A few months back, Fast Company shared a blog post about seeing the future
In it, the writer described three styles of seeing the future: dragons, swans or mules.
For Dragons, some of you will remember the many references in Johnny Depp’s The Pirates of the Caribbean to the possibility of dragons. Well, here’s how the FC writer put it:
That said, it’s been my experience that most of the times a futurist uses “here be dragons,” it’s to indicate a topic area in a forecast that is uncertain and dangerous to even think about, at least for the client. There’s something about a particular issue that makes people within an organization steer clear, even if it’s a potentially important problem. So the dragon–as in “here be dragons”–is a sign of something we don’t know much about, but really should.
For Black Swans, a much prettier and nicer animal reference, the writer explained it this way:
Generally speaking, a Black Swan event is one that is outside of what we’d consider plausible, outside “our reasonable expectations,” yet is critically important when it happens.The term itself comes from the 16th century European belief that swans were only white, so a “black swan” indicated an impossibility….In many ways, the actual Black Swan problem isn’t the difficulty in predicting the future, it’s the difficulty in deciding who to listen to. Every “black swan” is an “annoying bird digging up my garden” to somebody. The “black swan” is a sign of something that we don’t know much about, but probably could.
Finally, the mule is the blog post isnt’ really an animal at all, but a human character in Issac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. In there, the story plot gets its dynamic twist by the arrival of a mutant (not of X-men fame, though probably with the same power) who can control human minds. This character called himself the Mule.
In many ways, the actual Black Swan problem isn’t the difficulty in predicting the future, it’s the difficulty in deciding who to listen to. Every “black swan” is an “annoying bird digging up my garden” to somebody. The “black swan” is a sign of something that we don’t know much about, but probably could….For futurists, the Mule is a sign of something that we don’t know much about, and really can’t–and will require us to redouble our efforts to get things going the right direction.
However, the writer left out a common animal approach to predicting the future….the turtle. We all know how turtles handle scary or threatening situations. They simply pull into their shell hoping to ride out the storm. Now certainly, at some point, knowing when to approach danger cautiously is wise, but the future is coming to us one way or the other. It does little good to suggest that the only way to see the future is to “turtle” down and just hope for the best.
Rather than deciding to run from the dragons, swans or mules, hunkering down in the hopes that our shells will hold out over time, we do better to put ourselves into action. So, get prepared with knowledge. Look for the evidence about the various issues relative to the future. Don’t just be afraid, but move forward with confidence. Yes, I have written that we are closer and closer to a major storm, but even that storm which will be big, will not simply destroy us all. In fact, the vast majority of us will certainly be alive on the other side of the storm.
Don’t fear the future. The fear won’t help you, and if you aren’t careful, you will misjudge what you are facing. Worse, you’ll decide to simply sit stationary, and that is rarely the right decision.