The strategic planner is, by definition, a futurist, a true futurist. Please understand that the strategic planner is not a “pop” futurist, that strange breed of prophet and charlatan that has dominated quasi-intellectual circles in recent years and sadly now seems to be exerting a dangerous influence even on legitimate planners. . Evidently, “pop” futurism has for the present decade become just another fad like “pop” sociology of the 1960s (The Catcher in the Rye); the “pop” psychology of the seventies (I’m OK; You’re OK); and the management “pop” of the early eighties (The One Minute Manager). To be sure, the prophecies about the new millennium are often entertaining and often very persuasive, providing incredibly detailed details of that brave new world: a world-wide, electronic, technological, econocomputer egalitarian known primarily for its changing economies and changing demographics. . These are the optimistic prophecies. Others, the proverbial prophets of doom, gallop wildly on the four horses of the Apocalypse and frighten people with threats of terrorism and terrible diseases.

Both types of “pop” futurists are dangerous because of the innuendo, if not actual statement, they make about the relationship that people, organizations, and institutions have with their future. There are two main dangers from “pop” futurism, and both are exactly contrary in principle to even the idea of ​​strategic planning. The first danger is that prophecies of any kind tend to become self-fulfilling. That is, any notion, however far-fetched, if accepted through general familiarity, is soon allowed to become a present reality. Other possibilities, assumptions or options are never considered. Creation and challenge give way to acquiescence. It is that logic that discourages planning of any kind. After all, what will be will be.

The second danger is that the person is negative as a potential change agent. Things happen by themselves; therefore, the proper role for human beings is that of mere behavioral response or detached philosophical observation. That’s why “pop” futurists urge “future-readiness,” rather than “future-readiness.” It is this logic that has typically attempted something called “long-term planning”, which was usually nothing more than a collection of SWAG projections accompanied by a few SWAG reactions. In this type of “planning”, there is never any hint of control over the results, certainly not over the future. It is nothing more than an anticipatory acquiescence.

In effect, the “pop” futurist is an anachronistic historian who records the future as a fait accompli. The only difference between the historian and the “pop” futurist is that one invents a system out of guesses and assumptions; the other ornaments guess and guess systematically. But the strategic planner, the true futurist, believes that the future is yet to be made, and that it will be exactly what people make of it. Ironically, by acting on this simple belief, the strategic planner creates the story.