Forler Massnick
It is time for the annual rite of attempts to forecast what will happen in the new year. In his book Rethinking the Corporation, Forler Massnick quotes Winston Churchill’s complaint, “The future is one damn thing after another.” Peter Drucker put an academic spin on it, “”Forecasting is not a respectable human activity and not worthwhile beyond the shortest of periods.”
Nonetheless businesses squander millions of dollars on the futile task of forecasting, creating a multi-billion-dollar industry. Massnick commented, “This is despite the fact that prognosticators have one thing in common: They are usually wrong.”
William A. Sherden, in his book The Fortune Sellers, wrote, “The theories of chaos and complexity are revealing the future as fundamentally unpredictable. This applies to our economy, the stock market, commodity prices, the weather, animal populations, and many other phenomena. There are no clear historical patterns that carve well-marked trails into the future. History does not repeat itself. The future remains mostly unknowable.”
There is, however, one reality that business leaders can count on for the indefinite future. Since the beginning of recorded history science and technology have progressed exponentially. For thousands of years that progression was slow and gradual, but now is breathtaking. That is the nature of things that progress exponentially.
For evidence, simply refer to the Science and Technology entries on this website. Massnick makes this observation in his book, “Opportunistic companies will organize around a philosophy of constantly scanning the horizon for scientific and technological advances that can be turned into successful products and services.”