Into the great unknown

H.B. and Carol Gelatt recommend keeping options open. Picture / Richard Robinson

Accepting uncertainty as a positive part of life is one of the cornerstones to creative decision-making, according to author, speaker and futurist H.B. Gelatt.

"If you always know where you're going, you'll never end up somewhere else. Yet somewhere else is maybe where you want to be, but you never knew it," he says.

This kind of paradoxical statement peppers the work of Gelatt, who has worked in the United States for 40 years in the field of creative decision-making.

He says being creative with decision-making and positive about uncertainty are essential skills for the 21st century, because our rapidly changing world requires people with flexibility who are open to future possibilities. He describes change, whether positive or negative, as the one constant in the world today.

Gelatt and his wife Carol were in Auckland recently to run a workshop for the Career Practitioners Association of New Zealand based on the strategies in their book Creative Decision-Making Using Positive Uncertainty.

Gelatt is a metaphor man; he loves metaphors and uses them regularly in his work to encourage people to think creatively about their futures and become more self-aware. He describes life as like a metaphor: "Sometimes you can understand it, sometimes you can't. In many cases it appears there must be more learning to it and the more you think about it, the more you understand it," he explains.

A favourite metaphor exercise used by Gelatt looks at four metaphors that describe life. You choose the one that best suits you, then explain your choice and why the others weren't suitable for you.

The four metaphors are of:

* a roller coaster

* a mighty river

* a great ocean

* a colossal dice game

It is a fascinating exercise that highlights your expectations and how you view your career or role in the world. Gelatt then encourages people to write their own metaphor.

"The image of having a future is the most important factor in determining what your future is going to be," he declares, adding that people's metaphors will change as the situations change.

Creative decision-making is all about intuition, imagination, flexibility and reflection, he says, and these skills are not necessarily taught at high school. As a result he feels students become too focused on pinpointing a future career.

"If you're too focused you fail to see other opportunities."

Think of the people you know in careers they love that they stumbled into rather than chose when bemused adolescent high school graduates.

"Changing your mind may be as important as making it up."

Rational decision-making has its place, says Gelatt, but humans have limited rationality so decision-makers cannot possibly consider all the alternatives and consequences.

"We do not have the cognitive capability [brainpower] to process it all rationally and rapidly. However, we do have unlimited creativity."

Less focus, more uncertainty and creativity. This talk can make people feel very insecure or fearful at a time when they wish to make decisions that will remove uncertainty.

This future phobia, as the Gelatts label it, comes from dread of the unknown and fear of the future.

"It is a normal experience to feel fearful but don't let that drive your decision-making. Accept that uncertainty is real and a positive part of your decision-making. Don't be an optimist or a pessimist but a possibilist," says Gelatt.

Carol Gelatt says some people get stuck because they fear the idea of pursuing something that might come to nothing and decide it is easier to take a safe and predictable course.

"But if you don't open up your mind to other possibilities, you never find them," she says.

Other people make decisions on the basis that it is better to quickly reach a decision in order to get rid of uncertainty and get on with life. In doing so they may limit their future, says Carol Gelatt, who has a background in career development, coaching and recruitment, including a stint as a managing director of DBM Recruitment.

"Making a decision should be based on thinking about possibilities. You need lots of ideas to get a great idea. I often use the analogy of a funnel. You feed all sorts of things into the funnel that eventually sift out the other end."

Gathering information for the funnel may include talking to other people, reading, researching the net, volunteering or informational interviewing.

Filling the funnel is low-risk but widens your horizons, your possibilities, says Carol Gelatt. "And you never know what you might end up with."

Goals are set - to experiment and explore for a few weeks or months or years; a decision doesn't have to be made instantly.

By widening the possibilities you end up with a very strong idea of what you do want and a rationale for what you're doing, says Carol Gelatt.

She says it also becomes very useful when taking the next step of job applications and interviews, because you have a very strong idea of yourself and why you're choosing this path.

If the idea of becoming more open to uncertainty sounds daunting or out of character for you, Carol Gelatt suggests starting with the small day-to-day choices you make.

"Ask yourself, from time to time, am I learning something new? Am I exposing myself to other ways of seeing things? Talking to people about other ideas? It is about creating a wide-angled view of the world."

One way that helps people consider other possible actions and outcomes is by creating what the Gelatts call an outcomes window. With every issue requiring decision-making, they suggest the decision-maker divides a page in four under the headings Short Term Positive, Short Term Negative, Long Term Positive and Long Term Negative.

The idea is to write all the options you can possibly think of into each section, as fantastical as they may be.

"With each heading repeatedly ask yourself; 'What else could I do and what else could happen?"' says H.B. Gelatt.

He suggests other family and friends fill one in for you as well.

Other pitfalls to creative decision-making, according to the Gelatts, are info-mania (drowning in an obsession for knowledge that paralyses your decision-making) perspective paralysis (clinging on to concrete convictions that don't allow other possibilities) and reverse paranoia (wanting to be led).

If you are now wondering whether you are capable of embracing creative decision-making, take a moment to do this exercise.

Write down five important events in your life. Don't spend too much time thinking about it. Now, how many of those events were in the past 20 years? How many in the past five to 10 years? How many were recent? How many were in the future?

Most people, according to H.B. Gelatt, will write down events that have happened in the past, rather than those that they hope or expect to happen in the future. But thinking creatively about future possibilities opens up your future far more than following a rational plotted path.

"It is exciting to start thinking about possibilities and hopes and dreams, not look back at your past. How do you know your past is going to be better than your future?"

The ride of your life

Which metaphor fits you?

ROLLER COASTER

The future is a great roller coaster. It twists ahead of us in the dark, although we can only see each part as we come to it. We can sometimes see around the bend but the future is fixed and determined. We are locked in our seats and nothing we may know or do will change the course that is laid out for us.

MIGHTY RIVER

The future is a mighty river. The great force of history flows along, carrying us with it. Its course can be changed but only by natural disasters, like earthquakes and landslides, or by concerted human efforts on a similar scale. However, we are free as individuals to adapt to the course of history, either well or poorly. By looking ahead, we can avoid sandbars and whirlpools and pick the best path through any rapids.

GREAT OCEAN

The future is a great ocean. There are many possible destinations, and many different paths to each destination. By taking advantage of the main currents of change, keeping a sharp lookout posted, and moving carefully in uncharted waters, a good navigator can get safely to the charted destination, barring a typhoon or other disaster that cannot be predicted or avoided.

COLOSSAL DICE GAME

The future is entirely random, a colossal dice game. Every second, things happen that could have happened another way to produce another future. Since everything is chance, all we can do is play the game, pray to the gods of fortune and enjoy what good luck comes our way.

Supplied by HB Gelatt