The best way to predict the future is to create it

We live in highly uncertain times. Disruption looms around every corner, and today we have less of an inkling than ever of what might happen tomorrow. The future is more uncertain, changeable and unpredictable than ever and anything that may happen might have much more impact with the risk to be quite devastating. We have to learn to cope with this future - not only in our near future, but also in the future to come. The good news is that there are techniques to be prepared for the future as best we can - the future is and will always be uncertain - but to anticipate it as best we can. There are two possibilities: to direct our thinking more consciously to be more future-oriented and to apply a full-spectrum thinking. With these techniques there are ways to learn to deal with the future as good as we can and even discover the hidden opportunities that the future holds for us. 

Over the last millions of years we have developed our brain in continuously be best equipped to survive and in this continuity we have still today certain attitudes and habits that simplify our daily lives. Basically, this has to do with the fact that we, as creatures of habit, arrange our reality in a way that we adapt to the present and we form corresponding rituals to be able to survive. The deeper reason is that the human brain is built in a way to simplify things to a maximum in order to cope with the immense complexity of our world. This was demonstrated by the Nobel laureate in economics, Daniel Kahneman, in his work "Thinking, Fast and Slow". In this book, he impressively shows how we make our decisions and why it is so difficult to know what will make us happy in the future. With many concrete examples, he shows how our judgment and decision-making processes work, and he makes a fundamental distinction between two different thinking systems.

Fast thinking is unconscious, emotional, and instinctive and is in some ways automatic and pops into our head with “no sense of voluntary control.” This results in rapid judgments and, sometimes, prejudice. Fast thinking enables us to get through the day by handling routine decisions with a minimum of mental effort.

Slow thinking, in contrast, is more work for our brain and consumes much more resources. On the one hand, it involves a divergent thinking, in which we try to generate a diversity of possible alternative solutions to a problem. On the other hand it involves a convergent thinking, in which we put much effort to narrow down the differents options into one best answer to a problem.

Both ways of thinking are absolutely necessary and important. In an increasingly complex world, it is fascinating to be able to distinguish and assess them and to understand how we react to constantly changing situations and problems with this two profoundly different thinking systems. The challenge here is that the fast thinking always overpowers slow thinking to cope effectively with our incredible complex present. To avoid being constantly blindsided by this instant response system, we need to strengthen our slow thinking of our constant human nature to be able to make sense of an even more unpredictable future.

It is extremely insightful to understand how we can change our thinking behavior so that we better understand the current uncertain situation and to know how to react to it in the best possible way.

Bob Johansen, from the Institute for the Future just published the fascinating book “Full-Spectrum Thinking – How to escape boxes in a post-categorical future. In this book, the author creates an insightful concept not only to better understand the present but also to give meaning to it. His approach helps interpret the present and, most importantly, give it meaning and identify new possibilities in the future. He emphasizes the fact that when we try to predict the future, our brain automatically reacts with a fight or flight response that will cause us many problems in the future.

“The emerging future will require us to teach our brains new tricks, to move from unexamined categorical thinking to mindful full-spectrum thinking”

To give an example: Peter Drucker gives a good advise, to avoid too much categorical thinking. He propose to work in the first half of your career with many different people, in different jobs and locations to broaden your mindset. In the second half of your career you can focus on what you are really passionate about. The message here is that we should not follow the beaten path of the masses but find our own way, and getting off the well-known rails to get of the routine and broaden our thinking.

The Institute of the Future has developed a model, how to forecast the future helping us to identify upcoming opportunities. Based on three steps they apply the "Full-spectrum thinking" as a mix of hindsight, foresight, insight and action. The underlying idea is to challenge your assumptions avoiding categorical thinking, imagine new opportunities beyond what seems to be possible for us. Then they create a new spectrum of possibilities to find an insight. The last step and important step is to take Full-Spectrum action to work towards the identified goal.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

If we want to be better prepared for the challenges of the future, we would be well advised to think less categorically trying to confirm certainties, but to think and act in a future-oriented way looking for clarity. This is not an easy task to do, and it also requires us a lot of effort to overcome our inherent confirmation bias which facilitates to stick with the easy and heuristic way of answering hard questions. Instead we should fostering our slow thinking capacities and force more slow thinking into the situation if we want try to manage better the complexity of the future.