From Futures to Action: Collective Sensemaking with Eva Tomas

What future do you want—and why don’t most organisations stop to ask?

In this episode, Eva Tomas—a futurist by nature, engineer by training, and philosopher at heart—joins host Mike Jones to explore how futures thinking can help leaders act with more clarity in a world of complexity. They unpack why linear strategy falls short, how uncertainty is often misunderstood, and why leaders must look beyond the immediate to open up new choices.

You’ll learn how Eva’s Banyan model reconnects past, present, and futures—offering a practical way to rethink strategy as collective sensemaking rather than prediction.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why “the future” is a myth—and why we must think in futures
• How certainty is an illusion that limits decision-making
• What can leaders do to find directionality without fixed goals
• Why diversity of perspective expands strategic insight
• The role of participation in organisational foresight
• How to spot positive signals in a sea of noise
• A simple exercise to surface hidden narratives and beliefs

Guest Bio:
Eva Tomas is a futurist and founder of Simple Thinking, working with organisations, educators, and youth to rethink strategy, direction, and agency in complex systems. Her work blends foresight, philosophy, and systems thinking to help leaders move from passive prediction to active participation in shaping the future.

🔗 Learn more: Eva LinkedIn
📘 Explore the Banyan Model

🎧 Keywords: Futurist, Strategy, Complexity, Futures Thinking, Leadership, Decision Making, Banyan Model, Systems Thinking, Positive Signals, Organisational Change, Uncertainty

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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💬 Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:54 The Role of Futures in Leadership
• 5:56 Making Futures Usable for Leaders
• 10:57 The Banyan Canvas: A New Framework
• 16:02 Engaging with Futures: Agency and Participation
• 21:34 Rethinking Strategy: Purpose and Directionality
• 24:34 Navigating Strategy in Uncertain Waters
• 27:51 Shifting Perspectives: Dystopia vs. Utopia
• 31:11 Engaging with Futures: A New Mindset for Leaders
• 36:00 Harnessing Creativity: Exercises for Future Thinking
• 38:34 Positive Signals: Finding Hope in Change
• 41:59 The Future We Want: A Call to Action
• 46:01 Outro

Transcript

Eva Tomas (00:00)
future thinking is not only about thinking, okay, what do I want to reach? Or what do I see? It is also about, and what do I do about it right now in this moment?

on warpath with the word roadmap, because how you use a roadmap on open water. What do you do with the roadmap when you're out at the sea?

Mike Jones (00:14)
Hehehehe

Eva Tomas (00:20)
certainty is an illusion, an illusion created by us. the more you realize about that, the more comfortable you feel

Mike Jones (00:24)
Yes.

Welcome to strategy meets reality podcast great to introduce Eva How are you doing?

Eva Tomas (01:07)
I'm fine today, thank you, how are you?

Mike Jones (01:09)
Yeah, great, thank you. Just for our guests, do mind giving a bit of context about yourself, what you've been up to recently?

Eva Tomas (01:16)
Okay, I like to introduce myself as Hi, I'm Eva. I'm a futurist by nature, an engineer by training and a philosopher at heart. So I have a multitude of interests. And so when you ask me the simple question of what I've been up to, it's a bunch of answers. In general, I'm working in the realm of futures and strategy and the connection thereof. And I'm doing that in various contexts. I'm working on the one hand with organizations, corporations, companies.

Mike Jones (01:22)
Good.

Hehehehe... Hehehehe...

Eva Tomas (01:45)
And on the other side, I'm doing the same with youth and with teachers because I love to hear also this perspective and it brings a completely different flavor into my work.

I feel that complexity is a big issue out there for a lot of companies. And what I found on my own journey is that thinking really does help. So that's why my company is called Simple Thinking. So I just work with leaders and organizations and introduce them to different perspectives, different ways of thinking about topics like strategy, like

Mike Jones (02:08)
Mmm, yeah.

Eva Tomas (02:22)
complexity, like organization, like vision, and see what new ways we can find.

Mike Jones (02:28)
Awesome. I laughed and we laughed and we said about, all this stuff is about thinking, but leaders don't really tend to have or give themselves much time for this thinking. we see that they say, the world is so unpredictable. So they end up just, fast himself down and go for the ride. But, when we think about futures and the world being unpredictable and quite fast moving.

How can futures help leaders?

Eva Tomas (02:54)
That's a great question. So first of all, there's a distinction to make. I meet a lot of leaders or organizations who say they feel the world is unpredictable when feeling is not the right word because it is unpredictable. So that's a fact in the system we are living in. And what futures can do for you is if you open up these thinking spaces, because you're right, we in our

Mike Jones (03:10)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (03:22)
fast-paced business world, there is not a lot of room to take a step back in order to gaze further. what Futures, engaging with Futures work and Future Thinking can do is to help you lift up the gaze and see beyond the immediate and also then find new ways to this beyond the immediate because not when you look further, you not only see a different kind of horizon,

but it opens also up the immediate space in front of you and you can take different kind of decisions. So ultimately, future thinking is not only about thinking, okay, what do I want to reach? What do I want to see? Or what do I see? It is also about, and what do I do about it right now in this moment?

This connection is a very important one for me.

Mike Jones (04:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think that's often missed is that people look to the future and think, that's great. That's in the future, but they realize they've got to bring that back. There's almost a reaching out and then bringing it back. So it informs their decisions today. And I think that connection is often missed.

Eva Tomas (04:25)
Yeah, on the other hand, a lot of people, are taking the past or the present and they're just putting that forward into the future. So it's like a little bit, we are living in rolling forecast times. I like to call it like this. It's like, yeah, we know how it's been until today and we take it and mix it, give it a little bit of twist. Most of the time it's a technology twist these days. So you add a little bit of AI and you add a little bit of robotics.

Mike Jones (04:31)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Eva Tomas (04:53)
And then you call that the future. And sometimes it pays off to go a little bit beyond this, I call that by the way, prutures, present futures. So it's a kind of mix up we tend to work with what is not really future thinking. So to open the mind spaces up to really envision and go beyond the known and immediate.

takes time and space. And what you said in the beginning, this is something which is very rare and very precious in the times we are living in.

Mike Jones (05:25)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think in the time that they do have, it's about doing it properly. Um, and I think that when you mentioned futures to people, can seem overwhelming, especially when you look at like the scenario planning world where, I've been involved in them, I, you know, it's taken months to do, you know, some of the scenario plannings and that could be off putting for leaders, one for cost and time, in space to do it. how can we make

Eva Tomas (05:44)
Hmm. Hmm.

Mike Jones (05:54)
futures more usable for leaders.

Eva Tomas (05:56)
I think this is also why I engage in complexity and futures because there is a connection there. Because if you work with leaders and organizations that they fully understand what complexity really means and what impacts that has on our daily life, be it in the private or be it in the professional, then you can engage them with the idea of futures in a very different way because then you are finding these, okay,

Mike Jones (06:00)
Mmm.

Eva Tomas (06:23)
There is no predictability. There is no linearity anymore. This linear idea from I do this now and this happens as a consequence. This is gone in the world we are living in. And most of the planning instruments we are working today with are thought for this kind of idea. So they are linear step-by-step roadmaps until a very definite goal. And this is also

Mike Jones (06:26)
Yes.

Eva Tomas (06:52)
a finding I have in my work, I feel that by using these tools we are producing so much friction between the complex reality around us and the linear tools we are trying to use to tame it, to control it, that this friction results in the fact that leaders are up to the top, to the C-suite.

they are engaged so much in immediate issues because of all these fires which are coming out of these friction sparks. So when you engage with this idea, okay, this linear thing, it's just not there or there in a very, very limited context. I don't want to dismiss it completely because that would not be fair either. Then it makes it clear why engaging with futures in the plural with the idea that

Mike Jones (07:24)
Yes.

Mm.

Eva Tomas (07:43)
where we are heading to is not a point but a landscape, it's a horizon, it's a spectrum, then it makes it very clear that we need to really think and act differently in the now. It's my experience.

Mike Jones (07:50)
Yes.

Yeah, you bring a great point. And I'm so glad you brought about the unpredictability in the linear cause relationships. Hence why I created this podcast because of those reasons. Cheers.

Eva Tomas (08:14)
I love the title by the way because this is exactly

what I was just speaking about.

Mike Jones (08:21)
Yeah.

And you bring up a really good point there as well about futures, the puerile, and you see it all the time now with AI or, certain people have got their lens, it would be the future of work, future of AI, and they talk about a future, not futures. And, is that something you often see?

Eva Tomas (08:35)
Hmm.

Yes, yes, and in English it's even not that present because the language supports the plural, but I'm originally German speaking and in my maternal language no one speaks in plural because it sounds really awkward and weird. So I see it and I have to admit that I sometimes find myself using the singular form still.

Mike Jones (08:56)
Yeah.

Eva Tomas (09:05)
Because this is something we are very trained on. This is something we, it's not very easy to let go. We are so trained on define the goal, aim for the goal, head single-mindedly at this goal. And when you put enough effort, you will reach that goal eventually. No, this is at least how I was trained in all my education, what a lot of leadership gurus are still telling today, or what you learn in a lot of personal growth things also.

Mike Jones (09:29)
Yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (09:33)
And to let go of that, to unlearn that is really difficult. So this multiplicity idea, although I think in this sense, the pandemic did a lot of good because the world has its ways to show us, am complex, deal with it. And for me, this was one of these signs, these disruptions. Okay, you cannot control me. You think sometimes you can maybe, but here I am, you can't.

So I think this did a lot also in the field of futures to open up mindsets and to open up perspectives.

Mike Jones (10:08)
Yeah. And definitely with more recent stuff with Ukraine, Trump, all those things, they are really helping, leaders realize that the importance of futures and the understanding that, you know, the world is complex and you can't control it with the traditional approach that we've been used to. So that's been quite useful for having a bit more richer conversations. But

Eva Tomas (10:12)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Mike Jones (10:31)
There's something in your model that you share on your website and on your social media, the Ban Yan canvas. we're talking about futures, but there's a real important part in complexity that's always missing is actually what part of the past do we need to bring?

Eva Tomas (10:38)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (10:48)
forward or recognize comes forward. We talk about path dependency. There's decisions that we've made in the past that are now going to constrain our future. Yeah.

Eva Tomas (10:57)
Yeah. So

this was, this was why I at some point decided to create my own framework because I'm of course aware there is a million frameworks out there and probably the last thing the world needs is another framework. Still here I am with my own proprietary framework because I,

I came to the field of complexity from the future. So I engaged first with future studies, strategic foresight and the such, and then I dig deep into complexity. And what I found was that the tools that are available within the strategic foresight realm, they felt a lot of times very, very linear in the end also deal with a nonlinear environment because

Mike Jones (11:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (11:45)
Ultimately, you take scenario planning, which is super popular and super helpful, I don't want to dismiss it completely either, but it's a linear tool because you are looking for the goal, okay, you make some of those in a lot of schools of scenario planning, then there are those where they have only one scenario, and then you backcast and make a linear path there. And yes, you plan here and there a feedback loop or here and there a turn.

but also feedback loop does not make it non-linear. It just makes it linear with the feedback loop. And what you said, what I found in the futures was that a lot of times it's super detached from the past. it's like, as if we are with our technological thinking, with our technological lens on the world, we are so used to cut the time in little slices.

Mike Jones (12:17)
feedback group, yeah.

Eva Tomas (12:38)
that we forgot that there's a continuum there and that this continuum has an impact on the work we do. And so that's why I decided, for the listeners out there who may not be familiar with what is a banyan, so where the metaphor comes from, it is a tree which grows in Asia, which is shaped like the tree you know all over the world. So with the classic root system, the stem and then the crown.

Mike Jones (12:41)
Yeah.

Eva Tomas (13:04)
But additionally, it grows aerial roots and these roots grow until the ground and some of them, not all, are putting their roots again there and forming additional stems, additional trunks. So the tree grows not only in the head but also in the lateral and even sometimes the old trunks die and then the new trunk is there so they are also called the wandering trees because they are moving to a lateral side.

Mike Jones (13:19)
Mm-hmm.

Eva Tomas (13:33)
And I find this is for me at least a perfect metaphor on how an organization can adapt to the ecosystem it is operating in. looking, I defined in this canvas idea, the root system is the complex present because complex systems are very similar to rhizomatic structures, to mycelium structures, like roots of a tree or the root system of mushrooms.

I define the trunk as the past because past is not, sometimes it is connotated very negatively past. It is like what is holding us back, what we did wrong. It has a negative connotation when it should not because there is, especially in organizations that have a super long legacy because there is a lot of companies out there that survived hundreds and hundreds of years.

Mike Jones (14:11)
Yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (14:26)
There is value in that history. It is not, and from now on, what brought us here cannot bring us there. We have to let it all go. And it is not realistic either, because when you carry the people, you carry the legacy. So I found it makes sense to surface that and to actively engage with that and to actively think also about, and what are we carrying forward and what does not serve us anymore or what...

Mike Jones (14:27)
Yeah.

Eva Tomas (14:54)
We learned in the past did already not serve us in the past, but maybe will serve us in the what yet to come. Because in the strategic processes I found, the past was usually only there by bringing the people to the table. So it was only this view on the past from the people who were engaged in the process, but not in a surfaced, really conscious way. And then the futures is the crown because

Mike Jones (15:16)
Yes.

Eva Tomas (15:22)
I said, thinking in consequences does not really help us because there is no linear consequences. So I like to see the futures more at what can grow out of what we are planting and seeding now. And this aerial root structure is then forming the kind of action net. So this is where you can, when you have to use complexity language, when you engage with the constraint and the constructors of the present, the past, and also the futures.

then you can start taking decisions for the here and now. So this is the idea behind.

Mike Jones (15:53)
Yes.

Yeah, and you know with those you can start to actively shape especially your fit with the external environment. Yeah.

Eva Tomas (16:00)
Yes.

Yes, because this

is another aspect which I found very valuable in engaging with Futures work. This agency it creates, this realization, Futures is not something just happening. Futures is something where I have a say in it. And not in a way like, I'm not sure what the English name of Pippi Langstrumpf is, Pippi, this children hero, because she says,

I create my world as I want to have it. It's not in this way either because of course there are limitations and it's not all in our hands but some things are. It is also not in all the other hands only.

Mike Jones (16:37)
yeah.

Is that Pippi Longstockings? Yeah, there we go. Yeah. No, that's cool. And you're right. I think there's a lot where sometimes when it feels, and I go back to feeling and actually is complex, but you know, for leaders perspective that things are complex, there's a lot of ambiguity around it. you can see that they feel done too.

Eva Tomas (16:42)
long stockings. I know it only in German, sorry.

Mike Jones (17:05)
rather than realizing what they can do to start to increase their choices. And this is where I think future is really useful because futures gives you that space to increase your choices rather than waiting to limit your choices because you now happen to react to circumstances that you've come to due to paralysis.

Eva Tomas (17:09)
Hmm.

Yes.

Yes, and the more you engage with this space of possibilities, as I like to call it, because it is a space, it is not a two-dimensional thing, the more comfortable you also feel within this ambiguous space. And the more you are engaging with this kind of thinking, the more it becomes clear to you also.

Mike Jones (17:38)
you

Eva Tomas (17:52)
that certainty is an illusion, an illusion created by us. and the more you realize about that, the more comfortable you feel with, okay, I don't know it all. I don't have all the data I might possibly need to take the right decision. But the task is also not to take the right decision, but to take the right decision in this moment.

Mike Jones (17:58)
Yes.

Eva Tomas (18:18)
And then only looking back, you will know

if it is, or even then not, you will know if it's right or wrong. So it is not about creating this certainty to put on a path which then is valid for the next 50 years, but to take step by step. And as you said, futures helps you to shed more light on the path ahead in order to have more comfort with this next step. It does not tell you what the 10th step will be. It is not about this. It is really about having a little bit more

space in taking decisions.

Mike Jones (18:53)
Yeah, and I keep advising on average, an executive team spends one hour a month at most, on anything that is considered outside of future. So one hour a month, out of all that, you got to think how...

How much are they missing? How much richness are they not seeing because they're so internally focused?

Eva Tomas (19:08)
Hmm.

Yes, and additionally, because the future gets more colorful the more people you bring in. Again, when you look at it from a complexity lens, complexity can be shown as all these little nodes super interconnected and there is no clear pathway. So when you are as an individual looking with your little possibility, you have to shed light on what is ahead, you maybe see one or two dots.

of all the hundreds which are there as a possible next connection. But when you bring in other people, they also shed the light on the same area and then suddenly you see five. And when you bring another person with another perspective, suddenly you see 25. And it opens up totally different new opportunities, but also threats. is never. This is for me a very important point. Futures is not only about seeing the good.

Mike Jones (19:41)
Mmm.

Eva Tomas (20:09)
It is about just looking because sometimes it is going into this direction to create the utopia and to create everything preferred. I'm a little bit cautious with those terms because then you always have to ask preferred for whom, utopia for whom and for whom not because it is never, never applicable to everybody. But the more people you bring in into these processes, the bigger the lighted

Mike Jones (20:24)
Yes, yeah,

Eva Tomas (20:37)
the enlightened area is and the more you can sense, okay, is this the direction we can go, we want to go, what would we need to go there or what do we already have that supports to go there? So participation is a big point for me. And this is sometimes I see in organizations that strategy is still very limited to a very certain type of people, which does not support

to see the opportunities and threats.

Mike Jones (21:07)
Yeah, totally right. it really is a, especially futures and strategy is a, is a social thing. It's a participatory thing. You know, it's, it's opened up those and listen to different perspectives. Um, but traditionally we, we tend to get locked in and go, right, we follow a process, you know, we write, um, the end of the year is coming. So we need new strategy, obviously, because that's what they do.

Eva Tomas (21:14)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Mike Jones (21:35)
So they'll go through, get all the data of the past. They'll start then making trends analysis normally. They'll maybe do a little benchmarking stuff, know, whatever's in vogue at the moment. Then they'll hurry to present something to the board, mainly on financial stuff. And then once the board's finally rubber stamped it, that's it. It's almost as if the strategy, everything is locked in.

Eva Tomas (21:37)
Hmm.

Mike Jones (21:59)
And no matter what is happening in the external environment or what's changing, that doesn't matter because they can't move away from the strategy that is being approved from above. Crazy.

Eva Tomas (22:10)
The interesting point

in that what I heard from several people throughout completely different organizations and levels and levels of experience, a lot of people say, yeah, we do strategy because you have to do strategy and we all know that the plan we are making is not really right, that it will never be right because you cannot predict the future.

Mike Jones (22:27)
Yeah

Eva Tomas (22:34)
But we anyway do it because they say, they, you know, they say, we have to do it. So lately I'm asking a lot this polemic question, why do you do even strategy? So do you really need it? For what you're needing it? What do you really do with it? Because I found also that this purpose, this why am I doing strategy? Is it because I need a planning for my financial resources, how I allocate them? And this is the primary reason.

Mike Jones (22:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eva Tomas (23:03)
Or if I say, I'm really, want to find a directionality for my complete organization. So I'm more long-term directionality without this specific goal. Then there is a completely different approach doing these two kinds of things. And both is in my, in my understanding and legit strategy. But so if you never ask this question, why am I doing something? Then you will not find the right means to do it because.

for making financial allocation, probably traditional tools are a very good support and a very good frame to do so because it has a very limited scope and you know enough data in order to do that. But if you are going a little bit more into innovation, into exploration, into directionality, adaptability, then probably you should...

engage with some other ways of thinking and doing. But a lot of organizations do not love this question, I have to admit here. So, it has to be very clear. is not so much.

Mike Jones (24:01)
Hmm. Yeah.

No, I can

imagine. Yeah, and I like your term. Well, I love that question. So I think just that question, why are we doing this? It's just unearth some interesting perspectives about where they see the state of the organization or their fit with the external environment and what their concerns, worries are about where they're going. And I also like the term directionality because

Eva Tomas (24:22)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Mike Jones (24:34)
As we say, strategy shouldn't be this fixed linear path. Strategy is a sense of we have, we understand our intent of what we're trying to do, but how we do that, we could probably definitely use futures, figured out the first few steps that make sense. And then that's that thing around, let's understand as we start to interact with the external environment, let's see what unfolds.

Eva Tomas (24:38)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Mike Jones (25:02)
what choices present themselves, what assumptions that we made are no longer true. And I think that's the true sort of relationship with strategy.

Eva Tomas (25:14)
Yeah, I think so too. I mean, you realize that already I'm using a lot of images and metaphors in my speaking because I found that when you speak in metaphors, people tend to understand you better because it's a different kind of understanding neurobiologically. So I like to take this picture of an emerging archipelago. So you have this...

Mike Jones (25:21)
Mm.

Yay.

Eva Tomas (25:38)
sea with the currents and with the winds and with the monsters and with the fish and then you have some islands here and there but these islands are also not super fixed or forever there but they are they are popping up and some others are broken down and this is the environment we are navigating as an organization it is not anymore this we have a stable ground and we build a road that's why I am

Mike Jones (25:51)
Mm-hmm.

Eva Tomas (26:05)
super on warpath with the word roadmap, because how you use a roadmap on open water. This is always my question. What do you do with the roadmap when you're out at the sea?

Mike Jones (26:10)
Hehehehe

Eva Tomas (26:16)
It doesn't really serve the purpose. And also this, because to navigate a ship is a different thing than to drive a car or to drive a bus. So, and I think this is the change we need to make throughout the organizations throughout.

Mike Jones (26:16)
yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (26:34)
all the levels to be comfortable being on a sailing ship that sometimes has an additional motor and sometimes not. We are sometimes just dependent on winds and currents and sometimes we have a say in where we are going. And I think this is a mind shift that is ongoing. So I perceive that there is a lot of

acknowledgement of this situation in the sense of, people realize that there is this, this uncertainty is maybe not a helpful word because also it encourages this feeling of it's going to get worse somehow. When it is not that, when it just says, okay, we don't know, we don't know if it's going to be better or worse. And I feel that it's just ongoing, this shift from driving the car

Mike Jones (27:16)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Eva Tomas (27:25)
to navigating the ship and eventually swimming sometimes.

Mike Jones (27:29)
Yeah, I'm really hoping to see good shifts in mindset or perspectives around this. I'm ex-military, I rest of my life realising that life is chaos, so, know, roll with it. And, you know, we get quite comfortable in that space. There's something you mentioned earlier about, people having this utopian look of futures.

But what I often also see is people having a dystopian view. And how do you advise leaders to avoid the dystopian trap?

Eva Tomas (27:54)
Yes.

So I fully agree that dystopian is even very widespread, at least in our Western world, because I mean, just have a look at any media. It is like doomsday, it's the black Monday for the stock markets and whatever. mean, it's really, we are, you feel that tomorrow maybe the sun is not going up anymore. And...

Mike Jones (28:11)
Yeah.

Eva Tomas (28:21)
I read a sentence in a German philosophy book the other day, which I found tremendously helpful because the author is an architectural philosopher, which I found already extremely brilliant. He's writing about democracy and the development of democracy. And he's stating, only a society that sets its horizon as an absolute can stand in front of the abyss.

Mike Jones (28:35)
There you go.

Eva Tomas (28:48)
And I think that is so true. So that means only when you have this fixed set goal, this fixed set idea that like this it needs to be, then you see that everything is going to get worse and awful because you don't see anything behind. But when you engage with futures and with this idea that the futures are a horizon and a landscape in itself, and they are

they are just always moving, then you understand that they will never be per se negative or positive. Because it just will be, they are not still. So they are developing and partly they are developing the way we are taking the decisions now. And when you understand this connection, somehow it makes you more hopeful. Which is interesting for me also, but...

Mike Jones (29:24)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (29:44)
Admittedly, I'm a futurist, I'm engaging also a lot with positive signals and this kind of thing. Still, sometimes I have to close the newspaper because, yeah, it is really not helpful. Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Jones (29:57)
It's not, especially at the moment. But you

bring a great point. You know, we used Conant-Ashby theorem Your ability to regulate the system is only good as the model you're using to regulate the system. And I think that comes true in that quote you said around actually is my model based on different perspectives, different opportunities, both, positive and also risks that we need to be aware of. Am I seeing

Eva Tomas (30:08)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Mike Jones (30:23)
have I got multiple futures present and I'm looking for what those signs are? Or is my model just fixed? And am I just going off a fixed roadmap and then consciously or unconsciously disregarding anything that is different to what my belief is, which I think the latter is definitely not a good place for leaders to be in.

Eva Tomas (30:30)
Hmm.

Exactly, because looking a little bit broader, societal on this topic, when we set the life we are living now as the absolute good, then probably it can only get worse. But who says that the way we are living now is the absolute good? Because we don't know what is coming, maybe it's getting better. Because we don't have a definition for this. And I think...

Mike Jones (31:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (31:11)
For organization, it's a similar kind of question. But what I also found, and I discussed it the other day with someone working with farms, and I found that a very interesting perspective. A farm cannot focus solely on the customer because they are so embedded in an ecosystem that directing all processes towards the client just does not work.

Mike Jones (31:36)
Yeah, yeah.

Eva Tomas (31:36)
I

think this is also an idea supported by complexity and future thinking that needs to be embraced by organizations in other industrial sectors as well. That you are not early on directing so much but leaving a little bit space for that the things can converge on their own.

Mike Jones (31:56)
I like that. What advice would you give to leaders now that they're listening to how to start to engage in futures in a more effective, positive way?

Eva Tomas (32:05)
So I think to start with future thinking in an organization, it's extremely valuable to bring an outside perspective, to bring this impulse to open up windows where the people inside the organization may have seen only wars. But on the midterm, because when you have this impulse and when you engage with these ideas of the multiplicity and okay, everyone has their own lens to see that,

Mike Jones (32:21)
Hmm.

Eva Tomas (32:33)
then you can establish within the organization these kind of processes, maybe to look on your own for signals of change, to see, what is changing? What is shifting? And not only with a profit mindset in the sense of, okay, where does my business model fit in in these changes? Because this is why most organizations engage with trends, don't they? And as said earlier on,

And the more you are engaging with this headspace of space of possibility, multiplicity, non-linearity, the more comfort you get. And the more comfortable you are with uncertain decisions with this, okay, let's take the next step, the next and the next. And I know a directionality because I engage with what I want to see and what I would like to see in what is yet to come.

and to take the step into this direction.

Mike Jones (33:29)
Hmm. Yes, that's great. And you know, bringing that outside person in, often call them the, I call them the beautiful idiot. And the reason why I say this is probably not the best term is that because they are not in the system, they will ask the most obvious and simple questions. But it's often those ones that we miss and we...

Eva Tomas (33:46)
Yes.

Yes.

Mike Jones (33:57)
unconsciously just ignore thinking that we just assume, I think we've just looked at it, where they will actually ask these questions. why do you, back to your point earlier, why are we even doing this strategy? You know, it's, it's a very uncomfortable, but simple question. And I think that's what they, bring really well. And I like your idea around just looking for these, these, these different signals, different changes and seeing where

Eva Tomas (34:10)
Yes.

Mike Jones (34:24)
you know, even playing around with the idea around if this happens and this happens, what could that do?

Eva Tomas (34:25)
Yes.

Hmm. Or even,

an exercise I just used in a group of teachers actually, I, because there is this amazing AI tools out there. And so I am currently playing around a lot with the Sora tool of open AI. And in general, people are doing memes with them that are hilariously, but for future's purposes, these tools are awesome because what I did is I created an image.

of a possible future scenario in the town I was holding the workshop in. And I brought this image to the workshop and we just started with the question, what do you see when you look at this image? And then the second question is, and what don't you see? What is missing? What would you want to see? And then, because this simple exercise is surfacing so much on

Mike Jones (35:08)
Mmm.

Eva Tomas (35:22)
what narratives and what ideas and what paths we are bringing to the table when engaging with Futures. And it's extremely valuable also as a team exercise. It does not even need to be necessarily incorporated in the strategy process. It can be a single standing exercise just to engage with this multiplicity and with this multiplicity of views and this surfacing of narratives and idea we carry.

which do not necessarily will be present in the yet to come. They are now here, but if we carry them forward or not, it's another thing. So this is a really easy going starting point.

Mike Jones (36:00)
Yeah.

And I recommend anyone, any leader listening to try that with their team. And I saw you post that the other day on LinkedIn. Yes, yes. And I think it's fantastic because especially as leaders, we just assume a lot. We just make assumptions a lot about what other people are thinking. But really what we're trying to do is get what's implicitly held for someone.

Eva Tomas (36:10)
Yes, yes, you can go to the link in the description.

Hmm.

Mike Jones (36:27)
try and get that explicit because the more we get explicit, the more understandable it is. And then we can minimize a lot of the friction around misinformation transfer. Like be curious about, so, you know, that question, what did you want to see? And, you know, try and understand what is it about that that you want to see? How is that going to be helpful for you? I think these questions really start to surface and really

Eva Tomas (36:32)
Hmm.

Yes.

Mike Jones (36:52)
good insights to exactly what you're saying, what stuff we're carrying, what are we going to take in the future? How am I seeing it?

Eva Tomas (36:56)
Yeah.

What the experience with this exercise shows is because the pictures themselves, they are neutral. They just show something, you know? And one of the first questions I'm usually asking you, so how does the picture make, the image makes you feel? Because we automatically engage with it in the sense, for me nowadays, a lot of people react dystopian like...

Mike Jones (37:09)
Mm.

Eva Tomas (37:25)
Nah, negative. Yeah, but why? Why? Okay, there's a robot. Okay, robot is a robot inherently negative. Is it necessarily a negative thing that there is a robot? It's really interesting.

Mike Jones (37:28)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah

Yeah, it is in their belief that a robot's going to take over the world and make us all slaves. But, you know, that's, and I think it comes back to that dystopian view. It's, it's the, it's the beliefs that we have. And just because we believe them to be true, doesn't necessarily mean they're true in reality. And we can, we can challenge those. think that's fantastic. What, what

Eva Tomas (37:54)
Hmm.

Thank you.

I think that's

very valuable within an organization also when it comes to innovation and to inventing or coming up with new business models, because a lot of times also it's the beliefs we carry that keep us from making this step to innovating and to make a new product or a new service.

Mike Jones (38:26)
Yes. Yeah. And you hear that all the time. when we're doing any sort of change, there's that resistance, but the resistance is due to a belief. And I think taking that time to, to unearth that and realize, you know, what, what, what, are you seeing? What, what is concerning you? I think that's really good, especially trying to get people to, move forward in the future and not be too guarded.

Eva Tomas (38:34)
Hmm.

Yes.

Mike Jones (38:50)
because we've to be start to get safe. What stuff are you starting to see that is quite positive in sort of the landscape futures?

Eva Tomas (38:58)
So what positive signals or changes I'm seeing.

Mike Jones (39:03)
Yes.

Eva Tomas (39:04)
Actually, last year I did a workshop with a colleague of mine only on positive signals and it was super difficult to find them. Because that made me realize also that this with the lenses, although I'm aware of it, it does not mean that I don't have them, you know. But what I do see positively now is

Mike Jones (39:12)
Okay.

Yeah.

Eva Tomas (39:30)
that I work also with youth. And for example, young people, do see technology as positive as enabling widely, but they carry a deep value for human interaction and like jobs and roles they see inherently human. So these doomsday narrative we have that the next generations, they are only in the metaverse and they do not

Mike Jones (39:56)
Hmm.

Eva Tomas (39:56)
talk to

each other anymore and whatever. I did not find that true with the groups I work with, which gives me a lot of hope for humanity that we are maybe able again to relate better than we do these days. In the technology realm, I have to say all the signals you see, are neither that nor that.

Technology itself is not inherently negative or positive, it's what we do with it. Although I'm missing a little bit this dialogue, should we do what we can do? This is a little bit this ethically aspect. I'm especially in AI, or have you seen this notice that they are cloning the extinct wolf? This kind of things where I'm...

Mike Jones (40:39)
Yes, I've just seen yeah, I that. Yeah. Yeah.

Eva Tomas (40:43)
You know, I just recently seen Jurassic Park and you're thinking like, hey, do we really need it? So in the realm of climate change and ecology, there is a lot of positive news. There is news that rewildering is taking place. Animals get bigger population again, also in urban spaces, because the people realize that we are cohabitants and not we rule the world.

Mike Jones (40:46)
Hahaha

Eva Tomas (41:11)
So in this space I see positive signals, but in general I said I'm not a utopian, I do not see the future as inherently negative or positive. And I think that already helps to move out of the dystopian. Everything is going bust and tomorrow there will not be some kind of thinking.

Mike Jones (41:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's great advice for any sort of leaders or strategists is the fact that, when you're looking at the future, so you're looking at anything, there is always going to be a positive or a negative. And back to your point that you made earlier, in a sense, is good for whom? Yeah, and I think that's a really good distinction to make that, yes, there's positive and negative everything, there's opportunities, there's threats with everything.

Eva Tomas (41:51)
Exactly.

Mike Jones (41:59)
But then we've got to understand from whose perspective are we looking at to say that's positive, because there will be different people in there that are affected in different ways.

Eva Tomas (42:03)
Yes.

This great question in any workshop situation, who is in the room and who is not and why not?

Mike Jones (42:16)
Yes, yeah,

And it's understanding like whose voice should be heard. Yeah, so I think that's great question to do. I've really enjoyed the conversation with you today and exploring futures. And I think we definitely looked at some ways that, definitely dispel some myths about futures and what it is.

Eva Tomas (42:23)
Yes.

to.

Mike Jones (42:37)
being balanced throughout that and also a few things and what leaders can do. I'll, I'll link your Banyan model to the show notes. So people can have a look at that. And I recommend that they look at it because it's a great model to bring the not only the future, but all understand, path to dependancy of the past. But if you could leave leaders with one thing to, to think about from today, what would that be?

Eva Tomas (42:42)
Hmm.

What future do you want? This is a question we hardly ever ask ourselves, in the private nor in the organizational. So what futures do you want?

Mike Jones (43:03)
Hahaha.

Do you know, just on reflections, and it's really apt that your organisation is called Simple Thinking because your questions and the way you put them concisely, I just think are beautifully simple.

Eva Tomas (43:25)
Thank you.

Mike Jones (43:26)
And yeah, and I think they really are beautifully simple in the way that it just gets you to stop. It almost, almost hits you in the face and think, wow, okay, I need to stop and think about, about that, cause they are simple, but uncomfortable.

Eva Tomas (43:41)
The goal is to make people stop in the hamster wheel and just look out a tiny little bit. They don't need to step out. I'm not saying everybody should step out of the hamster wheel. But now and then to just, you know, peek a little bit what else there is. I think it's a good thing. And especially, this is my very personal opinion.

in the times we are living with this technological progress and what AI can do already and will be able to do very, very soon. The way we humans think is still a very high asset and still the technology cannot do it in the way we can. So we should really take the time to foster it and to engage with what we are able to do.

And we also let it flourish and let it grow instead of just not think and just take whatever screen is telling us.

Mike Jones (44:35)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's an easy trap to do with AI, is because it's so easy to give it, give you answers, but don't, don't look to things like AI to give you the answers. Use it to support you to find information, to challenge your assumptions, not give you the answers. And I love that your thing around, you know, what future do you want? Because it's quite easy for us to just get zoned in, like you said, and just look in this narrow path. And then,

Eva Tomas (45:06)
way

Mike Jones (45:10)
we take some time or something happens and we're forced to sit back and go, wow, how am I here? I wanted to be over there, but now I'm over here. that, the energy to get from where you wanted to be to where you are is far more than, taking the time to, like you said, get off your hamster wheel, peek out and, keep yourself, directionality, keep yourself on that sort of track.

Eva Tomas (45:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (45:35)
And thank you so much, Eva, for joining us. I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I hope you enjoyed your time on the podcast.

Eva Tomas (45:40)
of the pleasure.

Yes,

yes, I enjoyed tremendously and as said, love the title because this reality hit, I think a lot of organizations faced it. And thank you for inviting me and thank you for having me.

Mike Jones (45:56)
Cool.

No, it's a pleasure. Thank you. Take care.

Eva Tomas (45:59)
Thank you.

You too, bye.