Are you a future optimist or pessimist? … Using the Polak Game to understand how you see the future … and turn a changing world into your big opportunity

September 30, 2024

Two questions for you …

In the next 10 years, do you see the world as getting better or worse?
How capable do you feel of personally affecting the future?

Think about it. We live in a world of relentless change.

Superfast-gaming chips and fat-busting superdrugs, asteroid-chasing rockets and carbon-capturing technologies, 4 day working weeks and chess reinvented as a reality TV game, health-enhancing fashions and the rebirth of the hairy mammoth. Nvidia is transforming tech, while Novo Nordisk innovates healthcare, KinetX changes the space race, while Climeworks eliminates carbon.

We used to marvel at innovations with a leap of imagination. Ideas and technologies that promised to transform our world, but seemed a little out of reach. Now, science fiction has collided with practical reality, powered by mind-boggling technologies that are evolving at incredible speed, but also rapid social and cultural change, accelerating human possibilities into practice.

Some people find this super exciting, full of possibility and opportunity. Others find it incredibly scary, threatening and challenging.

Where are you? Where are your team colleagues?
What drives these feelings and perceptions, in you and others?
How could you shift position to enable less stress, or achieve more?

The Polak Game was created by Dutch sociologist Frederik Polak, regarded as one of the founding fathers of future studies. In his 1961 book “The Image of the Future” he developed approaches to imagine alternative futures, and introduced this tool to test our view of the future.

You could apply this to a 10 year perspective, but to a much shorter timeframe too. You can frame it in the context of the changing world generally, or of your more specific situation, your local market or organisation. You can do it as a team, then explore how different mindsets are creating barriers, tensions or slowing you down.

So which category do you most closely associate with?

Powerful: You acknowledge that things are good and believe that they can get better. You are confident in your ability to act and create a better future.
Passive: Though your vision of the future is positive; you tend to be more of an observant than an active change agent. You expect those in power to make the call; you’ll adapt and play along.
Powerless: Not only your perception of the present is negative, but you also feel that things will get worse. That perception makes you feel free. As there’s nothing you can do about it, you don’t feel responsible if things get even worse.
Realistic: Your vision of the future is not positive, but you still believe in your ability to influence the outcome. However, this duality creates some mixed feelings. You think it’s worth trying but are not so confident about how much of a difference you can create.

There is no right or wrong. These feelings are all entirely natural, and largely driven by our context – how much we know about the changes happening, our personal experiences of their impacts, and how able we currently feel able to address them in a positive way.

Much of my work with business leaders is focused on helping them to make sense of the changing world, and then to develop new directions for innovation and growth. This is not easy for many. We have grown accustomed to what we know, to building on the past rather than exploring the future, to plan with certainty and numeric precision.

Today’s world, and tomorrow’s world, is much more turbulent, evolving faster than ever, and with new capabilities to address the big challenges and seize even bigger opportunities like never before.

Geopolitical change, economic turbulence, climate crisis, exponential technologies can all feel intimidating, and bewildering, at first. But as you start to make sense of these changes, they feel more manageable.

Once you get a better grasp of the drivers of change, you start to feel more comfortable. Once you start to explore the opportunities of change, you feel more positive. Once you learn how people and companies around the world are seizing these opportunities, you get excited.

Change is our opportunity. Our future is full of incredible opportunities. Time to be the optimist. Time to seize the change.

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