There are big ole changes surging all around us – lab grown food, electric cars, trans rights, internet of things, the gig economy, quiet quitting… the world you hand to your grandkids will barely resemble the one being handed to you. Old ways of doing things are collapsing and being replaced with new ideas every day.

These great changes – which I’ll call disruptions – are neither intrinsically good nor bad. But you’d better believe that each one has winners and losers aplenty.

Why is disruption accelerating? What does it mean for you and your job? And how can you make sense of all this tumult to get the best outcomes for the people you serve?

When it comes to disruptions, what your jurisdiction needs from you in order to thrive boils down to two very simple steps:

  • F1. Maximise the good bits.
  • G2. Minimise the bad bits.

Now, we’re going to add a step at the front – see it coming – because the sooner you can see a freight train coming, the more time you have to get out of the way.

So, the revised and slightly-more-formal-sounding list of what your citizens[1] expect looks like this:

  • 1. Foresee disruptions.
  • F2. Maximise citizens’ benefits.
  • G3. Minimise citizens’ costs.

Citizens expect governments to foresee disruptions because this allows them to minimise the bad and maximise the good. Citizens expect governments to have foresight, whether it’s reasonable or not. Yes, even (especially) when the world is changing rapidly.

The good news is that while individual changes are unpredictable, it’s still possible to spot the patterns quickly and thus, have warning. You might think that your agency will be fine to respond as disruptions come up. But the truth is, if all you do is respond, then not only are you unlikely to minimise citizens’ costs or maximise their benefits, but you’re also likely to piss off everyone in the process.

The Australian Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements made this astute observation in its final report:

“As the events of the 2019 and 2020 bushfire season show, what was unprecedented is now our future.”

The Australian Royal Commission

Each disruption means new challenges for public servants. That’s because the laws, policies, and practices that exist now were all built in response to things as they are, or more often, as they were.

It’s rare that any agency is built to manage things as they will be. To be fair, the past used to be a good predictor of the future. So building systems to cope with what history revealed to be the worst case was a sensible strategy.

But with the trend in global disruptions leading to ever-greater extremes for our economies, societies, and the environment, the past is no longer a good predictor of the future. Now, public servants must act based not on past evidence, but on prediction. Because, as the Royal Commission also noted:

“The past is no longer a predictor of the future.”

The closer you are to deciding how your agency’s resources are allocated, the more you need to ensure the tools you use to predict the future are reliable. Given the accelerating pace of change, now is the time to pre-empt disruptions by developing foresight that doesn’t rely on hindsight.

OK, if hindsight is no longer a great substitute for foresight, what's the alternative?

We can look to futurists for guidance. Futurists, if you haven’t heard of us before, are people who spend our time horizon scanning, seeing disruptions coming, and warning others. We crunch insurance data, prowl tech conferences, trawl social media for social movements in the making, and much more. Sounds as fun as it is…

In the late ’90s, I encountered, for the first time in my life, a futurist. Til then, I’d never even heard of such a thing. This person’s job was literally to pontificate about what was coming.

I was gobsmacked! Here I was, cramming jam into donuts for minimum wage while cramming stats into my head for exams. And this bloke was making a good living by guessing the future! I decided I was in the wrong line of work.

Here’s what I didn’t have the wisdom to realise then: any monkey can squish sugar paste into baked goods. But it takes skill and insight to look at the chaos of the world and see the patterns.

Those who can go further, to see the patterns before they resolve into a freight train coming right at you, are highly valued for good reason.

In Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, we meet Beth, a fictional chess savant who can visualize whole games in her head. She becomes one of the best in the world because she can foresee risks and calmly work out how to avoid them, all while methodically tying her opponents in knots.

Given all of this, the best way for governments to deliver what their jurisdiction needs is to see disruptions coming, calmly and equitably assess the likely costs and benefits, use the public sector principles to exercise their good judgement as to the most equitable course of action, then… get on with it. These actions all build up the golden characteristics of capability, legitimacy, and trust, which grant you social license.

Predicting the future may not be something you’re very good at (yet).

Which is why I’ve written my white paper “Predicting is Protecting.”

You’ll discover three dead-easy tools that’ll help you spot the disruptions hurtling your way. These tools will enable you to stay calm, make strategic decisions, and implement plans that maximise positive outcomes while minimising potential setbacks.

Put simply, they’ll help you dodge freight trains.

 

 

– Georgie