Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

One of the things we all like to do is read or listen to predictions of the future. Some call them trends, fads, or insights. How are we to interact with these suppositions? Do we just take them in as a reality that will come? Do we strategize from what we read?

Here are a couple of my thoughts on the subject. First we must understand that there are more than one kind of futurist or trend watcher.

One type has all sorts of agendas that they are trying to impose upon overall society. They believe if they keep on repeating their mantras that it will slowly leak into the psyche of the people and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. These can cross all spectrums of interest. Usually they have a one-sided way of looking at things and twist statistics to say what they want people to hear.

Another type of futurist is the one seeking to do it for profit. They are very suspect for the obvious profit motive. Although the profit motive does encourage them to seek out good information that may be useful. We must be careful in blindly listening to these people as they take in things also from a certain perspective. Confirmational research across multiple sources is a good way to distinguish the difference between the chaff and the wheat.

The question needs to be answered though on - What is a futurist? There really are not futurist when you get right down to it.

Do want to know a little secret? Futurists really aren't futurists! What are they then? They are really people that understand the present. What? Really! They do their research to find out what in reality is happening today, and from today are able to extend what is happening into projections of the future.

A true futurists is one who understands the present better than the next person. The one who understands the present climate is one that understands, in general, where things will probably go in the future. To understand the future is to understand the present.

How does this help us? We have to develop a certain attitude toward those who like to make projections. We need to hear competitive projections. Competitive insights. We can't simply make decisions based upon one source of information. We need to compare it with what is really happening in our businesses or departments.

One thing on the difference between a trend and fads. You can build a business and plan in relationship to trends. Fads are just short-term windfalls that can come and go in a very short time. No business can survive over a period of time built upon fads.

The most important thing is to not get too excited about predictions. They're fun to read and entertaining. When you sift through it all there will be some nuggets there to give you new ideas or confirm the direction you're going in.

In reality, this is the best that can be taken from those offering their guesses into the future.