How to thrive in a context of constant disruption : Interview with Roger Spitz

In a world defined by rapid technological change, environmental crises, and systemic disruptions, Roger Spitz shares strategies for turning uncertainty into opportunity. His insights from Disrupt With Impact reveal how leaders can navigate unpredictability and shape the future with purpose. Interview.

Hello Roger Spitz, why did you write this book now?

Roger Spitz: The more I investigate the essence of our world, the more I realize that our systems are not just fragile but outright ineffective. Everything in our world is constantly evolving—except our organizations, strategies, and governance structures. Too often we act on flawed assumptions, believing in a world that is predictable, linear, stable, and controllable. But the cost and missed opportunities from these misconceptions are on the rise.

My book Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World explores opportunities, risks, strategies, and tactics to remedy this lack of resiliency. It offers practitioner frameworks and real-world insights to enhance foresight and decision-making in addressing major disruptions—from sustainability and artificial intelligence to geopolitical shifts and cybersecurity risks. This book serves as your guide for confidently navigating through the turbulent waters of change in the increasingly interconnected yet fragmented global landscape. Be empowered to overcome challenges and seize new opportunities for success and growth.

We learn to decipher the true nature of the world—not oversimplified narratives engineered for short-lived influence, control, and commercial gains. Instead of viewing the future as predetermined or singular, we embrace the multitude of possible futures in our dynamic world of constant flux. Our anticipatory thinking focuses on enhancing preparedness for diverse scenarios that may unfold, not predicting the inherently unpredictable future. We don’t overemphasize the future at the expense of the present because the present is our only tangible reality. We imagine the future as a tool to inform today’s actions and short-term decisions.

Faced with relentless change and escalating uncertainty, we empower you with essential tools—principles, concepts, and mindsets—in an era of ambient disruption. Imagine navigating uncharted waters with a compass calibrated for the unpredictable. Our book provides that compass to actively create meaningful change in a world where every swerve feels “like nothing that’s ever happened before.”

Across all aspects of business and society, there is no shortage of events presented as “historic,” “unique,” or “unprecedented.” Maybe there should be new parameters for “unprecedented” as unprecedented becomes the norm. In this environment, we can only make relevant decisions by anticipating what might arise, unshackled from the steady state that has been.

This is a journey where we traverse the ever-evolving landscape of uncertainty. Along the way, we discover perspectives that empower us to shape our futures. The need today for humanity is urgent; we have to embark on a quest to anticipate and prepare for the uncharted challenges ahead while driving impactful change.

An extract from your book that best represents yourself?

Roger Spitz: “Techistentialism is Existentialism 2.0. Standing on the shoulders of Heidegger and S?ren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre powerfully articulated the human condition: ‘existence precedes essence.’ By this, Sartre meant that our agency emerges through choice. While existence is indeterminate and thus unknowable, we are always defining our essence as it emerges and moving in the direction we define. But if technology is determining outcomes on our behalf, our agency is curtailed, and our choices may be beyond our control.

Figure: Comparing Existentialism with Techistentialism.

Technology is shaping society by influencing decision-making and enabling manipulation at scale (for instance, through social media and misinformation). Through AI, technology is challenging us in a realm historically specific to humans. As AI develops, machines will become increasingly autonomous in making decisions. Here the use of technology confronts the existential dimension. Here we stand on the edge of our free will. Computationally rational technology is no longer neutral because it drives away contingency and choice.

Techistentialism studies the nature of human beings’ existence and decision-making in our technological world.

…Maybe the existential risk is not machines taking over the world, but rather the opposite, where humans start responding like idle machines—unable to connect the emerging dots of our UN-VICE [UNknown, Volatile, Intersecting, Complex, Exponential] world.”

The trends that are just emerging and that you believe in the most?

Spitz: As the complexities of our world grow, the inherent uncertainty of the future intensifies.

In 1982, John Naisbitt defined megatrends as large transformative processes with global reach and dramatic impact. While analyzing trends of any size can seem to yield insights into the future, they share a common weakness: trends are little more than rearview mirrors.

Extrapolating trends is dangerous, especially when they compound flawed assumptions. With time, assumptions magnify; wrong assumptions cascade and blow up.

In contrast to trends, disruptions are discontinuous. Systemic disruption—the cascade of constant disruptions across our increasingly complex and hyperconnected world—forces us to confront unpredictability.

With systemic disruption, the inability to understand the implications of initial impacts is why changes become apparent only in hindsight. As there may be no measurable data to substantiate our understanding, imagination outshines analysis.

To contrast Naisbitt’s megatrends, the Disruptive Futures Institute coined the term metaruptions. A metaruption is a multidimensional family of systemic disruptions.

Metaruptions cause widespread self-perpetuating effects that extend beyond their initial disruptions. As early changes spill over, impacts combine, propagate, and modify other elements within the system. Imagining the interplay of metaruptions is a creative endeavor, not a number-crunching exercise.

Predictions about the future should be scrutinized—nobody knows how the future will unfold. Anyone being paid to make predictions has a vested interest in the outcomes. Furthermore, consultants, economists, bankers, analysts, forecasters, and algorithms who claim to have data-driven predictive capabilities somehow extrapolate the past.

Traditional trend analysis and planning approaches assume a predictable world. Seeking to predict an answer is reasonable when addressing clearly defined questions in stable environments. However, when variables and their interactions are unknown, relying solely on predictions can be detrimental, especially when decisions hinge on their accuracy. The future is unmapped; you can’t rely on modeling uncertainties to deliver certainty.

In foresight, insights from historical analysis and trends are helpful for sensemaking but only to provide a snapshot of the existing world as a base. Our imagination builds out different scenarios, outcomes, and possible futures.

The purpose of scenario development is preparation, not prediction. This readying benefits any eventualities beyond the handful of future scenarios imagined. As we evaluate the opportunities and risks from our scenarios, we scrutinize their potential consequences. We can then build resilience to sustain even the most serious outcomes.

Foresight does not hold a crystal ball. It prepares you for the swerves. The future of prediction is imagination.

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Beyond trends: Identifying what is stable over time

While the drivers of disruption foster uncertainty and change, we can identify factors that remain constant. What could provide some predictability?

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Futurist Jim Dator believes that the long-term future comes from three components: elements from the present, pieces of the past, and novelties fundamentally defined as new.

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As we exercise our futures intelligence, it is valuable to anticipate what features of the present may continue.

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Despite the unpredictability of our complex world, focusing on constants is still insightful. Relative to the variabilities of change, the unwavering direction and consistent rhythm of constants stand out.

We seek to explore possible futures by challenging assumptions while reducing uncertainties. Because our constants are likely to remain relatively static, their outcomes should not be surprising. We can be anticipatory, prepare, monitor, and mitigate.

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In defining constants, we study the durability and features of the underlying phenomena. If these constants are subject to an exponential trajectory, the momentum could make them accelerate.

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Exploring 10 constants

As we develop a better understanding of the drivers of disruption, we can now contrast 10 constants.

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Un-VICE as a constant environment of the world

UN-VICE (as opposed to ad-vice) is an inherent constant. It is easier to imagine the world as predictable, but this world does not exist. Reality will continue to display Metaruptions and UN-VICE features: UNknown, Volatile, Intersecting, Complex, Exponential.

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Disruption continues as a steady state

Patterns are increasingly hard to interpret, and current paths are certain to be disrupted. Disruption is a constant.

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Sustainable is the new digital

In our transparent and traceable world, extractive economies are challenged. Effective decision-making integrates sustainable futures, minimizing resource usage, extending product life cycles, and featuring biodegradable products.

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Technology’s exponential evolution

Technology’s evolution leads to cheaper, faster, and increasing computer processing power. Miniaturization races towards invisible computing. Amara’s Law prevails as we overestimate the short-term consequences of technology but underestimate its long-term impacts. AI, robotics, healthcare, and climate tech converge to create digital synergies and prices continuously decrease.

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Machines continue to learn quickly

Machines will continue to learn with increasingly higher-level human functions and understanding. Generative AI systems further amplify creativity and productivity.

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Information plays key role in decision-making

The world - including humans - is a string of networked data constantly interpreted, decoded, programmed, and edited. Unless humanity materially changes its relationship with technology and information, AI will play an increasing role in decision-making.

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A decentralized, permissionless world emerges

Decentralization emerges from collective intelligence platforms and self-organized networks. These gradually erode dominant centralized control structures. Decentralization will continue to offer society novel ways to interact.

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Continued paradigm shifts

Technology enables radical transparency and traceability, reinforcing accountability. The evolution from shareholder primacy to stakeholder capitalism will continue, seeking gender, racial, social, generational, and environmental balances. Social change will constantly push existing boundaries.

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The fusion of BioTech and AI

The biological, physical, and digital will merge. This fusion could result in hyper-augmented humans, potentially combining human intelligence and cognitive computing. Breakthroughs in drug discovery, genetic engineering, and synbio may become magic algorithms playing god and creating inorganic life.

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Demand driven by whatever solves the “JTBD”

The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework pioneered by Clayton Christensen is a popular method for understanding customer behavior and possibilities for innovation. JTBD suggests that people buy products and services to get a specific job done. Christensen says that people don’t simply buy them, they “hire” them to help them make progress in some activity or task. Accordingly, they will “fire” the product or service if another can do the job better.[1]

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[1] Christensen, C M, Hall, T, Dillon, K and Duncan, D S (2016) Know Your Customers’ Jobs to Be Done, Harvard Business Review, September, www.hbr.org/2016/09/know-your-customers-jobs-to-be-done

If you had to give one piece of advice to a reader of this article, what would it be?

Advice is becoming less replicable

Relying on experts and their advice is less helpful now than ever, and their helpfulness continues to decrease. We are not arguing for the systematic dismissal of expertise; rather, we can no longer delegate our decisions and rely on experts alone for all the answers. In the words of the Royal Society, nullius in verba (“take nobody’s word for it”).

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In contrast to advice, our UN-VICE (UNknown, Volatile, Intersecting, Complex, Exponential.) is not a suggestion of behavior or a mandate. Instead, our UN-VICE is a way to decipher changing circumstances imaginatively. All advice should be carefully considered, combined with an emphasis on developing and trusting our own capabilities.

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In our increasingly UN-VICE world, the value of recommendations is rapidly decreasing. Systemic disruption has devalued ad-vice; instead, we offer our best UN-VICE. Inspired by Richard Feynman, we must explore unanswered questions, rather than adhering to unquestionable answers.

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Zen Master Suzuki Roshi said[1] “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” Our UN-VICE draws from the three stages of the Japanese martial arts concept shuhari. In the first stage, shu, the student masters the established fundamentals. In the second stage, ha, the learner practices and experiments with novel approaches, guided by their own unique perspectives. In the third stage, ri, they break loose from confining rulebooks to adapt freely to any situation. Shuhari is a journey, a continuous process of learning, experimenting, and letting go.

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Nothing can be your substitute

The third stage of shuhari is the hardest but most important in our present-day world and imminent futures. No external structures can replace your individual accumulation of knowledge and perspectives. You’ll have to learn and adapt for yourself.

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Science enables the treatment of many debilitating diseases, illustrated by the record-fast development of Covid vaccines. Thanks to science, we have harnessed electricity, built airplanes, 3D bioprinted functional organs, put humans on the Moon and rovers on Mars. Science is nothing short of miraculous.

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However, this expertise often exists in narrow fields and specific circumstances. Experts are most helpful in controllable, ordered, and predictable environments. Here, cause and effect is understood beforehand, models are reliable, forecasts accurate, and solutions replicable. In these knowable environments, expertise is invaluable.

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But the world is no longer controllable and understandable. Rather, it is increasingly unpredictable, and there are not always right answers at the onset. Here, reliance on expert analysis alone is limited.

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We are faced with novel challenges for which there are no established experts. The deeper the uncertainties, the greater the divergences of existing expert views. This is the case for social inequalities, mitigating climate change, and transformational technologies, which demand different thinking. We should embrace the latest science while appreciating the limitations of our knowledge.

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We must also be wary of the flood of misinformation and unsupported opinions. Those who face the future by denying reality and science will fare poorly compared to critical thinkers. The emerging features of our new environments are not understood. Even experts may not know or agree on the potential challenges, outcomes, or solutions.

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Not knowing is uncomfortable. We humans like to verify everything empirically. We crave certainty. Enduring the unresolved can be distressing. Yet, we can harness this unpredictability to drive novel ideas and original responses.

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The permission to wander around, imagine, ask questions, and challenge assumptions makes the magic happen.

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Advice is a necessary guiding input while making sense of situations, challenging preconceptions, and questioning shortcuts. Likewise, our UN-VICE is to appreciate the unknowability of the world with a humble beginner’s mind.

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[1] Suzuki, S (1970) Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Weatherhill

In a nutshell, what are the next topics that you will be passionate about?

Roger Spitz: In the face of climate risks, mitigation and building resilience are essential. Greenaissance, a green revolution fueled by momentous innovation and investment across fields, offers a path toward a sustainable energy future.

At the Disruptive Futures Institute, we will be scaling and launching new programs for Sustainable Futures. We will be launching a flagship initiative with our DFI Sustainability & Climate Academy, including a chapter in Brazil.

The DFI Sustainability & Climate Academy is our flagship education center for Sustainable Futures, focusing on climate foresight and systems innovation, the energy transition, and decarbonization strategies. We have major launches planned for early 2025. We will be making announcements in January 2025 about our new programs, especially our first chapter in Brazil.

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Thank you, Roger Spitz.

Thank you, Bertrand Jouvenot.

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The book: Disrupt With Impact, Roger Spitz, KoganPage, 2024.

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Roger Spitz is President of Techistential (Climate & Strategic Foresight) and Chair of Disruptive Futures Institute in San Francisco.

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Linkedin

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Spitz is the author of the bestselling four-volume collection The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption and Disrupt With Impact: Achieve Business Success in an Unpredictable World. A world-leading authority on strategic foresight, Spitz serves on multiple boards focused on anticipatory governance, sustainability, AI & ethics, venture capital and academia. Spitz lectures and publishes widely on Strategic Foresight & Systems Innovations, and is an expert adviser to the World Economic Forum’s Global Foresight Network.

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Spitz’s Disruptive Futures Institute equips leaders for sustainable value creation through transformative change and capacity building for resiliency. A recognized expert in Artificial Intelligence, he founded the Techistential Center for Human & Artificial Intelligence, and is known for coining the term “Techistentialism.” Spitz writes extensively on the future of AI and strategic decision-making, and serves on the AI General Assembly & Council of the Indian Society for Artificial Intelligence.