What if we get things right?
INsights 066, Friday 29th November 2024
What if we get things right?
INsights 066, Friday 29th November 2024
Some of my favourite examples of vision statements come from a page on the World Economic Forum (WEF) website. I’ve often shared them as examples when I’ve taught the Last Day Leader programme.
In 2019, the WEF canvassed members of its Global Future Councils to come up with visions for 2030. They combined the top 30 submissions to form a mini manifesto for the future.
Granted, the majority of the submissions seem far too ambitious for such a short timeframe. It would be a huge achievement if some of them were achieved by 2050, or even 2100.
But what’s powerful about them is the clarity with which they articulate future possibilities. As I’ve revisited them on occasions in recent years, I’ve found myself inspired, excited and challenged at the same time.
Below I share some of my favourite extracts. The reason I’m doing so is to inspire you to start or continue developing your own God-centred vision.
Even though the examples below don’t mention faith or God, the thing you can gain from them is a way of describing the future that can be clearly understood.
Notice how the examples focus on what will be achieved, not how it will be achieved, either by the writer or anyone else.
The former is vision. The latter is mission and strategy, which I hope to address in future writings, God willing.
But before you know what to do, you need to know where you're going.
Example 1
By 2030 your CO2 emissions will be far down. The air you breathe is cleaner. Nature is recovering. Saving the climate does involve huge change, but it might make us happier at the same time.
You walk out of your door in the morning into a green and liveable city. You can choose to call upon a car. An algorithm has calculated the smartest route for the vehicle, and it picks up a few other people on the way. Since the city council has banned private cars in the city, tons of new mobility services have arrived. It is cheaper for you not to own your own car, and it reduces congestion, so you arrive at your destination more quickly and don’t have to spend time looking for parking. There are a lot fewer cars on the streets and the rest are electric. All electricity is green by the way.
Example 2
The year is 2030. Imagine this: a young man called Ajay lives in India. In his teens, he experienced an episode of depression. So when, as a new undergraduate, he was offered the chance to sign up for a mental healthcare service, he was keen to do so.
Ajay chose a service that used mobile phone and internet technologies to enable him to carefully manage his personal information. Ajay would later develop clinical depression, but he spotted that something wasn’t right early on when the feedback from his mental healthcare app highlighted changes in his sociability (he was sending fewer messages and leaving his room only to go to campus).
Shortly thereafter, he received a message on his phone inviting him to get in touch with a mental health therapist: the message also offered a choice of channels through which he could get in touch.
Now in his mid-20s, Ajay’s depression is well under control. He has learned to recognise when he’s too anxious and beginning to feel low, and he can practice the techniques he has learned using online tools, as well as easily accessing high-quality advice. His progress through the rare depressive episodes he still experiences is carefully tracked.
If he does not respond to the initial, self-care treatment, he can be quickly referred to a medical professional. Ajay’s experience is replicated across the world in low, middle and high-income countries. Similar technology-supported mental illness prevention, prediction and treatment services are available to all.
Example 3
My vision for 2030 is a world where cities make better use of the infrastructure they have, before building new projects at huge financial and environmental cost. This would see people living in closer proximity with good access to essential infrastructure such as public transport, social services and high quality public spaces, as was the case in cities prior to the motor car and urban sprawl; cities, in other words, where walking is the dominant form of transport and the street is the dominant location for public life.
Example 4
In 2030, a primary goal of business is to earn and retain public trust. A narrow focus on shareholder value and regulatory compliance is widely deemed hopelessly regressive, and companies understand that they operate in a hyper-transparent environment in which everything they say or do will instantly become public knowledge. Questions of corporate purpose are no longer approached as marketing exercises, so companies that cannot explain and measure how they provide value to society are failing.
Example 5
By 2030, humans extract the first resource in outer space - this could be water on the moon. In addition to water, which can be used to drink and maintain agriculture, the water molecule (H2O) can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen, as a clean fuel source. The extraction of water on the moon will not only enable human life to be sustained in space, but it will enable us to build and maintain the necessary space infrastructure, including satellites, to sustain and improve our quality of life on Earth.
Here’s the link to the page on the World Economic Forum website where you can skim through all 30 examples.
So now what?
Well, just imagine if we as believers could describe all aspects of the future we’re trying to build to our fellow citizens in order to make our own value proposition clear, to make for an irresistible mix of godliness and goodness.
Wouldn’t that be something to unify and motivate us and others into sincere commitment and genuine collaboration?
The question for you remains the same as I’ve been asking these past few weeks…
What’s your vision?
Can you describe it in ways that are as clear as some of the examples above?
Even if it seems ambitious, even if you’re not exactly sure how it will be achieved, what specific outcome do you believe matters to God, matters to people around you and matters to you so much that you would be happy to give as much of yourself as possible towards achieving it over the course of your life?
Until next time.
Peace.
Iqbal
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Have a blessed week. I'll send you the next edition next Friday, God willing.
