Hard numbers can be helpful if they can help you to identify a trend or discontinuity by looking at patterns over time. In and of themselves, however, they are not particularly helpful if your goal is to understand the future and to see around the corner.
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The difficulty with such an emphasis on facts is that, unfortunately, facts are often a lagging indicator of what could potentially be important. By the time you are dealing with a fact on the ground, whatever led to it has already happened.
Having one person who is explicitly keeping an eye on a particular future event increases the likelihood that whatever knowledge is in the organization has somewhere to go and will be seen holistically. And remember to incorporate feedback from people who may not be sitting in the executive suite. Go back to the periphery for information and insights about these events.
Seeing around corners is about broadening the range of possibilities you consider paying attention to. Your ability to look into the future is only as well developed as the set of possibilities you are prepared to entertain.
When confronted with the empirical and evaluative complexity that faces us, it can be easy to feel clueless, as if thereās nothing at all we can do. But that would be too pessimistic. Even if weāre walking backwards into the futureāand even if the terrain weāre walking on is unexplored, itās dark and foggy, and we have few clues to guide usānonetheless, some plans are smarter than others. We can employ three rules of thumb.
What a lot of people miss is that ordinary moments determine your position, and your position determines your options. Clear thinking is the key to proper positioning, which is what allows you to master your circumstances rather than be mastered by them.
It doesnāt matter what position you find yourself in right now. What matters is whether you improve your position today.
Every ordinary moment is an opportunity to make the future easier or harder. It all depends on whether youāre thinking clearly.