight concept. And 1 of the things that I'm going to just jump ahead and then we can get back to it again.

But just mentioned before I forget is that over the last 3 years since we've talked to you, this has become more of a philosophy for us that it has a framework because it really was backwards quite to be just to be honest. We develop this as a framework. Great. Was philosophy in the background, but I don't think we knew what we were doing quite, as much as we do today.

Maybe we still don't know but now we're so much more into the philosophy of it. And I know people come and they want the framework. I get it. I'm here to meet you where you are. Love you to death. But it's really the philosophy that we need to grasp. And that's what's caused us to also start doing these retreats, these transformation retreats.

And so then when we gather people this retreats, another one coming up this September, three days retreat away, where we talk about the cooperative. Evolutionary trait of perceiving emerging novelty that then cultivates the co creation of transformational realities. Can you tell that I memorized that definition? And that is the philosophy of natural foresight. There's a framework that goes behind it is to the discover, explore, map, and create framework, but the philosophy behind it really is that cooperative thinking. Evolutionary trait that allows us to collectively, connectively, cooperatively and collaboratively perceive what was to emerge and that's what cultivates transformational realities when foresight gets co opted and that we try to solve the problem with the same level of consciousness and just make it a planning tool.

We're just on a hamster wheel over and over again.

Peter Hayward: Yeah, a couple of observations that I'll give you for free. You can stick them in the book or a nice way to trim down the three is the good, the true and the beautiful.

Frank Spencer: I love that. Cause

Peter Hayward: that's, cause that is the kind of sense of what we do has to be good.

It has to be true. And it bringing beauty into it and the psychological, cause as I play in the sort of psychological foresight space for a while, I actually think there's an adaptive element to foresight It's both natural, but needed, as the world has become crazier, weirder. That's

Frank Spencer: right.

Peter Hayward: Foresight is one of the small adaptive skills we learn to keep our own balance in that crazy world. And I've always said that enhancing people's foresight helps them live happier, better lives in the world, irrespective of them creating futures they want, but just in the moment of using the trim tab notion of, What do I do next?

How do I even find the energy to find something to do next? That to me is part of the, one of the wheels of foresight. It seems to engender hope. It engenders a desire to want to try.

Frank Spencer: Yeah. I couldn't agree more, Peter. And that's why, It's not in the book because there's another book because we just need another book, but there's another book that I'm working on right now.

And I've read a, an article sometime back, and I wanted to expand on it and make it a chapter of the book that the power of futures thinking. To create a revolution of care, empathy, hope and love and 3, 4 or 5 years ago when I first started hinting at that. And then over the last 36, 24 months, I've just been shining it from the rooftops.

And I know there's some people who still are like, have you heard that Frank's talking about foresight being linked to love and. Is he crazy or can, what is, what do you do with that? But there is no other way for us, in my opinion, for us to talk, especially not in this moment of meta crisis, I love Jonathan Rouse and so many others saying to us recently that our biggest crisis is not a crisis of things, it's a crisis of a lack of love.

Thomas Klafka, who I just had recently. As part of a panel that we did with Sarah Olson and the future friends group, and we called it foresight at the end of the world. And we had Dr. Bussey on there and Thomas and Chandler, and they were all on the panel and I was just asking them, cause I knew they were all on board.

So we, we set up the pens, and they were all speaking really about this The psychological and the sacred part of a foresight and Thomas was sharing and has just shared again recently exactly what I was just saying. He said, really, it's always been about love, but we get that gets locked away or it got lost.

Or, if you. If you're reading the theory of everything, it just got lost in time. Ryan Eisler, the partnership got lost and it got taken over by systems of domination, dominion. It was always about love. And so it gets pretty crazy when we start saying that foresight really is a dynamic of love.

But you just said it yourself too. It's if we really cultivate this and there's something else I want to say about this too, we really cultivate this that it helps us to see the world through the lens of love rather than despair. And I couldn't agree more with the psychological piece. And that's the part I think is really important that I left out is that when I use that word evolution, cause some people have bristled at this before, but it is evolutionary bottom line.

And so is psychology, but don't forget that evolution changes things. It's not evolution set. Yeah. It said it and forget about it. That's the whole point of evolution. It's and even our own social dynamics evolve these things over time. And so this is an adaptive trait. That's evolutionary as well.

And this continues on and on foresight itself is, it's like a circle, right? It causes that evolution. To be supercharged. And that's, where the sacred part comes into. I think these things are in order. Biological comes before the psych. Psychological, and then sacred. And that's why I put 'em in that order.

And you do too. I love the way you frame that. Say it one more time. Truth. No, it's the good, the true and the beautiful. The true and the beautiful, which I think is different from the way that foresight is practiced now, like the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Peter Hayward: It's always hard for me to say, but moving on from philosophy, let's get down to the tin tacks and the meat and potatoes, not

Frank Spencer: to interrupt you, but it's and I couldn't agree more because I know people are like, let's get down to the meat and potatoes here. And I agree. I agree. But I love that I'm hearing so many people say nowadays more than ever before, what we've really have been missing and that we've got to get back to again is the philosophy, because we've relegated that to be like, okay, can we get past the philosophy and get to something real?

The philosophy is the real part, right? And that's why I said a few minutes ago, I think we did this backwards. We create a framework that we realize, Oh, wait, the philosophy that went behind it, which we believed in, we weren't really stressing enough. And that's why we're seeing a lot of people say, Oh my gosh, the transformations retreat and the haloptic foresight that you're doing is the philosophy behind it is starting to really catch fire, but I agree.

And I digress. And I just wanted to throw that little tidbit.

Peter Hayward: You didn't do it backwards, Frank, because you only do philosophy by walking through life.

Frank Spencer: That's

Peter Hayward: true. So you have to do the, you have to do the life in order to learn the philosophy. And having learned the philosophy can guide the next steps you take. So it's. Excellent. It is the cycle.

So you have to start with the doing. There's no point starting with the philosophy. That's not related to the present.

Frank Spencer: It just is completely disconnected from life itself, right? To take Rosen's, book title, it's life itself. There is those separating those things from one another.

And as You're living and then the living becomes living. So I agree. Thank you. And

Peter Hayward: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

Frank Spencer: How I know.

Peter Hayward: So let's talk about the living. Let's talk about the learning. So what is the what is the way?

Frank Spencer: Yes. So in terms of the actual framework of natural foresight, we've been so happy to see that.

More organizations are seeing the value in this, and that's why there is a portal or a door, so to speak, for people to walk through in terms of gaining certification and natural foresight so that they can enter into this framework and then start to understand, wow, there is, there's something really powerful going on here, the biological, the psychological, the sacred, but the door I entered through is how do you, is there a framework that will help?

As I was seeing earlier. That we can actually apply this natural way of approaching this in our organizations and our governments and our institutions, by the way, just also another little tidbit, because I can't help myself every time I hear that, say this word natural and it's. The natural foresight framework.

So don't worry. We named it that, but I love, even pointing once people walk through that door, that's we are nature and nature is us and you are the future. And, it's all interwoven. Carol Sanford even loves to say that the word nature was something that was just invented to separate us from it and we are, right.

And so she hates the word nature and she uses living systems instead. And I totally. Glom and grok that but, that's 1 of the things that we help people to understand, even in the framework is this is something that's organic and foresight should be organic and organizations instead of this linear and mechanistic tool.

And so 1 of the things that I think is really cool about. The book is the way it starts because we get to the meat and potatoes pretty quickly in the book, but there's just a short piece in the beginning, talking about how the natural foresight framework is really based on sort of 3 complexity concepts or theories.

And the first is the one that everybody knows is complex adapted systems. And you'll see in the book, the panarchy's and Gunnarsson and Hollings and the nested panarchy's and how we can look at the smaller more intricate systems. And then the middle systems and the larger, slower moving systems and how they weigh upon one another and they're nested and that way we can look beyond just the issues right in front of us.

I we want to hire you TFSX or, Copenhagen or Institute for the future or whoever, Kantar, I can't name all of. The organization, sorry if I left you out and and so when we want to look at the future of shampoo and but, there's so much above and below those issues that need to be looked at for us to be doing really effective foresight rather than just that myopic issue.

And that panarchical view. Of foresight helps us to look above and below the issues that we're concerned about. But I think the other two are the ones that really jazzed me the most. Cause we all know complex adaptive systems, but we don't hear about complex responsive processes and complex potential states as much.

And so the idea of complex responsive processes is where the human comes more in the mix, because I think when we think about complex adaptive systems, the word Is in play, and I love when Nora Bateson talks about systems, and she says, I don't like using that word. That's why I created this word somathecy so that we think less about the systems we're stuck in right now.

And we think about mutual learning context. So getting away from those mechanistic or the mechanistic weight of our shoulder when we use the word systems. And so we start talking about complex, responsive processes. We're thinking more about. Interactions between humans, human to human, human to non human to more than human and those interactions that are so meshy and convergent and bring out the spaces in between.

There's not 1 plus 1 doesn't equal 2. And so the natural foresight framework is based on how do we look. Beyond again, beyond those issues that we start with, I care about the future of X and to go beyond that and to understand this ongoing and unfolding power of foresight to lead you to the next thing in the next future in the next future.

And that's what opens up the heart and soul to the transformative and the experiential. And then my favorite part of the complex potential states where Benita Roy, who really stresses this concept says. We've used this concept of complex adaptive systems so much that it got.

Subsumed into that linear mechanistic view of things and forgetting that it's not just within those systems that the real potential really happens. It's the one dot outside the system that we're not paying attention to that is going to come on like a wave and have this incredible power to change things, those potential states.

And so how the world. Could we possibly dive so deep into foresight that we're looking at those potentialities beyond potentialities as Dr Bussey would talk about the ruins of the future, the ruins of the past, present, the future. And as you dive into the concept of natural foresight in that framework, and the tools that are behind it, it's really based.

It's very simplistic. At 1st, it looks simple. We love that. It's easy to dive into, but I like to tell people it's a framework. Because of that philosophy that can grow with you and you don't, it doesn't get stale. There's not somewhere where you say I've used this thing and I've reached the wall and I wonder if there's something past it.

And so it just opens up this ability for people to add to it and for it to grow and for it to breathe. And it's something that you can grow with every time into greater expressions of co creative complexity.

Peter Hayward: Who is the book aimed at? Obviously, you've said there is obviously a learning portal, and this is obviously part of what your organization is going to take forward to people who want to engage with it.

But is there actually a broader audience for the book and people who might want to engage with it as well?

Frank Spencer: Yeah, I'm going to tell you and the listeners. A bit of a secret, which to you won't be weird, but maybe to some people listening, it would be maybe I got a funny feeling though, that people are going to hear this and go, yeah, I wonder why more people aren't saying this.

And that is that we talk about foresight and future staking and foresight professionals, but the majority of the world is looking for like how, and you said this a few minutes ago, foresight and love and change and hope and empathy and care. That's what the world really. Is looking for, and those are all future II kinds of words, right?

But the, your average person doesn't give a hoot about foresight and the framework and those kinds of things. So it's not that we shouldn't try more to make this feel more well known. There's so many, there's so much good work around that. So many people do so much good work around that.

We try as well. But how do we just, Present this as something that's more natural, forget foresight, forget futures thinking and all that for a moment. How do I help you to think about transformative hope? Nicholas badminton, I think now presents himself as a hope engineer. I love that.

Or, and as names are escaping me right now, but I'm trying to think of someone else who says something very similar, just talking about how we create hope that's who the, that's who the natural foresight framework is really for. And increasingly because of our focus on the transformations aspect and the dragon fly and with the many, the many nodes on the eye that come to make one hole.

This is a very natural way to see emerging realities. That's that. That's how we're trying to use that. And that's who this book is really ultimately for. It's for people that are looking for care, empathy, hope and love. And how to really produce that in their hearts, their souls, and their communities and their families and their tribes and across, across the diversity that creates, a new living whole that's who we're trying to reach.

And so increasingly over the years, and I know that you've gone down this path as well, it's we can get to this little foresight bubble as any field can it all feels do any field can. And how do we really break out of that? Because one of the things different about the foresight field that might not be in plumbing or something like that, is that plumbing is working on wherever there are pipes and we're really working on wherever there's hearts and living systems and that's everywhere.

And so how do we really expand our message beyond the modalities and the tools and the methods of foresight, which are so great and so powerful and really. Reach out to people to say, this is a biological, psychological, a sacred ability to produce care, hope, empathy, and love. And that's, that makes a message for a broad audience, but that's really, this meta crisis of of hope and love.

That's where we are. And that's what we're trying to do with that.

Peter Hayward: And what have you seen with the people? Cause this, cause you've been using these ideas progressively in the three years. Since we've, since we last spoke and now the books just arrived, but you've seen organizations and people taking these ideas and using them.

What have you seen organizations and people doing with these ideas?

Frank Spencer: That's great. I, let's see what I can share specific cause I want to get some, I want to get some nitty gritty here. If I can, I will say it this way. Just a couple of years ago, we were working with the organization that is.

The transportation rail train organization in the United States. Okay. Now, you know who that is, but I won't say the name of the organization, but the biggest, the only public rail transportation rail in the United States and they, are coming up on their 50 year anniversary. And we were able to go in to them and because they got a lot of money from the Biden organization to create transformation for transportation, rail transportation, and they were very afraid that they were going to misuse the money.

Because the systems that are in place will cause them to just misuse the money. They could spend millions upon multiplied millions of dollars, or billions of dollars just scraping rust off railways, probably. And they said, we don't want to use it like that. We want true transformation. And Through a series of events, because we had worked with their CHRO, their chief human resources officer in another context.

And then she was hired by them to be their churro. And she said, no, we've got to, we've got to do this because we could do foresight. And since then, they've actually created a foresight division, and they have their own head of foresight now, and we don't work with them anymore. They do it all internally.

And so fantastic. But the reason they wanted to start this way is because they saw natural foresight, the biological, the psychological, and the sacred as being a real way for them to think transformatively and not just in terms of planning or being ready for the for what's next, which are new. Admirable goals as well.

And so I mentioned this 1 1st, I'm going to do 2. I mentioned this 1 1st, because I'm going to be honest and tell you that it didn't turn out perfectly the way I wanted it to. Because it was going super swimmingly until the. C. O. as you can imagine, has to go in front of Congress a lot. And our final presentation just happened to be on the day after he had been sitting in front of Congress and he came out and he was in a less than transformative mood.

I might say after sitting in front of Congress. And so in the entire process, they were like, ah, cut the cords and do amazing stuff. And we don't want this to be your grandma's railway and all this stuff, and then that last day he was like, Oh, if I've just lost the narrative, I can't, we only service people in a 12 mile radius and all of this stuff.

It did have a great impact. As a matter of fact, their head of innovation said one of the most impactful things to me that I've heard in years. And she said. After this work, I had the thought that if I could go back in time, what I would do is I would plow up all the roads, all the roadways because cars were a great invention and they're really cool and they've done amazing things for us and they're also horrific and we've planned our entire humanity around them and our cities are built around cars.

And they've been devastating and she said, I would go back and I would plow all that up and we could rethink what transportation means completely. Now I'm going to stay with the transfer transportation thing for just a moment. We just got the privilege to release and it just came out 2 weeks ago, Paul, great Macmillan's new book. On foresight and organizations, volume two, we were in volume one as well, and we did a case study on what does the international volume two has just gotten released and they did a case study called turning light darkness into light. And it was work that we got to do in 2021 with the metro in Santiago, Chile, and a very similar thing happened.

Their CEO said, we want to work with the natural foresight framework, because after looking into it and everything that you've just told. Peter Hayward in the last 30 minutes. We've read that and the CEO was very progressive in terms of, he said, I know we run a Metro and it had, the trains have to show up on time.

We have to build stations. We have to do all this technical stuff and that won't stop. That won't stop. Engineers galore. But I believe that at the core of what we do, we have to be touching hearts and souls. It's almost. It's, it was magical work. It really was. And his big thing was how do we correct what happened in 2019 and 2020 in Chile, because and the listeners probably know as well, there were huge protests and uprisings because of, inequality and poverty.

And, all that happened, the constitution got rewritten in 21 and 22 and things radically changed in Chile. But what set off the protests. The tip of the iceberg that finally set the whole thing of the thing that broke the camel's back was the Metro raised their fares by one cent and everybody went nuts and started burning the Metro stations.

And so in 21, only a year later, we got to work with them. They create a futures team and they changed their strategic initiative from transportation to connecting social wellbeing. And at the core of their strategy now is everything has to be about connecting social wellbeing. And the transformation has been profound as a matter of fact, I, we can put it in the notes of the podcast.

But I definitely want people to be able to see how they can get at least this chapter to the book, if not the whole book that Paul Grave just released is great, but certainly you can just purchase that one chapter turning darkness to light and the CEO said some amazing things. He said we've climbed a completely new mountain and we believe that our company now is not about building a subway, but about building a society of wellbeing and happiness and care and love.

Unbelievable. And we saw that same work that the client that I'm talking about this morning, that is the largest education curriculum builder. Is now releasing a report about that we worked with them just recently, just in the last couple of months using natural foresight to uncover their hidden DNA and to build regenerative education.

And they reported to us just this morning that the report that they've done is caught fire in the organization. And they're looking at some big changes. To the way they build education to put it back in the hands of people and to create regenerative education in their curriculum and start doing new things with the company as well.

So that's the kind of things we love to hear. Not all of those processes go that way, because again, our organizations aren't built. Around this natural way of thinking. And so there's a barrier. But where we have been able to make a difference and we can make a difference. It's been beautiful. And the more people that can think this way, whether it's through this framework or just through the philosophy in general

Peter Hayward: we need more and more of that awesome, Frank.

Awesome. That's what I'd say to. The first case study you talked about was the, think of it through the idea of the automatic pilot on a plane. The automatic pilot on a plane tells you when you're off course, and so you correct. So even if circumstances say you can't do it, You just know that we're off course, and if you wait long enough and you wait for the conditions to change, you can move back.

That's right. Once people have had the idea, once people have seen the future they want to create, then you can delay it, but I don't think you can stop it.

Frank Spencer: That's right. That's powerful. Yeah, I love that concept. And I believe that with all my heart, I've been, you've been doing this a lot longer than I have, but I've been at it for 25 years too.

And over that time I've seen that more than not. I remember years ago, we were in the room. With a hundred people from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the Kellogg foundation, the Ford foundation and all these people that basically it's like the gladiators arena, fight, and the night before I actually got to attend a dinner with all these people and they were shouting the CEO of the of the AFL CIO off the stage and booing him and, saying all kinds of terrible things.

These. These philanthropic organizations can be brutal and so we went in the next day and they had us do scenario work for them. And we were so proud of course, of the work we did, the day seemed to go swimmingly. And then one of their people came afterwards and said to us, they were like, Oh my gosh, this was just terrible.

And the things you said, how can we use any of that? And blah, blah, blah. And But years later now, I, like all good foresight professionals, I could, if I wanted to go back and stick my thumb out on my nose and give them the RAs, the royal raspberry, and say, I told you but we've seen, that work. Take effect years later. This was a decade ago. And since that time, even as scenarios we wrote, they weren't predictive, they weren't meant to be predictive, but I'll be darned if they weren't basically predictive. And that's just a sign of like you and many others who are listening here who dive deep into their foresight work, were able to do some pretty good work that comes.

Pretty close sometimes to, and that's not even the point of the work, but sometimes it will come really close to what unfolds and you can't run from it. You just can't run from it. Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. And I love that.

Peter Hayward: And the other one too, which again, I applaud you for is that there are, there is no such thing as an organization.

Yes, people work for organizations. It's organizations that bring you in, but it's people in organization.

Frank Spencer: A hundred percent. I'm so glad we got to this.

Peter Hayward: So you got, so you give them an organizational experience of natural foresight, and it profoundly changes who they are as people. And then they leave that organization, as they will, and they carry natural foresight and their experience of it.

In the goodness, the trueness and the beauty of it to the next organization. That's right. And you never know that natural foresight landed in those organizations. I

Frank Spencer: cannot, I'm so glad we got to this because there are no organizations. I was just going to interview with Rian Eisler. Of course, the chalice and the blade and she's so gracious and she was saying to me the same exact thing.

She was like, look, there's no such thing as organizations. These are partnerships and people. And I was like, oh, that's so powerful because we said that for years now that we're not, I, yes, people come and employ us. And, we advise the organization in the end. I hope, future clients aren't listening to me say this.

I jest but I'm not working for organizations. I'm, we're there to, to collectively and co creatively change each other's hearts and souls. And a great example is our good friend, Joanna Lakova, who is now the head of foresight at Lego. Where did we first meet her? We met her as part of the futures team at the Walt Disney International when she was the head of strategy for Walt Disney land Paris.

And she was one of the first people that we ever had in one of our trainings inside WDI. We trained 600 executives over five years in WDI. And even back then we were talking about the natural foresight framework and over the years, we've kept connected. And so recent last year at the Dubai future forum I went.

And she, and the head of Airbus, I believe I can't remember his name. So I apologize, but and Joanna LaPore, the head of foresight at McDonald's, they were on the stage and did a, they did a a panel. And we were so blessed, to have, and I look, Paul Ray, who's the head of foresight at Lego.

Now, she was like, where's Franklin at that? Cause they're the ones that train me. And then she just started talking about foresight, changing my life. I'm not worried. It's worried about the organization as I am the life. And she went from WPI to Lego and then talking to people and she's doing other work and it's just touched her life.

We had a gentleman. And he's coming to transformation. Our transformation is retreat. This is September. He works in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, and this is one of the most profoundly spiritual people I've ever met in my life. And so you would think oil and gas, profoundly spiritual people, oxymoron. But he is amazing. And he, I was talking, I w I gave it a talk at the association Planning years ago, which is now I ASP they transitioned as well. And I didn't even know he was in the audience and months went by and he finally contacts me, hi, my, my name is Timothy and you don't know who I am, but I saw you in the audience.

You were talking about natural foresight and you started talking about, it wasn't even a big part of your talk, because this is the associated strategic planning, but you started talking about, Very briefly, foresight, touching hearts and changing lives and that's thing.

And I just was so inspired. I'd never heard about foresight before, but I got some of your work and this was before the guide to the natural foresight framework came out. And, but he cobbled stuff together and he said, and I went back and I taught it to my children. And I said, this is, you go to school, you do these different things and then you come home at night and I'm going to teach you a, you do seven classes at school.

This is number eight. You're going to learn foresight to change your heart and your mind and your life. And he said, and out of that, I have to tell you. That I believe this is why all three of my children got scholarships to universities. They went and they presented to their different teachers and to the universities, the foresight concept, how it changed their hearts and lives.

And the people wrote back for the universities and said, never heard of this before. So profound scholarship. And he accredits that the why he said it changed my children's lives. And He's not the only one that's ever said something like that. It's just the most profound ever. And I think this really aligns to what you're saying, that you don't know how this biological, psychological, it's sacred dynamic that we are, whether it's explicit or implicit that we're giving to people and all the listeners are giving to people, how much is changing people's lives.

And you may never know, or sometimes you do get the blessing of knowing five or 10 years later, but it's happening friends. It's.

Peter Hayward: Yeah, it is. It is. Blessings to you, Frank. Wonderful to catch up again. I hope we can do this again sometime soon, but thank you. All the best for Natural Foresight. All the best for the book. And thanks for taking some time to chat on the pod.

Frank Spencer: Yeah, as usual, and as I always say, it's a blessing just to be with you and I say it every time, but I'm going to say it again because it's that important. The work that you've poured into the field for decades and decades, the transformation you've brought to people's lives, to my life, to others lives.

We're all super grateful for you, Peter Hayward. Thank you. Thank God for you. And as you asked me anytime, and I will be here at your beck and call.

Peter Hayward: Thanks, Mate

Peter Hayward:  I hope hearing from Frank gives you motivation you to get out there and help change people’s lives. Foresight is a natural part of living and growing. It is so much more than an organisational tool. Future pod is a not-for-profit venture. We exist through the generosity of our supporters. If you would like to support the pod then follow the Patreon link on our website. This has been Peter Hayward. Thanks for joining me and I'll see you next time.