VALUES AND SPIRITUALITY
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The Development and Enhancement of Future Consciousness
People bring all of their psychological abilities, faculties, and memories to bear in dealing with the future, a mindset we call "future consciousness." This session provides basic concepts for understanding and enhancing all the major dimensions of future consciousness. We'll address how human emotion, motivation, and a lifetime's worth of constructive goal-directed behavior enable future consciousness. We'll also examine cognitive capacities such as critical and possibility thinking, foresight and creativity, and planning and discuss strategies to develop and manage these skills. We'll explore self-efficacy, self-narratives (personal storytelling), and optimism as important aspects of self-identity and analyze their role in enhanced future consciousness. Most importantly, we'll look at how key human virtues, self-responsibility, courage, mental discipline, wisdom, justice, balance, partnerships, love, compassion, and transcendence lead to a heightened appreciation of the future and its possibilities. We'll also examine some technological tools for thinking more constructively about the future.
Who should attend: Teachers and educators, psychologists, organizational leaders, business professionals, philosophers, religious futurists, students, and those interested in personal or professional growth.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn all the major critical dimensions of future consciousness, and why they should and how they can enhance their own capacities to constructively think about the future.
How this knowledge can be applied: This knowledge may be applied personally to enrich participants’ own perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors, and may be used in assisting others to change their own lives accordingly.Thomas Lombardo, futures professor and faculty chair of Psychology, Philosophy, and Integrated Studies, Rio Salado College; author, The Evolution of Future Consciousness and Contemporary Futurist Thought, Tempe, Arizona
Jonathon Richter, associate researcher, Center for Advanced Technology in Education, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregonkey words: future consciousness, foresight, creativity, virtues, goals, hope
issue areas: Values and Spirituality; Learning and Education; Futures Methodologies, Tools, and Processes
Visioning, Transformation, and Human Technology
This session defines “visioning” as a subtle technology for future planning. It explains “transformation” as the shift in individual consciousness from the "egoic" trance to higher awareness and in social consciousness from tribal to planetary society. It presents “human technology” as an emerging convergence of disciplines (management, psychology, spirituality, public affairs) and a powerful trend influencing 21st century leadership.
Participants will learn a practice for increasing awareness and presence and will then do an exercise exploring personal vision, values, and life mission, followed by a feedback period. We will explore how to apply these concepts and practices in participants’ personal and organizational lives, then offer practices for extending the work into ongoing explorations of visioning and transformation. By practicing foundational concepts, participants gain skills that can be applied to vision leadership at higher levels. This session introduces powerful transformational sciences that are just beginning to emerge into view.Who should attend: Anyone interested in learning about visioning as a future planning practice, transformational leadership, and the emerging concept of human technology. Also those wanting to strengthen their engagement with personal vision and life mission.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn emerging concepts about visioning, transformations in human consciousness and society, and human technology. They will learn transformational practices for increasing awareness and presence, unfolding personal vision, identifying values, clarifying life mission, and aligning with deep trends of social transformation.
How this knowledge can be applied: One barrier to developing clear vision, whether on the individual level or for an organization, is that our personal trances tend to get in the way and obscure the view. By awakening greater awareness and by investigating our personal values and visions, we gain greater self understanding. By exploring practices on the individual level, we can learn subtle skills, strengths, knowledge, and wisdom that can be applied to larger group visioning efforts. By considering larger trends in social transformation we begin to align ourselves with evolutions that are greater than ourselves. These movements increase clarity and produce better vision.Michael Aschenbach, director, Institute for Human Transformation; president, Emerging Vision Media LLC; principal consultant, Human Communication Systems; author, VISION 3000: The Transformation of Humanity in the New Millennium, East Fallowfield, Pennsylvania
key words: transformation leadership, vision, awareness, human technology, practices
issue areas: Values and Spirituality; Social and Cultural Trends; Futures Methodologies, Tools, and Processes
The Actions of Hope: Creating Buy-In by Shifting Beliefs
How do we turn hope into a daily practice to reveal hidden problems, ensure that behaviors get changed, turn thoughts into action, help people take responsibility, and transform employees into dynamic leaders? Until now, we’ve assumed that ably presenting our thoughts or goodwill would create a shift in consciousness and behavior. However, skills are necessary to actually accomplish this, starting with a change in belief to encourage the cultivation of core values into action.
Who should attend: Business executives, leaders, visionaries, and anyone seeking the skills to bring hope into action. Also all those interested in learning how to attain "buy-in for change."
What you’ll learn: Attendees will leave the session with tools to take an action from idea formation through completion, while assuring buy-in occurs from necessary participants.
How this knowledge can be applied: Until now we’ve assumed that a good plan will elicit participation, but that is not always true. This session will introduce four practices that will enable change to happen congruently and effectively.Sharon Drew Morgen, trainer and change consultant, Decision Connection; author, Selling with Integrity, Austin, Texas
key words: values, change, best practices
issue areas: Values and Spirituality; Business and Careers; Futures Methodologies, Tools, and Processes
The Future According to Jesus
Futurists often encounter religionists who hold views that undercut future-oriented behavior, including determinism, fatalism, or millennial beliefs. But as a Palestinian Jew, what was Jesus’ real view of the future? And how does that view compare with that of futurists who focus on “this world,” rather than the next? Drawing on historical Jesus research, this session identifies three driving forces of the first century, and argues that Jesus rejected the conventional and counter-futures of his time to envision a creative future for his generation. This first-century foresight will then be compared and contrasted with 21st century global scenario frameworks to consider how visionary leadership might shift society's deeply ingrained attitudes toward impending conflicts and catastrophes.
Who should attend: Any futurist who has encountered resistance to futures thinking from religionists.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn how to ground foresight in the historical world of Jesus, and relate religious concepts to futures thinking and contingency planning.
How this knowledge can be applied: Attendees will learn how to generate “third way” scenarios that seek to transcend the clash of mainstream and side stream futures.Corné Bekker, assistant professor of leadership studies, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Tsvi Bisk, director, Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking; co-author, Futurizing the Jews: Alternative Futures for Meaningful Jewish Existence in the 21st Century and The Optimistic Jew: A Positive View of the Jewish Future (forthcoming), Jerusalem, Israel
Jay Gary, program director, M.A. in Strategic Foresight, School of Leadership Studies, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia; foresight coach, PeakFutures, Colorado Springs, Coloradokey words: religion, futures methods, globalization, catastrophes
issue areas: Values and Spirituality; Social and Cultural Trends
The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism and the Abrahamic Religions
The gravest challenge confronting humanity’s future is the threat of nuclear terrorism. The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam will determine whether this nightmare scenario becomes a future reality. Through 450 years of global conquest, colonialism enabled Christianity to surpass Islam as the world’s largest religion. In 1948 the United Nations created the state of Israel in the Palestinian homeland. At the start of the 21st century, continuing world expansion by Christians, ongoing struggle by Jews to preserve the state of Israel, and Muslim efforts to regain lost ground have combined to confront the global village with a potentially worse-case scenario. While the future remains developmentally open, three trends have begun to steer humanity away from the nuclear nightmare: 1) the world has gone on the offensive against terrorism; 2) contrary to some popular belief, religion is building bridges of cooperation; and 3) humanity is learning to live together peacefully amidst the pluralism of the modern world.
Who should attend: Religious persons who want to explore the relationship between religion and terrorism, as well as anyone interested in avoiding the nuclear terrorism scenario.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn how the Abrahamic religions have together placed the global village in its current perilous condition and how religions might contribute to a positive future filled with peace and justice rather than one of hatred and hostility.
How this knowledge can be applied: This knowledge can help participants become proactive in shaping the future in a positive way.Thomas R. McFaul, professor of ethics and religious studies emeritus, North Central College; author, The Future of Peace and Justice in the Global Village: The Role of the World Religions in the 21st Century, Naperville, Illinois
key words: religion, terrorism, nuclear
issue areas: Values and Spirituality; Social and Cultural Trends
Values and Lifestyles of Tomorrow’s Adults: Future Consumer Trends
Kairos Future, an international futures research and strategy consulting firm, has been studying the values and lifestyles of young Swedes and Scandinavians (born during the 1980s) for more than a decade. We will now present the results from our unique survey “European Youth in a Global Context,” which explores various aspects of youth culture, values, and lifestyles. The survey is truly international, featuring the opinions of more than 1,000 respondents per country studied.
Who should attend: Business and product developers and those responsible for business intelligence, marketing, and human resources within their organizations.
What you’ll learn: We will introduce the values, priorities, lifestyles, career strategies, and consumption habits of today’s youth. This session will explore questions like: What is important for today’s youth? What is their ideal society? What influences their choices of products and services? What is important in their future career choices?
How this knowledge can be applied: This information will ultimately help companies adjust their marketing and human resource strategies to meet the profiles of tomorrow’s adults. It will also help political organizations, research, and academia as well as government institutions understand youth values and how to adjust policy, regulation, and guidelines accordingly. This will help you stay in tune with future consumer trends and understand the young generation of today.Mats Lindgren, founder and CEO, Kairos Future; co-author, Scenario Planning: The Link Between Future and Strategy, Stockholm, Sweden
key words: youth, consumerism, values, lifestyle
issue areas: Values and Spirituality; Business and Careers; Social and Cultural Trends
Big and Small Hope: Does Self Sense Determine Hopeful Futures?
Attendees will be presented with the basics of "hope theory" and will be given the opportunity to apply this theory to gain a better understanding of themselves, their own future aspirations and fears, and the dynamic that exists between the cognition of hope, self/ego development, and images of the future.
Who should attend: Practitioners, educators, and anyone who wishes to develop hopeful images of the future.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn how self awareness and hope theory inform the development of images of the future. We will investigate the impact this may have on the construction of hopeful images of the future. Those involved in the development of images of the future will benefit from deepening their understanding of this dynamic.
How this knowledge can be applied: Understanding how hope theory, self/ego development theory, and images of the future intersect is fundamental to the development of hopeful images which will move people to action.Peter Hayward, program director, Masters of Strategic Foresight, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia
Rowena Morrow, lecturer, Strategic Foresight program, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australiakey words: self development, normative futures, futures methods
issue areas: Values and Spirituality; Learning and Education; Futures Methodologies, Tools, and Processes
Clash to Confluence of Civilizations: A Spiral Dynamics Perspective on Global Integration and Human Emergence
This presentation describes the Master Code that shapes value systems, forges nation-states, and crafts new geopolitical maps to bridge the great divides. These are the divides that perpetuate hunger and disease patterns and divisive immigration issues, while generating lethal conflict around have vs. have not issues, religious differences, ethnic stereotypes, etc. Based on the seminal work of Professor Clare W. Graves and the Spiral Dynamics extensions in applications on five continents, this evolutionary model focuses on humans-as-a-whole as we cope with basic survival issues in the 21st century. The Human Genome Project is now isolating the role of genetics in impacting our biological DNA and disease potentials. The Human “Memome” Project will plot the underlying value system dynamics that form cultures that either clash internally and externally or seek new forms of confluence as we yearn for integration, peace, and progress.
Our problems and challenges have outpaced the available solutions, at both the local and global levels. Advances in technology may be outstripping our traditional lifestyles as threats to the environment are corrupting our home habitats. This is a great time to be alive as we go back to the future and forward to the past in the same decade.Who should attend: Those interested in the basic survival of humankind.
What you’ll learn: This session uncovers state-of-the-art understanding of bio-psycho-social systems and models of large-scale societal change.
How this knowledge can be applied: This knowledge can be applied practically in explaining the transformational processes in both South Africa and the Middle East. It will track the shifts out of apartheid and early experiences in nationhood. Further, it will profile major attempts, through the Build Palestine Initiative, to reframe the historic Israel-Palestine clash into new models of overarching confluence, based on universal value systems and commonly held goals.Don E. Beck, founder, Center for Human Emergence; co-founder, National Values Center; CEO, Spiral Dynamics Group; principal, Institute for Values and Culture; co-author, Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change and The Crucible: Forging South Africa's Future, Denton, Texas
key words: values, survival, conflict
issue area: Values and Spirituality
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