The Six Pillars Model of Futures Thinking
A comprehensive strategic framework used to explore alternative futures and challenge the underlying worldviews that shape them. It provides a structured methodology for moving from surface-level trend analysis to deep systemic and metaphorical transformation.
When you need to design a complete learning experience from scratch
You're planning a workshop, training, or learning session and need a proven structure to organize your content and activities.
Ideal for long-term strategic planning, organizational change initiatives, and policy development where stakeholders need to break free from 'business as usual' thinking.
Mapping
Anticipating
Timing
Deepening
Creating Alternatives
Transforming
Ensures your session has clear goals, logical flow, and measurable outcomes.
Facilitators can use this as a scaffolding for a multi-stage strategic workshop, dedicating specific modules to each pillar to move a group from current state mapping to actionable future visions.
- 1Start by defining what success looks like at the end
- 2Work backwards from outcomes to activities
- 3Build in checkpoints to verify learning
- 4Allow time for practice and application
- Strategic Foresight
- Leadership Development
- Systems Thinking
- The future is not fixed but plural (Alternative Futures)
- Depth is required for lasting change (moving beyond surface trends)
- Agency is found in the alignment of worldviews and metaphors
- Systemic transformation requires addressing both data and myth
- Requires significant cognitive effort from participants to move into the 'Deepening' phase
- May meet resistance when challenging long-held organizational myths