Are you dissatisfied with the degree of support within your organization?
Are things seeming splintered and polarized, making it hard to bring people together?
Do you find yourself wrestling with opposition to what you are trying to do?
Does it feel like your community is falling apart?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, there are various ways to address the situation. Some try questionnaires to get input and “take the temperature” of your people. Others try “coffee with the CEO” or similar attempts to have informal conversations. Still others may use a series of focus groups with stakeholders to gauge the issues they care about.
All of these can be helpful, but they leave out the all-important, often neglected, chance for stakeholders to talk with one another. Without this facet, stakeholders are left in their silos, seeing only their part of the situation, their part of the system. And the input they give you, no matter the method, is limited by this myopia – it leaves you, the leader, as the only one with a view of the entire situation, having to then balance and prioritize all the data you get from stakeholders, plus your own view.
Future Search is a powerful, dynamic, task-oriented process that brings together key community stakeholder groups, in the same room at the same time, to:
- discover common ground and build a compelling and shared vision of the future
- identify priorities and create concrete action plans that everyone agrees upon
- encourage self-management and accountability for actions now and in the future
Would you like to learn more about how Future Search can help bring people together to pull in the same direction?
On June 26 in Philadelphia, I will be facilitating a highly-interactive introductory Future Search workshop that will give you an opportunity to not only learn more about Future Search but also to experience parts of the process. Here’s a flyer for the workshop: Future Search Wkshop
What do leaders say about Future Search?
The Future Search process was recently highlighted in an article in the Spring 2025 issue of the AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice titled, Community Engagement Using Future Search: A Systematic Assessment of the Wisconsin Experience. This research reports on interviews of 19 school district superintendents who utilized Future Search to engage their communities. The qualitative data from the interviews provide rich support for the use of Future Search in bringing communities together behind their schools: 100% of the superintendents recommended it to their peers. Although this study focused on school districts, the results apply to organizations of all types.
If you are looking for ways to engage the community or bring your organization together, don’t pass up the opportunity to learn more at the workshop on June 26. If you are unable to attend the workshop, I would be happy to discuss how Future Search can benefit your community or organization. As one of the authors of the article and a witness to the effectiveness of Future Search in these Wisconsin districts, I highly recommend it.
I’m available to answer any questions you might have about the article, Future Search, or the workshop on June 26. Use the Contact form here.