October 15, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Sara Deschamps sit down with Dr. Gabriele Rizzo, a global authority on strategic foresight who has advised NATO, the US Space Force and major government institutions. The conversation explores how leaders can shift their relationship with the future, moving from prediction and short-termism to building resilience and long-term value. Gabriele shares the laws of foresight, why multiple futures matter, and how to use practical tools like scenario planning and futures wheels to unlock new thinking in times of uncertainty.
This conversation is a guide to making space for future relevance. Gabriele Rizzo challenges the listener to see the unknown not as danger but as potential, and to build organisations capable of disruptive innovation rather than defending the status quo. Whether you’re leading through transformation, wrestling with the implications of AI, or seeking to balance immediate performance with long-term impact, this conversation offers practical and thought-provoking insights into how foresight can become a critical leadership advantage.
Further materials from Gabriele Rizzo
HR Futures 2030: A Design for Future-Ready Human Resources
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)
Social:
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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.
Send a message to The Evolving Leader team
After more than 5 years of hosting The Evolving Leader, Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are launching their new show The Mindset Economy in January 2026. The new show will explore how to live better, work smarter and be connected in a more uncertain world where machines can think.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jean Gomes (00:19):
Now more than ever before, leaders must focus more
of their time and cognitivecapacity on solving for the
future. The typical leaderspends less than 5% of their
time on the problems of creatingvalue for tomorrow and future
relevancy in a world that istruly coming to a massive
inflection point, this is arecipe for crisis. In this
(00:43):
conversation, we're talking toGabriel Rizzo, an expert in
strategic foresight, to help youunlock some practical ways of
thinking about changing yourrelationship with the future.
Tune in to an importantconversation on the evolving
leader.
Scott Allender (00:59):
Hi folks.
Welcome to the evolving leader.
The show born from the beliefthat we need deeper, more
accountable and more humanleadership to confront the
world's biggest challenges. I'mScott Allender, and today I'm
joined by my friend and co host,Sara Deschamps. Sara, how are
you feeling today?
Sara Deschamps (01:15):
Scott, I am feeling incredible. We have had
a week of rain, and today thesun is shining here in Toronto,
I It's really affected my moodin a positive way, and I'm just
really excited for today'stoday's interview, and to be co
hosting with you. How are youfeeling?
Scott Allender (01:31):
I'm feeling a little frazzled. It's been a
crazy, busy week, but I'mfeeling so grateful as well,
because I love closing the weekwith brilliant conversations
with our brilliant guests, andtoday I'm super, super delighted
to to have the conversationwe're about to have. So why
don't you introduce our guestfor us today?
Sara Deschamps (01:51):
Sounds good.
Scott, so today we've got DrGabriel Rizzo, and He is the
executive partner at longviews.
Gabriel is a globally recognisedexpert in strategic foresight,
and He specialises in defence,security and innovation. Now
with nearly two decades ofexperience, Gabriel has advised
top institutions including NATO,the US Space Force and the
(02:13):
Italian Ministry of Defence in2022 he was elected as one of
the 30 UNESCO chairs worldwidein futures studies and
foresight, becoming the youngestrecipient ever. He's taught at
institutions such as SapienzaUniversity of Rome, Tor Vergata
University of Rome, un ilUniversity de Lausanne, the US
(02:34):
Space Force, the Air ForceInstitute of Technology, the US
Air Force Academy, Asha CLausanne and the Italian Centre
for higher defence studies. AndDr Rizzo is also the author of
routledges best selling HRfutures, 2030, a design for
future ready human resources.
And he's working on the handbookof foresight strategy and future
(02:55):
studies for defence andsecurity. Gabriel, welcome to
the evolving leader. How are youfeeling?
Gabriele Rizzo (03:02):
It's great to be with you guys. I'm all pumped
up.
Scott Allender (03:06):
Gabriel, welcome to the show. I'd love to just
start a bit with your originstory. How did you get a passion
for foresight?
Gabriele Rizzo (03:15):
Well, it actually all started when when I
was eight, when I realised I wasall fascinated by the fact that
the there's a very specificpiece in a in a black hole. So
that's what I was reading when Iwas reading when I was eight.
(03:35):
Probably that speaks of me, soplease don't judge so. But
there's this thing called eventhorizon, and the act of going
through the event horizon is anon event. For some reason, this
all got me thinking and got medown all the way into the rabbit
(03:58):
hole of physics, and thatactually opened up the door for
me being passionate about thewhy of things and exploring the
why things happen the way theyhappen, actually brought me to
exploring a number of differentways in which things may happen
(04:21):
or could happen or could havehappened, and this was really
just a step away from the actualpractice of foresight that is
the imagination and explorationof what seems impossible today
so that we're ready for whattomorrow brings.
Scott Allender (04:42):
How did you hone that skill? How did you start
developing that
Gabriele Rizzo (04:46):
it was a very non traditional path, because,
unfortunately, there's notraditional path to foresight.
So I went through my bachelor intheoretical physics and masters
in theoretical physics. Afterthat, I realised that, for a
(05:08):
number of reasons, research wasmy wish. But not the career that
was for me. So I decided topivot into the defence
industrial base. And within thedefence industrial base, I
discovered that there wassomething that really responded
(05:31):
to my desire of exploring thisbroad and and wide range of
different trajectories to thefuture, something that I had
already within me, becausealready towards the end of my
mass of my masters, I startedasking myself, who who am I?
(05:51):
What do I do? Right? I I doresearch, right? I look into the
why of things, into the why ofthings that don't exist, what
that we don't understand. But ifI'm not walking down this path,
then what path Am I walking? Andso I started thinking, and I
(06:15):
started attributing, like, madeup names, like, maybe I'm a
technology architect, maybe I'ma science architect. So this
idea of architecting, ofarchitecture of an
infrastructure, of a process, ofsomething that exists and that
you can explore, trickle downinto my thinking. Was only after
(06:40):
I joined the ranks of theDefence industrial base that I
realised that foresight was athing. It was an actual
discipline. It was born rightafter World War Two, that I
could learn and explore andhone.
Sara Deschamps (07:00):
Can we jump into your work and maybe start with
the big idea that sits at theheart of your work? How would
the general population, howshould the general population be
thinking about the future,
Gabriele Rizzo (07:12):
not in the way they think that's that's the
short version of the answer. Sohere's, here's the more
structured version. What we dowhen we think about the future
is, naturally, we think aboutone version of the future. When
we think about predicting thefuture, we think about the
(07:32):
crystal ball. And there is onefuture, there's one version,
there's only one direction. Butthat's not what the future is.
The future actually exists inthe plural, because just think
(07:52):
the present moment used to bethe unimaginable future. So if
there's an imaginable future andan unimaginable future, then by
definition, there are at leasttwo futures. So we have to work
with futures in the plural, andif there are plural futures,
(08:14):
then we cannot predict them, andso we have to do something else
with futures. And foresightmeans thinking about lots of
different things that couldhappen later, like imagining
different ways a story mightend. This is how I explain it to
my daughter. We do not guesswhat's exactly going to happen.
(08:38):
We do not predict. We don't wantto guess the end of the story.
We think about manypossibilities. Doing this helps
us choose better today, so thatwe can be ready and make good
decisions no matter what happensnext.
Scott Allender (08:57):
It seems that a big motivation for prediction, I
think, in most, most of usanyway, is to try to reduce
uncertainty, to try to sort offeel that we can make sense of
the future, that we won't besurprised by it.
But how this sort that's sort ofan illusion of control, right?
(09:17):
So how do we think about thefuture? What is the mindset
required to open up to thesemultiple possible outcomes that
you're describing?
Gabriele Rizzo (09:27):
Well, there are, there are many, many skills that
you have to work with. First ofall, because what you said,
Scott is, is exactly right whereit's just human to be scared
about the unknown and theuncertain. And that dates back
to when we were just humanoids,or just a little more than
(09:53):
monkeys, big monkeys in caves,when we were finding shelter in
heaven, in those caves, and whenoutside it was dark and we
couldn't see, and so we couldn'tknow, well, there were monsters
outside. I. Could have beeneaten. We weren't at the top of
(10:16):
the food chain like we are rightnow. We're not the super top
predators we're today. So andthese types of things that go on
for 10s of 1000s of years arevery hard to remove from your
psyche. So that is why we're soscared of the unknown. Because
(10:37):
what we do is filling theunknown with our predator void.
We don't have predators anymore,so we're scared of the unknown
because that what speaks to thatvoid that we carry within
ourselves. So what we have to dois creating a way to move our
(11:00):
muscle memory from unknownequals danger to unknown equals
potential, equals creativity,equals inspiration. That takes
time and training, both in termsof the methods and methodologies
and techniques and tools offoresight, which we can cover
(11:23):
just a little bit, maybe later,and also in terms of self
awareness and discovering whereyou are in your inner
landscapes, how we can you cannavigate where you place
yourself, the maps of your innerterritory, how you can access
(11:44):
the latent spaces of yourimagination. Because in the end,
to work with a plethora ofdifferent trajectories to the
future, you have to imaginethem, and imagining means
accessing those types of inner,very deep resources.
Sara Deschamps (12:03):
I'd like to link this to leadership. A lot of the
work that we do with leaders,we've noticed that there's,
there's a big struggle withholding the tension between the
pressures for short termperformance and short termism
and what we need to do for longterm performance, for what the
future needs. And I understandwhy short termism, there's more
(12:27):
certainty, there's maybe a bitmore safety, but what have you
learned in holding thoseparadoxes?
Gabriele Rizzo (12:34):
Yeah, yeah, I've definitely noticed that one, one
piece of resource that I alwaysmention is research that was
published by McKinsey GlobalInstitute in 2016 showing how
firms that focus on long termismactually end up with a market
(12:59):
capitalization that is twice orthree times, or even five times
the size of the firms that focuson short termism. And this
report is titled The shortsightedness of short termism.
This is a great piece ofresearch that I always cite
(13:20):
because it's based on hardeconomic data. Something else
that I always like to remindpeople is that when we work with
foresight, we're not justlooking five years out. The
minimum time frame that isreally use, useful or meaningful
(13:44):
for a four set exercise is 10years. We can work around this
limit and maybe shrink it tolike seven years with a number
of kvets, but earlier than this,that's that's really not
foresight. We can use tools andtechniques from foresight to do
(14:05):
something else in the shorterterm, but that's not foresight.
So the longer time span isreally crucial. Usually, the
answer that I have from people,the response is like, well,
we'll cross the bridge whenwe'll we'll get to it. And I'm
(14:26):
like, well, but think about youhave a piece of regulation that
tells you that in 10 years, youcannot sell internal combustion
engines in Europe anymore. Soyou're telling me that you're
you're thinking about it at yearnine of 10 of your time window,
really, because that doesn't fityour your industrial strategy,
(14:48):
your industrial strategic plan,that doesn't make any sense as
as well as it doesn't make nosense when we have the
opportunity and the possibilityand the chance to really look 10
years out and by looking atwhere we want to be, or looking
(15:10):
at a number of features of thefutures that we're able to
create. We ate 10 years out, wecan inform our midpoint position
five years out, because the factthat we're looking 10 years out
doesn't mean that all of theproblems accumulate at the 10
year mark, a number of problemsyou might be in the need of
(15:36):
tackling right from from the getgo, because maybe they're very
long term problems. Maybe youhave to rebuild your business
model, or maybe you have topivot in a different part of the
market, or maybe you have tothink about a different type of
asset. And I'm talking todefence and security leaders or
governments that you may be needto have 10 years from now. These
(16:01):
are not things that happenovernight. The fact that
sometimes it seems that theyhappen overnight doesn't mean
that the work that make themhappen is not lasting decades.
Or even more sometimes. How
Scott Allender (16:22):
would you advise leaders listening right now, who
are saying this makes sense, butI am completely overwhelmed
under tremendous pressure todeliver value for today, I've
got to deliver quarterlyresults. Obviously, I do give
some thought to the future, butI don't have the resources and
time to really invest in it, soI end up, maybe even
(16:45):
unintentionally, defending thestatus quo and trying to protect
my business from threats andrisks. What are some practical
tools right in the in thecontext of the realities in
which we find ourselves in thissort of always on, kind of high
demand pressure peopleexperiencing, what would you say
are some real tools that youcould start to give people to
think about how to do whatyou're talking about.
Gabriele Rizzo (17:05):
So first of all, I want to want to top this with
two very short remarks. First ofall, no foresight. Effort is too
little, as long as it's goodforesight. So you can start with
whatever, as long as it's verywell it's structured in the
(17:26):
proper way, and it's not like astandalone or like a one shot
type of thing. So starting withvery little is fine. Very, very
little is okay. It's okay not tocommit hundreds of 1000s of
dollars of resources for yourfirst shot. Just start with a
(17:48):
little bit crawl, then walk,then run that that is okay. And
we're all overwhelmed, so beingoverwhelmed is okay as well.
Second of all, there are twobest times to work with
foresight. The best time overallis when you're thriving, when
(18:12):
you're at the top of your Hill,when you're at top of your game,
then that is a good time to workwith foresight, because that
opens up the way you're thinkingabout your problems and your
business, and it empowerscapturing new trajectories that
you might not be able to seeFrom your present observatory.
(18:35):
The second best time to workwith foresight is when you're in
a mess, when you're in totalcrisis mode. That is your best
time to work with foresight,because despite the fact that
you're struggling to make endsmeet and finding the the meaning
of all this tangle and reallyunpack everything you have on
(18:58):
your plate. That is thatempowers you to make hard
decisions that you wouldn't makeotherwise. So that is the your
second best time to really workwith foresight and really access
the entirety of um power ofdifferent trajectories that you
(19:21):
can build in the future and seehow they influence the present.
How do you do this? Well, thereare hundreds of techniques. I'd
suggest a couple of things, justa couple, they're very easy. On
top of the usual trendsanalysis, horizon scanning,
(19:42):
things that are really, reallythe foundation of all this, and
it would be even maybe not veryformative for for our audience
today to listen to I suggest youto use two different techniques.
One is called the futures wheel.
The futures wheel looks at acentral topic and explores all
(20:03):
of the different consequencesthat branch out from that
single. Element. So you pick anissue or a discovery, or, in
general, any element that canexist in the future, and you
branch out all of theconsequences from there. In that
(20:26):
way, you understand how thingsare actually creating a context
in the future that you might beinterested in, because that is
your context that you'renavigating towards, maybe
unwillingly. So let's make it aconscious decision. The other
(20:49):
thing, the other technique thatis very, very widely known, but
it's nevertheless veryeffective, is using scenarios.
Now I have to be very careful. Iwant to stress that not every
story about the future is ascenario, a scenario to be so it
has to tick some boxes, if wejust tell a story about a person
(21:17):
in the future that's not ascenario, that's a persona or a
short story, if we're talkingabout if we're describing a
situation that happens in thefuture That is at a very
delimited scale, both regionallyor or about a topic that could
be a vignette or a war game, ascenario. Has to look across
(21:43):
what we call the transactionalenvironment. So we have to look
across the entirety the space ofall the things that happen. So
it's, there are plenty oftaxonomies to split the
transactional environment, pest,for instance, that political,
economic, social andtechnological factors, and then
(22:07):
there's steep, there's steeple,there's there's plenty, really.
And the power of these is thatyou can make your own if you see
that there are some of theproblems that you're trying to
tackle are not included, or theydon't match very well with this
(22:28):
taxonomy. Build Your Ownforesight is a very hands on
discipline.
Sara Deschamps (22:38):
Gabriel, you have a tonne of experience
working in environments likedefence and government and in
environments that are perhaps alittle bit more legacy or a bit
more traditional, where I thinkthe widespread assumption is
that risk aversion is the norm.
How? How might a leader createspace for disruptive innovation
without triggering resistance?
Gabriele Rizzo (23:02):
There are many ways that I've seen this
failing, so I'm happy thatyou're asking
Sara Deschamps (23:09):
this. So maybe it's a what not to do.
Gabriele Rizzo (23:12):
So what I what I've seen, is okay. So what not
to do? Do not Christen a team asthe ones, as those who are to
have ideas, only them onlythey're the only ones who can
have ideas. That's not the wayto do it. If you build an
(23:34):
advanced concepts team or anadvanced technologies team, that
is very likely not going to workunless you're putting this team
in a matrix organisation, and soyou're having a number of to
tell it in a sci fi way, numberof envoys, and I'm quoting
(23:55):
altered carbon here, so you havea number of envoys that are
functionally reporting to thehead of the service or the
vision or the line of business,and hierarchically reporting to
the head of this, of This unit.
But they have to be where thingshappen, otherwise, you're
(24:15):
basically telling the rest ofyour organisation you're not
very good at having ideas, andthis is going to trigger
antibodies from the entireorganisation so that you'll
never be able to really thinkabout the future and explore
innovation. Another thing thatI've seen failing is not
(24:37):
believing enough in innovation,using it just as a bumper
sticker for a number ofinitiatives, but then trying to
do zero risk innovation. If youknow, if that even makes sense,
you can't have zero riskinnovation. If you want to
(24:57):
innovate, you have to bear therisk. You have to be able to be
a risk taker. If you don't wantto be a risk taker, then be a
fast follower. But you cannot bea leader or a trailblazer if
you're not willing to, if youdon't have the mechanisms and.
You don't have the leadershipthat is able to work with risk.
So one of the ways to do actualinnovation work is with
(25:24):
ambidextrous organisations. Soyou're creating another branch
of your organisation that iscompletely disconnected from the
Standard Hierarchy, and youcreate basically a cradle for
fast track innovation. If you'relooking to do something that is
(25:46):
wildly disruptive and it couldbe potentially difficult to
integrate with the rest of yourorganisation. That is a good way
to do it. Otherwise, if youreally want to build a culture
of disrupted innovation that isgoing to get, that is going to
(26:07):
get, take time, and you'll haveto start working with
dissemination a lot and reallyexplaining what innovation and
futures thinking is to people.
Because in the end, all of uscan think about the future, what
(26:28):
we're missing is how to makethis capacity deliberate and
systematic.
Sara Deschamps (26:36):
Where are you seeing the best practices? Where
are you seeing this happening inreal time, where people can look
for inspiration.
Gabriele Rizzo (26:44):
So what I've seen is that the usually
companies who cross thethreshold of $2 billion revenue,
are the ones who really that.
Really feel that they have towork with the future. They
(27:06):
really feel that there's a levelof influence and agency that
they have with towards thefuture, and that they have to
exploit futures intelligence toreally make sense of. So first
of all, look at the look at thatthreshold. So it's hard to see
(27:26):
great best practices in in thecorporate world below that
level, think tanks andgovernment organisation, that's
a different story. Among all ofthese, the ones who have a lot
of tradition and a lot oflineage is lineage is the within
(27:48):
the defence industrial base.
Because, you know, foresight wasborn in the defence industrial
base, and was born in thedefence world, and was taken by
the Defence industrial base verysoon. And that is inherent of
(28:10):
how defence works. Becausewhenever we build a new asset if
you want to have the newaeroplane or the new tank or the
new ship, this is going to takedecades before you're able to
have it in the field. And thismeans that the world you're
thinking about this asset isdifferent from the world this
(28:34):
asset will be operating in. Soyou have to have a way to tell
the difference between where youare now and where you will be 20
years from now. And I'm notsaying 20 years as as just a
made up number. There's athere's research and evidence
about this being at least 20years.
Scott Allender (28:53):
Yeah. Can we build on that idea, I think
that's super important. Youreminded me we had Professor Hal
Hirschfield on the show, Ithink, last season, and his book
your future self. And one of thethings he points out is that
that we are strangers toourselves when we think about
the future, right? We can'treally know and understand who
we will be. So in leading intothe future and building on your
(29:19):
point you just made, how do wehow do we start to solve for
that? How does your work andwhat have you seen leaders
accomplish in terms of learningto think and act differently
about leading into that unknownfuture where what will be
required of them in the futurewill evolve and change. Does
that make sense?
Gabriele Rizzo (29:35):
It does absolutely. And it comes to mind
a quote that so the originalquote is, the past is a foreign
country. They do thingsdifferently there. This is
exactly true also for thefuture. The future is a foreign
country, and they do do thingsdifferently there, to the point
that there's one of thefoundational laws of futures
(29:58):
thinking that is data's secondlaw of the future that recites
that any meaningful idea aboutthe future should seem to be
ridiculous at first. So if it'snot ridiculous, if it doesn't
sound ridiculous. To you in thepresent, it's probably not
future. This means that what youthink is the most likely from
(30:22):
your present standpoint, isactually the least likely,
because that's not how thefuture will unfold. So you see
how it's incrediblyuncomfortable to work with the
future, and so learning how tocope with this being
(30:42):
uncomfortable is essential towork and to really use the
future, because what we do withforesight is not what we do with
forecast, and what I always sayis that foresight is not
forecast. We do not predict asingle future. We explore many
(31:05):
foresight use. Uses the futurenot as an objective to reach,
but as an expendable constructwhose sole purpose is to expand
our thinking in the present, tomake better, bolder decisions.
We have to be comfortable withthis concept. We have to stop
(31:28):
looking for comfort in this ideaof predicting. Prediction and
planning are useful ways to workwith the future, but they're
old. They're not advanced.
They're primitive. We need moreadvanced ways to really use the
future.
Scott Allender (31:50):
So how does AI change all this? How should we
be thinking about the future inthe context of AI?
Gabriele Rizzo (31:57):
So I'm gonna tell you how we should not think
about AI in a constant contextof future. We should not think
of AI as a substitute forfutures work AI. And you know,
I'm using AI as a placeholderfor large language models in
(32:20):
this this moment, in thisconversation, and specifically
with all the the zoo that wehave of different large language
models currently. But the wholepoint is that they're trained
with data of the present, wecould, they couldn't be trained
with any other type of data,right? Data is a recorded
(32:44):
measure of the past. So what AIdoes is extrapolating from the
past to the future, which isexactly what we must not do.
However, it's a great way toknow everything that's happening
in the present, which we aremost of the time. Impossible.
(33:09):
It's small. It's impossible forus to really wrap our our minds
and heads and arms around theimmense wealth of information
and data existing in thepresent. So that is a great way
to have snapshots of differentthings talking about the present
(33:32):
that are incredibly helpful towork with the future, because,
as William Gibson said, Thefuture is already here. It's
just not very evenlydistributed. So the moment we're
able to look at a multitude ofdifferent pockets of the future
(33:55):
here in the present. Well, thishelps us to build more
meaningful futures.
Sara Deschamps (34:02):
Welcome back to the evolving leader podcast. As
always, if you enjoy what youhear, then please share the
podcast across your network andalso leave us a rating and a
review. Now let's get back tothe conversation. Gabriel, in
our time together, you'vementioned two laws of foresight.
So you mentioned one law beingforesight is about looking
(34:25):
minimum 10 years out. And Ithink you mentioned one as well
about the future. Must soundridiculous when you're thinking
of it in the present. And I waswondering, are there any other
laws of foresight that that youwork
Gabriele Rizzo (34:39):
with? Yeah, absolutely. So there are. There
are two sets of laws, thefundamental laws in foresight,
that are like Newton's laws andthe laws of thermodynamics, for
those working in physics, thatare like the fundamental axiom
of axioms of mathematics forthose coming from that field,
(35:01):
they are the pillars of how wework with the future. They
describe the nature of futureswork and the character of
futures. And these. Twodifferent sets are the set of
the three dedorce laws of thefuture and three Clark's laws.
(35:25):
So the date or s laws of thefuture describe the character of
how we build futures. What isthe nature of the work we do.
First day, doors law. The Doorsfirst law says that the future,
(35:47):
the future cannot be predicted,because the future does not
exist. And this is the coresaying that there are multiple
futures, and there are many waysin which we can work with a
multitude of futures, and it'sour duty to invent, assess,
(36:11):
evaluate, imagine, reassess andrecreate futures systematically.
So in one word, we have to usefutures the door. Second Law of
the future is the one that Imentioned before. Every
meaningful idea about the futureshould seem to be ridiculous at
(36:32):
first and the doors. Third Lawof the future says we shape our
tools, and thereafter our tools,our tools shape us. This is
immensely deep, also thinkingthat this was written in 1996 so
(36:53):
there are a number of incredibleconsequences when you think
about it, also looking at thethe aspect of large language
models. Currently the idea, ifyou think of prompting, not as a
not as a one way dynamics, butas a two way dynamics. So
(37:14):
basically, if you think of theanswer of the large language
model as a prompt to the human,and I'm pausing here and I let
it, let it sink in, this changeseverything when you start
working with large languagemodels, Clark's laws describe
(37:37):
how we work with futures. Theytalk about, basically, how
impossible is a resource?
Impossible is a matter of time.
Impossible is is a requirement.
And, you know, working the thirdClark's law is, is very, very
famous. Also, it says that anysufficiently advanced technology
(38:07):
is indistinguishable from magic.
So it tells you a lot about howyou should think about futures.
Scott Allender (38:20):
What is one really practical thing that you
would advise a listenerlistening right now to maybe
start implementing, to play withwith their teams,
Gabriele Rizzo (38:34):
the easiest, easiest and at the same time,
most difficult thing that theycan do is the next time you're
you feel like saying, No, that'simpossible. Take a deep breath,
pause and branch it out. Sothink, what if that's
(38:55):
impossible? What if that ispossible? And start exploring
every single decision that youmake in terms of looking at it,
not as just a single path thatyou're walking, but as a number
of choices, it's a number ofdifferent forks in the road that
(39:18):
you're taking. The less powerfuland more practical way of
looking at this is next timeyou're in the office, gather
with your with your leadershipteam and start talking about
(39:39):
things you've never considered.
They don't need to be completelyoutlandish or or made up. You
know, it doesn't need to bealiens. It only need needs to be
aliens if you have a directimpact from the fact that there
could be aliens doing something,and if you're willing to take
(40:01):
action and plan in yourstrategic plans, when it comes
to the existence of aliens orthe third or world war three,
um. Because that is immediatelywhere everyone goes when you let
them lose on imagining things.
(40:24):
But no one wants to live inparadise. It's boring to be in
paradise. It's useless to be inhell. So the real most useful
things, the most usefuldiscoveries that you do is when
you're forced to make tradeoffs. In doing trade offs, you
(40:45):
really go deep down and discoverwhat matters to you, where your
regret is, and how you can useit, and how you can use your
your awareness, to reallyunderstand what's important for
you, for the leadership, for thecompany.
Scott Allender (41:04):
That's really helpful. What does your future
look like?
Gabriele Rizzo (41:08):
Gabriel, I wish I knew nobody knows the future.
Nobody can know the future. Thefuture is unknowable, and that's
the beauty and the power of it,because, yeah, because we can
work on it, because we can makeit whatever we want, because if
(41:30):
the fact that the future is notfixed gives us agency on it.
Scott Allender (41:36):
So what are you working on next?
Gabriele Rizzo (41:39):
Well, we have a very important, as you
mentioned, a very important workthat's going on with Springer,
the major reference work onforesight, that's called the
handbook of foresight strategyand future studies for defence
and security that is going to beout by the end of the year. And
(42:02):
now we also are in the lead withsupporting NATO and their in
their futures works with what'scalled the Strategic Foresight
analysis. So there, there aregoing to be, then there are,
there are other things thatwe're doing that we can we do,
(42:22):
but we can talk about Excellent.
Scott Allender (42:26):
So how can people get in contact with you?
Gabriele Rizzo (42:28):
I would invite everyone to either visit my
LinkedIn profile. Then there'smy personal website as
gabrielrizzo.ai and also I wouldinvite people to our audience to
look at our past track recordwith long views on our website.
Sara Deschamps (42:49):
Longviews.ai, and Gabriel, before we close,
you mentioned to me offlineabout I believe it's on your
LinkedIn about foresightkitchen. Could you tell us just
a little bit about
Gabriele Rizzo (43:01):
that?
Absolutely. Thanks for bringingit up. I believe that the usual
way of thinking about foresightas a toolbox is not the right
way of framing it you a toolboxis cold, is ugly, and it's
something that you hide in acloset because you don't want
people to see a foresightinstead, is a sophisticated
(43:24):
place of people, of tools, ofmethodologies, but also of
interaction. You cannot doforesight alone. This is a very
important piece of foresight. Wedo not we're not hermit in the
ivory towers. We work withpeople. We do not know the
future of people or of company.
(43:46):
We work with organisations totap into their domain knowledge
and know more about differentfutures that pertain to them. So
that's why it's a kitchen. In akitchen, there are unforeseen
events, there are people, thereare beautiful things happening,
(44:07):
and sometimes you take one ofthe tools from the kitchen to do
something else, and it'simportant that you know that it
has to be back in the kitchen ata certain point, but it's a
place of people and interactionand beautiful things happening,
and that's why I'm convincedthat the idea of a kitchen and
(44:27):
not of a toolbox is much betterto frame this capability.
Scott Allender (44:33):
I love that.
Gabriel, thank you for your timeand your wisdom. I know our
listeners are going to lovethis, so we really appreciate
you taking taking the time toshare some of this with us and
folks, thank you for listening,and until next time, remember,
the world is evolving. Are you?
Now more than ever before, leaders must focus more
of their time and cognitivecapacity on solving for the
future. The typical leaderspends less than 5% of their
time on the problems of creatingvalue for tomorrow and future
relevancy in a world that istruly coming to a massive
inflection point, this is arecipe for crisis. In this
(00:43):
conversation, we're talking toGabriel Rizzo, an expert in
strategic foresight, to help youunlock some practical ways of
thinking about changing yourrelationship with the future.
Tune in to an importantconversation on the evolving
leader.
Scott Allender (00:59):
Hi folks.
Welcome to the evolving leader.
The show born from the beliefthat we need deeper, more
accountable and more humanleadership to confront the
world's biggest challenges. I'mScott Allender, and today I'm
joined by my friend and co host,Sara Deschamps. Sara, how are
you feeling today?
Sara Deschamps (01:15):
Scott, I am feeling incredible. We have had
a week of rain, and today thesun is shining here in Toronto,
I It's really affected my moodin a positive way, and I'm just
really excited for today'stoday's interview, and to be co
hosting with you. How are youfeeling?
Scott Allender (01:31):
I'm feeling a little frazzled. It's been a
crazy, busy week, but I'mfeeling so grateful as well,
because I love closing the weekwith brilliant conversations
with our brilliant guests, andtoday I'm super, super delighted
to to have the conversationwe're about to have. So why
don't you introduce our guestfor us today?
Sara Deschamps (01:51):
Sounds good.
Scott, so today we've got DrGabriel Rizzo, and He is the
executive partner at longviews.
Gabriel is a globally recognisedexpert in strategic foresight,
and He specialises in defence,security and innovation. Now
with nearly two decades ofexperience, Gabriel has advised
top institutions including NATO,the US Space Force and the
(02:13):
Italian Ministry of Defence in2022 he was elected as one of
the 30 UNESCO chairs worldwidein futures studies and
foresight, becoming the youngestrecipient ever. He's taught at
institutions such as SapienzaUniversity of Rome, Tor Vergata
University of Rome, un ilUniversity de Lausanne, the US
(02:34):
Space Force, the Air ForceInstitute of Technology, the US
Air Force Academy, Asha CLausanne and the Italian Centre
for higher defence studies. AndDr Rizzo is also the author of
routledges best selling HRfutures, 2030, a design for
future ready human resources.
And he's working on the handbookof foresight strategy and future
(02:55):
studies for defence andsecurity. Gabriel, welcome to
the evolving leader. How are youfeeling?
Gabriele Rizzo (03:02):
It's great to be with you guys. I'm all pumped
up.
Scott Allender (03:06):
Gabriel, welcome to the show. I'd love to just
start a bit with your originstory. How did you get a passion
for foresight?
Gabriele Rizzo (03:15):
Well, it actually all started when when I
was eight, when I realised I wasall fascinated by the fact that
the there's a very specificpiece in a in a black hole. So
that's what I was reading when Iwas reading when I was eight.
(03:35):
Probably that speaks of me, soplease don't judge so. But
there's this thing called eventhorizon, and the act of going
through the event horizon is anon event. For some reason, this
all got me thinking and got medown all the way into the rabbit
(03:58):
hole of physics, and thatactually opened up the door for
me being passionate about thewhy of things and exploring the
why things happen the way theyhappen, actually brought me to
exploring a number of differentways in which things may happen
(04:21):
or could happen or could havehappened, and this was really
just a step away from the actualpractice of foresight that is
the imagination and explorationof what seems impossible today
so that we're ready for whattomorrow brings.
Scott Allender (04:42):
How did you hone that skill? How did you start
developing that
Gabriele Rizzo (04:46):
it was a very non traditional path, because,
unfortunately, there's notraditional path to foresight.
So I went through my bachelor intheoretical physics and masters
in theoretical physics. Afterthat, I realised that, for a
(05:08):
number of reasons, research wasmy wish. But not the career that
was for me. So I decided topivot into the defence
industrial base. And within thedefence industrial base, I
discovered that there wassomething that really responded
(05:31):
to my desire of exploring thisbroad and and wide range of
different trajectories to thefuture, something that I had
already within me, becausealready towards the end of my
mass of my masters, I startedasking myself, who who am I?
(05:51):
What do I do? Right? I I doresearch, right? I look into the
why of things, into the why ofthings that don't exist, what
that we don't understand. But ifI'm not walking down this path,
then what path Am I walking? Andso I started thinking, and I
(06:15):
started attributing, like, madeup names, like, maybe I'm a
technology architect, maybe I'ma science architect. So this
idea of architecting, ofarchitecture of an
infrastructure, of a process, ofsomething that exists and that
you can explore, trickle downinto my thinking. Was only after
(06:40):
I joined the ranks of theDefence industrial base that I
realised that foresight was athing. It was an actual
discipline. It was born rightafter World War Two, that I
could learn and explore andhone.
Sara Deschamps (07:00):
Can we jump into your work and maybe start with
the big idea that sits at theheart of your work? How would
the general population, howshould the general population be
thinking about the future,
Gabriele Rizzo (07:12):
not in the way they think that's that's the
short version of the answer. Sohere's, here's the more
structured version. What we dowhen we think about the future
is, naturally, we think aboutone version of the future. When
we think about predicting thefuture, we think about the
(07:32):
crystal ball. And there is onefuture, there's one version,
there's only one direction. Butthat's not what the future is.
The future actually exists inthe plural, because just think
(07:52):
the present moment used to bethe unimaginable future. So if
there's an imaginable future andan unimaginable future, then by
definition, there are at leasttwo futures. So we have to work
with futures in the plural, andif there are plural futures,
(08:14):
then we cannot predict them, andso we have to do something else
with futures. And foresightmeans thinking about lots of
different things that couldhappen later, like imagining
different ways a story mightend. This is how I explain it to
my daughter. We do not guesswhat's exactly going to happen.
(08:38):
We do not predict. We don't wantto guess the end of the story.
We think about manypossibilities. Doing this helps
us choose better today, so thatwe can be ready and make good
decisions no matter what happensnext.
Scott Allender (08:57):
It seems that a big motivation for prediction, I
think, in most, most of usanyway, is to try to reduce
uncertainty, to try to sort offeel that we can make sense of
the future, that we won't besurprised by it.
But how this sort that's sort ofan illusion of control, right?
(09:17):
So how do we think about thefuture? What is the mindset
required to open up to thesemultiple possible outcomes that
you're describing?
Gabriele Rizzo (09:27):
Well, there are, there are many, many skills that
you have to work with. First ofall, because what you said,
Scott is, is exactly right whereit's just human to be scared
about the unknown and theuncertain. And that dates back
to when we were just humanoids,or just a little more than
(09:53):
monkeys, big monkeys in caves,when we were finding shelter in
heaven, in those caves, and whenoutside it was dark and we
couldn't see, and so we couldn'tknow, well, there were monsters
outside. I. Could have beeneaten. We weren't at the top of
(10:16):
the food chain like we are rightnow. We're not the super top
predators we're today. So andthese types of things that go on
for 10s of 1000s of years arevery hard to remove from your
psyche. So that is why we're soscared of the unknown. Because
(10:37):
what we do is filling theunknown with our predator void.
We don't have predators anymore,so we're scared of the unknown
because that what speaks to thatvoid that we carry within
ourselves. So what we have to dois creating a way to move our
(11:00):
muscle memory from unknownequals danger to unknown equals
potential, equals creativity,equals inspiration. That takes
time and training, both in termsof the methods and methodologies
and techniques and tools offoresight, which we can cover
(11:23):
just a little bit, maybe later,and also in terms of self
awareness and discovering whereyou are in your inner
landscapes, how we can you cannavigate where you place
yourself, the maps of your innerterritory, how you can access
(11:44):
the latent spaces of yourimagination. Because in the end,
to work with a plethora ofdifferent trajectories to the
future, you have to imaginethem, and imagining means
accessing those types of inner,very deep resources.
Sara Deschamps (12:03):
I'd like to link this to leadership. A lot of the
work that we do with leaders,we've noticed that there's,
there's a big struggle withholding the tension between the
pressures for short termperformance and short termism
and what we need to do for longterm performance, for what the
future needs. And I understandwhy short termism, there's more
(12:27):
certainty, there's maybe a bitmore safety, but what have you
learned in holding thoseparadoxes?
Gabriele Rizzo (12:34):
Yeah, yeah, I've definitely noticed that one, one
piece of resource that I alwaysmention is research that was
published by McKinsey GlobalInstitute in 2016 showing how
firms that focus on long termismactually end up with a market
(12:59):
capitalization that is twice orthree times, or even five times
the size of the firms that focuson short termism. And this
report is titled The shortsightedness of short termism.
This is a great piece ofresearch that I always cite
(13:20):
because it's based on hardeconomic data. Something else
that I always like to remindpeople is that when we work with
foresight, we're not justlooking five years out. The
minimum time frame that isreally use, useful or meaningful
(13:44):
for a four set exercise is 10years. We can work around this
limit and maybe shrink it tolike seven years with a number
of kvets, but earlier than this,that's that's really not
foresight. We can use tools andtechniques from foresight to do
(14:05):
something else in the shorterterm, but that's not foresight.
So the longer time span isreally crucial. Usually, the
answer that I have from people,the response is like, well,
we'll cross the bridge whenwe'll we'll get to it. And I'm
(14:26):
like, well, but think about youhave a piece of regulation that
tells you that in 10 years, youcannot sell internal combustion
engines in Europe anymore. Soyou're telling me that you're
you're thinking about it at yearnine of 10 of your time window,
really, because that doesn't fityour your industrial strategy,
(14:48):
your industrial strategic plan,that doesn't make any sense as
as well as it doesn't make nosense when we have the
opportunity and the possibilityand the chance to really look 10
years out and by looking atwhere we want to be, or looking
(15:10):
at a number of features of thefutures that we're able to
create. We ate 10 years out, wecan inform our midpoint position
five years out, because the factthat we're looking 10 years out
doesn't mean that all of theproblems accumulate at the 10
year mark, a number of problemsyou might be in the need of
(15:36):
tackling right from from the getgo, because maybe they're very
long term problems. Maybe youhave to rebuild your business
model, or maybe you have topivot in a different part of the
market, or maybe you have tothink about a different type of
asset. And I'm talking todefence and security leaders or
governments that you may be needto have 10 years from now. These
(16:01):
are not things that happenovernight. The fact that
sometimes it seems that theyhappen overnight doesn't mean
that the work that make themhappen is not lasting decades.
Or even more sometimes. How
Scott Allender (16:22):
would you advise leaders listening right now, who
are saying this makes sense, butI am completely overwhelmed
under tremendous pressure todeliver value for today, I've
got to deliver quarterlyresults. Obviously, I do give
some thought to the future, butI don't have the resources and
time to really invest in it, soI end up, maybe even
(16:45):
unintentionally, defending thestatus quo and trying to protect
my business from threats andrisks. What are some practical
tools right in the in thecontext of the realities in
which we find ourselves in thissort of always on, kind of high
demand pressure peopleexperiencing, what would you say
are some real tools that youcould start to give people to
think about how to do whatyou're talking about.
Gabriele Rizzo (17:05):
So first of all, I want to want to top this with
two very short remarks. First ofall, no foresight. Effort is too
little, as long as it's goodforesight. So you can start with
whatever, as long as it's verywell it's structured in the
(17:26):
proper way, and it's not like astandalone or like a one shot
type of thing. So starting withvery little is fine. Very, very
little is okay. It's okay not tocommit hundreds of 1000s of
dollars of resources for yourfirst shot. Just start with a
(17:48):
little bit crawl, then walk,then run that that is okay. And
we're all overwhelmed, so beingoverwhelmed is okay as well.
Second of all, there are twobest times to work with
foresight. The best time overallis when you're thriving, when
(18:12):
you're at the top of your Hill,when you're at top of your game,
then that is a good time to workwith foresight, because that
opens up the way you're thinkingabout your problems and your
business, and it empowerscapturing new trajectories that
you might not be able to seeFrom your present observatory.
(18:35):
The second best time to workwith foresight is when you're in
a mess, when you're in totalcrisis mode. That is your best
time to work with foresight,because despite the fact that
you're struggling to make endsmeet and finding the the meaning
of all this tangle and reallyunpack everything you have on
(18:58):
your plate. That is thatempowers you to make hard
decisions that you wouldn't makeotherwise. So that is the your
second best time to really workwith foresight and really access
the entirety of um power ofdifferent trajectories that you
(19:21):
can build in the future and seehow they influence the present.
How do you do this? Well, thereare hundreds of techniques. I'd
suggest a couple of things, justa couple, they're very easy. On
top of the usual trendsanalysis, horizon scanning,
(19:42):
things that are really, reallythe foundation of all this, and
it would be even maybe not veryformative for for our audience
today to listen to I suggest youto use two different techniques.
One is called the futures wheel.
The futures wheel looks at acentral topic and explores all
(20:03):
of the different consequencesthat branch out from that
single. Element. So you pick anissue or a discovery, or, in
general, any element that canexist in the future, and you
branch out all of theconsequences from there. In that
(20:26):
way, you understand how thingsare actually creating a context
in the future that you might beinterested in, because that is
your context that you'renavigating towards, maybe
unwillingly. So let's make it aconscious decision. The other
(20:49):
thing, the other technique thatis very, very widely known, but
it's nevertheless veryeffective, is using scenarios.
Now I have to be very careful. Iwant to stress that not every
story about the future is ascenario, a scenario to be so it
has to tick some boxes, if wejust tell a story about a person
(21:17):
in the future that's not ascenario, that's a persona or a
short story, if we're talkingabout if we're describing a
situation that happens in thefuture That is at a very
delimited scale, both regionallyor or about a topic that could
be a vignette or a war game, ascenario. Has to look across
(21:43):
what we call the transactionalenvironment. So we have to look
across the entirety the space ofall the things that happen. So
it's, there are plenty oftaxonomies to split the
transactional environment, pest,for instance, that political,
economic, social andtechnological factors, and then
(22:07):
there's steep, there's steeple,there's there's plenty, really.
And the power of these is thatyou can make your own if you see
that there are some of theproblems that you're trying to
tackle are not included, or theydon't match very well with this
(22:28):
taxonomy. Build Your Ownforesight is a very hands on
discipline.
Sara Deschamps (22:38):
Gabriel, you have a tonne of experience
working in environments likedefence and government and in
environments that are perhaps alittle bit more legacy or a bit
more traditional, where I thinkthe widespread assumption is
that risk aversion is the norm.
How? How might a leader createspace for disruptive innovation
without triggering resistance?
Gabriele Rizzo (23:02):
There are many ways that I've seen this
failing, so I'm happy thatyou're asking
Sara Deschamps (23:09):
this. So maybe it's a what not to do.
Gabriele Rizzo (23:12):
So what I what I've seen, is okay. So what not
to do? Do not Christen a team asthe ones, as those who are to
have ideas, only them onlythey're the only ones who can
have ideas. That's not the wayto do it. If you build an
(23:34):
advanced concepts team or anadvanced technologies team, that
is very likely not going to workunless you're putting this team
in a matrix organisation, and soyou're having a number of to
tell it in a sci fi way, numberof envoys, and I'm quoting
(23:55):
altered carbon here, so you havea number of envoys that are
functionally reporting to thehead of the service or the
vision or the line of business,and hierarchically reporting to
the head of this, of This unit.
But they have to be where thingshappen, otherwise, you're
(24:15):
basically telling the rest ofyour organisation you're not
very good at having ideas, andthis is going to trigger
antibodies from the entireorganisation so that you'll
never be able to really thinkabout the future and explore
innovation. Another thing thatI've seen failing is not
(24:37):
believing enough in innovation,using it just as a bumper
sticker for a number ofinitiatives, but then trying to
do zero risk innovation. If youknow, if that even makes sense,
you can't have zero riskinnovation. If you want to
(24:57):
innovate, you have to bear therisk. You have to be able to be
a risk taker. If you don't wantto be a risk taker, then be a
fast follower. But you cannot bea leader or a trailblazer if
you're not willing to, if youdon't have the mechanisms and.
You don't have the leadershipthat is able to work with risk.
So one of the ways to do actualinnovation work is with
(25:24):
ambidextrous organisations. Soyou're creating another branch
of your organisation that iscompletely disconnected from the
Standard Hierarchy, and youcreate basically a cradle for
fast track innovation. If you'relooking to do something that is
(25:46):
wildly disruptive and it couldbe potentially difficult to
integrate with the rest of yourorganisation. That is a good way
to do it. Otherwise, if youreally want to build a culture
of disrupted innovation that isgoing to get, that is going to
(26:07):
get, take time, and you'll haveto start working with
dissemination a lot and reallyexplaining what innovation and
futures thinking is to people.
Because in the end, all of uscan think about the future, what
(26:28):
we're missing is how to makethis capacity deliberate and
systematic.
Sara Deschamps (26:36):
Where are you seeing the best practices? Where
are you seeing this happening inreal time, where people can look
for inspiration.
Gabriele Rizzo (26:44):
So what I've seen is that the usually
companies who cross thethreshold of $2 billion revenue,
are the ones who really that.
Really feel that they have towork with the future. They
(27:06):
really feel that there's a levelof influence and agency that
they have with towards thefuture, and that they have to
exploit futures intelligence toreally make sense of. So first
of all, look at the look at thatthreshold. So it's hard to see
(27:26):
great best practices in in thecorporate world below that
level, think tanks andgovernment organisation, that's
a different story. Among all ofthese, the ones who have a lot
of tradition and a lot oflineage is lineage is the within
(27:48):
the defence industrial base.
Because, you know, foresight wasborn in the defence industrial
base, and was born in thedefence world, and was taken by
the Defence industrial base verysoon. And that is inherent of
(28:10):
how defence works. Becausewhenever we build a new asset if
you want to have the newaeroplane or the new tank or the
new ship, this is going to takedecades before you're able to
have it in the field. And thismeans that the world you're
thinking about this asset isdifferent from the world this
(28:34):
asset will be operating in. Soyou have to have a way to tell
the difference between where youare now and where you will be 20
years from now. And I'm notsaying 20 years as as just a
made up number. There's athere's research and evidence
about this being at least 20years.
Scott Allender (28:53):
Yeah. Can we build on that idea, I think
that's super important. Youreminded me we had Professor Hal
Hirschfield on the show, Ithink, last season, and his book
your future self. And one of thethings he points out is that
that we are strangers toourselves when we think about
the future, right? We can'treally know and understand who
we will be. So in leading intothe future and building on your
(29:19):
point you just made, how do wehow do we start to solve for
that? How does your work andwhat have you seen leaders
accomplish in terms of learningto think and act differently
about leading into that unknownfuture where what will be
required of them in the futurewill evolve and change. Does
that make sense?
Gabriele Rizzo (29:35):
It does absolutely. And it comes to mind
a quote that so the originalquote is, the past is a foreign
country. They do thingsdifferently there. This is
exactly true also for thefuture. The future is a foreign
country, and they do do thingsdifferently there, to the point
that there's one of thefoundational laws of futures
(29:58):
thinking that is data's secondlaw of the future that recites
that any meaningful idea aboutthe future should seem to be
ridiculous at first. So if it'snot ridiculous, if it doesn't
sound ridiculous. To you in thepresent, it's probably not
future. This means that what youthink is the most likely from
(30:22):
your present standpoint, isactually the least likely,
because that's not how thefuture will unfold. So you see
how it's incrediblyuncomfortable to work with the
future, and so learning how tocope with this being
(30:42):
uncomfortable is essential towork and to really use the
future, because what we do withforesight is not what we do with
forecast, and what I always sayis that foresight is not
forecast. We do not predict asingle future. We explore many
(31:05):
foresight use. Uses the futurenot as an objective to reach,
but as an expendable constructwhose sole purpose is to expand
our thinking in the present, tomake better, bolder decisions.
We have to be comfortable withthis concept. We have to stop
(31:28):
looking for comfort in this ideaof predicting. Prediction and
planning are useful ways to workwith the future, but they're
old. They're not advanced.
They're primitive. We need moreadvanced ways to really use the
future.
Scott Allender (31:50):
So how does AI change all this? How should we
be thinking about the future inthe context of AI?
Gabriele Rizzo (31:57):
So I'm gonna tell you how we should not think
about AI in a constant contextof future. We should not think
of AI as a substitute forfutures work AI. And you know,
I'm using AI as a placeholderfor large language models in
(32:20):
this this moment, in thisconversation, and specifically
with all the the zoo that wehave of different large language
models currently. But the wholepoint is that they're trained
with data of the present, wecould, they couldn't be trained
with any other type of data,right? Data is a recorded
(32:44):
measure of the past. So what AIdoes is extrapolating from the
past to the future, which isexactly what we must not do.
However, it's a great way toknow everything that's happening
in the present, which we aremost of the time. Impossible.
(33:09):
It's small. It's impossible forus to really wrap our our minds
and heads and arms around theimmense wealth of information
and data existing in thepresent. So that is a great way
to have snapshots of differentthings talking about the present
(33:32):
that are incredibly helpful towork with the future, because,
as William Gibson said, Thefuture is already here. It's
just not very evenlydistributed. So the moment we're
able to look at a multitude ofdifferent pockets of the future
(33:55):
here in the present. Well, thishelps us to build more
meaningful futures.
Sara Deschamps (34:02):
Welcome back to the evolving leader podcast. As
always, if you enjoy what youhear, then please share the
podcast across your network andalso leave us a rating and a
review. Now let's get back tothe conversation. Gabriel, in
our time together, you'vementioned two laws of foresight.
So you mentioned one law beingforesight is about looking
(34:25):
minimum 10 years out. And Ithink you mentioned one as well
about the future. Must soundridiculous when you're thinking
of it in the present. And I waswondering, are there any other
laws of foresight that that youwork
Gabriele Rizzo (34:39):
with? Yeah, absolutely. So there are. There
are two sets of laws, thefundamental laws in foresight,
that are like Newton's laws andthe laws of thermodynamics, for
those working in physics, thatare like the fundamental axiom
of axioms of mathematics forthose coming from that field,
(35:01):
they are the pillars of how wework with the future. They
describe the nature of futureswork and the character of
futures. And these. Twodifferent sets are the set of
the three dedorce laws of thefuture and three Clark's laws.
(35:25):
So the date or s laws of thefuture describe the character of
how we build futures. What isthe nature of the work we do.
First day, doors law. The Doorsfirst law says that the future,
(35:47):
the future cannot be predicted,because the future does not
exist. And this is the coresaying that there are multiple
futures, and there are many waysin which we can work with a
multitude of futures, and it'sour duty to invent, assess,
(36:11):
evaluate, imagine, reassess andrecreate futures systematically.
So in one word, we have to usefutures the door. Second Law of
the future is the one that Imentioned before. Every
meaningful idea about the futureshould seem to be ridiculous at
(36:32):
first and the doors. Third Lawof the future says we shape our
tools, and thereafter our tools,our tools shape us. This is
immensely deep, also thinkingthat this was written in 1996 so
(36:53):
there are a number of incredibleconsequences when you think
about it, also looking at thethe aspect of large language
models. Currently the idea, ifyou think of prompting, not as a
not as a one way dynamics, butas a two way dynamics. So
(37:14):
basically, if you think of theanswer of the large language
model as a prompt to the human,and I'm pausing here and I let
it, let it sink in, this changeseverything when you start
working with large languagemodels, Clark's laws describe
(37:37):
how we work with futures. Theytalk about, basically, how
impossible is a resource?
Impossible is a matter of time.
Impossible is is a requirement.
And, you know, working the thirdClark's law is, is very, very
famous. Also, it says that anysufficiently advanced technology
(38:07):
is indistinguishable from magic.
So it tells you a lot about howyou should think about futures.
Scott Allender (38:20):
What is one really practical thing that you
would advise a listenerlistening right now to maybe
start implementing, to play withwith their teams,
Gabriele Rizzo (38:34):
the easiest, easiest and at the same time,
most difficult thing that theycan do is the next time you're
you feel like saying, No, that'simpossible. Take a deep breath,
pause and branch it out. Sothink, what if that's
(38:55):
impossible? What if that ispossible? And start exploring
every single decision that youmake in terms of looking at it,
not as just a single path thatyou're walking, but as a number
of choices, it's a number ofdifferent forks in the road that
(39:18):
you're taking. The less powerfuland more practical way of
looking at this is next timeyou're in the office, gather
with your with your leadershipteam and start talking about
(39:39):
things you've never considered.
They don't need to be completelyoutlandish or or made up. You
know, it doesn't need to bealiens. It only need needs to be
aliens if you have a directimpact from the fact that there
could be aliens doing something,and if you're willing to take
(40:01):
action and plan in yourstrategic plans, when it comes
to the existence of aliens orthe third or world war three,
um. Because that is immediatelywhere everyone goes when you let
them lose on imagining things.
(40:24):
But no one wants to live inparadise. It's boring to be in
paradise. It's useless to be inhell. So the real most useful
things, the most usefuldiscoveries that you do is when
you're forced to make tradeoffs. In doing trade offs, you
(40:45):
really go deep down and discoverwhat matters to you, where your
regret is, and how you can useit, and how you can use your
your awareness, to reallyunderstand what's important for
you, for the leadership, for thecompany.
Scott Allender (41:04):
That's really helpful. What does your future
look like?
Gabriele Rizzo (41:08):
Gabriel, I wish I knew nobody knows the future.
Nobody can know the future. Thefuture is unknowable, and that's
the beauty and the power of it,because, yeah, because we can
work on it, because we can makeit whatever we want, because if
(41:30):
the fact that the future is notfixed gives us agency on it.
Scott Allender (41:36):
So what are you working on next?
Gabriele Rizzo (41:39):
Well, we have a very important, as you
mentioned, a very important workthat's going on with Springer,
the major reference work onforesight, that's called the
handbook of foresight strategyand future studies for defence
and security that is going to beout by the end of the year. And
(42:02):
now we also are in the lead withsupporting NATO and their in
their futures works with what'scalled the Strategic Foresight
analysis. So there, there aregoing to be, then there are,
there are other things thatwe're doing that we can we do,
(42:22):
but we can talk about Excellent.
Scott Allender (42:26):
So how can people get in contact with you?
Gabriele Rizzo (42:28):
I would invite everyone to either visit my
LinkedIn profile. Then there'smy personal website as
gabrielrizzo.ai and also I wouldinvite people to our audience to
look at our past track recordwith long views on our website.
Sara Deschamps (42:49):
Longviews.ai, and Gabriel, before we close,
you mentioned to me offlineabout I believe it's on your
LinkedIn about foresightkitchen. Could you tell us just
a little bit about
Gabriele Rizzo (43:01):
that?
Absolutely. Thanks for bringingit up. I believe that the usual
way of thinking about foresightas a toolbox is not the right
way of framing it you a toolboxis cold, is ugly, and it's
something that you hide in acloset because you don't want
people to see a foresightinstead, is a sophisticated
(43:24):
place of people, of tools, ofmethodologies, but also of
interaction. You cannot doforesight alone. This is a very
important piece of foresight. Wedo not we're not hermit in the
ivory towers. We work withpeople. We do not know the
future of people or of company.
(43:46):
We work with organisations totap into their domain knowledge
and know more about differentfutures that pertain to them. So
that's why it's a kitchen. In akitchen, there are unforeseen
events, there are people, thereare beautiful things happening,
(44:07):
and sometimes you take one ofthe tools from the kitchen to do
something else, and it'simportant that you know that it
has to be back in the kitchen ata certain point, but it's a
place of people and interactionand beautiful things happening,
and that's why I'm convincedthat the idea of a kitchen and
(44:27):
not of a toolbox is much betterto frame this capability.
Scott Allender (44:33):
I love that.
Gabriel, thank you for your timeand your wisdom. I know our
listeners are going to lovethis, so we really appreciate
you taking taking the time toshare some of this with us and
folks, thank you for listening,and until next time, remember,
the world is evolving. Are you?
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