Hey, happy Monday!
In this note I want to talk to you about who should predict the future in business, how to be believed, what characteristics those who can predict the future have, and how you can do it. I anticipate that you won’t need a crystal ball!
The week just past was energizing and full of inspiration. I returned from the first in-person event I attended in a very long time. It was organized by Webeing and Sketchin for the purpose of meeting entrepreneurs and managers to talk, precisely, about the future.
Massimo Giacchino talked about small-data and how to use it to design e-commerce strategies. William Sbarzaglia showed how teams at major companies finally understand data thanks to real maps he builds with them. Fabrizio Baldinelli talked about B-Corp and the road to sustainability. Cristiano Carriero talked about how to use storytelling to tell the future of the enterprise. I spoke about innovation, how to interpret it and especially how to anticipate it using computational design and OKRs. Sketchin, on the second day organized a workshop that guided participants in designing an omnichannel and sustainable future.
It is clear from this photo that there was a great atmosphere.
So many people attended the event: CEOs, managers, specialists… As I listened to the talks, and mentally went over my own, I made some reflections that I share with you.
Who is responsible for predicting the future?
The CEO’s number one job is exactly to predict what will happen in the business, enable teams to understand their vision, and provide the resources to move in that direction.
A prediction, however, is different from a hallucination!
It is based on the interpretation of signals gathered from past events, and this makes the leadership of an organization the ideal sponsor of projects that first allow data to emerge and become understandable at all levels and then to be used in the planning stages.
However, I think the CEO is not the only one who has to do this. The specialization required in design, marketing, sales, and customer relationship activities means that most data, those with the highest quality, exist on the periphery of the organization. It is everyone’s responsibility (read more about Responsibility vs. Accountability) to equip themselves with a handful of numbers, comparable with the past, to inform their decisions.
Data are not someone’s property. They are a common asset of the company. Being able to use them is a right. The right to be able to contribute to progress.
What characteristics do those who can predict the future have?
The ability to predict the future is a skill that needs to be trained. I recently came across this book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction. I discovered that there is a real category of professionals who are paid (handsomely) to make predictions and help leaders make decisions. From politics to finance to agriculture to art.
These people are not more knowledgeable than others and do not have higher IQs than their peers, yet statistically their predictions come true at a higher than average rate. Luck? No according to author Philip Tetlock who identified these characteristics that distinguish superforcasters from others:
- Cautious and humble temperament
- Open-mindedness, curiosity, thoughtfulness and the ability to talk with numbers.
- Pragmatism and ability to think in terms of probability.
- Discipline in updating forecasts and willingness to update beliefs.
- Understanding the psychological implications of what is happening.
- Ethics, growth mindset, resilience.
These are exactly the soft-skills that every team needs!
How to be believed?
Making predictions is not enough; it is also necessary to be believed in order to intervene before disaster strikes. But how to avoid ending up like a modern Cassandra, who had the gift of foresight but was not heard?
It is critical to have an appropriate corporate culture and set of practices that allows data and feedback to flow from the organization’s external touchpoints to the meetings where decisions are made. Many managers do not know what goes on in the day-by-day between employees and customers! But it is also true that employees do not have a safe space to talk, or are neither motivated nor incentivized to express their views, as a result, meetings are filled with corporate jargon to defend their roles and avoid reprimands.
Talking with numbers: a single number cannot predict the future, but a series of number-changing experiments make it possible to make signals tangible and confirm hypotheses. Cassandra spoke in verse and no one understood her, so they took her for a fool.
Trust the people on the team; they know the dynamics of the business better than anyone else. Cassandra was not trusted because she was a slave and not part of the entourage that “knew things.”
Sales and customer care are the first to get the warning signs and find out in advance what and how innovation is needed.
OKR as a navigation system
But where does all this data go? When do these conversations take place? What is the tool to equip oneself with the ability to influence the future?
Rita McGrath in Seeing Around Corner, talks in detail about how critical is the ability to see in advance what will be around the corner before it gets in the way.
For leaders, seeing an obstacle is only the first step in successfully navigating it. Therefore, it is important to take direction and mobilize the organization. Invest the time to keep key leaders on the same page and working together. It is not so much about individual talent as it is about how to enable people to work together, and to do that is necessary:
- Clarity on priorities mandatory.
- Culture of Feedback and radical sincerity to avoid wasting time on corporate politics.
- Autonomous decision-making teams
- Ability to simplify reality into a shared pattern in which everyone can recognize their own contribution
- Agility to change course if necessary
Doesn’t that sound familiar? This is exactly what teams who decide to use OKRs get.
OKRs are not just an elegant goal setting system but a true growth management suite and allows the organization to intercept the future early, when action can still be taken.
Those of you who are part of this community can preview the tools I have developed to adopt OKRs quickly and without making common mistakes. If this is important to you, choose a time to talk about your next cycle from this link
🥅 strtgy.design/your-next-cycle/
ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS
-Antonio
