Implementing Future Scenarios:
Co-creative Dialogue Helps Uncover Social and Management Issues

 

This interview focuses on two Scenario Ambassadors of the Future Co-creation Initiative—technical researcher Akio Nakabayashi and systems consultant Kohei Kiyotake. The pair agree that their involvement with the Initiative has boosted their professional and personal growth. They discuss their activities, how they utilize what they have learned and realized, and their current and future challenges.

 

Visions and stories brought to life in R&D

Scenario Ambassador Nakabayashi is an R&D engineer in the cutting-edge fields of AI, quantum computing, and biology. He feels he had hit a brick wall in his work before his involvement in the Future Co-creation Initiative.

“Long-term perspective is essential in R&D,” he explains, “requiring us to research vast amounts of information. Researchers gather information independently, but with society changing as rapidly as it is, the burden is now heavier, limiting how much information a single individual can collect. R&D is a technology-based approach to thinking, but that alone is insufficient.”

Why do we pursue development in the first place? How can research be funneled into business? And what benefits can be offered to, and promoted in, society through business? Long-term vision cannot be created without such clear-cut goals. As Nakabayashi puts it, “Both vision and a story are essential to promote R&D.”

Akio Nakabayashi, AI-focused IT researcher and an initial Scenario Ambassador of the Future Co-creation Initiative

Nakabayashi joined the Future Co-creation Initiative for two key reasons: “First, the Initiative would allow me to network with many people and have broad access to a wide range of information in business and other fields. I can gain in-depth knowledge by reading published papers on my own, but what I gather by talking with others is different—greater in quantity and much richer. The many on-site dialogues I enjoy with people I meet through the Future Co-creation Initiative allow me to envision the future and create a story or scenario. These encounters have helped me solve previously unresolved business problems.

“My second reason for wishing to join the Initiative was my hope for a world in which all children (including my own) can live in comfort and safety. Scenario planning allows us to see visions for the future, and as a technology researcher, my greatest pleasure would be to see my research benefit the world. The enormous appeal is the opportunity to think about the future together with many others rather than simply pursuing my own dream.”

 

Putting management's perspective to work

Systems consultant Kohei Kiyotake, another Scenario Ambassador, works on optimizing plant management, supply chain management, and digital transformation utilizing plant data. More recently, he has been using scenario planning to help clients with business and organizational innovation. Even as client demand expands into new areas due to the magnitude of social problems and the uncertain economic outlook, Kiyotake feels that the activities of the Future Co-creation Initiative are contributing to solutions.

“There is a tremendous amount of information to be gained from staff and operators involved in manufacturing at domestic and overseas factories. Gathering information is one of Yokogawa's strengths. My job is to help solve problems for clients dealing with a rapidly changing environment and an uncertain future, and this requires the ability to think in a broad context, which differs from the perspective fostered on the factory floor. I felt the need to communicate with executives who can offer advice from a higher vantage point.

“The Future Co-creation Initiative has given me the opportunity to interact with C-level executives—individuals I would have been reluctant to approach in the past. In turn, I can now relate the experience and information I have gained to the respective departments, contributing to solutions for our clients.”

Systems consultant Kohei Kiyotake, an initial Scenario Ambassador of the Future Co-creation Initiative

 

Co-creative leader development through industry-government-academia dialogue

Fundamentally, future scenarios created through the scenario planning technique are not used in their original forms but are updated routinely with the changing times. Our perception of the future naturally alters with an external environment changing in line with factors such as the global situation and technological advancement. The Scenarios created by the Initiative must also be continually updated as change and progress occur.

Nakabayashi feels the need to engage in human resource development to ensure that scenario activities become a substantial part of Yokogawa's corporate culture. “As our current team is limited in size, we urgently need to train new resources to participate in ongoing Future Co-creation Initiative activities. I want to work together with colleagues to use future scenarios in each division and department.”

Nakabayashi gauges Yokogawa's ongoing R&D from a future worldview to fuse it with future research strategies. Moreover, the Green Phoenix Project (GPP), co-founded with Waseda University's Governance & Sustainability Research Institute, links professional and management members representing diverse fields and industries in over 30 industry, government, and academic entities. Each entity is already seeing great results as it puts the information from GPP participation into in-house work, combining its research strategies with future scenarios.

Looking ahead, Nakabayashi is considering how to expand the company-wide application of the knowledge generated by the Initiative while sustaining and broadening Initiative activities.

A Green Phoenix Project workshop

 

Leveraging external expertise to solve customer problems

Kiyotake also feels that his experience with the Future Co-creation Initiative has enhanced his dialogue with clients in his systems consulting practice, where teamwork is crucial.

“Providing our corporate team with various insights and perspectives gained through interactions outside the company has led to new developments,” says Kiyotake. “For example, in dealing with difficult client issues, I have brought new views to the table by integrating a management perspective fostered through Initiative dialogues and a bird's-eye view acquired from differing environments. Even in situations which previously ended in deadlock due to a heavy focus on methodology, we now see active developments thanks to our elevated quality of dialogue.”

Nakabayashi (left) describes the practical rewards already earned through the Future Co-creation Initiative

Ultimately, this method leads to solutions for client problems. In this sense, parallel Initiative activities and systems consulting can be both meaningful and exciting.

 

Overcoming substantial hurdles: the allure of Future Co-creation Initiative activities

Initiative activities are time-consuming and mentally taxing, since they are shouldered in addition to each member's main job. What motivated these two Scenario Ambassadors to continue working under such circumstances, given that they were facing such challenges for the first time?

“The Future Co-creation Initiative will only be of great value to Yokogawa if it creates compelling business opportunities,” comments a confident Nakabayashi. “In order to create more distinct value, I want to bring the experience and results gained from these activities to areas other than R&D as well.

“I feel great about developments that have spread as a result of cooperative dialogue since Initiative activities began. For example, instead of just saying to the client, 'We have this kind of technology, so let's think about how to use it,' we can encourage mutual discussion, as people are more likely to connect when they discuss their larger visions and future dreams.

“I was always the type who felt more comfortable just researching independently and not gathering information beyond my area of interest. My work made me a total outsider regarding information related to politics, economics, and the environment. If it wasn't about technology, I wasn't interested. That all changed once I joined the Future Co-creation Initiative and became exposed to information from various fields. I'm a researcher, so absorbing information is just pure fun. Initiative activities introduce me to massive amounts of information I could never acquire on my own. That makes me happy, no matter how busy I am.”

Nakabayashi, treasuring the exposure to information beyond his realm of expertise

At the same time, Kiyotake is also taking on the challenge of using his newfound perspectives to solve workplace problems.

“In my case, I work in consulting, so I must grapple with very specific problems presented by clients on a daily basis. Many social issues visualized in the Initiative are abstract, making them difficult to mediate, but we continue tackling them through trial and error.” Kiyotake maintains his positive attitude: “I love thinking. I can feel the variation in my thinking broadening and deepening through the process of pondering the future. It is quite a fascinating result.”

 

Future-oriented thinking acquired through Initiative activities

Scenario Ambassadors Nakabayashi and Kiyotake discuss how the Initiative has generated changes in their own thinking and their thoughts about the future.

“In a sense, future scenarios are not only about Yokogawa's future but also mine and my family's. How can we work through Yokogawa to ensure society moves toward a better future? In the past, I thought about R&D only toward expanding our corporate business. Now, I wonder how we can expand Yokogawa's business to realize a desirable society for everyone. And I think about what technology is required to achieve that,” recalls Nakabayashi.

Kiyotake hopes to co-create the future with internal and external collaborators

Kiyotake adds his own comments about what the Future Co-creation Initiative means: “Before joining the Initiative, I only thought about my immediate work or solving problems assigned to me. Now, I love thinking about the future. Yokogawa has blessed us with the opportunity to implement scenario planning with support from management and experts as well as from the workplace. The Initiative has enabled us to go deeper as we create business opportunities and search for latent needs. It is an amazing experience.

“At present, everyone faces an uncertain future and lives in unsettling times. For that reason, we hope to connect with those inside and external to the company, not just because we are members of the Future Co-creation Initiative, but to create a future together.”