Stop Thinking About the Future. It Is Useless
Start talking about the future
Strategy — map it out yourself
Start talking about the future
What made us humans? How did wild, animal-like creatures evolve into complex thinking machines? The Fear Paradox book’s author, Frank Faranda, assumes that the reason was fear. Weak and defenseless compared to predators, ancient people had to stare anxiously into darkness and guess what it covered. Envisioning the things that might happen served as the impetus for thinking tools development.
But it doesn’t mean we are superior future thinkers. Have you ever seen people able to plan their lives and stick to these plans long-term?
I haven’t seen them either.
Lost in the future
You take a train from one city to another. You don’t want to read a book or surf the Internet, so you’re looking out the window. So what are you thinking about? According to some studies, you spend 22% of this time imagining future events. But this brain’s skill doesn’t make you a better strategic thinker.
I have already written that people are inferior future thinkers. Evolution taught us to fear the dark by forcing our minds to visualize possible dangers it may hide. However, it didn’t prepare us to plan our retirement or to envision our enterprise’s tomorrow.
Two issues are preventing us from being strategic thinkers:
1. This type of thinking about uncertainty aims to protect us from potential, sometimes imaginary, threats. That’s why our thoughts about the future are often anxious — we tend to see risks rather than opportunities. Otherwise, everyone would become an entrepreneur.
2. Our past shapes our future. Our brains use memories to create pictures of the future. And this makes them very like our past and present. But the future will be different because the world is changing.
Thus, only pondering the future doesn’t help much. We need another tool to make the process more productive. And this tool is collective thinking. It is, as Wooley and some other scientists claim, more effective than individual one.
One of the reasons is that when we discuss an issue with a team, we need to convert our thoughts into words. And if our thoughts look like a chaos of ideas and emotions, every language has its structure. So having to convey our opinions to others, we must structure them. Otherwise, people won’t understand us.
Collective thinking tools
The best tool for collective thinking is a foresight game. But it needs professional facilitation. You can read more about foresight games here.
Another common method is brainstorming, but from my experience, it doesn’t work the way we expect.
Yet, you can organize collecting thinking yourself in the form of futures meetings using a structure. At those meetings, you can discuss four topics with your team:
1. What has changed in the world recently?
2. Will this change affect our market in the nearest five years?
3. Will this impact be significant?
4. How can we use this alteration as an opportunity?
You need to prepare your team for such meetings. Send them to visit industrial exhibitions, motivate them to talk to the customers, and read articles. Accumulate data on trends, disruptive business models in your market, and related ones. Share this data with your team members and foster open discussion.
Conclusion
• Discussing the possible futures with others is more efficient than thinking of it by yourself.
• Doing this exercise regularly can significantly improve your team’s future thinking skills.
• This, in turn, can develop your team’s ability to devise and formulate successful strategies.
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