Strategy: Unearthing Future Paths through Insights from the Past

If you could get the magical ability to see into the future, would you take it?

My personal response is no, but not going to lie; the thought is tempting. Who wouldn’t have wanted to predict BTC’s astronomic rise to over $50,000 in less than ten years and got in on the action while it was still valued at $10?

Those who left their job to join a company that looked attractive on the outside but was on the verge of bankruptcy and massive layoffs can relate to the need to have magical abilities to see ahead. And those who invested in a sector just on the eve of the announcement of a new government policy, tariff, or trade war that disrupted the fundamentals of that sector.

But the question persists: is there any way to read the future long before it happens and plan for it? The domain of Strategy says yes. Business strategists are the modern-day future tellers and believe that by sensing the market and trends in the environment and layering an understanding of existing capabilities, businesses can identify potential scenarios—ways the future will play out—and plan to win by exploiting the foreseen opportunities and mitigating the foreseeable risks.

The principle at play is that there’s nothing new under the sun. Historical trends paint the picture of future events. Every observable phenomenon pans out as a cycle; the things observed are the things that have already happened, and what is to come has already taken place before.

This principle also guides the highly profitable domain of data science, and big tech companies make millions daily from algorithms that predict people’s future buying and selection behaviors based on their past patterns.

The markers of novelty (technology, etc.) change with each era, but the human behaviors and patterns of response remain the same. With keen observation and a correlative assessment of the commonalities to connect the dots, predicting the future starts to look less mystical and more attainable.

Back to the opening question: would you take the magical ability to see the future if you had the chance?