Ah New Years! A time for predictions.
Predicting pop culture trends, new technologies, political changes….and of course, the economy.
Am I the only one who feels these predictions are particularly quaint this year? I get the sense journalists and columnists are just going through the motions. They know as well as we that 2009 is fraught with uncertainty. No one has a clue. Once you realize that no one has a clue, the television pundits become particularly entertaining because it seems on TV you need to pretend you actually know something that other people don’t know. Nevertheless, the ‘2009 Predictions’ stories are fun holiday reads.
In the best of times, we are notoriously bad at predicting the future. Here at the start of 2009 we face an inflection point. A moment when the recent past does little to help us predict the future. At such moments, rather than trying to predict the future we can focus attention on identifying the boundaries of our uncertainty. Let’s figure out precisely what we don’t know rather than trying to look into the crystal ball and fool ourselves into believing we can see the future. Once we identify the range of our future uncertainty, we can begin to monitor the areas of uncertainty to spot weak signals and we can design flexible strategies that enable us to thrive regardless of how the future unfolds.
This whole ‘embrace uncertainty’ thing not for you? No worries! I’ll be glad to refer you to an excellent pyschic who will tell you exactly what will happen next year.
Media Inquiries Welcome: Please use contact form to reach me. I will provide a more direct means of contact for journalists on deadline work.
