Some places make it easier to think about the future. Konstanz on Lake Constance is one of them. On 9 and 10 July, the IST hosted its Friends & Family Day \u2014 two days with entrepreneurs, alumni, project partners and long-standing friends of the institute. It opened with a get-together at the Hochrhein-Bodensee Chamber of Commerce, led by Lucas Sauberschwarz, Sebastian Strohmaier, Lukas Dieterle and futurist Carina Stoettner. The theme running through it: resilience, and what it takes to build it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Carina Stoettner’s contribution centered on scenario thinking \u2014 and on why a method developed in the 1970s has become so relevant again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Most companies plan for exactly one future: the present, extended. Revenue up X percent, costs down Y, market share holding steady. Buried in that logic is a quiet assumption \u2014 that tomorrow will be a slightly modified version of today. In stable times, Stoettner noted, this works remarkably well. In complex times it becomes a liability.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
That’s where scenario thinking comes in. Scenarios are not forecasts. The point isn’t to be right. The point is to be ready for more than one possibility.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The best-known story in scenario planning, and the one Stoettner returned to, begins in the late 1960s in the planning department at Royal Dutch Shell. A handful of pioneers were asked to examine the possibility that oil prices might rise.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Nobody at Shell predicted the 1973 crisis in its full severity. That’s the crucial part. But when it arrived, it wasn’t unfamiliar terrain to the company’s leadership. They had already walked through that world in their minds. They didn’t need months of stunned paralysis before they could act. While competitors were still trying to make sense of what had happened, Shell was already making decisions \u2014 and came out of the crisis considerably stronger than it went in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
For Stoettner, that remains the most important lesson of the whole method: scenarios don’t change the world. They change the map decision-makers carry in their heads. The real output of scenario work isn’t the document that ends up on a shelf \u2014 it’s the changed thinking of the people who did the work. Which is also why buying scenarios in from outside and having them presented to you doesn’t work. If you haven’t been through the process, you won’t find the way.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
If scenario work is so effective, why do we find it so hard? Much of the answer, Stoettner explained, is in our own heads. The brain isn’t built for thinking about open futures. It’s built for reaching decisions quickly and cheaply. Three biases get in the way again and again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
We think in straight lines.<\/strong> Exponential growth, tipping points and saturation curves are things we systematically underestimate \u2014 too little for too long, then too much too late.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n We cling to normality.<\/strong> When a situation shifts, we hold on to the assumption that everything will stay as it was, often for a remarkably long time. That isn’t stupidity; it’s the default setting of human perception under uncertainty.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n We fixate on the negative.<\/strong> Bad news carries disproportionate weight \u2014 what we read recently, what’s emotionally charged, what everyone in the industry happens to be discussing right now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n None of these are defects. They made evolutionary sense: fast judgments in a largely stable environment. In a complex one they become a vulnerability. And you don’t get rid of them by knowing about them \u2014 only through method, through a process that forces you to take several futures seriously at once.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n What organizations take away from good scenario work is rarely a finished plan. It’s closer to this:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n After the talks came the water. A trip out on Lake Constance, good conversation, a relaxed toast in a setting you couldn’t easily invent. On Friday, the Friends & Family Day wound down at the institute.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n What stays with you from days like these: the willingness to think together about uncomfortable futures is there \u2014 and it’s growing. That willingness is where resilience begins. Not the ability to predict the future, but the ability to be ready for more than one.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Warm thanks to the IST team for the invitation and the hospitality \u2014 and to everyone who thought, argued and celebrated along the way.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some places make it easier to think about the future. Konstanz on Lake Constance is one of them. On 9 and 10 July, the IST hosted its Friends & Family Day \u2014 two days with entrepreneurs, alumni, project partners and long-standing friends of the institute. It opened with a get-together at the Hochrhein-Bodensee Chamber of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[189,187,20,188,9],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rede","tag-bodensee","tag-denken","tag-foresight","tag-konstanz","tag-rede"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tWhat scenarios actually change<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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And then: cast off<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n