It has been nearly ten years since Rick Smyre and I published Preparing for a World That Doesn’t Exist—Yet with Changemakers Books. Over the past decade, we have used the book to train hundreds of emerging and established leaders at conferences, universities, keynote addresses, and more. In 2015, Rick and I were hopeful about the future—and we still are.
Of course, much has changed since then. We have lived through a global pandemic, a major European ground war, and an attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Questions of trust, the role of media, gender identity, and racial equity have roiled the country, creating tensions in living rooms and public spaces alike. Technology—especially artificial intelligence and data analytics—has further fragmented society, sorting people into distinct constituencies, markets, and teams based on class, gender, race, and ideology.
At the same time, President Trump’s administration rolled back decades of federal policy across science and medical research, environmental regulations, and international relations, including our role in NATO and global alliances. The mass firing of federal workers weakened the civil service that has long helped make the United States a global leader.
We are living in an age of VUCA—volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. While our book was never meant to be a crystal ball, many of the challenges we anticipated have materialized. For some, VUCA defines a world of unrest and chaos. However, Rick and I, along with many in our Communities of the Future network, take a different view. We acknowledge that our society is becoming faster-paced, more interconnected, and increasingly interdependent. Rather than seeing only disruption, we see the groundwork being laid for a great leap forward—one that will transform technology, values, education, and the economy in ways not seen since the Enlightenment.
While many interpret current events through the lens of fear and division, we see them as part of a larger transformation. We are in the midst of a historic shift—from an industrial society to what we call an ecological society.
During the Industrial Revolution, the principles of physics shaped our world. In the emerging future, as Ecological Civilization takes hold, biological principles will guide us. We will need to think systemically, understand how complexity evolves, and recognize connections among seemingly disparate ideas, processes, people, and events. Rigid hierarchies will give way to dynamic, interlocking networks and collaborative ecosystems, redefining how our society and economy function.
Our book was more instinctively than intentionally hopeful, even as we acknowledged the dangers of nuclear conflict, technological catastrophe, and environmental collapse—threats that remain pressing today. Yet our hope endures because we believe in the fundamental goodness of people. Despite global conflicts, more and more individuals recognize our deep interconnection and our growing need for one another. The path forward will not be easy, but we are confident that humanity is capable of evolving to meet the challenges ahead.
Society does not evolve in smooth clean lines, sometimes two steps forward might run into resistance that sends up both steps and even another back. Nor do people evolve in straight and predictable ways. Some folks are more sensitive to emergence, seeing complexity as either a glass half full or half empty. For the people who see more possibility than despair they can become “emergent capacity builders” – leaders who can process a wide variety of information, make connections and also be open to spontaneous new possibilities as they emerge.
Traditional leadership processes are most often based on an extension of past best practices borrowed from other organizations and communities. Too often, we try to fix vexing problems with existing and limited resources without concern with how society, technology and the economy are transforming. As a result there is an increasing level of frustration as we try to make increasingly obsolete ideas and methods more efficient. Traditional strategic planning processes rarely work in a time of constant change.
In a moment of tremendous VUCA, there is no better time for people to stand together and face the future with both bravery and intention. We must have the courage to resist despotism and yet at the same time we must project a viable vision that creates coherence and binds us closer together. Modernity has too often fractured us into small units, constituencies, markets and types. Moving forward we must accept parallel truths of VUCA and find connection in our diversity. The future is now, embrace it and let the story of your life be told in the context of what you did for generations not yet born.