It could be better in some ways, worse in others, the same in others.
Without making an unfounded prediction – it will probably be different
Depends on what or whom?
Actors
Armenians in Armenia
Government
Private Sector
Diaspora
Companies
Other countries
Others?
Circumstances
Conditions Armenia or Armenians can influence
Global trends
Events beyond Armenia or Armenians’ control
Others?
Actions depend on
Values
Mental Models
Accurate information
Assessments of the future
Collective action
Can’t do it alone
Group deliberation
Shared understanding of situation
Ability of the group to read the signs of the times
Need to understand the choices and likely consequences of those choices, critical pre-conditions
Scenario Conversation
Logical – facts, not value judgments
Open & Informal – telling a story
Inclusive and Holistic – all aspects – social political, economic, cultural, ecological
Elicits choice and options – future can’t be predicted – map of possible paths to possible futures
Constructive – don’t stop thinking about tomorrow
Scenarios are used to:
Avoid being caught off guard
Challenge conventional mental maps about the future
Recognize signs of change
Test strategies for sustainability in different circumstances
Successful scenario planning
Understand the present
Identify the predictable elements
Identify plausible possible pathways into the future
Be ready for critical turning points – forks in the road
Take cognizance of divergent views
South Africa 2002
Ostrich
Lame Duck
Icarus
Flight of the Flamingos
Ostrich
Ostrich – Stuck in the Past
the ostrich does not want to see, cannot fly, but is forced lift its head in the end.
Lame Duck
no matter how hard it tries, it cannot get off the ground, and thus has an extremely uncertain future.
Icarus
noble origins and good intentions, but pays insufficient attention to economic “tries to achieve too much too quickly”
“Perhaps our greatest error, if it can be called an error . . . is that we believed we could do more than was possible in this period . . .”
“There are a lot of things we see much more clearly now. Number one, in determining how much you can try to accomplish, you just have to look at what your capacity is, your managerial capacity, your capacity to organize. And we were frankly over-enthusiastic. We just tried to do too many things and we stretched the whole system further than it could go.” Jamaican president.
Flight of the Flamingos
Inclusive democracy and growth – Flamingos characteristically take off slowly, fly high and fly together.
“While it is impossible to meet all people’s demands immediately, once people are convinced that there is light at the end of the tunnel, their demands become tempered with ” Vincent Maphai – UWC.
Build a community that can build the future
“a coherent set of individual actions which are supported as a set by a self-sustaining critical mass of opinion in the organization.”
critical mass of people who can make sense of the situation and respond in a coordinated way
Below critical mass there are only unrelated individual actions, which lead to individual rather than organization Without consensus or shared meaning individual actions will not cohere and the organization will fragment and, if left in this state, ultimately disintegrate.
Between Scylla & Charybdis
Fragmentation & Group Think
Fragmentation
Fragmentation: “critical mass of consensus is not This divergence of view can become a self-enforcing process, with lack of consensus leading to divergent action, divergent experiences, and a further erosion of the common view. This positive feedback loop spirals downwards. When an organization drops below the critical mass of consensus, it will not overcome the problem without conscious action to move the team back over the minimum consensus threshold.”
Groupthink
Groupthink – too much alignment, not enough differentiation, stagnation, insufficient adaptation to environmental changes => extinction
Getting the ball rolling
Respected coordination team
Open-ended, inclusive process
Representatives of all important perspectives on the issue – Any stakeholder must be able to see their point of view represented by someone on the team.
