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We don’t talk about futures…no, no, no

Feb 13, 2022

Foresight Lessons from Disney’s Encanto

Surely by now you’ve watched or at least heard of the new Disney animated film, “Encanto.” Having been quarantined over Christmas with my 14-year old, I had the pleasure of experiencing the tale of the Madrigals, an enchanted family from Colombia, more times than I care to admit. Due to my repeated viewings as I sheltered in-place on the precipice of COVID’s two-year anniversary, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between one of the movie’s central themes and my own profession as a futurist.

If you are among the handful of people who have not yet seen Encanto, let me bring you up to speed for the purposes of this article (I’ll avoid any major spoilers!)

So, let’s talk about Bruno.

Exiled from the family, but secretly living among the rats inside the rafters of the Casita, Bruno’s dilemma is the impetus for the breakout musical hit of the film. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” paints the picture of a misunderstood futurist. After several of his less-than-inspiring visions of the future have come to pass, Bruno is forced into hiding as members of his community AND his family come to fear his premonitions.

To clarify, most professionals in my field agree that futurists don’t predict (spoiler alert: no one can predict the future). Instead, foresight professionals and those practicing futures thinking map multiple alternative pathways (sometimes using scenarios) to the future. By comparison, using traditional forecasts and other historically-driven and quant-based planning methods focus on creating a singular, linear, and official future. These attempts to predict the future leave us more brittle as we “go all in” on one ill-informed future vision.

In the film, there are several instances of how Bruno’s visions negatively impacted their recipients, from the death of a goldfish to a prognosis of balding, I was initially struck by the “don’t blame the messenger” element in many of these examples. I mean, everyone knows that goldfish don’t have long lifespans and about 70% of men will experience hair loss, so those predictions weren’t really all that impressive.

More interesting to me were situations in which Bruno’s forecasts “led the witness” in a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. The best example of this is when he shares the weather forecast for his sister’s (Pepa’s) wedding. Of course, Pepa’s gift is controlling the weather with her emotions so hearing from her brother that a tempest was forecasted for her wedding day fostered certain feelings and emotions in her, resulting in – you guessed it – a hurricane on her big day.

Ultimately, Bruno emerges from his self-imposed exile to help save his family’s future while working alongside the film’s protagonist Mirabel. Through the film’s final climactic scenes, we learn that Bruno’s visions aren’t written in stone. Instead, Mirabel’s actions help repair years of family fissures that have been hiding just under the surface.

For me, Bruno is an excellent representation of how we traditionally engage with the future in our organizations, institutions, and lives. We often attempt to cope with mounting uncertainty by creating singular, static forecasts of the future. Further, if these plans include messaging that is counter to the status quo (what, I may go bald or my fish may die??) then we either ignore them or even rebel against them. The result is that any individual seeking to illuminate the path forward is often ignored or, worse yet, attacked for their efforts.

We need to talk about futures…yes, yes, and yes!

We need to change the narrative about the future to include multiple possible, preferred, and provocative visions of the future that are informed by many individuals and not just a select few. We must unlock the inner futurist that lies within each of us so that we can generate agency in everyone to create better futures. We need to recognize that it is our actions that create the future and that no forecast should blind us from potential opportunities for transformation.