Scenario planning, reframing and a farewell.

A bit about mining, politics and the futures of the software industry.

(photo via Graeme Codrington’s Linkedin)

I first heard about scenario planning when I was at university in South Africa. I read books and various papers about what Shell and other companies did, but the person that made it come alive for me was Clem Sunter, who at the time was head of strategy or something similar at Anglo American and De Beers (the largest company in South Africa). He wrote a book outlining potential futures for South Africa, and his high road and low road metaphor positively influenced the fraught negotiations that were going on between the still exiled ANC and the National Party government. He visited Mandela in jail, and probably more than any other business leader, helped paved the way for a peaceful transition. He died of old age last week, and like many South Africans I was touched by the news. The SA president, Cyril Ramaphosa and many other luminaries marked his passing.

His history of scenario planning went right back to before the democratic transition, and was acknowledged this week by President Cyril Ramaphosa, who described Sunter’s “high road, low road” scenarios as “focusing the attention of political movements, of his peers in the economy, and of ordinary citizens on the character and future of our nation”.

See this post and this academic paper for more.

He was a remarkable man. I never actually met him, but I read almost everything he wrote, and saw several of his presentations. He was the king of powerful metaphors, of modest assumptions. He could destroy hubris with a gentle joke.

The history of the mining industry in South Africa is inseparable from politics. The early randlords encouraged racial segregation, instigated and funded wars, and in the case of Rhodes, stole vast chunks of the continent. They also created massive wealth, some of which was used for good. This wealth and influence dwarfed that of those selling picks and shovels (more here on that).

Clem reinforced that large scale businesses are political actors (There are many parallels between the early industrial mining industry and today’s technology companies. One can’t help but draw a few parallels between the Randlords and some of the techbros. I read recent biography of Rhodes over the last few weeks, it was brilliant. check out the Colonialist by William Storey).

The main thing that Clem and his co-authors, Chantell and Mitch Ilbury emphasised is attempting to predict a singular future is fraught.

Especially in sectors forced to make long-term decisions under high uncertainty – mining, agriculture, manufacturing, water, and climate-linked work in South Africa and abroad. Their focus was not prediction but preparedness, not confidence but adaptability, not the brittle fantasy of one projected future but the fox-like discipline of watching the flags and changing course when reality changes.

On the software industry

My social media is awash with confident predictions about the state of SaaS and AI. I see various venture capitalists, financial analyts, founders and even academics taking emphatic positions about the future of the software industry. For a couple of weeks I felt uncomfortable about my own lack of conviction about where our industry is headed. As a former Gartner analyst, predicting stuff was what I was paid (adequately but alas not especially handsomely) to do. Yet neither the “SaaS is dead, killed by AI”, nor the “SaaS is fine, nothing’s really changed, the financial analysts are idiots” arguments convinced me.

Clem’s passing reminded me that I would be better served by thinking in terms of multiple imagined, contrasting plausible futures, and working through their consequences, rather than nailing myself to one future. I’m re-reading Ramirez and Wilkinson’s book on strategic reframing, and I will dig out Clem’s work. It is time to re-emphasise the Mind of the Fox. “What do you and do you not control? What is certain and uncertain about the future?”

Reality is typically messier than the proselytizers would have us believe.

All four of these outcomes are feasible.

More to come.

Thank you Clem.

As usual, I’ll leave you with tune. This one is from Sting. It is both a belter and poignant. The line “Men go crazy in congregations. They only get better one by one.” sticks with me.