Being prepared for possible futures is a feature of agile, future-fit organizations. If one of those possible future scenarios is the decline or collapse of the status quo (alongside other scenarios like business-as-usual, incremental/limits-and-discipline, or transformational change) – how do you prepare?
As discussed in my earlier post, decline is a taboo in the narrative of progress that underlies our status quo. However, future-oriented people and organizations consider all possibilities…
Creating scenarios for decline is not easy. Patricia Lustig and Gill Ringland wrote a book on how we can make better decisions in a fractured world, in their book The Possibility Wheel. They acknowledge the progress that our current system facilitated, but also how it is bumping against limits: “The last two centuries of economic growth mean that billions are no longer poor. People live longer and their lives are far healthier. It is now becoming clear that this phase of economic growth is coming to an end as we bump up against the physical limits of our planet.”
Decline as an option
It can be hard to wrap your head around possible decline when you’re used to progress and its narrative.
“The world has coped with the disruptive effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic damage of financial systems failure, the tragedy of conflicts, the impact of volatile energy prices and inflation. People are encountering disruptive changes and threats in a way that most have not experienced in their lifetimes. (…) We observed that many people are struggling to make decisions in this time of extreme disruption.”
Disruptive change is disorienting for us as social animals with habits. In general, we like the certainty of what we did yesterday and we like to do what others are doing. We are not used to a decline – at least, most of us professionals in the developed world are not.
But a futures mindset means considering all options. By the way, don’t judge collapse or decline as conspiracy thinking or exaggeration. It is a real option with a scientific basis.
Futurology professor emeritus Jim Dator researched four archetypical scenarios for possible futures: both positive and negative. A decline scenario is just one of the options, as I describe in this post.
As life happens in cycles, the X-curve is a reality for all systems. Ways of living emerge and go down again in an endless adaptive cycle. See my post about the X-curve and the roles needed for transformational change. This post includes the roles that help the old system decline or die.
Mitigation or adaptation?
So, a collapse of the current systems is an option. How do we prepare for that scenario? Regarding climate change, we can discern the terms mitigation and adaptation.
Mitigation is the act of avoiding or reducing how harmful, unpleasant, or bad a certain threat or negative scenario will be. It’s changing what you can – what is still under your control.
Adaptation is the process of preparing for different conditions once the impact of the threat has happened. This means accepting what you cannot change (accepting that the threat will possibly happen) and adapting to these expected circumstances as best you can.
Of course, we can’t predict the future. We are working with uncertainty and possibility. That’s why people cherish different opinions: is decline inevitable? Yes? Should we accept the fact and adapt? No? Then there’s still hope for mitigation and averting the worst impacts of climate change – if we do more about sustainability, etc.
It seems that more and more people are starting to change their minds about what is (still) possible. One survey in 27 countries found that confidence in the future is weak, especially in the richest societies. To the question of whether “children will be better off financially than their parents when they’re adults”, in only 2 of 18 economically advanced countries did a majority agree. This has changed dramatically from over ten years ago when there was widespread belief in the future being economically better than the present. Often climate change is cited as a reason for negative views of the future.
And it’s not just ordinary people. CEOs might be aware that they need to anticipate, prepare, and change as well. 45% of CEOs doubt that their company will be viable in 10 years or less if they continue on their current path. (PWC’s annual global CEO survey 2024)
Regardless of your standpoint, including this decline scenario in your Foresight & futures work is a must. Though taboos evoke resistance, let’s look this taboo in the eye. A taboo is limiting possibilities and thinking, while we should think about all options to make ourselves and our organizations resilient.
Questions for adaptation
That’s why former professor and sustainability expert Jem Bendell’s work on Deep Adaptation is relevant for organizations as well – though many judge it too extreme – especially for the organizational context.
Some management consultants may prefer to speak of a polycrisis of ongoing disruption, rather than the unfolding collapse of industrial consumer societies – but an opening has appeared, says Bendell in his blog.
“The conversation begins with a discussion of climate chaos. That is because climate change is one of the major drivers of current and growing disruption to the operation of organizations around the world, whether directly through extreme weather or indirectly through impacts on supply chains and financial systems,” says Bendell.
In organizations, the functions of risk management, business continuity, estate management, and health and safety often take the lead in preparing and adapting to possible risks. These are often limited in scope and have a technical or legal perspective. But there will also be societal disruptions that arise from climate chaos. These can include impacts on food prices and availability – with implications for wellbeing, attitudes, and crime – or on the outbreak of disease, or on mental health.
In addition, argues Bendell, prioritizing the needs of an organization rather than its staff, their families, and the wider community, is questionable.
Bendell’s Deep Adaptation framework aims to reduce harm as societies break down. Five questions help communities and individuals explore how to anticipate and prepare:
Resilience – what is it we most value and want to keep?
Relinquishment – what can we let go of not to make matters worse?
Restoration – what could we bring back to help?
Reconciliation – with what or whom can I make peace, in the face of our common mortality?
Reclamation – what power could we collectively reclaim to reduce harm and improve possibilities?
Answering these questions by yourself (journaling) or with a small group is a great exercise to help with your futures thinking while experiencing going down the X-curve.
Is your organization ready?
But it is also interesting for organizations. In his blog article, Bendell suggests questions such as:
- What if societal disruptions will worsen for more than a generation and we explore the implications?
- If this organization might not exist in five years, how could we help each other for a difficult future, while together now?
- What products and services could we offer that will help people cope better, or even thrive, as industrial consumer societies break down?
You might also consider more questions like:
- What if the world no longer needs your company, or sees your organization as relevant?
- If your organization goes out of business in five year’s time – what would have caused this?
Imagine working with your team on these questions. You probably feel the discomfort of the taboo right away. You might be seen as negative, unprofessional, a doomster, and worse.
My advice is not to ask these questions unprepared in the next regular meeting – but to keep them in the back of your mind for future Foresight & Strategy sessions while you start looking for like-minded colleagues who you can discuss this with.
Collaborate with like-minded colleagues to assess your organization’s readiness for thinking and working with scenarios outside of the business-as-usual mindset.
A big part of that assessment is checking your organization’s (learning) culture:
Are we open-minded to new ideas?
Are we willing to try new things?
Are we used to thinking out of the box?
How safe is our culture: can we share ideas, questions, emotions, doubts, mistakes, vulnerabilities – without sanctions like negative judgments, losing face, being ridiculed or excluded?
Do we appreciate learning or experimenting?
Can we reframe “mistakes” as “learning opportunities”?
Do we have time and space to think (assess the workload for dealing with these questions at this point)?
Another part of that assessment is checking your organization’s level of education on futures thinking and on the polycrisis:
Do you need to present more information about scenarios first? Or facts about the polycrisis and challenges for your organization?
How can you avoid an endless discussion about whether or not climate change and other crises are this bad? The point is to explore scenarios – not to initiate a fight about “the truth”.
With this information, decide on what is needed to prepare your organization for considering multiple future scenarios, including the taboo scenario of decline.
A taboo is limiting possibilities and thinking and that is dangerous. We should think about all options to make ourselves and our organizations resilient. A future-fit organization deals courageously with taboos.
Further reading: the book “Breaking Together” – by Jem Bendell
© Marcella Bremer, 2025
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