Mispredicting The Future

Some of the most costly mistakes in business can be attributed to companies trying to predict the future. History is littered with bad predictions in all aspects of life.

Thirty years ago, one business magazine reported that "with over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market." John Foster Dulles, in 1954, said "The Japanese don't make anything the people in the U.S. would want." Sorry guys, the Japanese are killing us.

In 1974, the U.S. Forest Service published a study on "Future Leisure Environments." It predicted that, by 1989, private aircraft would be banned from metropolitan airports and only non-polluting vehicles would be allowed on the streets. Were it only so. Sorry, I still want my truck and my Gulfstream.

In 1964, Harvard professor George Baku predicted in an article in New Scientist that "The more dramatic changes in products (in the next 20 years) will include such innovations as plastic houses, ultrasonic dishwashers, electronic highways and automated trains." Sorry George, no one wants a plastic house--and trains and highways have only changed for the worse.

The barely prescient forecasts and more come from a book called Bad Predictions, written by Laura Lee.

Former Coca-Cola Chairman Roberto Goizueta predicted in 1985 that the "New Coke" would be "the most significant soft drink development in [the] company's history … the surest move ever made." Well, Roberto, it turned out to be the most significant bomb in Coke's history.

Roger Smith, then chairman of General Motors, predicted in 1986 that "by the turn of this century, we will live in a paperless society." Roger, unfortunately, got a lot of things wrong.

Alfred L. Malabre of The Wall Street Journal predicted in 1966 that "the highly productive employee of 2000 will work only 37 hours or three-quarters the length of today's workweek." Alfred, I'd say that just keeping those long hour jobs is where it's at today.

Needless to say, the point is made. You cannot predict the future, and if you try, chances are you will be very wrong. So your search for that obvious strategy should be based on what is happening today.

Three things make predicting so difficult, if not impossible. First is technology. Unforeseen inventions can quickly change the status quo: Two weeks before their historical flight, Wilbur Wright said to his brother Orville, "Man will not fly for 50 years." Next is the human condition. People's habits change very slowly, which is one reason the future often looks like the past. Finally, competition can rear its ugly head with new ideas that disrupt old ideas.

Unfortunately, many powerful, obvious ideas founder on the future.

In other words, while a company sees the value of a strategy for today's and tomorrow's business, they aren't so sure it will hold up too far into the future. They want an idea that will be able to accommodate some future plan, still unformulated.

Once, in a roomful of Xerox technical management people, I was pushing the future of laser printing as a big business: "Lasography" as a follow-on to "Xerography." After the presentation, some senior engineer stood up and declared that laser printing was old hat. They had been working on it for a number of years. What they needed was an idea that encompassed the present as well as the future. When I politely asked what the future held, he proudly announced, "ion deposition."

All I could say was, "Let's do 'lasography' today, and when you're ready, you can do 'Ionography.'" All that remark did was make me out to be a smart aleck. End of sale.

Finding success today is what you must first worry about. If you do that, your chances will be greatly enhanced that you'll have some money to spend on tomorrow.

One observation I've heard a lot is, "I don't want to be niched. I want to keep my future options open."

Believe me, if you don't get niched in the customer's mind, your future options will be quite limited. My advice to all those that worry about the future is simple and obvious: Today is today. Tomorrow is tomorrow, and when you are in search of the obvious, you worry about today. You worry about tomorrow tomorrow.

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Comments

[Edwin Joseph]

Wow..this was a very inspiring post!

Yes its true, today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow. We really need to find success everyday. There is nothing wrong with planning and predicting the future,just that it is better to focus on a daily basis and not worry yet about tomorrow..

[Richard Butler]

As a life and business coach, this was the lesson i normally say to my customers, predicting the future is good, it gives us motivation to succeed but what matters most is succeed in our daily lives.

And just like what you said in your post,
"If you do that, your chances will be greatly enhanced that you'll have some money to spend on tomorrow."