Talk by Futurist

I listened to a talk by a futurist yesterday.

One of the key takeaways was that recent man-made disasters have all being somewhat predicted/ envisaged. For example, the 9-11 method of ramming a commercial air-plane has been featured in a Tom Clancy novel, Maddof’s Ponzi scheme was whistle-blowed but ignored and of course the ongoing financial crisis where so many hands were involved that it is inconceivable that no one could foresee what was the ultimate consequence.

The trouble however is having a framework/ system to identify such potential occurrences and getting the right people to acknowledge the probable-ness and impact of their happening. Case in point: former FED chief Alan Greenspan dismissing, years ago, the likelihood of another economic crisis because we know the financial system too well for it to fail.

But fail us he and it did.

During the Q&A session, responding to a question on how organizations and specifically top leaders could influence the culture of their organizations to allow for open communication, the futurist said that what was more important was for as many officers as possible to learn new and relevant tools and skills, so they can identify and contribute to minimizing disasters. I agree with another participant with the same question that the answer was not satisfying when the speaker himself acknowledged in the Asian context the culture of deferring to higher authority and not speaking up.