There are many types of futurists, and they promise many different things. Here's how I see it: futurists don't predict the future. We help organizations challenge their assumptions, identify possible futures, and understand what those futures could mean for them and the people they serve.

Most organizations think about the next quarter or the next year — three to five years at most. Futurists help them look 10, 20, even 100 years out. Consider a hospital: if we invest billions of dollars today in a new building, it will stand for decades. How will people use it 50 years from now? The same question applies to our stores, our cities, our bridges, even our nations.

Above all, futurists help people see that the future isn't something that happens to us. We are all participants in shaping it — from entry-level employees to the boardroom.

I consider myself an applied futurist. Futures thinking is a field of study, a mindset, and a practical tool organizations can use to continuously improve their quality. Foresight makes strategy — wherever it happens within an organization — more robust by challenging assumptions and expanding the organization's creative box.

At its heart, my approach is about asking questions. I listen carefully, then ask deeper questions that explore tangents people may have avoided or been afraid to explore — peeling away layers of assumptions, denial, and fear, like the layers of an onion. Even the most successful organizations can get stuck, paralyzed by the future. Good questions get them moving again.

It's also about systems thinking. We depend on systems — energy, supply chains, finance — and assume they'll keep running without interruption. I help people understand that systems can change, can be disrupted, and can be reshaped into new systems.

I don't walk into an organization expecting to have all the answers. I work with very smart people. What I bring is the unexpected — the things they aren't already thinking about.

The CEO, president, or owner of any organization is its chief strategist. Foresight helps that person, and the people they work with, make their strategy more effective. My communications career is grounded in corporate and marketing strategy, so the first question I ask is: how does foresight align with this organization's strategy?

Foresight brings new light, color, and texture to traditional strategy. It's a creative process that brings stories and imagination into planning and helps organizations see what they can't see on their own. It challenges them to think beyond the annual business plan and budget they have to justify to their stakeholders every year.

Every day, we make choices based on quality. We choose a car, a restaurant, or a service provider for its quality. We seek advice from people based on the quality of their expertise, experience, and wisdom. We all want a good quality of life.

All people — even the most desperate — seek to improve their lives, now and in the future. So do organizations, communities, and nations.

There are all kinds of futures: possible, plausible, desirable, even wild and impossible ones. Quality is the modifier. A quality future is one we work toward every day through the choices we make.

That's why I see foresight as a continuous process of quality improvement. We don't use futures thinking simply to predict what's next. We use it to improve the quality of the organization — including building and maintaining bridges to futures that will enhance it.

It starts with the image of a bridge. Many organizations today feel stuck, dealing with crisis after crisis — what some call the polycrisis. I call this Present-paralysis. My work is to help them cross from where they are to a Quality Future by building a bridge from the present to the future. Sometimes it takes several bridges, because an organization may be facing several gaps or obstacles at once. That bridge rests on four pillars:

•    See the future. Recognize the signals of change. For example, solar power has become remarkably cheap. That's a signal — one suggesting solar could someday become a primary source of energy for factories, stores, and much more.

•    Sense the future. Make sense of those signals together. What do they mean for me, for my organization, for my community, for my nation? This is a participatory process.

•    Speak to the future. Create and share stories of the future — possibilities and scenarios — and explore the implications of each. Which future do we prefer, and why?

•    Start acting on the future. Thinking and storytelling alone won't move the needle. Action is what creates continuous quality.

The longer the time horizon, the more spans the bridge needs. The more demanding the issue, the more reinforcement it needs. And every bridge is built on trust. We use foresight to strengthen strategy, which lets us build stronger, longer bridges into the future.

My surname, in French, means "of the bridge." I feel called to help organizations bridge to the future — to move from where they are now toward possible futures.

There are more than 623,000 bridges in the United States. You can't travel across the country — or across town — without crossing one. We build bridges to overcome gaps, like river valleys, and obstacles, like highways and railroad tracks. They connect communities and people, and they move people and goods from one place to another.

On a road trip, you might cross dozens of bridges in a day, and you trust every one of them to carry you (walking, biking or driving in a vehicle). Why? Because you know they engineered and built by people who designed them to stand the test of time. That's what I try to do as a futurist: build bridges to the future that people can trust.

But bridges aren't only physical. They are connections of understanding between people, communities, cultures, and generations — and between the past, present, and future. We build bridges of trust into our financial systems, our water systems, and our communities through good communication and collaboration.

Like most people, I'm both scared and hopeful about the future. The present can be scary, too — especially when leaders give little thought to how their decisions might affect us now, or into the future.

If you believe in quality improvement, you understand that we must confront the future in the present. When we confront disruptions, challenges, and opportunities head-on, we take the fear out of the conversation. Then we can talk constructively: What's possible? What can we do with what we have now? What could we do if we invested more, or more wisely? Futurists point out the implications of decisions and help organizations understand their options, so they can place better bets on the future.

I believe in hope and in creating a kinder, more peaceful world, but I'm a pragmatist at heart. I believe every person should become literate in futures thinking — just as we're taught to study history — and every government and organization should embrace foresight. I think of the future as a gift we leave for future generations. We aren't bystanders waiting for things to happen to us; we're active participants in creating new realities. Remember: making no decision is a decision. Together, we can bend the arc of the future toward a better future for all.

Based on my experience, leaders worry about different things at different times. Here's what I — and many of the futurists I speak with — are hearing most often today:

•    AI. A few years ago, the worry was whether AI would replace jobs. Now people are also asking how AI might affect humanity itself. Nearly one in five U.S. high school students say they or someone they know has had a romantic relationship with AI, and many people now turn to chatbots for therapy — not always with good results.

•    The workplace. How do we bring people back together, collaborate across different work arrangements, and harness human creativity and teamwork?

•    The economy. Borrowing costs, energy costs, tariffs, supply chains, and war — and whether our economy will support the average family in the years to come. Many in Gen Z are already asking whether it's worth starting a family, and Gen Alpha may soon ask the same.

•    Energy and climate. Where will the energy to light and heat our homes, power our cars, and run our businesses come from — and at what cost?

•    Polarization. Continued political division, including worries about offending various stakeholder groups.

AI will dominate the conversation for years to come. But futurists look beyond the next few years to the next 10 or 20. After one of my presentations, a Lutheran bishop called me about something I'd said on AI and androids. I told him there may be a future in which he's asked to bless a marriage between a human and an android. How would he handle it? It's coming.

Based on my experience, leaders worry about different things at different times. Here's what I — and many of the futurists I speak with — are hearing most often today:

•    AI. A few years ago, the worry was whether AI would replace jobs. Now people are also asking how AI might affect humanity itself. Nearly one in five U.S. high school students say they or someone they know has had a romantic relationship with AI, and many people now turn to chatbots for therapy — not always with good results.

•    The workplace. How do we bring people back together, collaborate across different work arrangements, and harness human creativity and teamwork?

•    The economy. Borrowing costs, energy costs, tariffs, supply chains, and war — and whether our economy will support the average family in the years to come. Many in Gen Z are already asking whether it's worth starting a family, and Gen Alpha may soon ask the same.

•    Energy and climate. Where will the energy to light and heat our homes, power our cars, and run our businesses come from — and at what cost?

•    Polarization. Continued political division, including worries about offending various stakeholder groups.

AI will dominate the conversation for years to come. But futurists look beyond the next few years to the next 10 or 20. After one of my presentations, a Lutheran bishop called me about something I'd said on AI and androids. I told him there may be a future in which he's asked to bless a marriage between a human and an android. How would he handle it? It's coming.