John Mahaffie

There is no everybody — facing your biases about the world

February 18, 2025March 16, 2017 by John B. Mahaffie

Humans are good at pattern recognition. But we see patterns based on personal experience and things that are close and familiar. This is called confirmation bias because that act of recognition typically confirms what we already believe. See also: Confirmation Bias in Foresight: Scanning to Find What You Already Believe. That is the biggest and most routine bias in observing change. It's more an instinct and even if people know better, they lapse into thinking that way.

There is no "everybody"

A great example is our assumptions about Millennials. It's common to see them as tech-savvy, urban, Starbucks-frequenting, plaid-wearing, indie-band-listening. That stereotype is a shorthand we use for understanding and explaining them, but it's dangerously narrow. It has been fixed in our heads and gets reinforced all the time. Then we look for it in the world and say to ourselves, "there's another one".

In fact, we base much of our view of the Millennials on what is a few percent, total, of people born 1980 to 2000. There is no "they all" you can lump together. What's everyone else born between 1980 and 2000 doing?

The same is true for Baby Boomers, Gen X, Hispanics, immigrants, Republicans, etc. etc. There is no everybody.

What to do about it

1. Check yourself. To understand the world and how it's changing better, examine your assumptions about what's going on. Assess your biases and face them. Write them down, say them out loud. Say, "of course I am biased because I am _________."

2. Step away from your worldview. Do what you can to deepen your understanding of others. This means getting past stereotypes, and wholesale categories. Read and view stories told in others' voices. Talk to strangers. Listen.

3. Walk a mile in another's shoes. Immerse yourself in other communities where you can. Watch and listen. Read and view stories from diverse viewpoints. Follow Instagram or photoblogs from places and cultures and groups far and far different from you. Think of someone quite unlike you. Then, look at things with those different eyes. For example, if you are exploring change for a consumer product, go to a store that sells products like that, "wearing" a different persona. What would that person see and care about? You can't get 100% there, but you will move off the safe zone of things that are familiar and comfortable to you.

4. Be ready to be wrong. Assume your conclusions will often be wrong. This means, despite your hard work at trying to transcend your biases, assume you won't get there every time. Knowing you might be biased will protect you from relying too much on your "certainty" about what's true.

Take these steps and you'll stop just confirming what you think you know. You will start knowing new things.

Another post: Talk to the Frog, has a parable to tell that relates to this post.

#Consumer4sight no. 7: Citizen of the world

February 18, 2025December 16, 2011 by John B. Mahaffie

Slumdog Millionaire Final Scence — Slumdog Millionaire opened up Indian pop culture to a much bigger North American audience

Consumers have gone global too. The consumer increasingly is and feels like a citizen of the world, at least as far as media, food, fashion and other consumer tastes are concerned. Globalization means big things for big systems like trade, and everyday things for many consumers. More of us are partaking of products, ideas, trends, and cultural elements from some other part of the world. For example, Bangra music from India blends with American Rap, and shawarmas have become a lunch staple in US towns where the average consumer may not even know what continent they’re from. Technology is enabling this: it’s rendering geography irrelevant or at least differently relevant and giving us instant access to ideas and products from other places.

For more in this series, see #Consumer4sight

The bottom line for business: the consumer wants variety, and the world is now his or her consumption playground. If you don’t help them find new and interesting products and experiences from around our world, someone else will. And Western companies especially need a wake-up call: they are no longer the font of product innovation, nor do they have a guaranteed spot in the pantheon of global brands—new brands and products are emerging from the emerging markets, and that trend will accelerate.

9 things that “lock us in” in our thinking

February 18, 2025January 26, 2011 by John B. Mahaffie

There are lots of things that can take up residence in our minds and shape how we think. Just knowing that is empowering and can make a difference in getting us out of what can be a mental straightjacket. Here are some of those things:

Language – There is still controversy in the social sciences about how, and how much language shapes thought, but it’s clear that the language we use reflects how we think about things. Sometimes, we need to take a close look at our language—our names for things. It may be holding back thought. See also, Culture wires the brain
Culture – Culture obviously shapes much of what we think and do, and how we learn. You cannot escape your culture, nor the way it shapes your thinking altogether, but again, knowing how it may be affecting your thought and approach to things is itself powerful. See also, Culture wires the brain
Built/sunk investment – We don’t want to let go of things we have invested in, either in money, effort, time or reputation. You may need to ask: is my investment in this blinding me to what I need to recognize?
Framing – George Lakoff has written well and convincingly about how mental frames we carry around in our heads influence. Frames are conceptual structures we use in thinking, and they take up a spot in our minds and assert themselves over what we think until, if ever, they are replaced by other frames. My thoughts and more on Lakoff’s perspective are here and here.
Not invented here – Similarly to sunk investment when that investment is through effort and emotional connections, we may often reject an idea that we and/or our colleagues didn’t think of ourselves.
Invented here – When we, our colleagues, our classmates, our heroes, etc. are behind an idea, it takes up a hard-to-dislodge place in our thinking, and we may be reluctant or even unable to scrutinize and evaluate it for truth, usefulness, and so on. In essence, we can be too loyal in our thinking, and not open enough to ideas from elsewhere.
Greed – Many of us are too easily swayed by looking at things from the point of view of how they could help us make money or reduce our chances to make money.
Ignorance, misunderstanding – Simple lack of knowledge, or incomplete knowledge can lead to wrong thoughts and conclusions.
Fear – Fear of change, perhaps foremost, but fear of the unknown, strangers, different cultures and customs, and so on, can make us shut out information and ideas as “foreign” or “strange"

And there are plenty more, of course.

What can you do about these things? The most important thing is to recognize the biases and mis-direction they can cause in your thinking, and talk about that. Try to offset the biases inherent in all this with time and effort spent considering other points of view. Open your mind, and work to keep it open. Involve your colleagues in this too, and try to build a general habit of confronting biases like these.

Image: shannonpatrick17, via Flickr, cc attribution license

The characteristics of a foresightful organization

February 18, 2025January 20, 2010 by John B. Mahaffie

A long time ago, I remember seeing a Glamour magazine spread showing fashion do’s and don’ts. (The people in the “don’t” pictures had a black bar obscuring their eyes, so they wouldn’t face too much shame, presumably). The table below offers some do’s and don’ts too. It shows what to be and what not to be, presuming you want to be a “foresightful” organization.

Foresightful	Not foresightful
Acts Continuous change Early Open Experiments Expects alternative futures Creative Visions Innovates Outside the box Global Passion Excited Revolutionizes Expects upheaval Disrupts Successful Wins	Reacts Forced change Late Protective Imitates Counts on a single future Imitative Assumptions Adapts In the box Parochial Concern Afraid Evolves Expects business as usual Behaves Surviving Loses

I urge you to think this through, and see what’s true in the organizations you are a part of. It’s possible to improve the situation, and even to transform it. Much of what I write about here at Foresight Culture, is about how to change things from the non-foresightful to the foresightful side. And we at Leading Futurists LLC are ready to help. We can work with you to make your organization more focused on the future. You might consider a workshop or Futures Day, for example, to get that started. We can help.

[For the curious and the skeptical, “foresightful” really is an English word.]

Take a walk in their shoes

February 18, 2025September 25, 2009 by John B. Mahaffie

A key to success in communicating about change is to know as much as you can about what others are feeling and thinking. So take a walk in their shoes.

There’s probably a gap between your views and what’s on the minds of the people you are trying to reach. What matters to you may not matter to them, and how they think about things is probably not how you think about things. So you have to try to bridge that gap, and get through to people on their terms.

It takes a fight with yourself to keep that fixed in your mind as you prepare and as you communicate. It helps if you are empathetic by nature. If so, channel that and make sure you get the most out of your natural tendency. If not, you will have to try to bridge this gap intellectually, by preparation and by keeping open the question on behalf of others, “what’s in it for me?” Ask that question, and answer it honestly, not from your point of view, but from the point of view of others who are key stakeholders.

It may be that your instinct in hearing about others’ reactions to things is to think, at worst: “those idiots!” and at best: “those poor, misguided souls.” Neither thought helps the cause of getting ideas about change through to people. Instead, you have to take at face value—as a fact—whatever reaction people have. You have to work with that, not deny it or argue with it. It is part of the system you are dealing with, you won’t change it by dismissing it, and probably won’t by fighting against it. You need to accommodate it.

Also, as I’ve written in earlier posts, you won’t always change people’s minds with a technical, factual argument. You often have to find an argument that works for them, not for you, and it may be an emotional one. Chances are, you have a technical knowledge-base on the question at hand, but don’t assume your knowledge will be effective in changing people’s minds. What’s in their hearts? What are their hopes and fears? Find out! You can be much more effective if you know what you can about that.

See also “Getting to know the anti-you” on finding people who are distinctly different from you that can help you take a fresh perspective.

Also, my Leading Futurists LLC colleague Jennifer Jarratt and I co-authored an essay recently on "Reframing the Future" that elaborates on the importance of understanding what is in people’s minds as you try to get them to explore the future.

Image: Sabrina Campagna, cc license, via Flickr

In a far country

February 18, 2025August 13, 2008 by John B. Mahaffie

I have been travelling in the Yukon, and exploring the history of the 1897-98 Gold Rush. I have not put careful thought to my work in foresight, but have dwelled on the work of Jack London, who, like my great grandfather, headed for the Klondike Gold Rush. I like London’s prose, and something about the empty, bleak landscapes of the Yukon and the rough life of the Klondike, inspired him in a way that inspires me. In his short story, In a Far Country, He wrote something worth thinking about:

“When a man journeys into a far country, he must be prepared to forget many of the things he has learned, and to acquire such customs as are inherent with existence in the new land; he must abandon the old ideals and the old gods, and oftentimes he must reverse the very codes by which his conduct has hitherto been shaped. To those who have the protean faculty of adaptability, the novelty of such change may even be a source of pleasure; but to those who happen to be hardened to the ruts in which they were created, the pressure of the altered environment is unbearable, and they chafe in body and in spirit under the new restrictions which they do not understand. This chafing is bound to act and react, producing divers evils and leading to various misfortunes. It were better for the man who cannot fit himself to the new groove to return to his own country; if he delay too long, he will surely die.”

Fear the old, not the new

February 18, 2025August 6, 2008 by John B. Mahaffie

Guilty as charged! Even futurists can fall into the trap of denying the forces of change, wishing they didn’t exist. What happened to me is that I caught myself being unwilling to look at how a system is changing because I didn’t want it to change.

I am a big fan of baseball, and spend a lot of time helping my local Little League. I’ve read deep into the history of the game-it’s well over 150 years old, and I’ve steeped myself in the traditions of the game. One of baseball’s qualities, and one that is important to many of its fans, is how little it has changed over the decades. Valid or not, students of the game compare statistics from today’s players to those from decades ago. We assume continuity, and even that there has not been significant change to the key things that shape the game.

So a few months ago, an Association for Professional Futurists member passed along a journalist’s request for ideas on the future of baseball. I knew I could and should answer, and some of my colleagues told me they were sure they would see my ideas enter the mix on the Association’s listserve. I stayed silent.

I realized a little later that I clammed up because I do not want the game to change. That’s an awfully dangerous frame of mind for a futurist. But I am glad I recognized what was happening to me. It’s a danger we all face. Most importantly, it puts us in a purely defensive position when we have the chance to shape change. Instead of positive ideas for change, we’re likely to resist, cast doubt, and work against change. That usually doesn’t work, and we lose the chance to be part of shaping our future.

Fearing change

It’s normal and natural to be cautious or fearful about change. So we often fear the new. But often it’s the old that will get us. Old views, old ways, old systems, old attitudes can be dangerous.

A big part of improving foresight is helping ourselves and others get unstuck, change our mental models and points of view, and changing the language with which we speak about the world. In business fearing change can be about holding on to the big legacy of sunk investments and to deep-rooted practices that probably have to change.

The culture of a business is not what’s rigid, necessarily, it’s the practices-the ways that culture is manifested and carried out that are. Learning to get unstuck means recognizing those things, and being willing to confront them. A good foresight culture makes doing that a part of its culture.

Image: Boston Public Library

Pay it forward

February 18, 2025March 11, 2008 by John B. Mahaffie

The way to make foresight more effective is to pay it forward. That means sharing what you find in exploring the future with others, in and out of your organization. And when you get the sharing going, and people will share back. You are encouraging a conversation about the future, and it needs nurturing. Environmental scanning is at the core of effective foresight. But over the years it has often been done by people making scanning discoveries, working in isolation, and holding their cards close. They are not part of a foresight culture, and by working quietly they limit how much they can help the organization cope with the future. There’s a simple principle that can make scanning work better for you and make it valuable to the organizations you are a part of–sharing. You want exploring the future to be a habit for you and your colleagues, and you want sharing what you find out to be also. You can model those behaviors. Get yourself and others in the habit of sharing. Sharing discoveries is how they get put to use in an organization. So when you get an insight on the future, pay it forward. I don’t suggest you become a clipping service for your colleagues. Instead, when you find things with meaning, or, when scanning leads you to a new idea, share it. You can tell it, blog it, illustrate it, email it. Pay it forward. Tell your colleagues what you’ve discovered, and what you think it means. Ask them what they think it means. Make this communication quick and compelling. The backup-an article perhaps, can come later, or you can make it a link in an email. But seize on the finding and let others know about it. Get a conversation going. Pay it forward. Pay it forward is a concept originated a long time ago-there are disagreements about when and by whom. The idea took hold more recently in a book and movie by the same name: Pay it Forward (2000). Its focus was on charitable acts-giving to others in need, and, giving with the message: "don’t pay me back, pay it forward." Our case for the need to share may not be quite as strong, but the impulse should be the same. So share in foresight too, spread the good deed, pay it forward. [Image: by Latvian, via Flickr, cc attribution license]

Update: Please see also this special page on environmental scanning.

Avoiding “fire, ready, aim”

February 18, 2025January 8, 2008 by John B. Mahaffie

Good foresight is part of ensuring that an organization doesn’t act before it thinks. It’s essential to try to understand the present and future conditions the organization faces. We want to avoid “fire, ready, aim” and try to be sure we know what else is changing around us and what future we’re facing before taking action. [See “Execute, Yes, but Execute for the Future”]

For this reason, Leading Futurists LLC tries to work carefully with clients to help them fit foresight into their organizational processes.

It would be fantastic to have futures thinking pervade the organization—that is the theme of this blog and is what “foresight culture” means. But as a practical matter, most big organizations will only find time and resources to give the future explicit attention at certain times and places. How can you make the best choices about that, and make what effort and resources you can give go farthest? Here are some central considerations:

Readiness: of the group or team to open up their thinking, seize on new insights, and put them to work in the organization’s thinking and strategy. A work team and its leadership need to explicitly discuss and agree on a process that welcomes new ideas, including ones from outside their usual view of things and often, outside their comfort zones.
Timeliness: Efforts in exploring longer-term forces and trends, and their implications should come early enough in a planning cycle, in strategy building, and in the innovation process to benefit the processes. We don’t want to look at the future after developing strategies and action plans, for example, when the futures view would very likely have shaped the plans differently.
Regularity–so that thinking about the future isn’t so rare as to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable when it happens. Regular, ideally, means always. But if the organization is not going to make foresight an explicit part of its efforts all the time, there should at least be an annual process of enquiring comprehensively into the big forces and trends shaping the business.
Prominence. That enquiry should be a prominent and widely-shared effort, so that the most possible numbers of people benefit from insights on the future and can share, in return, their ideas on the implications for the business of the emerging future.

We have found that our efforts on the future for organizations are most valuable when they are part of a “zero stage” in the planning, strategymaking, or innovation process. That means part of the exploratory work done first, in “opening up the question,” and ahead of the usual organizational process stages.

So here’s where you might “put” the foresight part:

Day one, in the morning, of the corporate strategic planning meetings
In the briefing and background work in advance of a strategy process
In the early stages of assembling an ad hoc team to explore a new issue or opportunity area, after sufficient team building, but before the team narrows its focus to key organizational issues and challenges
In a meeting/workshop with vendors or customers, to ensure that more of your stakeholders are along for the ride with you in exploring the future, and that they are aware of where your new ideas come from
As an ongoing effort to fuel and R&D team’s thinking on emerging opportunity areas, as a part of regular team meetings, or as regular electronic briefing by email or newsletter
As a group blog topic shared by a work team or across a cross-functional group
As a comprehensive exploration and analysis of the future of a critical topic: a sector, technology area, etc. with reports done in the lead up to big organizational initiatives
As an annual environmental scan for issues, trends, and opportunities, aimed at informing leadership and strategymaking at all levels.

Most often, a good exploration of the emerging future shapes directly the question of what should be on the table for consideration. We don’t want to fire first and aim later.

Fighting back for foresight

February 18, 2025December 18, 2007 by John B. Mahaffie

With great regularity, journalists and other writers pen pieces on the decline of futures or on failed predictions. Our professional futurist colleagues have often boiled this down to a shorthand: “where’s my flying car?”

We have often joined our colleagues in the Association of Professional Futurists (www.profuturists.org) to compile responses to these pieces. The World Future Society (www.wfs.org) also works hard to counter misperceptions about futurists and foresight work. Most in the field feel that the field is doing well, and that attention to the future is improving around the world. That many of our colleagues in organizations have futures job titles and responsibilities is good evidence for that.

At Leading Futurists LLC we believe foresight is doing well, but that we have more battles yet to fight. The value proposition of the field is changing from provocative “out there” thinking to ideas about change that organizations can respond to today.

Foresight and futures thinking tools are becoming part of everyday strategy making in organizations. Futures-minded people serve on or consult to teams as the people who understand the inevitability of change and what it means to the organization. They bring a knowledge base about the future to bear on an organization’s strategies and actions.

But though foresight is gaining ground, in too many organizations short-term thinking reigns, and it dominates in society overall. We battle the widespread conviction that what is relevant is the immediate scene; this quarter’s performance and today’s issues. Short-term thinking is a condition of organizational life, and it will drive out habitual foresight, if we let it. So let’s get to work on the problem.

Making foresight a daily habit of more people in more organizations is a new kind of work. It is different from just being provocative and wowing an audience with gee whiz ideas about startling new technologies. Here’s what we need to do instead:

Keep the future on the agenda, bring up trends and themes of change in work meetings and planning sessions
Change what people expect when you talk about the future from the gee whiz, to useful, actionable ideas about emerging challenges and opportunities
As you get a new insight on the future from your scanning, think about who the 5 or 6 people in your organization are who you know should see it. Send it along to them with a comment or interpretation. Any busy colleague will appreciate it.
Show people how to think about change. Model this by giving people an image of the future that relates to a question they are grappling with. For example, in the packaging sector, you imagine for them a near term future in which every package has a radio-frequency ID tag on it for automated inventory and checkout.

These are some of the things to do to normalize foresight and make it a daily habit in your organization. They are steps toward truly having a Foresight Culture.