Organizations shaping a thriving future – On future-oriented innovations and personal transformation

We are facing huge changes and challenges in today´s hypercomplex and high-speed world (e. g., in terms of economy, climate change, new technologies, migration, etc.). How can we understand these changes and how should we deal with them in a sustainable and thriving manner? It will be shown that it is not sufficient to just react to these changes in the sense of “solving problems”: rather, we have to actively shape and innovate our environment(s) according to their own potentials in a future-oriented manner and in such a way that a flourishing future might emerge. Such an approach to profound and proactive change and innovation calls for completely new skills, functionalities, and attitudes. In most cases it will not be an individual who can achieve such changes, but organizations in the sense of sustainable social systems, working environments, and Enabling Spaces pursuing the purpose of bringing about thriving futures. We will show that the concept of organization has changed dramatically over time, how today´s (and tomorrow´s) organizations are characterized, and what their needs as future-oriented organizations are. On the basis of these insights, we will develop guiding principles (and their practical implications) for how to implement such organizations and new working environments that are based on the concept of being an Enabling Space for bringing forth future-oriented, sustainable, thriving, and responsible innovations. These principles comprise radical epistemic openness, deep understanding, designing and co-creating meaningful and desired futures, emergence, enabling, identifying and cultivating potentials, and learning from the future as it emerges. Finally, we will develop an important implication of such a perspective of future-oriented organizations: It turns out that creating innovations can no longer be seen as an “abstract” activity, but that the persons involved in such a process must also go through a transformation (of their thinking, perception, and attitudes).