Future Search

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New regulations and changes are often proposed within a community and of that community there usually are sub communities with very different opinions. This concept was illustrated in my Sustainability and Community Relations class with the issue of timber licences of Vancouver Island. My class was divided into six different sub communities of the Vancouver Island community which included The Vancouver Island Forestry Unions, Mayors of Mill and Forestry Towns, The Forest Industry, Environmental Organizations, First Nations and Community Forests and Small Woodlot owners; as you could imagine we were bound to have some disagreements among these sub communities.

This is where a future search came into play. A future search is a method for finding common ground in large diverse community (brining all the sub communities together). It focuses on the common interests of the sub communities rather than the differences, which avoids conflict. The future search facilitates the sharing of visions between the sub communities and commitment to actions agreed to by all sub communities. There are three main principles behind a future search. One- have the whole system in one room, which means all sub communities are together and are not divided into separate groups. Two - all issues are explored to their widest context. Three - focus on common ground and policy and not on disagreements and conflicts. A future search will usually last three days to allow time for the sub communities to think about the points brought up by other sub communities. Future searches are also run in the presence of a mediator to ensure the search remains objective and conflict free.

The future search carried out in my class lasted one day and was broken into three main components. The first step was to focus on the present where the sub communities created a mind map that linked everyone’s points to the central issue (timber licenses of Vancouver Island). The second step was to identify any trends and issues identified among sub communities. Once this was done the problems with the current situation was identified within the sub communities which were then reported back to the whole group. The last step was to identify the individual sub communities goals for the future and plans to get there, and then report those goals and plans back to the whole group to determine what everyone could agree on.

I found the future search very effective. It allowed me to see the perspective of the other sub communities and because of this it changed some of my opinions I had entering the meeting. It also allowed me to see how many common goals there were among the six different sub communities; I didn’t think that there would be so many commonalities between the groups. It also seemed as the conference progressed the six different sub communities seemed to agree more than they did in the beginning. By the end of the future search the class/sub communities were able to come up with an agreement that everyone agreed on, coming together as one large diverse community. A future search insures a sustainable action plan because only actions which everyone agrees to are added to the action plan. This insures the commitment of all sub communities to actually carry out the actions outlined in the action plan.