I’m pegged as a guy who’s optimistic and creative. OK, I’ll buy that, but there is some method to staring out into the abyss and seeing what’s possible despite the murky uncertainty that lies before us.

I started my career as a fledgling interior architect, tasked with the job of space planning tens of thousands of corporate office environments in a multitude of building configurations. This was back in the days of tracing paper and magic markers.No computers, no CADD.

My days were filled with searching for solutions amidst countless variables. The trick, I found, was to know that the answer was there, somewhere out ahead of me, I just had to uncover it. And so after expelling countless yards of sketches on the a fore mentioned tracing paper, my forearm covered with marker ink, the right plan emerged, the riddle was solved the future looked bright.

In the process of designing what’s next, be it an environment, system, product or service, we’re faced with the question of how we get past the perceived roadblocks of the present to conceive what's next, want’s new and what’s right. This is tricky terrain to say the least.

Typically, I hear clients say things like “we’re stuck”, “we don’t have the time”. “we don’t have the budget”, “we don't have the bandwidth”. Not very positive, yet based on the day-to-day realities of leading an enterprise forward. I get that.

Designing the future, requires a courageous leap from being stuck in our current realities to an inspired,optimistic, imaginative place where we replace “we can’t”, with “how might we”. Three simple words that change perceptions  and engender inventiveness.

To take a running leap toward the future - I’m reminded here of the great Douglas Adams saying ”flying is easy,just aim at the ground and miss” - let me invoke the notion of backcasting -the cousin of forecasting. It’s a mindset that allows us to brainstorm how we got there as opposed to how we get there.

I’ll explain; consider the task at hand - some bold audacious idea like bringing low cost broadband to impoverished nations. Got it? Now, imagine it’s five years from now, we’ve done it, the system is in place, it’s working, flourishing, enriching people’s lives with expanded access, we’ve just won the Nobel Prize for it. Ask yourself, how did we get there? What did we discover that we didn’t know when we started? How did we design it? What resources did we need? How was it financed? How was it operationalized? What roadblocks did we need to remove to get there? What metrics of success did we establish? Who works there, who runs it?

The optimistic mindset of we’ve already won, has the liberating value of blotting out the reasons why we can’t do it and shifts us to imaging how we did do it. Suddenly, we’re brainstorming with an expanded, creative point of view. We find ourselves throwing lots of ideas at the wall, rapidly moving from one topic to the next and going for a rich mix of possibilities. It’s visceral, messy, visual, fast. Before our eyes, what seemed to be an impasse gives way to an opening - an opening of what could be next.

This is the start of designing your future, it begins with a positive, informed viewpoint and the unbridled chance to express new possibilities, as if you’ve already achieved our goal. It continues with a ton of building upon nascent ideas, understating the landscape, reminding ourselves that we can do it despite the obstacles and remaining positive despite the rocky terrain of the present.

This point of view, empowers us to fly; to reach for new solutions, build on the ideas of others, generate remarkable outcomes and to emerge and lead!

Fly on!
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Jim Cohen has the soul of an artist, the mind of a businessperson and the heart of a guru. 

For over thirty-five years he’s partnered with major corporations, gutsy start-ups, non-profit organizations and individuals, to reveal what makes them exceptional, unleash their creativity and develop new pathways for enduring success.