Why even great predictions don’t create great solutions

Research on how well people can predict the future comes to a resounding conclusion: not well. Asking “What will happen to me?” in a future situation misses the point. Instead, it’s much more fruitful to consider multiple possible future states and ask, “What would we do if this happened?” Wisdom from Arie de Geus.

The hunger for prediction in an uncertain world

To say that people don’t like uncertainty is an understatement. Journalist Maggie Jackson has written a book about it — called Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure. As she says in a recent interview, we need “routine and familiarity. Most of life is what scientists call predictive processing. That is, we’re constantly making assumptions and predicting. You just don’t think that your driveway is going to be in a different place when you get home tonight. You can expect that you know how to tie your shoelaces when you get up in the morning. We’re enmeshed in this incredible world of our assumptions. It’s so human, and so natural, to stick to routine and to have that comfort. If everything was always new, if we had to keep learning everything again, we’d be in real trouble.”

One consequence of wanting to know what’s likely to happen, even if nobody has the answers, is that we turn to people who claim…