Future Search

"Future Search" is the name for a 3-day planning meeting that enables people to cooperate in complex situations, including those of high conflict and uncertainty. The method typically involves groups of 40 to 80 people in one room and as many as 300 in parallel conferences. People from diverse backgrounds use Future Searches to make systemic improvements in their communities and organizations, working entirely from their own experience. It has been employed with most social, technological and economic issues in North and South America, Africa, Australia, Europe, India and South Asia. People achieve four outputs from one meeting--"shared values", "a plan for the future", "concrete goals", and "an implementation strategy".

Started by "Marvin Weisbord" and "Sandra Janoff", Future Search functions to help people collaborate despite differences of culture, class, gender, age, race, ethnicity, language, and education. The method has been employed in communities, schools, hospitals, churches, government agencies, foundations and NGO’s.

Future Search methods have been used to help: organize the demobilization child soldiers in Southern Sudan, develop an integrated economic development plan in Northern Ireland, work with a Hawaiian community to reconnect with traditional values, and determine the future of urban mobility in Salt Lake City, Utah, among many other examples. [http://www.futuresearch.net/method/applications/world.cfm]

Guiding Principles

Four principles underlie a successful Future Search:

• Getting the “whole system in the room”

• Exploring all aspects of a system before trying to fix any part

• Putting common ground and future action front and center, treating problems and conflicts as information, not action items.

• Having people accept responsibility for their own work, conclusions, and action plans.

Future Search Conference

People follow a generic agenda, regardless of topic. It consists of 4 or 5 half day sessions on the Past, the Present, the Future, Common Ground, and Action Planning. The techniques used—time lines, a mind map, creative future scenarios, common ground dialogue—are all managed to support the principles. People need no special training, orientation, vocabulary, or background to participate. They work in small groups, make reports to the whole, and join in whole group dialogues on what they are learning.

Future Search managers practice a “hands-off” approach to facilitation, encouraging people to share information and draw their own conclusions. They rarely become involved except to help people clarify goals or to head off situations that might result in conflict or flight from their task.

There is a vast literature documenting successful Future Searches. There also have been notable failures that people need to be aware of. The commonest causes of failure are:

• Non-interdependent groups (people who do not need each other).

• Issues on which most participants do not wish to act.

• Key actors missing.

• Allowing too little time for the size of the task.

• Overactive/controlling facilitation.

Details of the method can be found in the book "Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities", by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff, 2nd edition (Berrett-Koehler, 2000).

What is the Future Search Network (FSN)?

FSN is a voluntary, non-profit service network. It has 350 members on every continent who commit to serve society while cooperating and learning together. Their mission is making a more open, whole, and sustainable world. The members manage Future Searches in any language and culture for whatever people can afford. The network is open to everyone who agrees to serve and practice the method in the spirit of its principles.

There is no formal certification. FSN members maintain high standards through ongoing dialogue among themselves, research, and shared case studies on successes and failures. People receive training in public workshops held in various countries each year and by assisting experienced members. The global spread of Future Search is accounted in Chapters 16 and 17, "Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, Meaning and Community in the 21st Century", by Marvin Weisbord (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2004).

Formal Research Studies of Future Searches

This infomation is adapted from a chapter prepared by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff for the "Handbook for the Selection and Implementation of Human Performance Interventions", Ryan Watkins and Doug Leigh, Editors, to be published in 2009 by Jossey-Bass/Wiley and the [http://www.ispi.org/ International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI)] .

There have been many MA and PhD theses written on Future Searches. Below is a summary of findings from 10 doctoral dissertations. All are referenced at the end of this entry. Seven were based on a single Future Search, one (Oels) [Oels, Angela. “Investigating the Emotional Roller-Coaster Ride: A Case Study-Based Assessment of the Future Search Conference Design.” Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 19, 347-355 (2002).] on two, one (Jimenez-Guzman) [Jimenez-Guzman, Jaime. Participation and Development in Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2005.] on three, and one (Granata) [Granata, Elaine Christine. An Assessment Of Search Conferences: Citizen Participation And Civic Engagement In Turbulent Times. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Colorado at Denver, 2005.] on a nine-conference comparative study. Of these 20 conferences, 14 followed the Future Search model as described in Weisbord & Janoff (2000) [Weisbord, Marvin & Sandra Janoff. Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities. 2nd Edition. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2000.] and six were based on the Search Conference model, from which Future Search was partly derived. The conferences studied by "Secor, McDonald, Starodub, Jimenez-Guzman, Pickus, Concepcion, Pagano, and Granata" (with one exception), met their goals. Those studied by "Oels" and "Polyani" fell short. The latter researchers attributed failures in large part to the meeting design. It should be noted that successful cases were based on the same design. This suggests that other factors noted by the researchers, such as unclear goals, inadequate matching of participants to the task, and facilitator inflexibility in working with large groups might play a role. In one of the conferences Oels studied, for example, she noted at the outset that the community fell short of having the right people for their purposes. Thus, the researcher was stuck with analyzing a meeting where failure could be predicted from the start. She also noted one facilitator’s rigidity in pushing ahead with the agenda despite participants’ wanting more time. This behavior might better be attributed to the meeting leader’s inexperience than flaws in the design. [Oels, Angela. Evaluating Stakeholder Participation in the Transition to Sustainable Development: Methodology, Case Studies, Policy Implications. Münster: Litverlag, 2003. ]

Elaine Granata’s dissertation uniquely was based on a comparative study of multiple conferences rather than single examples. Thus, her thesis offers useful insights for success that can be generalized. Granata investigated nine conferences, six in the Future Search and three in the Search Conference mode (on which Future Search is partly based). From these she developed a systematic model of effectiveness. Indeed, Granata’s findings help illuminate the “design flaws” noted by some researchers in individual cases. For example, she noted these predictable outcomes when the core principles and design requirements were observed:- The meeting sponsor’s objectives were met.- People exhibited high affect and energy that continued after the conference.- Common ground became the impetus for change.- People engaged in dialogue that led to mutual understanding.

Nearly always new networks formed, though these did not necessarily lead to action planning (a finding supported by Oels).

Granata also identified two criteria central to an effective conference, without which success is unlikely:- Getting the right people (e.g. “whole system”) in the room.- Agreeing to work only on issues for which there is common ground.Most importantly, in conferences judged “highly effective” people reported their desired future was being realized long after the conference ended. [Granata, Elaine Christine. An Assessment Of Search Conferences: Citizen Participation And Civic Engagement In Turbulent Times. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Colorado at Denver, 2005.] Granata found no evidence to support or refute a belief held by many consultants that a democratic conference structure empowers participants who have little power to begin with. A single conference cannot be expected to change power, status, hierarchy and other structural arrangements. However, Weisbord and Janoff have published a case where Future Search was used to decentralize and redistribute power within a global corporation when restructuring was the meeting’s stated goal Granata also found that credible conference sponsors who believe in collaboration were more likely to stimulate ongoing action groups. In cases where key people were missing, there was much less sustained action after the meeting, a finding confirmed by Whitaker and Hutchcroft [Whittaker, Julie and Ian Hutchcroft. “The Role of Future Search in Rural Regeneration: Process, Context and Practice. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 19, 339-345 (2002).] . The one sponsor in Granata’s study who did not believe in collaboration had an ineffective conference that probably should not have been held.

“Polarization,” she reported, “decreased as predicted by theory when people discover they can be united by some common ground. That does not mean that differences are gone; in fact they are not. They are isolated, recognized, acknowledged and put aside so that work on common ground can take place.” The risk is that people will agree only at a high level of abstraction, and end up doing relatively minor, non-controversial projects. This happened in the conference on repetitive strain injury studied by Polanyi in which deep value conflicts between employers and union members proved irreconcilable in a three-day Future Search. [Polanyi, Michael F. D. A Qualitative Analysis And Critique Of A ‘Future Search’ Conference: Reframing Repetitive Strain Injuries For Action. Ph.D. Dissertation, York University (Canada), 2000. ]

Four studies are worth noting for the added dimensions they highlight. Concepcion, compared two similar Mexican communities concerned with sustainable forestry planning. One used a Search Conference, the other did not. [Concepcion, Lujan Alvarez. Strategic Planning For Sustainable Community Forestry In Chihuahua, Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation. New Mexico State University, 1997.] Based on surveys, interviews, direct observation and follow-up studies Concepcion found significant statistical differences between the two. Not surprisingly, the intervention community showed greater awareness of development needs and positive attitude change compared to the static community. More, the intervention community embraced participative planning and created its own strategic plan.

Jimenez-Guzman, also working in Mexico, sought to introduce participative planning into a provincial university, a rural community, and a university school. He modified the Search Conference model to fit the Mexican culture, calling the variation a Reflection and Design Conference (RDC). He concluded that participation enhances development, enabling people to make the best of the resources they have, and that RDC’s produced ongoing participation. How long this might continue remained a question mark, depending on external and internal factors beyond a researcher’s (or consultant’s, for that matter) control. [Jimenez-Guzman, Jaime. Participation and Development in Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2005. ]

Pickus, by contrast, set out to study strategic planning methods used by non-profit organizations. She made the focus of her study participatory strategic planning (PSP) and its influence on personal behavior. She chose an organization using Future Search, and did a longitudinal study using surveys before, just after, and six months following the conference. She used the term “social capital formation” to describe the partnerships, collaborations, and increased trust that emerged. She concluded that personal action following the conference was partly explained by these phenomena, a finding that parallels Granata’s. [Pickus, Kirsten Nicole. Participatory Strategic Planning In Nonprofit Organizations: The Roles Of Social Capital And Collaboration In Explaining Changes In Personal Actions. PhD Dissertation, University of California, Irvine, 2001.]

Pagano based his thesis on Weisbord’s “Learning Curve.” [ Weisbord, Marvin R. Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, Meaning and Community in the 21st Century. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2004.] He sought to move the New York City archeological resource management community from an expert problem-solving model toward an orientation where all concerned parties participate in improving the whole system. He used Future Search to involve a broad cross section of the city’s archeological community in designing their own collaborative community for managing the city’s resources in the 21st Century. Action plans were made for funding, exhibits, theory and method, legislation, education, site preservation and increased community involvement. Pagano considered the meetings’ main achievement a consensus developed among organizations and entities outside the formal structures of any of them.

The most problematic uses of Future Search seem to be in highly-charged political situations. Where elected officials must be relied upon for action, the potential for follow-up goes down. [Pagano, Daniel Neil. Systems Design Of A Collaborative Community To Manage New York City's Archaeological Resources Ph.D. Dissertation. Saybrook Institute, 1993.] Multiple pressures and constituencies make it very difficult for the peoples’ representatives to participate in meetings where they don’t control the dialogue. Oels, in addition to the meeting design, also attributed inaction after the two conferences she studied (on implementing Local Agenda 21 sustainability initiatives in Germany and England) in part “to factors like the withdrawal of champions after the conference event, the cultural and institutional gap between representative and deliberative (participative) democracy, and in the limited decision-making power of municipalities in multi-level governance.” [Oels, Angela. Evaluating Stakeholder Participation in the Transition to Sustainable Development: Methodology, Case Studies, Policy Implications. Münster: Litverlag, 2003. ]

She concluded that what happens during and after a Future Search is best understood “in relation to the political context that nourishes or fails to nourish it.” She also stipulated that “there is a lot more to facilitating effective local change than optimizing the participation tool,” a statement Future Search members strongly support. Nonetheless, she proposed useful design modifications based on her experience, most of which already were incorporated into designs that neither she nor the facilitators she studied and the critics she quoted were familiar with in the late 1990’s.

References

Additional Resources

(1)http://www.futuresearch.net

(2)Holman, Peggy, Tom Devane & Steve Cady. The Change Handbook. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2007.

(3)Janoff, Sandra. “Preparing for the Future Begins with Today’s Youth – A Future Search with 50 teenagers in a rural county in SW Michigan, USA.” FutureSearching, Issue #27, Fall, 2003.

(4)Janoff, Sandra and Marvin Weisbord. “Three Perspectives on Future Search: Meeting Design, Theory of Facilitating, Global Change Strategy.” in Scandinavian Journal of Organizational Psychology, Volume 13, 2003.

(5)McDonald, Kathleen L. The Future Of School Counseling And Guidance In Washington State: A Future Search Conference. Ed.D. Dissertation, Seattle University, 1998.

(6)Polanyi, Michael F.D. “Communicative Action in Practice: Future Search and the Pursuit of an Open, Critical and Non-Coercive Large-Group Process.” Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 19, 357-366 (2002).

(7)Secor, Julianne H. Advancing Women As Leaders: An Intergenerational, Multicultural Future Search Conference For Activist Women. Ed.D. Dissertation, Seattle University, 1999.

(8)Starodub, Linda Ann Susan. Facilitating Whole-System Methods Across Cultures: A Case Study Of A Future Search Conference On The Future United Nations In Pakistan. Ph.D. Dissertation, The Union Institute, 2001.

(9)Weisbord, Marvin & Sandra Janoff. Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities. 2nd Edition. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2000.

(10)Weisbord, Marvin & Sandra Janoff. “Faster, Shorter, Cheaper May be Simple; It’s Never Easy.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 41, No. 1, 70-82, 2005.

(11)Wilcox, Gillian & Sandra Janoff. “’I Dream of Peace’ - A Future Search for the Children of Southern Sudan.” FutureSearching, Issue # 18, Spring, 2000