System-field future work
Peter Levich, Future Foundation
System-field future work
Peter Levich, Future Foundation
Context
As a civilization, we are at a moment of fundamental transition. All systems are being restructured, and the intensity of global processes and their impact is critically high. This moment can be called a "poly-bifurcation point."
Today's leaders, organizations, and communities operate under conditions of:
Today's leaders, organizations, and communities operate under conditions of:
- high uncertainty
- accelerating technological change
- geopolitical instability
- ecological and social transformation
- growing systemic complexity
The Challenge
Working with the future at a point of poly-furcation requires a new approach to planning. Purely analytical methods stop working, because our analytical apparatus is not able to hold the quantity of actors and connections present in a complex, living, evolving system.
We need to bring feelings, bodily sensations, the principles of complex living-systems evolution, and collective-dreaming practices into our methodological toolkit for future work.
We need to bring feelings, bodily sensations, the principles of complex living-systems evolution, and collective-dreaming practices into our methodological toolkit for future work.
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What you depend on also depends on something
System-field future work is a synthesis of:
Systemic constellations
Recognition of hidden actors, connections, and processes
Work with time and large systems
A meta-position toward time, and working with long time horizons
Classical foresight
Trends, threats, opportunities, a map of future scenarios
This synthesis makes it possible to reveal hidden, implicit connections and influences within a system and their evolution over time, and to factor them into decision-making.
Format of the session
Duration: 3 hours without foresight, 6 hours with foresight.
Foresight (optional)
Working with trends, opportunities, and threats; building a map of future scenarios
Working with intention
We agree on the core challenge we're working with and place it on a shared online board
Mapping the system
Participants bring into the field the elements of the system that affect this challenge — actors, forces, processes, possible future events
Enacting the interactions in the system
Participants speak "on behalf of" these actors, forces, and processes; through their interaction, the system's hidden dynamics, influences, and contradictions become visible and changing
Finding the path
Participants "walk" a path across the shared map toward resolving the challenge
Integration
Reflection and integration of the results
Challenges and problems the method addresses
- The "old way" no longer inspires, but the "new way" isn't clear — new, larger meaning is needed
- There's a request for expansion or a deep shift in strategy, but no clarity about where to find the resources for it
- The team doesn't understand or hasn't internalized the leader's values and goals
- The team's leader, or the whole team, is experiencing burnout, depression, or a loss of meaning
How this differs from classical future-work methods
Future work typically relies on:
What system-field future work adds to this:
- analysis of measurable data and factual information
- past experience and understanding of how the system worked before
- explicit relationships between forces and actors in the system
What system-field future work adds to this:
- work with emotion, body, and field
- a meta-position toward time; work with distant time horizons
- surfacing hidden, implicit actors and connections in the system
Possible results of system-field future work
- Finding the implicit causes of events and processes, hidden influencing factors, and contradictions within the system — and align these interactions
- Making a strategic decision under high uncertainty, in a system with many actors
- Finding unexpected ways to act and to resolve contradictions
- Clarifying, synchronizing, and helping the team internalize shared values and mission
- Expanding the view to "long time" and global processes
About the facilitator
Peter Levich
Facilitator, futurist, psychologist, organizational consultant
For more than 11 years I have helped people, communities and organizations go through transformation and create a thriving future. Creator and co-author of more than 10 international projects on culture and worldview transformation. Audience: entrepreneurs and leaders of large businesses, governments and educational organizations, the nonprofit sector, and community leaders and activists.
I am a certified facilitator and moderator, and a psychologist. My first degree was in physics (MIPT).
Founder of the Future Foundation - an ecosystem of projects united by the goal of the continuation and sustainable flourishing of life over the long term.
For more than 11 years I have helped people, communities and organizations go through transformation and create a thriving future. Creator and co-author of more than 10 international projects on culture and worldview transformation. Audience: entrepreneurs and leaders of large businesses, governments and educational organizations, the nonprofit sector, and community leaders and activists.
I am a certified facilitator and moderator, and a psychologist. My first degree was in physics (MIPT).
Founder of the Future Foundation - an ecosystem of projects united by the goal of the continuation and sustainable flourishing of life over the long term.
Pricing
System-field future work session
For your team, organization, community, or department. Available online or offline.
Session cost (3 hours): €600
For your team, organization, community, or department. Available online or offline.
Session cost (6 hours): €1200
Regular work with the team, organization, community.
May include:
May include:
- Regular groupd7 sessions of systemic field work
- Individual coaching, strategicand psychological sessions with team members.
- Facilitating contradictions and conflicts in a team
- Conducting meditations, body and other practices for the team
Contacts