When I started writing this newsletter, I set out to share a series of instantly useful exercises that anyone could deploy to get smarter about the problems they are trying to solve. However, as I’ve shared these exercises with more people, I have also gotten some requests to say a bit about the system behind them. That’s what inspired this new series of posts. Here goes…
All of the exercises I share here are based on one of six innovation dynamics. These are six ways of looking at a social problem to understand human behavior, recognize the social norms behind it, and develop ideas to disrupt them.
The fourth dynamic is FUTURE. A problem’s future consists of all the expectations and fears people have about where it might go and how they shape present behavior.
There’s oodles of evidence showing that human beings are terrible about predicting the future, even when we have all the evidence to do so right in front of us. So take that off the table immediately. At no point in the use of this dynamic should you become more confident in your ideas about what is going to actually happen in the future.
So why even ask about the future then? Because just as stories about the past shape present behavior, ideas about what will and won’t happen tomorrow affect what people do today. The way that influence happens is much more chaotic, though, so it requires a different method to find out what’s going on.
Sometimes when you ask about the future in an open-ended way, an entire story about various future possibilities and their consequences will come spilling out. For example, almost anybody who works on climate change right now can tell you the difference between a world that warms by two degrees Celsius vs. three degrees. Intellectually, scientists might entertain your questions about a ten degree world (bad!) or a world that gets colder (unlikely!) but a norm of the field is focusing on this relatively narrow range of temperatures.
However, most of the time thinking about the future is not nearly so structured. When I ask clients or students about the future of their social problem, they will usually focus on a small number of future events that are considered very likely to occur or even inevitable. Sometimes the ways in which these likely events influence current behavior is obvious (such as construction projects ahead of the Olympics). But it also make sense to ask if these future events are leading to less rational responses such as fear, panic, or inaction. For example, many policy advocates just assume nothing can be accomplished in a presidential election year, though Congress’s ability to pass laws remains unchanged.
What’s even stranger about the future dynamic, though, is that events deemed unlikely or even impossible can also influence present behavior. Plenty of people assume that housing prices will always rise and computers will always get faster, even though there are good reasons to doubt that either trend will continue at the same pace indefinitely. Asking about future events most people have deemed impossible may at first sound silly, but it almost always reveals assumptions about social problems that can be discovered no other way — even if the wild possibilities never come true.
One last note about the future dynamic. If I have one shot to stimulate original thinking about a social problem, this is the one I take. Sometimes it’s just asking, “So what do you think is going to happen next?” and letting your interlocutor struggle with the silence. Other times it is hearing their fears and anxieties, then saying something like, “That sounds terrible. Is there anything that might happen someday to make it all better?” Even without brainstorming or design thinking, all sorts of ideas are stored in the part of the brain that speculates about future possibilities just beyond what we can see.
Here are a few questions you can ask to start using the future dynamic on the problem you are analyzing:
What do people believe is going to happen in the near future of this problem? How does that affect their behavior today?
Do people generally believe this problem is getting better or worse? How does that show up in their attitudes and actions?
Are there any recurring or cyclical events that affect the ability to solve your problem? How do they make things better or worse?
What’s an event that has never happened in the history of your problem, but that people nevertheless dream about or worry about? What new behaviors might be unlocked if this event occurred?
What future events might make your problem disappear? Are those changes regarded as likely or unlikely? Are there any clues there for how we might design solutions today?
Here are some links to exercises based on the future dynamic:
Death and taxes: What if the things everyone counts on happening don't?
Hacking the setback: How can we use the pain of disappointment to imagine a better future?
To everything there is a season: What can the way you respond to recurring events teach you about your problem?
In case of emergency: What can you learn about your problem by the emergencies you’ve planned for — and those you haven’t?
Control Z: How might the future of your problem look if a recent event were undone?