"Futurists" as Better Thinkers for Corporations?

”It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future," so quipped Yogi Berra

The future makes for a fascinating study in its own right, doesn't it. The word "futurist" seems to be gaining popularity in corporate circles, but in essence what they need are better thinkers. For example, to believe that we can inject a large dose of certainty in our strategizing, planning and decision-making is not only conventional thinking, but it's misguided thinking, as Peter Bishop implies in Why Every Corporation Should Employ a Futurist. 

Even then, this point about certainty is a complex one. In a baseball game, for instance, we can predict with 100% certainty that there will be a winner and there will be a loser. Not the case in NFL football, where you can have a draw as an outcome. But sports is what I call a fabricated reality, with a fabricated future. If the New England Patriots are up by three touchdowns with 30 seconds left in the game, we can predict with virtually 100% certainty that they will win the ballgame. 

In a way, however, the corporate world is as real as it gets. Can anyone truly predict where Facebook will be in five years, and how Apple will do in this time span? Yes, perhaps to some extent, but with a great deal more uncertainty. So, what corporations need more of is better thinking about their often complex, even unpredictable realities. This is what Jim Collins identified as one hallmark of a great leader, that is, one who takes a straightforward, unvarnished view of reality.

"The future ain't what it used to be," bemoaned Yogi Berra

Says Bishop: "We're encouraging companies to spend a little bit of time thinking about the future, single digit percents. They don't do it because they don't know how to do it so they think it's a waste of time, and the reason that they don't know how is because nobody in their schools has ever taught them how to do it."

So what are the keys to thinking like a futurist?

Futurists think in terms of "multiple futures" rather than one. Not only does this increase the chances that one will have a plan for the actual future, but it also "intellectually conditions" one to adapt to change.

Futurists also see value in challenging basic assumptions.

"What we do now is basically assume," says. Bishop. "Then we go on and make plans, and those assumptions are fine. The problem is we don't challenge those assumptions, and what we've been taught in physics class is to state your assumptions. We were never taught to say, 'and what if those assumptions are wrong? What's different about it?'"