The future has been cancelled - there is NO tomorrow

Back on July 23, my first-ever blog entry posed this question about the future:

Do you perceive the future as something that you are moving toward? Or, is the future something that is crashing through your living room window?"

In other words: Do your current actions AFFECT the future, or can you only PREPARE for something over which there is no control?

Your answer to that question will influence the way you approach strategic planning. I have heard convincing agruments for both scenarios, and a few in between.

Bernie Urban at URBANintelligence has a delightfully FOOLISH perspective on the future. Here's a sample:

We live in a time when change occurs so abruptly, so violently, so without warning that “the future” as it has been traditionally understood has ceased to exist. We now live in what can only be defined as a volatile present tense. Tomorrow cannot be anticipated in any certain terms.

Here's the full text.

Suggestion: Read this to your executive staff, then pose this question: If Bernie is correct, how would our planning process change? How much of our current plan would be irrelevant, if this is correct?