Preferred Futuring

Envision the Future You Want and Unleash the Energy to Get There

Berrett-Koehler, 1998

15 min read

10 take-aways

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Instead of running from your problems, try running toward your ideal future.

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Editorial Rating

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Well Structured
Eloquent

Recommendation

Lawrence L. Lippitt tells you how to create a future vision for your organization. You must assess your present reality and external threats, create a plan to get to your future, and monitor the results. The book’s focus on a future vision distinguishes it from ordinary problem-solving guides. Lippitt cites a few examples of groups that have used this approach successfully over the course of 30 years and emphasizes using this technique in a group session. This nicely written, well-organized book clearly and simply presents its eight-step model and offers a complete implementation guide. getAbstract recommends this book as useful to anyone working on planning or managing change - from CEOs to team leaders and trainers. One caveat: Its methods seem similar to those offered in other leadership and strategic change literature. The specific steps may vary, but the basic approach is much the same. What’s different is the vision thing.

Summary

Preferred Futuring Roots

Preferred futuring traces its roots to the late 1950s and early 1960s, when social scientist Ron Lippitt sought a better way to help groups determine goals and work toward change. He found that people commonly identified their current problems, prioritized them and developed plans to resolve the most important issues among them.

However, the goal of moving away from something painful also made people feel dissatisfied and discouraged. By contrast, asking people what was working well - and what wasn’t - motivated them, because it presented a picture of a preferred future toward which they could work. The ultimate result was a new standard of how to change.

After Ron Lippitt’s death in 1987, others carried on the preferred futuring principles and developed them further. These experts created a new model that didn’t rely on ordinary problem solving, but focused instead on an exciting future state.

The new model doesn’t ask you to just list your organization’s problems. Instead, it requires you to assess several key questions, including:

How did you get where you are today?
What is working and what is not working?

About the Author

Lawrence L. Lippitt is president of Lippitt Carter Consulting and co-founder of the Preferred Futuring Network. The son of Ron Lippitt, he has used preferred futuring techniques for more than 20 years with both large and small organizations - from Fortune 500 companies and healthcare organizations, to schools, nonprofits and city governments.

Lawrence L. Lippitt

Preferred Futuring

Envision the Future You Want and Unleash the Energy to Get There

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