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Future-mapping: A practical way to map out the future and achieve what you
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 Career Development International
Future-mapping: a practical way to map out the future and achieve what you want
Bill Phillips
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To cite this document:
Bill Phillips, (1996),"Future-mapping: a practical way to map out the future and achieve what you want", Career Development
International, Vol. 1 Iss 2 pp. 10 - 18
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Steven H. Appelbaum, Sally Habashy, Jean-Luc Malo, Hisham Shafiq, (2012),"Back to the future: revisiting
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 Future-mapping: a practical way to map out the
future and achieve what you want
Describes future-mapping, an
innovative process for cre-
ative strategic thinking and
decision making. The idea
consists of imagining already
living in an ideal, successful
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
future, describing it in detail
as if it were real, and then
“remembering”, step-by-
step, how it was arrived at.
Not only is the future ideal
mapped out systematically,
but the steps to making it
happen are likewise mapped
out. Future-mapping has been
developed through direct
application in a wide variety
of organizations since 1989.
Provides three brief case
examples and an example of
its power in teamworking.
Outlines how to carry out
future-mapping at each
stage, with explanations of
techniques, and background
research. Defines some of the
benefits of this way of think-
ing and decision making and
describes its key operating
assumptions.
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
© MCB University Press
[ISSN 1362-0436]
[ 10 ]
Bill Phillips Management Consultant, The Phillips Consulting Company,
Rochdale, UK
What would it be like if you could take a leap
into the future, stop, and look around, notic-
ing that what you see, hear and feel tells you
this is real? Naturally, you would be able to
remember the leap, and all that had occurred
in between to make your future happen.
In addition, how would it be if the future
you leapt into were one that you would
describe as ideal or very successful? And if,
as you remember the major steps and events
which took you there, you were to map them
out on a progress chart, this chart might
serve, when you had finished, as something
like a route map to an ideal outcome. This
way of thinking, which I first formulated in
1989, is now called “future-mapping”.
This paper will describe the future-map-
ping process in terms of what it is, how it
works, its benefits over other processes, its
value in teams – an example, conclusions: its
operating assumptions, and brief case exam-
ples showing its versatility.
So what is future-mapping?
Future mapping is a powerful process for
creating a compelling vision, deciding how to
achieve it and generating a motivation to act.
Because it engages the normal mechanisms
of mind by which we all get to know what we
want, it can work for everyone, is sensitive to
organizational culture and style and helps
people to notice immediate opportunities to
take action.
It can range from being highly creative and
generative, to being detailed, tightly struc-
tured and specific. Future-mapping will work
for short-, medium- and long-term thinking
and planning. Short term can be as short as a
couple of hours, and long term can mean
many years. Applications can range from
long-term corporate and business planning,
to agreeing the outcome of a meeting as it
begins. It helps creative thinking and the
sharing of ideas, and can build a strong sense
of common purpose among those who use it
together in teams or work groups, etc.
An example from most people’s experience
will illustrate the process. In recalling an
event or a time in your life when you
experienced success, you can probably recall
the moment when you realized you had
achieved it. As you remember now the feel-
ings you had of satisfaction, elation, pleasure,
or maybe just relief, remember also what you
or others said about your success. Perhaps
that little voice in your head congratulated
you, or yelled how it had always known you
could do it. What did you see around you?
Who else was there? What were the visible
signs of your achievement? The more you
think back, the more you can realize that
your success may be described in some detail.
You will also be aware that, looking back
from your success, you can remember the
milestone events, the turning points which
brought you to where you are and perhaps
times when things seemed impossible. Yet,
problems were overcome, and new things
learned. Even difficult people or relation-
ships were changed, thus moving things
towards your final outcome. You might even
have done things which, in some time past,
you had truly believed could never happen to
you. In this way, you can recall exactly what
steps had been needed to get you to success.
This process of looking back at success is
illustrated by the simple steps and faces
model in Figure 1.
If you were to slide this kind of thinking
forward into the future and apply it to a suc-
cess that you have not yet had, then, as men-
tioned in the introduction, you would be
future-mapping. This is represented by the
modified model in Figure 2.
How does future-mapping work?
Future-mapping works by basing yourself in
the future at the hour or date of your ideal
outcome. This successful outcome, described
in detail, comprises the vision of the future.
Looking back from the future-base allows
similar milestones and turning points to be
identified, as in reviewing remembered
success.
Apart from the similarity in Figures 1 and
2 of starting with perceptions of success and
looking back, there is another key factor to
note. Both in the remembered state and the
future-mapping state, the steps to success,
the starting point and the successful
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
Figure 1
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
outcome are all taking place in the mind.
Both processes are imaginary in nature
with no real-world, tangible elements at all.
It is important to recognize this, especially
when comparing future-mapping with other,
more chronological ways of planning or
vision building. Our thought processes can
and do operate in any direction, forwards or
backwards, often whether we want them to
or not. ln the case of future-mapping, think-
ing backwards has some advantages over
thinking forwards. These will be discussed
later.
Visioning rather than forecasting
There have been occasions during future-
mapping seminars or work with clients when
the idea of imagining a future time and the
events leading up to it have caused concern
for some people. Some have considered it
unrealistic, or were afraid that the
unexpected, or things outside their control,
might interfere. Some of these very real and
legitimate concerns have led to refinements
in the design and use of future-mapping.
There is, however, an important principle to
consider at this stage.
There seem to be two broad ways in which
we think or plan ahead:

1 forecasting, and taking steps to manage or

Steps to success looking back from now
cope with what we expect to emerge;
2 “visioning” or dreaming, and taking steps
to make it happen.
g

Both these approaches are legitimate and

rin
be

successful in many contexts and environ-

em

ments. Often, I have found that, when some-

m
Re

Existing success one is concerned about “realism”, their mind

is on forecasting. This is by far the more com-
mon mind set of the two mentioned here for a
large part of the population. This is hardly
surprising when we realize how prediction is
so much a part of our lives. Just consider the
amount of journalisitic and political energy
expended in trying to predict what will hap-
pen or be decided tomorrow or the following
Past day. Under these circumstances, it is difficult
anticipation not to have doubts about the validity of pre-
dicting an ideal future.
Imagination Future-mapping, while not discarding the
value of well-informed forecasting, is more
closely related to the second form of thinking
ahead. It deals more specifically with formu-
Figure 2
lating a vision or vivid description of how you
Steps to success looking back from the future
would really want things to be if you could
control your destiny. It invites us to ask ques-
tions: “What do I really want, and if I could
have it right now, how would I have got here?”
Importantly, future-mapping side-steps the
g
rin

sense of inevitability which characterizes

be

attempts only to forecast. It deals instead

em
m

with optimism and a sense of resourceful-

Re

Future success
ness. Both forecasting and vision building, no
matter how creative, complex, or based on
past experience and accurate data, remain
figments of the imagination until the first
action and result dictate what must come
next. Forecasting, or predicting, is no more or
less real, or realistic, than visioning or
dreaming. They are just different ways of
preparing to act.
Current
anticipation
What Is the future-mapping process?
There are three distinct phases in future-
Imagination mapping:
[ 11 ]
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
[ 12 ]
1 creating a compelling ideal future as if it
were happening already;
2 mapping out milestone events and achieve-
ments that took you there;
3 managing accomplishment of the
outcomes, beginning back in the present.
These three phases, although always remain-
ing in the same sequence, are emphasized or
further subdivided into various steps, accord-
ing to the context or content to which you
wish to apply future-mapping. These steps
are outlined below.
Phase 1: creating a compelling ideal future
This first phase is designed to help you define
what your ideal outcomes would be at a time
and date that comply with what you need to
achieve. Many people complain that they find
it difficult to form an image of how they
would like things to be, and still more diffi-
cult to describe it. The steps you take here are
designed to help you do both.
Step 1. Always fix a time or date for your
ideal outcome, and write it down. For exam-
ple if you were future-mapping a year ahead,
you would write down, “Today is 10 July
1997”. If you were setting the outcome of a
meeting, you might write, “It is now 4.30, and
our meeting is finished”. From now on, it is
vital that you behave as if this time or date is
the present[1,2].
Step 2. What is it important for you to suc-
ceed in? Think of a series of headings or
phrases which state in broad terms what you
are successful at, and write them down. In a
work or business setting, they may include
remarks such as, “New investments”, “Our
share of the market”, “How our customers see
us”; “How we work together”. For future-
mapping your personal life or career develop-
ment, typical headings might include, “My
job”, “Income levels”, “Where we live”, “My
qualifications”, “Time with my family”, etc.
The important point is that these headings or
criteria are those that you would use to
describe what you mean by success.[3]
Step 3. Under each heading, and behaving
as if the time or date of your outcome is now,
list your achievements, in the present or past
tense[4,5]. There are two main rules for list-
ing these achievements:
Each success listed must be one that you
yourself have been able to either directly
bring about, or at least influence. This helps
to maintain a sense of realism, wanting some-
thing over which you have absolutely no
influence, or which requires others to take
action is to upset that sense.
It is vital to make these statements positive,
as specific as you can, and in the present or
immediate past tense. For example, under the
heading from Step 2, “How our customers see
us”:
“We have a customer panel that is meeting
once a month.”
“Our customers are tending to bring their
friends now.”
“We have had several letters again this
month praising our back-up service.”
“Our customers feel comfortable suggest-
ing improvements; they are full of good
ideas.”
“It is amazing how supportive some
customers have been when we have had a
problem.”
Where possible, turning the verbs in your
statements into the present continuous form,
such as “is meeting” or “are tending”, will
reinforce the sense of things happening; as if
your internal pictures are turned into mov-
ing ones. Maintaining a sense of the present
is central to the effectiveness of this phase of
future-mapping[6-8]. Remember, we are
visioning, not forecasting!
Step 4. For each achievement listed, write
down what can be seen, heard or felt as evi-
dence (in this imaginary future) that this
statement is true[9,10]. Taking one example of
achievement from above, “We have had sev-
eral letters this month praising our back-up
service”: see “the letters themselves in the
file”; hear “a colleague reading out the latest
one”; feel “proud! one of the letters was
addressed to me!”
This process of detailing evidence which
you can see, hear or feel is what underpins
the power future-mapping has to motivate us.
This lets us know what we want, and helps us
to recognize it when we have it. Without this
sensory evidence, the strength which the
vision can have to drive us is much reduced.
The ideal state of mind to generate when
working through steps 2-4, is to mentally step
into the experiences and see, hear and feel
what it is like to be saying and writing these
things.
The above is a brief description of the four-
step procedure designed to help describe
your state of success in as much or as little
detail as you wish. The following three steps
of the second phase hold the key to building
the bridge between this ideal future and the
present.
Phase 2: mapping out milestone events
and achievements which took you there
This second phase is where you are asked to
remain in your imaginary future, and behave
as if you are remembering the actions and
events that led up to your success.
Step 5. For each heading under which you
listed achievements, identify at least one
action or outcome that had to happen to make
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
your success in this area possible, and write
them down. These are the key events or turn-
ing points. The thought has to be that, if this
had not happened at the time, and in the way
it did, your success might not have occurred.
Examples might be:
• Heading: “How we work together.”
• Milestone: “We decided to get help with
team building.”
• Heading: “My qualifications.”
• Milestone: “I got accepted on the degree
course at the business school.”
In Step 2, choosing success headings helps to
frame your vision, allowing it to be “coloured
in” by listing achievements. Here also bring-
ing to mind these milestone or critical events
helps to frame or map-out your pathways to
success by identifying markers along the way.
In some circumstances, you may identify
milestone events which fit more easily with
particular achievements listed, rather than
with a heading. This is perfectly legitimate,
and depends on the level of detail appropriate
in your context. Generating milestones for
each of the achievements listed gives much
more data for planning complex situations.
There are two important things to notice
about these milestone descriptions:
1 They are spoken and written in the past
tense.
2 They are expressed as “I, we or they, did
this or that”.
They may also be worded as “so and so hap-
pened”. This helps to keep them as specific
statements of past actions taken, and in the
same type of language we normally use when
describing past actions for real.
Step 6. Agree or assess and write down
when each milestone action or event took
place, and if significant, who was involved.
One powerful effect in the future-mapping
process happens at this step. In “remember-
ing” your success, the timing of these mile-
stones becomes obvious. It is as if a kind of
anxiety or “cognitive dissonance”[11,12] is set
up when we generate or choose a vision of a
very different future. This anxiety is usually
Table I
A simple progress or Gantt chart
Milestones January
Consulted staff xxx
Agreed new plan x
Purchased equipment x
Trained staff
Installed equipment
Met interim target
reduced by deciding not to be too ambitious,
by sticking to only short-term planning, or by
reducing the difference between the vision
and the present. “Let’s be realistic”, we
sometimes say. Because the future-mapping
vision is described as if it were reality (in
present tense language with sensory
evidence) it seems our unconscious creativity
is directed to inventing the pathway in order
to reduce this tension or dissonance, rather
than by scaling down the vision.
Step 7. Draw up a simple progress chart,
listing the milestones down the left and dates
across the top, then map when they happened
onto the chart. Table I shows an example of a
chart developed in a light engineering com-
pany planning to install a computerized pro-
ject management and production scheduling
system.
Phase 3: managing accomplishment back
in the present
This third phase begins with preparing for
action and for managing it. Although future-
mapping has a strong tendency to generate
spontaneous action, some groups have failed
to take this phase seriously, and have been
disappointed at their subsequent progress.
Step 8. Document the vision in a way that
allows it to be kept in people’s minds easily.
Use pictures, charts, diagrams or written
materials if they help. One group produced a
company newspaper detailing its achieve-
ments in news form. The more easily you can
revisit and review your map of the future, the
more continually motivating it will be, and
the easier it will seem to track your
progress[13,14].
Step 9. Appoint a project leader or manager,
and give them authority to remind others of
their deadlines and agreements to take
action. In a work or organization setting, this
step can make the difference between making
rapid, recognizable progress, and people
becoming immersed in the day-to-day activity
that helps them not get to what they agreed to
do, and which often makes the simplest
action a major hurdle to overcome. Even the
Dates
February March April
xxxxxxxxxxx xxx
xxx
x
[ 13 ]
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
[ 14 ]
simplest of progress monitoring techniques
will have a valuable effect.
Step 10. Draw up a timetable of events and
actions developed from the milestones identi-
fied in step 5 and beyond. Timetabling mile-
stones has already been suggested in step 7.
This step 10 timetable is likely to include
much more detailed dates and actions, and is
the stage at which the small steps to accom-
plish each milestone are agreed and written
into people’s diaries.
If future-mapping is related to project eval-
uation and review technique (PERT) project
planning techniques, developing headings,
listing achievements and timetabling mile-
stones are together akin to activity listing,
critical path and crude network analysis and
preparing Gantt charts[15].
In more detailed planning, identifying
milestones for each achievement listed
(rather than in the broader terms related to
headings) may be necessary, with correspond-
ing increases in the progress chart listings.
For each event or action, ask the following
question (and act on the answer!): “What
specifically prevents us from doing this right
now?”
Step 11. Revisit or review your vision at
intervals. Doing this formally allows your
outcomes to be kept in view. It allows you to
be reminded of what you are aiming for, and
to notice the need to update or modify your
vision to keep it current as results dictate.
The ease with which you can update your
visions is an important feature of future-
mapping. One characteristic of successful
people is their readiness to be flexible and
alter their plans in the light of new informa-
tion or experience[16].
Summary
The above steps provide a way to describe the
key elements of the three-phased future-map-
ping process. Since its first formal written
description in 1991[17], experience has shown
that people applying future-mapping have not
kept to any one formal structure, but have
varied it according to what they have needed
to do. When compared with more predictive
forms of forward thinking, future-mapping
has a number of benefits.
What benefits does future-mapping
offer?
Future-mapping can bring with it a number
of distinct advantages overcoming many of
the usual blockages that we suffer when need-
ing to think and plan ahead:
• It is solution-centred, generating accurate
specification of desired outcomes rather
than problems. Most of us are more moti-
vated by thoughts of achievement rather
than of difficulties.
• It is success-centred, side-stepping common
feelings such as fear of failure and seeing
only hurdles that need to be overcome. It
begins by generating a sense of achieve-
ment.
• It is flexible and versatile, being well-suited
to a very wide range of needs to plan or
make decisions about the future from just
hours to years ahead.
• Future-mapping releases creativity, espe-
cially when several people work on it
together. The very process of imagining
achievements neutralizes the kind of nega-
tive thinking that tends normally to inter-
fere.
• It builds compelling visions due to the
quantity and nature of descriptive informa-
tion generated. The seeing, hearing and
feeling dimensions are the most powerful
part of this.
• It lends itself to involving people and moti-
vating them to act. Future-mapping can be
cascaded across and through an organiza-
tion, enabling groups, teams and individu-
als to develop their own part of the vision
and implementation plan. A strong sense of
common purpose develops in future-map-
ping groups, partly because individuals
tend to vizualize ideal relationships and
mutual support as parameters of success.
As they describe these relationships and
feelings together in the present tense, indi-
viduals come to realize they are already
rehearsing what they want.
• It helps people spot opportunities to take
action, often almost immediately. This
tends to happen at the point where individ-
uals or groups begin to accept specific roles
and responsibilities. Having future-mapped
ideal outcomes and considered first steps, it
often becomes clear that there is nothing
preventing immediate action and people
become motivated to achieve early results.
• Future-mapping can be very broad and
general and some groups have found that
completion of phase 1 is sufficient. If fol-
lowed through to completion of phase 3
with a wide range of detailed information
in phases 1 and 2 then future-mapping can
be used meticulously to support complex
decisions.
• It is easy and quick to update. At any time
during implementation, phases 1 and 2 can
be reviewed in the light of new experience
or unexpected developments. In fact, one
way of following through implementation
of the various steps to success is to future-
map next steps as specific projects are com-
pleted or turning points reached. This is
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
• The future-mapping process is relatively
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
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one way in which actual experience and
results guide progress in bringing about
change.
easy to learn, and is not reliant on jargon or
technical planning expertise. Apart from its
name, there is no specialized language
needed in future-mapping. When develop-
ing a future-based vision, people will nor-
mally reflect personal and organizational
values and beliefs in their impression of
success. This is one way in which the
process remains both organizationally and
culturally acceptable.
I have found that people at work tend to find
it relatively easy to agree on how they want
things to be, compared with their more
strongly held (and defended) differing beliefs
about how to get there. Certainty, safety, secu-
rity, support, good relationships, trust and
recognition are all states of wellbeing that
people wish for in common, and they often
tend to emerge in some way in listing
achievements. This is reinforced by
Kotter[18] in his writings on leadership,
where he says that, “Such feelings touch us
deeply and elicit a powerful response”.
Kotter goes on to say that good leaders
always articulate the organization’s vision in
a manner which stresses the values of the

Future-mapping in teams audience they are addressing.

One of the earliest applications of future-
mapping (early, that is, in its development)
was with a newly formed team of senior man-
agers in an education establishment. This
team was being brought together to formu-
late a three-year strategic plan in response to
Government legislation. The problem
expressed by the vice-principal was that sev-
eral members of the group had spent most of
the previous 15 years competing with one
another for resources, recognition, profes-
sional status and anything else they could
think of. In fact, some of them even hated one
another. So this was to be the beginning of a
team-building exercise.
At the end of a day spent role playing an
ideal future three years on, the group was
buzzing with excitement. The one major topic
or heading everyone had focused on was
excellent working relationships. Having
spent several hours talking and describing
how much they enjoyed mutual trust, sharing
of resources, supporting one another and
being highly productive, it seemed they now
found it impossible to go back to their previ-
ous attitudes.
This sense of enjoyment and common pur-
pose continued throughout the team’s life.
Incidentally, the establishment was reorga-
nized and integrated with a much larger unit
before the three years had passed. Neverthe-
less, during their remaining time together,
they reported working more effectively than
ever before, and several members of the team
went on to more senior posts in other organi-
zations around the UK.
This is a response colleagues and the
author have found quite common when
future-mapping is used in teams. When peo-
ple are encouraged to state their professional
and personal ideal outcomes in the form of
achievements and the evidence for them, they
are declaring how they want things to be.
In agreement with those managers in the
educational establishment, my common expe-
rience in future-mapping with teams of many
kinds is that developing a description of how
they jointly want things to be is almost
always a motivating and inspirational
process. If nothing more, it provides potential
for aligning team members’ beliefs about
what should be, and helping them discover
rather more that they have in common than
they might previously have recognized.
What makes future-mapping work?
It works by utilizing the cognitive mecha-
nisms we use in our day-to-day lives to orga-
nize our experience and make sense of the
world around us. Consider, for example, the
following questions:
• How do you know when you really want
something?
• How do you know what to want?
Some people will say it begins with a feeling.
For others, they picture themselves achieving
or having it and perhaps hear that little voice
in their head saying how good it will be.
Think for a moment, of an ambition you
have or had, or a time when you really set
your heart on something. How exactly did
you first perceive it? Do you notice any
images, sounds, feelings smells or tastes.
These are the signals we generate to guide us
to getting what we want. They are the key
components of what we might call our com-
pelling visions. The images, feelings sounds
and internal dialogue keep us on track and
fuel our desire to succeed.
This is the background process of phase 1
in future-mapping, and the reason why
visual, hearing and feelings evidence is so
important. Imagining and sensing successful
achievement in this way brings with it feel-
ings of resourcefulness, and such feelings
you will recognize as the underpinnings of
[ 15 ]
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
[ 16 ]
optimism. They also generate creative behav-
iour. In a resourceful state, obstacles become
challenges rather than difficulties and our
ability to find solutions is enhanced.
An interesting phenomenon occurs when
we create a vision in this way. We become
tuned to opportunities to achieve it. The
process which takes place is rather like when
you first notice, let us say, a particular model
of car you would like to have. Perhaps it is the
shape or even a specific colour that attracts
you. Sometimes you may like it because you
do not see many of them on the road, because
it is new or unusual. You want to be different.
It is in the days and weeks following this that
you begin to see them everywhere. This is
because you have “tuned” your senses to
something you were unaware of until now.
The more sensory information you build
into your vision of the future, the stronger the
tuning effect will be. In future-mapping
terms, perhaps a product idea or a chance to
invest which would normally be overlooked
or ignored will become significant. The most
pleasing point is that you do not have to
remember to notice these opportunities. The
process is automatic and unconscious. Cer-
tain things or actions will appear to be a
“good idea”, and you may or may not notice at
the time that this thing or action will take you
one step nearer to your vision.
One further valuable side effect which
occurs through these two processes of vision-
ing a particular outcome and becoming tuned
to it is that people often become aware that
there is nothing preventing them from
achieving it immediately. This is one way in
which items or actions planned for will
appear to happen almost spontaneously. Peo-
ple will have begun to notice opportunities to
take action immediately.
Barriers overcome
Steps to success are remembered very differ-
ently from steps to a failure. We appear to
remember different elements of our history
according to whether we think we achieved
or failed. When we recall steps to success, we
seem most readily to recall how we took
them, often with pleasure or pride at how
clever we were to influence events or other
people. When we fail, we tend to remember
most readily why – why it was not possible, or
how someone’s motives blocked us – or
because we misjudged, or there was not
enough money available at the time.
It is interesting to note that when we try to
plan ahead conventionally, we tend to con-
sider why an idea or decision will or will not
work. When we write reports to justify our
plans, there is a tendency to explain the bene-
fits of doing this or that, i.e. why it should be
done. In a curious way, this matches how we
think about steps to failure, and although I
have not established a direct link between
these two modes of thought, the fact that a
sense of risk and fear of failure are common
companions of the latter is interesting.
Looking back to the models in Figures 1 and
2, it will become evident that looking down a
flight of steps from the top reveals the plat-
forms or steps that were reached on the way
up. Looking up from the bottom, you are faced
only with a view of the risers; obstacles to
progress.
One of the biggest blockages to planning
and implementation concerns lack of agree-
ment from and between people involved or
affected. Experience has shown that people
have been drawn together very strongly by
future-mapping ideal working elationships. It
seems that most of us have an underlying
desire for wellbeing in all we do. Future-
mapping in phase 1 can lift people right out of
their everyday behaviours, and encourage
them to state their ideals openly. Discovering
that on this “higher plane” they have so much
more in common allows people to agree more
easily.
It may be worth considering the potential
power of this in negotiation.
Conclusions
There can be very little that is thought of or
created that is brand new. The processes and
underlying assumptions of future-mapping
are no exception. Indeed, one of its strengths
is that the cognitive mechanisms is relies on
are part of everyone’s repertiore, even if we
are often unaware that we are using them.
What is different about future-mapping is the
way in which our use of those mechanisms it
organized for the purpose of deciding what
we want to lie ahead, and how to get ourselves
there.
One operating assumption essential to
being able to plan convincingly for an ideal
future is that it is possible to achieve suc-
cesses which perhaps at present do not seem
attainable. One helpful way to think about
this issue, is to consider something which
you once achieved, which, at an earlier time,
you had genuinely believed to be impossible
for you. That something might have been a
particular job, perhaps a qualification or a
relationship. The achievement is evidence
that the earlier belief, no matter how strong
or convincing, was not correct.
Another vital assumption is that what you
do now will largely affect your future out-
comes. This may seem obvious, but it is very
difficult to motivate yourself to act unless this
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
cause-effect relationship is quite clear in your
mind. Once phase 1 is complete, and you have
a description of your ideal outcomes, phase 2
in which you map out the milestone events
and actions takes care of making this cause-
effect link. The key importance of the above
two operating assumptions is that, without
them, you may not even be prepared to begin
future-mapping.
Future-mapping has been tried and tested
in a variety of sectors and situations. The
author and his colleagues have developed and
refined it through their consulting work with
clients of International Training Service Ltd
(ITS) over the last five years. Some of that
experience is captured in “Getting to grips
with future-mapping: a user’s guide”, an ITS
product due for publication in 1996. Continu-
ing experience and research will further
enhance the power and value of future-map-
ping as a way of deciding what to do next. It
is, however, vitally important to keep this
value in perspective. Future-mapping is a
creative and carefully structured approach to
strategic thinking and action planning. We
must remember that until that first action is
taken and a result obtained, all of this is still
no more that imagination.
The following brief case studies will show
how, for some ITS clients, imagination has
become reality.
Client and contractor relationships
Over an 18-month period between 1991 and
1992, ITS consultants carried out an assign-
ment with a major multinational oil company
and its key seismic and survey contractor.
The focus was on the quality standard ISO
9000 (BS 5750) and its implications for both
client and contractor in forthcoming con-
tracts. One major implication was a change
in role for those managers representing the
client from a directive to a consultative
approach. Future-mapping was used to help
managers describe how they were carrying
out their roles one year on.
After learning the future-mapping process,
client and contractor managers were paired
together. They were asked to work together
and describe how, in their ideal future, they
were now doing their work, managing people
and solving problems and what evidence was
available to show this. They were then helped
by the consultants to set milestones which
had brought this about, and this formed an
excellent basis for an action plan. Not sur-
prisingly, the plan also had elements relating
to personal development, since some of the
milestone events were in the form of
described skills and behaviours to be learned,
making possible the successful changes.
Optimizing HR team resources
A key issue for a newly formed regional per-
sonnel team of a large national UK organiza-
tion was how to work together effectively and
maximize resources. Doing this would hope-
fully give a sorely needed raise in profile.
Using future-mapping, the team built a
vision for one year ahead. This included set-
ting milestones and entering dates into
diaries to make sure the agreed actions were
taken. Three months later, one member of the
team reported that the first two meetings
agreed had not taken place. She felt disap-
pointed that they had not invested more effort
in planning and carrying through their inten-
tions.
Fourteen months later, the personnel man-
ager reported his pleasant surprise that a
recent review had shown that, despite their
failure to project manage the implementation
of their plans adequately, almost everything
they had agreed was now up and running. He
was intrigued, commenting that their vision
had come to fruition in spite of their failure
to manage and monitor their actions. “It’s as
if it all happened spontaneously”, he said.
This particular case illustrates the power of
vivid visioning. The vision was fulfilled
despite the lack of planning and monitoring
for the very reason that it was so vividly pic-
tured in the minds of those people involved.
However, in more complex situations, this
does not negate the need for project managing
the implementation phase.
Their future on video
In 1993, a manufacturing company contracted
ITS consultants to help it to think through
what the company needed to do in order to be
operating successfully two years ahead. The
top team constructed its vision under head-
ings including quality, sales, communications
and the environment.
All 24 of the company’s senior managers
had contributed to this and the top team
needed to share the emerging vision with
them. It then needed to consult with other
staff groups to obtain feedback and to symbol-
ize a new cultural norm of a consultative
management style. However, the emerging
vision had to be presented to the staff groups
from different functions in a clear, consistent
way.
The company chose an imaginative way to
achieve this, based on future-mapping. It
based itself in 1995; its degree of success and
transformation as a company had attracted
media attention. A journalist had taken a
particular interest and wanted to write an
article about it. He visits the company in 1995
and interviews the top team about the success
and how it was achieved.
[ 17 ]
 Bill Phillips
Future-mapping: a practical
way to map out the future and
achieve what you want
Career Development
International
1/2 [1996] 10–18
Downloaded by Manchester Metropolitan University At 03:01 03 November 2015 (PT)
[ 18 ]
These interviews, role played by a group of
the company’s managers, were filmed and
made into a one-and-a-half-hour long video
cassette. This was then taken out and shown
to wider staff groups. It proved to be a highly
effective and innovative step towards con-
structing a vision of the future. Having set the
scene, the managers then went on to produce
a highly detailed description of their ideal
future, accompanied by a series of Gantt
charts which formed the core of the plans for
action intended to guide them towards their
vision. The company has consequently radi-
cally restructured, forming self-directed
teams, and training its workforce and man-
agers extensively. Although it still has some
way to go, it continues operating successfully
in a very difficult global materials market.
A future account will describe how to
install the use and results of future-mapping
visions in organizations. This will deal with
the processes for communication, interpreta-
tion, and involvement of people in making it
happen.
Notes and references
1 This notion of using your imagination in this
way was described in [2] as early as 1960.
2 Maltz, M., Psycho-Cybernetics, a New Tech-
nique for Using Your Unconscious Power,
Wilshire Book Co., Hollywood, CA, 1960,
pp. 36-9.
3 Beginning with these headings is unique to
future-mapping and is a central part of the
process which helps us to map out and articu-
late an ideal future. They provide a framework
within which to organize our detailed achieve-
ments, just like drawers in a filing cabinet into
which we can place our files of information
and data.
4 In Chapter 3 of [5], the authors describe how
verb tenses alter or affect our perception of
events in time. These perceptual shifts result
from subtle changes in our internal (usually
subconscious) pictures, sounds and feelings.
The use of the present and past tenses to
describe our idealized achievements is capable
of fooling our subconscious into thinking this
is real.
5 Andreas, S. and Andreas, C., Change Your
Mind and Keep the Change, Real People Press,
Moab, UT, 1987, pp. 25-36.
6 Ostrander, S. and Schroeder, L., Super Learn-
ing, Sphere Books, London, 1981, pp. 145-77.
7 Autogenic conditioning and Timothy Gall-
wey’s Inner Game of Tennis[8] are tried and
tested techniques using relaxation and “liv-
ing” the action mentally in advance. The evi-
dence shows that such mental rehearsal is as
effective as “real experience” in preparing the
body for skilled action. Future-mapping uti-
lizes a similar approach using language as the
guide to the inner experience.
8 Gallwey, T., The Inner Game of Tennis, Random
House, New York, NY, 1975; Jonathan Cape,
London, 1977.
9 O’Connor, J. and Seymour, J., Introducing
Neuro-linguistic Programming, the New Psy-
chology of Personal Excellence, Mandala, Lon-
don, 1990, pp 96-8.
10 When linked to the use of the present tense,
this addition of sensory evidence can make our
state of mind and our bodies undergo subtle
changes. They begin to operate as if this state
of success were really happening. This is
because, in order to produce the words or
understand their meaning, we have to have the
sensory experience internally.
11 Festinger, L., A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance,
Row, Peterson & Co., Evanston, IL, 1957.
12 The research in [11] showed that when
forced to make a difficult choice between
things we value, a feeling of anxiety or
dissonance is set up in our mind. The results
also showed healthy minds to have a built in
process to quickly reduce this anxiety, which
we demonstrate by emphatically justifying
our choice as the best one under the
circumstances.
13 Alder, H., “Seeing is believing: the natural way
to success”, Management Decision, Vol. 29 No.
1, 1991.
14 Alder[13], commenting on progress from
visioning to achievement, says: “So what
happens during the five-year period – apart
from the habitual revision and practice of the
new self-image?”
15 Haynes, M.E., Project Management – from Idea
to Implementation, Kogan Page, London, 1990,
pp. 30-7.
16 Cameron-Bandler, L., Gordon, D. and Lebeau,
M., Know How: Guided Programs for Inventing
Your Own Best Future, Real People Press, Moab
UT, 1985, pp. 61-70.
17 Phillips, B., “Future-basing explained”, unpub-
lished manuscript, Industrial Training Ser-
vice Ltd, Leeds, 1991.
18 Kotter, J.P., “What leaders really do”, Harvard
Business Review, May-June 1990, p. 107.
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