The future is coming, ready or not w/ Molly Connor and Markku Allison

Molly Connor :

1990 is the same distance from today as 2050.

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Molly Connor :

And that’s one of those statements that generally get people like, “Ho! Goodness!” You know, like the future is scary; it’s not that far away.

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Geoff Capelle:

Not long ago, our entire planet was blindsided by something that wasn’t just predictable, it was predicted. In 2017, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security published a training exercise. This is how it starts.

Unknown voice:

The year is 2025. A few American travellers, returning from Asia, died of an unknown influenza-like illness.

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Unknown voice:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms the victims were infected with a noval Corona virus: SPARS CoV, spelled S-P-A-R-S C-O-V.

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Unknown voice:

The CDC finds SPARS is transmitted through respiratory droplets, and recommends that everyone practice hand hygiene and frequently disinfect surfaces.

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Unknown voice:

It’s not long before the SPARS outbreak erupts into a global pandemic.

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Geoff Capelle:

Sounds familiar, right?

Markku Allison :

COVID is, I think, an excellent example of a world that was not in an [inaudible, 1:26] agile and resilient mindspace when we were all hit from the side with COVID and had to turn on a dime.

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Geoff Capelle:

I’m Geoff Capelle, and this is Building Good.

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Geoff Capelle:

We instinctively find the future difficult to talk about. It’s a place we don’t know. And it’s full of scary possibilities. But not talking about the future doesn’t stop it happening.

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Geoff Capelle:

So today we’re talking to two people about the future—two people who have devised a way to make others talk about the future, so we can all be prepared: Molly Connor and Markku Allison.

Markku Allison :

We had all been spending more time running scenarios about what if rolling pandemics, what if declining trust, what if energy revolution—and we just develop a rounded picture of the world, in that sort of “what if” scale, our ability to move in a responsive way is—is greatly increased. And I think that can only be good for everyonle.

Geoff Capelle:

Markku is vice president, Strategy and Innovation at Chandos Construction. And Molly is a senior design researcher at OCAD U CO—the executive training studio of the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Molly Connor :

I think about the future a lot, in my day-to-day. It lives in parallel with uncertainty, with unpredictability, while also having this kind of hopefulness or excitement to it.

Geoff Capelle:

They teamed up to build a tool that helps make the future tangible, approachable, and less scary. It turns the future from that ominous void, full of terrors, into a place of opportunity.

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Geoff Capelle:

If you use this tool, you’re putting yourself a couple of steps ahead of everyone else. This tool isn’t a crystal ball or an artificial intelligence. It’s not going to tell you what will happen. The tool is an exercise designed to change your thinking, so you’re ready for whatever the future brings.

It was originally aimed at architecture, engineering, and construction companies. But Molly and Markku realized it can be applied to anyone, any organization, any group of people. And it’s free.

Markku Allison :

I use the phrase a lot: we don’t know what we don’t know.

Everything that is happening in our world is sort of defining trajectories or cones of possibility. And you don’t know how those cones might interact and make something completely different. You don’t know what kinds of crazy events might come flying out of the ether into the side of everything and smash it all to pieces and change directions.

And the idea that it is a space of tremendous potential and opportunity.

Molly Connor :

And so you can build a relationship, almost a—a comfort in that uncertainty by understanding what could change, what could happen, and identifying specific actions or reactions that—that can address those pieces.

And so that’s kind of where that kind of brings it back around to the concept of strategic foresight, which is what has inspired the Future-Ready tool here as well.

Geoff Capelle:

Molly and Markku are going to talk me through what the tool actually is, and how to use it.

But before that, I wanted to find out what made them decide to create it in the first place.

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Markku Allison :

What the majority of organizations get wrong is that they actually don’t think very much about the future. They spend a lot of time on strategic plans which tend to be more tactical and formulaic sort of short-term driven than sort of long-term possibilities.

And so, as a result, they’re always caught on their back foot, reacting to major things that are happening in the world and trying to make decision on the spot about where to go—and have never developed the comfort level necessary to think about “what ifs” and—and big picture “what ifs” that could really change the—the fundamental nature of their—their organization.

In the design and construction industry, there is very little talk about the future in broad-stroke, big-brush kinds of terms. And most of that conversation is not in the construction side of the architecture-engineering-construction world. It’s mostly on, probably, the design side, or maybe some of our more sophisticated owners or clients.

But in the construction side of the world, there is almost nobody, that we are aware of, that really has meaningful, thoughtful, structured conversations about “What does the future hold for us, or for our industry, or for humanity as a whole?”

Organizations that do spend time thinking critically, in a structured, thoughtful way, about the future are far more agile and resilient in the face of emerging trends or forces than those who have not—regardless of whether they have thought about the specific force that is acting on them at that moment. It’s a muscle. And as you develop that muscle, your ability to move in an agile and resilient fashion is much increased.

So our thinking was if we can put a tool out there. Our original intent was focused on AEC; it became bigger than that. But if we can get this tool and promote it in the AEC space, our ability to help companies—design and construction companies—our owner-clients become more agile and resilient in the face of these big-picture forces goes way, way up.

And anything that builds agility and resilience into our world, I think, is a good thing.

Molly Connor :

I would say people have some comfort in speaking about the near future. But when you get into what could happen, the “what if,” a little bit farther out, at a bit of a higher level, I think folks are comfortable talking about it in the spaces that they may feel comfortable.

When you really start to think about, you know, the concept of “the future”—this—this [garbled, 7:52] concept of this thing that’s out there, that’s unpredictable, there’s a lot of possibility within it, and a lot of scary pieces. There’s a lot of scariness out there, right?

So I think, when a lot of people think about the future, they start to feel stressed overwhelmed, uncertain; and their first reaction is to—to just maybe shut it out, focus on what’s in front of them, focus on what they know.

You know, I think back to we were leading a session—a—a facilitated workshop, once, where we had a, umm, a roomful of folks from a specific industry that is maybe a little bit more traditional. And we had developed a set of—of trends that related to that industry: things that were shifting and changing how they did work.

And I have such a strong memory of this gentleman, who was leading a table and had a very strong voice, of course, and he was reading the trends one-by-one and saying, “Ah, nope! Absolutely not.” And throwing them, like physically throwing them away. Right? And I think that (laughs)—that visual has stayed with me as, okay wait, this is actually how people really think about the future is it’s not possible, it could never happen.

Geoff Capelle:

And this tool, I got my hands on it about two weeks ago. I will say, I was really impressed with all the direction that you put into it, how it clearly lays out those steps. It seemed like a real tangible thing that you could grasp onto and—and use in good ways.

You created this tool for organizations to future-proof themselves. So to set the scene, let’s describe it.

Markku Allison:

The tool really has two primary components. There’s the Signals deck, which is a set of 17 signals of the future, which, ah, are data-points backed up by trends, or references, or articles, or things that we find around the world that make it clear that this particular force or movement is happening in business and culture today.

Molly Connor:

When we did the research to support and identify these signals—these 17 signals of change—we weren’t specifically looking at this industry or that industry. We were looking across the board what is shifting and what is changing, and how can we identify that and categorize it and theme it up to—to identify like here are the major things if we had 17 things that we wanted to talk about that are changing the landscape of the world that we live in now and into the future, ah, what would those be?

And then on the flipside of it, you have a deck—what we’re calling a strategic tool—which is called “Future-Ready.” And that has a series of cards that will take you through a series of exercises that enable you to identify which of the signals have the potential to most impact your industry, umm, as well as, a series of strategic questions that lead you down the road into actions, as they might align with your company, your organization, and—and your sector, and also enable, you know, a bit of team- or workshop-style discussion about the future. It gives you a bit of a roadmap to how to talk about the future and how to talk about these signals.

And the big thing to identify with this strategic tool is that it’s not something that you can use in 25 minutes. We’ve given it a timeframe of about eight hours. And that’s a really important piece, because we truly believe that this is something that requires thoughtfulness and intention and commitment to really diving into the content.

So we say, thinking about the workshop structure and how you might want to plan this out. And it’s meant to be self-facilitated, which is another really important point in how we designed it.

Throughout the structure, the way that the journey will take folks on, umm, is the first discussion is really around: where is the world going? And then we want to—you to talk about what your current capabilities are, as an organization, as a team, as an industry even.

And then discuss what opportunities might exist. And this kind of pulls together. You’re looking for that intersection between Card 1 and Card 2. So Card 1: where is the world going? And what are you really good at? And we call those Opportunity Spaces—kind of what lives in the middle that would enable you to think about what’s changing in the world, what you’re really good at, and how you might be able to leverage that for future strategic moves.

And then the fourth card is really around like: how do we want to evolve? So where—where are we headed? What does the future look like for us, as an organization and as a world?

And then: what are we going to do about it? And that brings you back down to next steps, actions, and—and how to—how to respond.

Because this was really exploratory, and because we want people to think outside of their industry and outside of their organization, we have to prompt them to think bigger. Right?

So we’re looking at a timeframe of five to ten years. And we want you to think about the five signals that are going to have the greatest impact on humanity as a whole.

Markku Allison:

When you start with two small of a focus, it makes it difficult to understand the potential scope of the impact of these signals. And you also, then, start to potentially really box your organization in about possible opportunities that might emerge for you.

So by encouraging that first conversation to be at the scale of humanity as a whole is a real stretch for a lot of people to think that way. But it really ensures that you’re—you’re thinking far outside of your day-to-day existence and—and really stepping outside of your traditional frame of reference, to get a—a handle on what’s going on.

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Geoff Capelle:

We’ll be right back.

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Jen Hancock:

At Chandos, building is about more than concrete and steel, drywall and windows. It’s how we build and who we build with that determines the legacy we leave behind.

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Jen Hancock:

Our commitment to a more diverse and sustainable future is built into every aspect of our business: the people, the processes, the projects, and every community we’re part of.

Let’s build better together.

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Jen Hancock:

Find out more, or join our team, at Chandos-dot-com. That’s C-H-A-N-D-O-S-dot-com.

Geoff Capelle:

Taking a look at a couple signals and talking through what they might mean to the construction industry or, I guess, generally the AEC industry: world on the move, what does mean to us?

Molly Connor:

Well, Geoff, what does it mean to you…

(laughter]

Molly Connor:

… considering you work in this space?

No pressure (laughs).

Geoff Capelle:

Taking it to construction, I would probably say a lot about housing, about migration, about different cultures coming together, and looking at that cohesive society and the connections that you bring between people? That’s what jumps out initially.

Molly Connor:

Um-hmm. Yeah.

Geoff Capelle:

What does the expert think?

Molly Connor:

Not—no expert here. But I agree that there’s—there’s definitely something around, I don’t know, I guess these—I don’t know if they’re like silos or like assumptions that we have that people live in a certain way or interact with the built environment, or the urban—urban environment in a—in a certain way in different parts of the world—and in different ways in different parts of the world. And that that’s kind of mmmashing all together a little bit.

Because we’ve got all of these forces that are forcing or encouraging or inspiring people to move from where they, maybe historically, have, or culturally, have grown up.

Or in another sense, also thinking a little bit about how, you know, we have these almost like North American norms around housing. You know, single dwelling, white picket fence, and how that might be challenging some of those pieces. We might be starting to think of we’re seeing more and more communal living, shared spaces.

And then there’s the whole side of this climate migration piece that is, I guess, maybe going to be changing how we think about our urban spaces in a really kind of condensed short period of time, where…. And I—you guys, would be better positioned to speak to this. But, you know, 50 years ago, were you as concerned in this—in this industry about flooding as you are now?

Geoff Capelle:

Very different conversations.

Molly Connor:

Probably.

Ageing infrastructure, that kind of thing. Like how is that influencing where people are living, how they’re moving around cities?

And then there’s this whole concept around like the urban-rural, I guess, dynamic and how that might be changing as well. Umm, which, ah, we’re seeing, I think, a lot in—in Canada for sure.

Kind of off the top of my head, those are the pieces that—that come to mind right off the bat. Markku, any—any thoughts on that?

Markku Allison:

Yeah. So, I think this is an excellent one to—to talk about sort of how these things can be multifaceted and also how they tend to have pretty blurry boundaries. I’m sure that you saw that when you were looking at that particular signal—thinking about it through that lens—that it probably has connections to some of the other signals.

So “world on the move,” specifically, is really about migration. And the single largest predictor of the construction industry, in terms of growth, is population density or population growth.

We know that Canada is growing, tremendously. And actually, Canada has very specific goals for immigration growth. And as those people are moving to Canada—you mentioned housing, or infrastructure, or…. All of those things are, you know, if—if “world on the move” is true, then urban growth is likely true. It means transit systems are going to need to improve. Affordable housing will become more important.

And there are other signals. Like “the urbanized Earth” is another signal, right?

Umm, so the signals tend to have some overlap. But that’s, I think, a—a simple way to think about that particular one and its connection to the construction industry.

Geoff Capelle:

So, the first step you talked about in this exercise is that explorer stage, where you start to figure out where the world is and look at those signals. And one thing there is picking the Top Five signals in the deck. I’m going to pick just one. And we can apply it to our country, industry, and enterprise.

There were a number that stuck out for me but, I think the pick that I would go with here is “energy revolution.” It’s something we’ve been talking quite a bit about in the construction sector. Ah, so talk me through what to do next.

I’ve got “energy revolution.” I want to chat about it. What are the questions I ask? Where do I go?

Markku Allison:

So Geoff, how do you think “energy revolution” might impact Canada?

Geoff Capelle:

Well, I think we’ll continue to see a transition towards renewable energies. We’ll see more solar, more wind coming up. There’s quite a bit of conversation around nuclear and—and small modular reactors.

I think that will continue, and there will likely be significant investments into changing the grid and increasing the grid’s capacity for a lot of the power uses that are coming onboard. So increased population, and the use of electric cars, and—and just the need for a more robust power grid.

Markku Allison:

Excellent. So you started to get into some of those ripples: if this is true then—if X is true then Y, if Y is true then Z, if Z is true then so on.

Okay. So how might “energy revolution” directly or indirectly impact the design and construction industry?

Geoff Capelle:

I can see there being significant investment in updating ageing infrastructure. When you look at hydro-electric and so on, in adding additional infrastructure in those solar or wind investments. In transmission, the amount that we put into getting that energy to the sources that it’s needed. And in research and development, as we figure out cleaner solutions, better ways of manufacturing them, and better ways of constructing them.

Markku Allison:

Okay. So then let’s zero in one more notch, and talk about how it might directly or indirectly impact your organization, your enterprise—Bird Construction.

Geoff Capelle:

So for Bird Construction, I can see this shifting some of our resources from their existing areas of work into these clean energy areas of work. So I can see significant investment in training, in development, in the equipment that we have in that sector, in developing internal capacity to meet those needs, and excel at those needs, and—and be ready for when the demand is there.

Markku Allison:

So that’s the second question on the “where is the world going?”

And there’s one more, which is: what societal, personal, or organizational needs might emerge as a result of those impacts or implications of the signals?

So talk us through some of your thoughts about that—at any of those scales, whether it’s societal, industry, or organization.

Geoff Capelle:

So thinking outloud, would this be workforce?

Markku Allison:

It could be workforce. “Energy revolution” could result in a need for an increased workforce in this space. It could result in a need for a more robust supply chain for small nuclear reactors. These are things that are likely to be impacted. And then you can kind of flip that, to define a need that will emerge.

Geoff Capelle:

Okay. So technology. So workforce. Umm, investment in research and development. Got it.

Markku Allison:

And the next conversation is: what are your current capabilities? And this is where you look only at your organization, ah, signals aside, and you think, “What is Bird Construction good at? What values matter to you or your organization? What makes your company different or unique? What do you offer or do that none of your competitors do?” So now you develop a robust picture of: this is who we are.

And then the third conversation is: what opportunities might exist? And that’s where you have this list of needs that have been identified. You have a list of skills or talents or unique capabilities of Bird Construction. And you start to look at the overlap between those things as opportunities. Here’s a need; here is a capability that matches; that creates an opportunity space for us.

Geoff Capelle:

And that’s where you ask the question of: how do we want to evolve and what will we do about it?

Markku Allison:

Exactly.

Geoff Capelle:

Got it. Okay.

I can see how useful this tool is. But let’s dig into the reason why we need it.

How has making this tool changed how you think about the future?

Markku Allison:

For me, actually the agile and resilient thing was a big sort of outcome, for me, of this exercise. I—I don’t know when I started using those words when we were putting the tool together, but that kind of ended up becoming my—my mantra.

So just the rigorous, structured, research-based approach to asking questions about the future, it just led me to a point where I—I started to understand that if you approach it that way, you can do a great deal to increase your agility and resilience.

Molly Connor:

Doing the research to get to the 17 signals, it’s all—almost enabled me to feel even more comfortable and concrete in what the future holds. Because it’s not unknown. You know, the—the information is out there. And we did the work. And we thought. We did this with a very thoughtful research process to get to where we are today with the—with the work, umm, and with the tool, and with the 17 signals.

And I think it’s given me more confidence in the big shifts that are going to influence the future and the way that we interact in the world.

Geoff Capelle:

So what are the risks of not thinking about the future in this way?

Markku Allison:

In many instances, we’ll get caught on our back foot. And others will have a significant impact in shaping our future without our say. I think all of us would prefer if our future is going to involve change, that we would like to have a voice in how our future will be changed.

The future will happen to all of us. And if we’ve not thought about it critically, somebody else will be thinking about it critically for us, and telling us where to go.

So. And we can use some examples. The—you had the “world on the move” signal earlier. If we know that construction industry is facing a significant labour shortage—which it is—if we know that, ah, we’re in Canada, so if we know that Canada is actively trying to increase immigration, and we know that populations around the world are moving as a result of whether there are conflicts, or climate change, or what have you, our industry can take a proactive approach with the Canadian government and say, “We want new immigrants coming into our industry.” And we can help build programs to support that.

If we don’t make those connections and raise those points or those voices, those immigrants are going to move to Canada and some of them will land in the construction industry, some of them might not.

Umm, but it’s our oppor—it’s an opportunity for us to attract the kind of people we’d like to attract, create the kinds of programs we’d like to create that would make our industry better and stronger.

Molly Connor:

So historically, we’ve all—always thought about the future in terms of growth, in terms of: how can we get bigger, how can we add more value, how can we increase, increase, increase?

And I think, when we’re thinking about get—building a greater relationship with the future in this sense, we’re trying to change that narrative to be less about growth and more about: how can we build flexibility to change, how can we build resilience, how can we build agility into how we’re thinking and making decisions? And you know, everything from that to—to designing our—our cities and neighbourhoods.

The other piece that’s really important here is to identify that if we don’t think about the future in a—in a thoughtful and strategic way, then we’re—we’re just reacting at the end of the day. We’re just thinking about what’s coming up tomorrow, what’s coming up next week. And we’re not identifying these “what ifs.”

You know, a big part of strategic foresight is identifying possible scenarios. And these could be in 5, 10, 15, 25, 30, 100 years. And this idea that if we don’t think about the futre at all, we run the risk of just reacting to what’s in front of us and never thinking longer-term.

Geoff Capelle:

It’s easy to be down about the future right now. You pick up a newspaper, headlines aren’t that great. But what excites you? What do you look forward to?

Markku Allison:

There will be things that we just—we cannot even imagine, at this point in time, about what people will do in response to these forces and trends. And I get really excited when I see people offer solutions that are way outside the box. They create new markets. They create new demand that solves a very specific problem that is facing the world.

And so I’m just, personally I’m really excited to see the creativity that’s going to flow in response to these signals.

Molly Connor:

The world is definitely a scary place right now. And there’s a lot of reasons to be stressed, or angry, or sad about it.

One of things that—that really came out for me during the pandemic was: when the world is an uncertain place, we can just kind of go back to basics a little bit. And we found this—this kind of re-emergence. Umm, and maybe it was always there.

We almost only about the negative stuff. So, community spaces are closing. Isolation is increasing. Loneliness is increasing. Mental health challenges are increasing.

But then at the core of it, when a crisis happens or when—I live in Nova Scotia and so, you know, over the last few months we’ve had floods, and fires, and all kinds of, umm, ah, really intense realilties. And what happened was that we found a greater sense of community, I think. And this concept of social connection and building relationships and building a support network actually became more and more important.

And so, as the world gets scarier, I think we might see us going back to some of these really core, beautiful pieces around how we can build community and—and build connection with ourselves, with our loved ones, with our—with the larger collective.

And then, you know, I would also echo Markku’s comment around crisis sometimes breeds creativity. And that there is this really amazing opportunity to think about the world in a different way because we have to right now. We can’t just keep going as we have been. And there’s—there’s a lot of opportunity to—to change things into the future.

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Geoff Capelle: If you’re listening and want to try out this tool for yourself, you can grab it for free. Markku - where do we go?

Markku Allison:

The “Future-Ready” toolkit will be available for download at no cost, at chandos.com/futureready.

We’ll also put that link in the show notes.

Geoff Capelle:: Thanks to Molly Connor and Markku Allison, and thanks to you for listening to this episode of Building Good.

If you want to learn more about how the AEC sector is building a better world, one more way you can prepare for the future is to make sure you’re subscribed on your favourite podcast app. Then at least you’ll be prepared for our future episodes.

Building Good is a Vocal Fry Studios production. Supported by Chandos Construction and Bird Construction.

The executive producer is Jay Cockburn (pr: co-burn), our producer is Kattie Laur (pr: lore), with production assistance from Jessica Loughlin (pr: lock-lin).

I’m Geoff Capelle, thanks for listening