Brexit and the Forecasting Business — Part 2 — Looking Longer Term
As we move away from the short-term, Futures and Forecasting got more things right, which might be good news, but we face some bigger problems. It might well be a case of “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”
1) The good news?
Most of us (be we external or internal experts) highlighted the possibility of Brexit to our clients/colleagues some time before the campaign got into full swing. We also pointed out that the consequences were potentially so grave that backup plans needed to be considered in case of the Leave vote. A number of businesses have responded to the situation. For example, some London based banks immediately activated plans to scope out real-estate in other European cities and begin HR planning around moving or shedding staff.
Other sectors are moving more slowly because of heavy capital investment (e.g. automotive) but even there, some companies delayed key investment decisions until after the referendum vote.
2) The bad news?
For all that some companies are ahead of the curve, we all know companies that ignored the need to plan for this eventuality. They were given the same presentations, information, activities as all the others, but just didn’t get down to work. Some believed it wouldn’t happen, so it wasn’t worth worrying about. Still others don’t even engage in any internal or external futures or forecasting activity.
3) The ugly?
Most of the scenarios presented to the general public were not presented by members of the futures community, so we might wish to indulge in blaming the messengers (economists, politicians, central bankers and other figures the public doesn’t trust.) However, it’s not easy to think of better messengers from the futures/forecasting world. We don’t have that much status. Further, it would be a misdiagnosis to zero in just on trust.
There is plenty of evidence that for a host of reasons people are choosing to stay away from thinking about these things. Some people are just paralyzed trying to process all the information. Some couldn’t find a way to square facts and emotions. Others don’t like the feeling of powerlessness and so try to ignore the prospect of change. This phenomenon has been christened Agnotology and to me when you connect it up with all those organisations that didn’t want to think about the future either, it becomes clear that we have a big problem.
And that problem is not our favourite problem (trying to make good and useful predictions) it’s a hard problem: helping people actually face up the future and make informed choices.
Moving Forward
Futures and forecasting is never going to be perfect, it’s about possibilities and scenarios — and we’ve rightly spent a lot of time on getting better at that. But along the way, we’ve missed something. While we were looking to the future many others got paralysed. While we were listing scenarios, they were feeling all at sea, feeling “probabilities” were no guide at all.
So how can we help people face the future?
We need tools and processes that:
1) Help address information overload.
2) Help ensure that the voices of the loudest or most cynical don’t dominate.
3) Stimulate rather than paralyze.
All of these principles were in mind when I helped invent IdeaKeg and I’ll talk some more about that next week.
