Future-Informed Practice Starts With Better Questions

Career development professionals have always helped people navigate change. And yet, the pace, scale, and complexity of change facing clients today requires us to think differently about how we support them. The labour market is shifting quickly. Technology is changing how work gets done and what jobs are available. Occupations evolve, skills change, and clients are exposed to a steady stream of labour market information, career advice, predictions, and opinions.

The challenge is no longer simply helping clients find information. It’s helping them make sense of it.

That was one of my biggest takeaways from completing the Certified Future Strategist (CFS) program. This new program helps career development professionals become more future-informed, more strategic in interpreting change, and more intentional in supporting clients through uncertainty.

I was fortunate to be one of the beta testers for the program, offering feedback to help strengthen it for future participants, and honoured to be the tenth person in Canada to receive this certification. What stood out to me was not only the practical guidance for supporting clients in a changing labour market, but also the attention paid to sustaining ourselves while doing this important work.

To better understand the thinking behind the program, I spoke with Sharon Graham, founder of Career Professionals of Canada and developer of the Certified Future Strategist (CFS) program.  Sharon provided an abundance of insights and wisdom, so this article is part 1 of our interview.

Why this program? Why now?

Sharon recognized the need for specialized training had been building for years as the pace of change accelerated across work, technology, and society. But the arrival of AI in the mainstream brought the issue into sharper focus. Clients suddenly had access to more automated information, tools, and resources than ever before, while career professionals were also questioning what these changes might mean for their own future. “It felt like the ground was shifting beneath us,” Sharon shared, “and many of us were unsure of what was coming next and what it meant for us.” The CFS program was created to help practitioners understand emerging change, strengthen their ability to interpret its meaning, and support clients with confidence.

Moving Beyond the Search for Certainty

Clients often come to career professionals looking for certainty.  You may be familiar with these questions: they ask which field is safest, whether they should retrain, which skills will matter most, or whether a particular opportunity is the “right” one. These are understandable questions, especially when the world of work feels unpredictable.

But future-informed practice is not about predicting exactly what will happen next. “No one can accurately predict the future,” Sharon said. “Future-focused practice is about preparing for multiple possibilities, recognizing emerging patterns, and making better decisions in the present.”

This was one of the most helpful reframes in the CFS program for me.

Our role is not to offer certainty of any kind. It’s to help clients slow down, ask better questions, explore possibilities, assess risks and opportunities, and make choices that are grounded in both current realities and future potential.  The CFS arms us with tools and strategies to help our clients assess and research before making a decision.

Future-informed practice helps us move beyond reacting to change. It invites us to look for patterns, consider context, and help clients make thoughtful decisions even when the path ahead is murky and not completely clear.

Future Thinking Is Already Part of Career Work

One misconception about future-focused practice is that it belongs only to futurists, researchers, or people who spend their days studying trends. In reality, career professionals are already doing this work. “Every time we help a client evaluate options, anticipate change, assess risk, or consider long-term outcomes, we are working with the future,” Sharon said.

The CFS program gives language, structure, and purpose to work that many experienced practitioners have been doing intuitively for years – one of Sharon’s biggest surprises once she started hearing from CDPs who took the program. One of the program’s strengths is that it makes these concepts practical. Each module includes client examples that make the material real, while case studies at the end of each section illustrate the kinds of challenges clients are already facing. Reflective questions throughout the program invite us to pause and consider today’s realities, and how we may need to adapt our own thinking and practices.

That practical grounding was intentional. Sharon shared that she expected some resistance because future-focused practice can sound abstract at first. Instead, participants quickly recognized that they were already doing parts of this work. “The program gave language, structure, and purpose to practices they had developed through experience,” she said.

Helping Clients Work With Urgency, Not Be Driven by It

The CFS program also offers an important reminder about client urgency. In a rapidly changing labour market, clients may feel pressure to act immediately. They may want quick answers, immediate reassurance, or a clear path forward. This is understandable when someone is worried about job security, facing a layoff, considering a career change, or deciding whether to invest time and money in new training.  I feel this urgency with my clients- you may as well.

Chapter 7 of the CFS program explores how we can help clients create sustainable pathways so they can consider options and make decisions without being driven entirely by fear or pressure. Our role is not to absorb a client’s urgency or rush to provide an answer before we have helped them understand the question. It’s to help them create enough space to evaluate possibilities, identify what matters most, so they can take the next step with greater intention.

Sustainable Practice Is Part of Effective Practice

My biggest personal eye-opener came in Chapter 3, Sustainable Practice.

As career professionals, we care deeply about our clients. We want to be responsive and provide timely information. We want to help when someone is anxious, overwhelmed, or facing a difficult decision, especially in this uncertain and noisy market. But that care can come at a cost when we are not paying attention to our own capacity.

I noticed this in my own practice. I have found myself extending meetings beyond the scheduled hour when clients need more time. On its own, an extra few minutes may not seem significant. But cumulatively, it affects energy, focus, boundaries, and the ability to show up fully for the next client – or for ourselves.

The program prompted me to consider an important question: if I am not setting healthy boundaries in my own practice, how can I truly be of best service to my clients over the long term? Sustainable practice is not about becoming less caring or less available. It is about recognizing that our energy is a professional resource.  Light bulb moment!

This reflection is especially important as client needs become more complex. Future-informed practice asks us to stay curious, thoughtful, and responsive. We can only do that well when we are also paying attention to the conditions that allow us to think clearly and work sustainably.

Technology-Mediated Practice Requires Boundaries

Chapter 8, Technology-Mediated Practice, reinforced this message.

Digital tools have made it easier to connect with clients, share resources, communicate quickly, and deliver services flexibly. But they can also extend our working hours, increase cognitive load, and make it harder to create a clear boundary between work and life. Many practitioners are monitoring multiple email accounts, LinkedIn, text messages, WhatsApp, virtual meeting platforms, client portals, and other communication channels. Sound familiar? The convenience is real. So is the potential for constant interruption and burnout.

A Practice Built for Complexity

The Certified Future Strategist program is not about having all the answers or predicting exactly what will happen next. It is about strengthening our ability to work with uncertainty and helping clients ask better questions, recognize patterns, explore multiple possibilities, and make thoughtful decisions in a world that rarely offers perfect clarity.

As Sharon explained, many participants found relief in realizing they did not need to keep up with changing technology or information. “Rather than feeling pressure to keep up with every trend and every new technology,” she said, “they learned how to slow down, think more strategically, and focus on what matters most.”

That may be one of the most valuable lessons of future-informed practice.

In a world that often asks us to react faster, our work is to help clients – and ourselves – think more clearly.

– By Michelle Schafer –

Written in collaboration with ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, based on the author’s original ideas. Image generated using ChatGPT.