March 13, 2021

The future is never set in stone. Just ask Professor Shermon Cruz,  one of Asia’s leading futurists. “There is no person who has a single future, rather a person has futures,” he remarks. While there are countless ways of imagining the future and everyone has the power to anticipate it, only a select few can have what Shermon calls, “mature anticipation.” The future is not something that will happen to you, it is something that you can create.  In his ESME webinar last March 4, 2020 entitled Why Do We Need To Be Future Literate? Shermon recounts the turning point in his life when he was searching for something more, new, and different. One night, he stumbled upon the strange phrase “futures thinking.” A few more clicks later, he fell completely in love with the idea of charting the best future for himself. "Futures become a mindset," says Shermon. 

Dedicating himself to the precise art of using foresight and actionable gamification to harness the future, he quickly became the best in his field; he is the only Filipino with full membership in the Association of Professional Futurist (APF) and he is also the Chief Futurist and Director of the Center for Engaged Foresight. He was also recently elected as the Chairperson of the Association of Professional Futurist (APF). 

Futures thinking offset the short-term thinking of an individual or an organization. You become a game setter and you are not just swaying into trends of the society says Shermon. It creates an environment where there is a balance of short and long-term goals making it a smooth transition forward to a set goal. Futures thinking have an informed reflection of the future 10 to 20 years from now. Because the future is not existing yet, one can make multiple ranges of possibilities thus when an organization or a person is futures literate, it becomes competitive.

For Shermon, your idea of the future must first be as ridiculous as it can get. If it’s not absurd, then there is no hope for it. Only then can you use the future as an asset and a tool to change our present. 

Want to know more about the competitive edge futures thinking can give you and your organization? Check out Shermon Cruz’s upcoming Live Learning Series workshops.

By: Glenielle Geraldo Nanglihan

Glenielle has been writing since she was ten years old. She is currently the Features editor of The LaSallian, De La Salle University-Manila’s student publication. 

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