CHAPTER 4Origins of Future Search Principles

Building on the Legacy of the Pioneers

People have lived and worked in groups for thousands of years. Not until 1939 did Ronald Lippitt and Kurt Lewin identify people’s patterns of interaction as group dynamics. They coined the term after studying the contrasting ways young boys behaved while doing craft projects under democratic and authoritarian leadership (Lewin et al., 1939). Ever since, teachers, managers, soldiers, social workers, politicians, and psychologists—despots and democrats alike—have scrambled to figure out what moves people to cooperate. In this chapter we describe the seminal discoveries we built on in developing Future Search. Behind the flipcharts and the felt-tipped pens lies a ...

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