Ruben Nelson

By training and inclination, Ruben Nelson is a big picture strategic thinker. A Canadian pioneer of serious futures thinking, Nelson has spent his life exploring and seeking to understand the forces that are now re-shaping our lives, our world and our future. Today, he is Canada’s leading practitioner and teacher of strategic foresight – the new cognitive work of leadership. The question at the core of his life is this: “What would we do, if we truly knew what we were doing?”

Nelson challenges those with whom he works to commit to the creation of an economy and society that are truly aligned with the emerging conditions of the 21st Century. He does so because his research into long-term cultural change has led him to believe that the 21st Century is a rare hinge of history. Its novel conditions will require every existing culture to embrace the need for and reality of a fundamental transformation. At its heart, then, strategic foresight is not about succeeding as an Industrial culture, but evolving beyond it. Nelson calls this breathtaking task the Core Challenge of the 21st Century.

For over forty years, Nelson has offered strategic advice to Cabinet Ministers and senior executives in every sector of Canadian society. He is equally at home in plenary halls, board rooms and church basements. He has advised a Canadian Prime Minister on the future of social policy and undertaken the only formal Canadian research into our long evolution and transformation from a late modern Industrial society and economy into a truly post-Industrial culture.

More recently, he and his Foresight Canada colleagues designed a two-year process that would enable thousands of Albertans to engage in the formulation of a strategy for the landscapes of southern Alberta. Nelson also directed the Foresight Canada team that undertook a fresh assessment for The National Research Council of Canada of the complex and swampy strategic issues Canada and the world will face to 2020.

For many years, Ruben has lived as a freelance intellectual contributing to such diverse areas as social policy, technology assessment, futures research, strategic foresight and the emerging knowledge-based economy/society. Today he is recognized as Canada’s most widely-experienced professional futures researcher. One of his current preoccupations is the creation, in cooperation with many professional colleagues, of a permanent Canadian network for strategic foresight.

• THE FUTURE OF...

  Ruben Nelson will explore the future of the area you specify, e.g. Management, Health Care, Dentistry, Planning, Social Policy, Recreation, Universities, Education, Rural Development, etc.

• MATURITY: The Hidden Requirement of the Knowledge Revolution

  A new knowledge-based age is emerging. Just what does this oft-made claim mean? Ruben Nelson will explore how the emerging knowledge economy and society will differ from our industrial economy and society. He will also explain what this change will mean for the ways we organize our work and live our lives. He will focus particularly on what the knowledge revolution means for us as persons and organizations. He will explain why, for the first time in history, a deep adult maturity will become the only acceptable standard for adult behaviour - on and off the job. The universe is telling us that the only way to grow... is UP!

• STRATEGIC FORESIGHT: Getting Out of Industrial Boxes

  The hard part, and the fun part, of living in a societal transformation is getting your mind attuned to the logic and categories of the emerging future. Ruben will assist you to see into the future - to play with new categories and paradigms; to adjust your vision to the emerging post- industrial future. Learn to see why our future lies with "work" not "jobs", "learning" not "schools", "living well" not "service delivery", "knowledge" not just "information", "whole persons" not "functional skills", "self-governing networks" not either "decentralized" or "centralized" organizations, and "communities of interest" not "customers". The point is - be careful how you look, because the only future you can work for is the one you can see!

• OVER THE WATERSHED: From Facing Change to Embracing Transformation

  Ruben Nelson will explore and explain the great watershed of our time - the fact that we are facing an essentially unfamiliar future; that a knowledge-based society really will be different; that we have no future as an industrial economy and culture. This recognition is now going critical. Ruben will outline the strategic advantages that this recognition brings. He will explore the challenges and blocks that we must face and overcome if - as persons, organizations, communities and jurisdictions - we are to sustain success throughout this historic transformation. Finally, he will offer both the strategies and infrastructure we will require in order to succeed at the great task of seeing, grasping and aligning with the new character of our future.

• THE DRIVERS OF CHANGE: What They Are & Where They Are Taking Us

  Globalization, demographics, microelectronic technology and the emerging information economy are re-shaping our society and our future. Ruben Nelson will explain why this is happening and why it is happening now. Using his unique approach, he will explore the consciousness that is already being carried by each of these drivers of change - the new consciousness of our post-industrial future. Ruben will contrast our emerging future with our still-largely-industrial present. Finally he will consider the main challenges and opportunities presented by this transformation.

• A NEW CANADIAN DREAM: Why Our Future Hangs on Finding One

  Ruben Nelson will explore 12 propositions about Canada's future. That Canada is not a normal (ethnically-based) country; that we depend on a shared dream; that the only dream we have ever known - being an essentially British space in North America - is dead and cannot be revived. That being a multicultural society with two founding nations is not a dream, but an illusion; that virtually all of the sources of our success and influence have their roots in the basically British dream; that without a new and powerful dream, the rest of the world will figure out that we are only one-half of one percent of the world's population. Once we are seen this way, rather than being a people of influence, we will be toast. What will it take for us to avoid the fate that now awaits us? Will we have the wit, vision and courage? Ruben will argue that there is a dream that will serve us and the whole world well for the next two to three centuries. He will outline his dream for a Canada that serves itself by serving the world with the only thing that matters - a successful transformation to a global future which is truly post-Industrial, post-Traditional and post-Tribal.

• STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP: A New Requirement, A New Hope

  Hunger for leadership is in the air. We know that, as organizations and a whole society, we are over-managed and under-led. Using his unique insights, Ruben Nelson will explain the cognitive and emotional work of leaders in the 21st Century; how it differs from what we now call management and administration; why we are unprepared - as persons, organizations or communities - to exercise real leadership; why we must get good at it; and what is involved in developing 21st Century leadership. Against this background, it becomes clear why most of our present leadership development efforts fail and what we must do to succeed.

• Ruben Nelson delivered his presentation brilliantly. He kept me on the edge of my seat all evening. He is a great speaker. He definitely has a real vision that must be passed on and adopted by others. Thought provoking - finally someone is saying it as it is.
  New Brunswick Families Into the 21st Century
• Excellent. Very applicable. Sense of humour. Depth. Can translate ideas into understood concepts. Does topic justice by expressing necessary self-questioning! Outstanding! Thanks!
  Strategic Leadership Forum
• Thought-provoking and stimulating, and much discussion followed and in fact continues.
  Centre For National Security Studies
• Inspirational and thought-provoking... guests continue to express their excitement over your oration.
  Banff School District No 102
• Your presentation was an outstanding success... an 'excellent' on our evaluation forms
  Alberta School Trustees' Association
• Thank you for jarring our thoughts... People are still talking.
  Career Development, Alberta
• Dynamic and intriguing... people were very enthusiastic, positive and excited by your presentation.
  Foothills Hospital, Calgary
• Your presentations were extremely well received and many registrants indicated that your sessions were the highlight of the conference.
  BC Health Conference