Reader,

Here are a dozen questions and some examples for those of you who are interested in intercepting the future.

But first, consider your four futures.

Four futures

All of us are faced with four futures.

• Known: This future is understood by carefully examining demographic, industrial, and societal trends that are established and unstoppable. For example, Gen-Xers are approaching retirement age, and Gen-Alpha are coming of age.
• Hazy: This future is understood by considering ranges of possible / probable outcomes of changes in technology, ecology, and policy. For example, autonomous vehicles will be common in 2030 or maybe 2040.
• Either/Or: This future is examined through the lens of your planning assumptions and vetting their ongoing viability. For example, either the U.S. will put a station on the moon by 2035, or not.
• Bolts-from-the-Blue: These future events invalidate past truths that you have used to develop your existing plans. Your oldest and most underutilized skill, imagining, must be reenergized, and used. Another pandemic WILL happen. We just don’t know when, so we ignore it.

Can you answer these questions?

Here are a dozen questions and comments to consider as you think about the future for yourself or your organization.

1. What have been our past blind spots? This metaphor, based on the human eye, relates to those events and conditions that we don’t see, because they are hidden or because we don’t want to look for them.

Past success often makes us blind to changes happening around us. This results in “strategic inertia.” Traditional automakers (Ford, GM, Toyota) underestimated how quickly China would dominate the EV market in Asia and Europe.

2. What clues and signals are we rationalizing away? Clues and signals that we see but contradict our beliefs or the status quo are often discounted to the point of labeling them to be false or not applicable.

Cybersecurity warnings were ignored before massive hits affected hospitals, schools, city governments, and, most recently, airports.

3. What surprises could really hurt (or help) us? Surprise conditions or events are rarely neutral. They tend to amplify both the strengths and weaknesses in our organizations and systems.

Weight-loss drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy) disrupted the food, beverage, and healthcare markets.

4. What emerging technologies could change the game? Although we often associate “technology” with equipment or computers, the word relates to the techniques, skill, methods, and processes used in the accomplishment of an objective.

Breakthroughs in nuclear fusion funding and pilot projects may change the energy game.

5. Do we think big enough? Rather than think “out of the box,” we need to think in “bigger boxes.” Change comes from the outside and we need to consider conditions in our industry and the economy at large. Look for signals of change when they are still weak.

BYD surpassed Tesla in EV sales in 2024, signaling China’s growing dominance in global mobility. The industry is shifting east.

6. Do we think far enough? There are five zones of strategic thought: the reaction zone, the adaptation zone, the anticipation zone, the recognition zone, and the imagination zone. The reaction zone consists of today’s issues and most managerial time is spent there. Stretch your thinking time all the way out to the imagination zone.

The EU’s AI Act is forcing companies to think about compliance and risk frameworks years ahead.

7. Do we know our most important long-term survival challenges? Urgent often gets in the way of important. Prioritize the challenges facing your organization out into the future.

Declining birth rates in the United States, South Korea, Japan, and parts of Europe are threatening future labor markets and retirement safety nets.

8. What questions are we afraid to ask? Questions are the most powerful tool you have. Unfortunately, we often leave questions unasked because of an organization’s “hands off” attitude. Use a pre-mortem discussion to raise questions that no one wants to ask.

What if AI replaces not just jobs but entire industries? Legal, accounting, and market research firms are profitable now but are facing AI-driven efficiency pressures.

9. What assumptions are dangerous? All plans are built on a set of assumptions. When they are correct, they are a great aid to shared thinking. But when they erode, they will kill your strategy. Expose and vet key strategic assumptions.

“Energy prices will stabilize.”

10. Who has different points of view about the future and are we willing to listen? It’s rare to find an organization wherein all the stakeholders agree on the definition of the challenge, much less the solution. Unfortunately, stakeholders who disagree with the popular point of view are often labeled as naysayers and ignored.

Gen Z is pushing employers toward values alignment and mental health accommodations.

11. What should we change now to prepare for the future? Peter Drucker, the late management sage, wrote and spoke about “the futurity of present decisions.” We need to look at the cascade of intended and unintended consequences of today’s decisions.

Diversify supply chains beyond China and East Asia.

12. Where are we overly dependent? In the search for cost reduction and efficiency, have we put all our eggs in a single basket?

Reliance on a single cloud provider (AWS, Azure, Google) for critical infrastructure leaves many organizations with a potential single failure point.

The Prepared Mind Project will launch in the fall.

We are going to build a community of people who want to learn from the past, deal with the present, and intercept the future. It will focus on questions that need answers (such as the aband tools and techniques that you can use.

Stay tuned.

Bill