The Future is Multiple: Simeon Duckworth
An interview with a LookUP Expert Economist
“I do think there is that idea that things are harder to predict. And that just means that you need to think about scenarios. I think the emphasis then becomes on these mechanisms, people understanding how things work, having a shared view of how you think things work, and how they are contingent.”
It’s easy to convince yourself that the future has become impossible to predict as the world feels like it’s become overwhelmingly volatile.
But is that really true? Should we really be giving up on our own ability to predict what the next year, and the years that follow, will bring, in terms of threats and opportunities?
By the end of our interview with Simeon Duckworth, economist, and veteran of both advertising and public health, our answer was a pretty resounding ‘no.’
Like any good economic thinker, Simeon also reminded us that when it comes to thinking about the future, you need to think about the costs, not just the opportunity - and do it as early as possible…
Everyone can access the full interview below. If you aren’t used to looking at the future in a numerate, data-driven way, it’s full of brilliant reminders of how change works, that will make you a better strategic thinker in Annual Planning and beyond.
Five highlights from the interview:
If you spend too much time in tactics, you struggle to see what’s really going on
Marketing is in danger of becoming the least future-focused business discipline
Try to ignore symptoms, focus on the deep mechanics of how things work
Plan for multiple scenarios, not just the one you expect
Make sure the true costs are a part of your decision-making process
There’s loads more great stuff in this interview - if you don’t often spend your time thinking quantitatively about the future, this should help you to reconsider some of your assumptions.
Don’t forget to check out our other Big Reset pieces for this month if you haven’t already:
The Big Reset
“So, I’m about to start my annual planning process for the year. But I already know what the plan is going to be. Do absolutely everything we did this year, but better, with less resources…and add three or four slightly random new things on top.” CMO. Anonymous.
The Big Reset: Make your Manifesto
How do you make the kickoff to your Annual Planning the start of something big…not the starting gun for an avalanche of disparate, misaligned tactics? It’s all too easy to take the inertia of the day-to-day into the process with us. The end result…a plan that means doing everything again, and more, with less.