April 25 2008 / by juldrich
Category: Culture Year: General Rating: 3 Hot
By Jack Uldrich
In my new book, Jump the Curve, I make the case that one
strategy for “jumping the curve” and helping your organization
innovate into the future is to “develop a future bias.”
A future bias is the opposite of “hindsight bias” and hindsight
bias is, quite simply, the idea that after an event occurs
most people take credit for believing that the idea was
pre-ordained and that they “knew” it would happen. For instance, by
1920, most citizens claimed they knew that man would “always” fly.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Most people were completely
blind-sided by human flight. Lord Kelvin, the world’s most renowned
scientist claimed in 1899 that “Heavier than air machines are
impossible,” and no less an authority than the New York
Times wrote in an editorial in December 1903 – just two weeks
before the Wright Brother’s historic first flight – that human
flight would not be achievable for “1 to 10 million years.” My
guess is that if a poll had been commissioned at the beginning of
the turn of the 20th century the overwhelming consensus among the
American public would have subscribed to similar opinions or,
alternatively, something along the lines of “If God had intended
man to fly, He would have given him wings.”
In the future, as a result of exponential advances in technology
(see above chart,
source – Collapsing Geography), many things that sound
impossible today are, in fact, not only going to be possible they
are going to be commonplace. Therefore, in order to embrace this
future, it will be necessary to think exponentially – and not
linearly – about the future. As Ray Kurzweil says in his book,
The
Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, in the 21st
century humanity will experience the equivalent of 20,000 years of
change (using the 20th century’s rate of change). What he is trying
to do in an indirect way is to get people to develop a future bias.
(cont.)
I recently came across this photo on Digg.com that shows the world as it is
expected to look in 250 million years. I think it offers a
wonderful metaphor for thinking about tomorrow’s world because
tomorrow will be radically different from today. Therefore, one of
the first steps a leader must take in preparing him or herself to
lead an organization into the future, is to develop a future bias.
To do so, it first helps if that leader can envision a world that
will look radically different. Therfore, when thinking about the
future, I would encourage the “Exponential Executive” to keep the
above picture always in mind.
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