The Ultimate Blueprint for 21st Century Relevance: Volume II, Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty

San Francisco, December 19th 2022 - The 2022 Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year is “Permacrisis”, a word describing an extended period of instability. This choice reinforces the emerging realization that the world is not linear, stable or predictable.

Concerned? Surprised? Wondering how to build resilience? Seeking opportunities from these changes?

"We founded the Disruptive Futures Institute many years ago precisely because disruption is no longer merely a single or recurring event, but a steady state, expanding its impact. Given the overwhelming interest in our work which investigates systemic disruption, we just launched The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption, a four-volume series of comprehensive guidebooks to help us make sense of our complex, nonlinear, and unpredictable world."

- Roger Spitz, Author of The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption

Today, the Disruptive Futures Institute releases Volume II - “Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty” - which draws from Techistential’s foresight strategy practice to help entrepreneurs, organizations, and policymakers interpret weak signals and deconstruct drivers of disruption to prepare for and capitalize on deeply uncertain times.

Disruption is neither new nor necessarily bad; it is simply accelerating. The world’s fundamental paradigms are increasingly changing. Despite this, our organizations, governance and incentive structures are not updating for resiliency.?

Many of us continue to rely on flawed assumptions, assuming that the world is predictable, linear, and controllable. But the cost and missed opportunities from these wrong assumptions is increasing.

Volume II - “Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty” provides accessible resources and practical applications to help you peel off the more certain layers, and deconstruct the uncertain changes, to enable effective decision-making, impactful value creation, and true innovation despite the unpredictability.

Filled to the Brim with Invaluable Toolkits & Frameworks

Some of us can’t resist future-savvy frameworks and toolkits (and you know who you are!). Others are starting to realize that they need new approaches, responses, and tools for disruption and uncertainty. If you are wondering where to find dozens of field-ready frameworks to help spot and leverage opportunities arising from disruption, this is the Guidebook for you.

Being AAA+: The Ultimate Framework for 21st Century Relevance

The first part of this volume explores Being AAA+ as the ultimate framework for 21st century relevance:

• Agency to Become AAA+: Disruption is certain and omnipresent; it constantly creates more agency and possibilities. Maintaining relevance requires constant reframing, ideating, prototyping, and testing our choices.
• Aligning Values & Ethics: To achieve real innovation, one needs to imagine novel ideas, question assumptions, and consider diverse perspectives. Aligning values while challenging conventional wisdom creates new solutions.

AAA Framework Fundamentals: Antifragile, Anticipatory, Agility

The second part, excavates the AAA Framework Fundamentals: Antifragile, Anticipatory, Agility.?

We review together toolkits, case studies, examples, and practical applications of our AAA Framework, which defines what humans should be developing to improve our abilities as the world becomes more complex and unpredictable:

• Antifragile: Building the Foundations. Here we borrow the term “antifragile” from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, to describe things that benefit and improve from shocks. Developing antifragility means focusing on the amplitude and nature of potential consequences, not only the probability. Building antifragile foundations is like building an immune system for our lives and projects.
• Anticipatory: The Capacity to Prepare for Constant Disruption. By exercising anticipatory thinking, we seek to anticipate next-order implications (e.g. for any change, innovation, or technology), including unexpected consequences. The capacity to be anticipatory helps us better prepare for any futures ahead while creating our preferred future at the same time. In this Anticipatory chapter, acquire foundations and build competencies through leading-edge practitioner tools, frameworks and methodologies used by professionals in the fields of future studies and strategic foresight: 2x2 “Double Uncertainty” Method Toolkit, Anticipatory Readiness Level (ARL), Backcasting, Complex Five, Techistential DECODE Foresight Framework, Futures Cone, Futures Wheel & Implications Analysis, Impact Cascades, Manoa Scenario Method, Pre-Mortem, Signal Evaluation & Scanning, Stakeholder Analysis, Scenario Development, Threatcasting, and Visioning. Used by professional futurists, these practical tools and frameworks are designed to help us imagine and create the futures we want with foresight strategy and futures thinking.?
• Agility: Bridging Short- and Long-Term Decision-Making. Agility allows us to simultaneously bridge our longer-term strategy with the present. Reconciling different time horizons with decisions and actions today requires leveraging uncertainty through curiosity, creativity, and experimentation. Learn from a range of tools, methods, and approaches to develop decision-making capabilities adapted to turbulent and uncertain environments, including Chaordic Systems, Cynefin Framework, Decision-Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU), Emergent & Strategic Agility, Loose Coupling & Tight Coupling, Leverage Points, OODA & Feedback Loops, Three Horizons.

Our 6 i’s Framework for Driving & Thriving on Disruption

The third and final part of this volume investigates how we can rise above resilience or adaptability to actually thrive on disruption. We must learn to thrive by mastering the language of disruption, to which we offer our 6 i’s Framework: Intuition, Inspiration, Imagination, Improvisation, Invention, Impossible.?

Gain practical insights from a variety of tools and methods, with three detailed case studies applying these 6 i’s:?

• Israel: Tiny & Mighty Country Showcases the Power of the 6 i’s. This tiny country has the world’s highest per capita number of startups. Israel’s lack of adherence to rigid hierarchical structures drives its ability to respond to disruption. Israel builds a system where failure is part of the iterative discovery process of inventing and achieving the impossible. Uncover strategies and insights from tried and tested methods for exceptional invention, reinvention, and resilience.
• Science Fiction: A Technological Toolkit for Harnessing the 6 i’s. Combine science fiction, a powerful catalyst for suspending disbelief, together with design thinking and foresight into one powerful toolkit to disrupt linear thinking, reframe perceptions, and craft visions of the futures. Gain inspiration from methodologies and toolkits to help imagine and invent future technologies as well as drive true innovation: Clarke’s Three Laws, Design Fiction, Questioning (“What If?” and “How Might We?”), Science Fiction Prototyping, and Speculative Design.

Eastern Philosophy & Zen Buddhism: From 6 i’s to One Integrated “We”. Understand the true nature of our world as impermanent, and how this helps us leverage innovation, impact, and meaning, through Eastern philosophy. Gain insights from tactics refined over millennia to improve comfort with impermanence (mujō), transformation, and change. Discover how to leverage principles from Zen Buddhism to inspire fresh perspectives and imagine new combinations. Build personal and strategic paths learning from practices such as beginner’s mind (shoshin) and meditation (zazen) to fuel new ideas, including the seemingly impossible. Learn how to tap into your “ikigai” to thrive in a disruptive world by finding purpose and meaning in your daily life, to fulfill your inner potential while making an impact. Incorporate the benefits of “wabi sabi,” a mindset centered on acceptance of transience and imperfection, by embracing flaws. Understand how Eastern philosophy perceives intuition and improvisation to experiment by trial and error, as failure is critical to innovation and invention.

Launching Volume II

Today, the Disruptive Futures Institute launches the second standalone book of its four-Volume collection The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption. This Volume II - “Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty” - is filled to the brim with invaluable toolkits, models, and resources.

Chapter Titles - “Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty”

Lieutenant Colonel Jake Sotiriadis, Ph.D., Director, The Center for Futures Intelligence, National Intelligence University, wrote the Foreword to Volume II:

“Throughout the Guidebook, you’ll learn how to be inquisitive and how to adapt to rapid change with a diverse set of tools and models - which will quickly become your own… The Disruptive Futures Institute’s renowned AAA Framework (build Antifragile foundations, develop the capabilities to be Anticipatory, and use Agility) will help you bridge short-term realities with a value proposition for macro-view thinking… In a world increasingly characterized by complexity, one must be able to see the interconnectivity of events, embrace ambiguity as an opportunity, and translate futures literacy into anticipatory thinking. Here, the Disruptive Futures Institute’s interdisciplinary approach is artfully executed, making connections between seemingly unrelated domains. The book’s framework ultimately demonstrates that transformational change comes by first changing our own mindset… The Guidebook also deploys the concept of agency to show that acknowledging the limits of our own vision does not mean we must accept those same limits.”?

- Dr. Jake Sotiriadis, Excerpt from the Foreword to Volume II, “Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty”

Looking Forward to 2023 for Your Life & Your Business

After today’s launch of Volume II, the final two Volumes will be released in January and February 2023 respectively:

• Volume III - YOUR LIFE. Beta Your Life: Existence in a Disruptive World: What does constant change and uncertainty mean to you as an individual?
• Volume IV - YOUR BUSINESS. Disruption as a Springboard to Value Creation: What does our unpredictable, complex, and systemic world mean for you as a business?

Roger Spitz and Lidia Zuin draw on decades of insights from advising entrepreneurs, CEOs, boards, and shareholders in Silicon Valley and globally on evaluating their companies, competitiveness, strategic investments, and disruptions ahead. A foresight strategist, investor, and author, Roger’s expertise lies at the intersection of futures studies and sustainable value creation building on his experience leading global investment banking and venture capital businesses. Lidia is a journalist, science fiction writer, and professional futurist.

Buying The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption

The printed Guidebook is available to order at bookstores (Amazon, Barnes & Noble…), while the eBook is downloadable on Apple Books, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Kobo…

To discuss bulk order discounts and custom offers, including using The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption for academic or executive program curriculum support, please reach out to: [email protected].

Sample Praise

Further media interest, press coverage, and praise reviews are available on www.thrivingondisruption.com

"The authors present hundreds of insightful examples and case studies to really understand systemic transformation, with practical toolkits and frameworks to leverage disruption, capture opportunities, and create sustainable value.” - SEBASTIAN BIHARI, GENERAL PARTNER VEKTOR PARTNERS

“Using the Guidebook’s resources and frameworks, readers can immediately develop antifragile strategies to create sustainable value for them and their organizations…” - JUNIOR BORNELI, FOUNDER OF STARTSE

“This four-volume book provides us a blueprint to study, understand, and tackle disruption at different levels of reality - from knowing to doing to meaning and being.” - SHERMON CRUZ, CHAIR, ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL FUTURISTS

“Never before has the world needed such tools, frameworks, and practical applications to inform not only how to survive, but thrive.” - KARA CUNZEMAN, LEAD FUTURIST, THE AEROSPACE CORPORATION

“This Guidebook gives us the tools to help us create our own navigation system… nothing less than the golden key to a new paradigm.” - ANTOINE GELAIN, MD PARAGON EUROPEAN PARTNERS

“An operating manual, a system of content to build fluency in the language of uncertainty, disruption, and unpredictability. A rich and practical set of resources for anyone - organizations, entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, and learners - to capitalize on disruption.” - CATHY HACKL, FOUNDER OF JOURNEY

“The authors have done us all a favour and given us a guidebook for managing these challenging times.” - DR PETER HAYWARD, FOUNDER OF FUTUREPOD

“Roger and Lidia address the disruptive nature of our world and offer a toolkit to thrive with it. This book is not like other writings on innovation. It is practical, actionable, and mixed with references and examples… an essential manual for anybody who wants to equip themselves to be relevant for the uncertainties of tomorrow.” - ANDREY SHTYLENKO, DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING, ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY GROUP, HONEYWELL

“Will help readers become ‘Response-able’… giving more agency over how they prepare for and respond to disruption. Real-world dilemmas in the form of case studies and practical applications allow individuals and organizations to apply actionable solutions to existing challenges.” - DAVID SOLOMON, HEAD OF OPERATIONS (RETIRED), LEADERSHIP IN ISRAELI ARMY & PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE

“The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption is absolutely required reading for everyone, from students to policy makers, from executives to entrepreneurs, who want to thrive on both current and future challenges.” - DR. TERENCE TSE, PROFESSOR AT HULT BUSINESS SCHOOL

“Roger and Lidia put together a comprehensive guide exploring the timeous topic of disruption from multiple angles… The guide is well-organised with a good balance between analysis of the topic and examples from practice.” - DORIS VILJOEN, DIRECTOR INSTITUTE FOR FUTURES RESEARCH AT STELLENBOSCH BUSINESS SCHOOL