Author Archives: Robert B. Tucker

About Robert B. Tucker

Robert B. Tucker is a globally recognized business futurist and president of The Innovation Resource Group in Santa Barbara, California. He has advised clients in 54 countries and authored eight books, including the bestsellers Managing the Future and Driving Growth Through Innovation. Tucker’s insights have guided organizations from IBM, Citibank, and American Express to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Dubai government. As one of the founders of the Innovation Movement, Robert has appeared on Bloomberg, Channel News Asia, Network 18 India, PBS, and was a featured guest on the CNBC series The Business of Innovation. A regular contributor to Forbes.com, Robert’s latest book is Build a Better Future: 7 Mindsets for Navigating the Age of Acceleration.

What Super-Forecasters Teach Us About Better Decision Making

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What Super-Forecasters Teach Us About Better Decision Making

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

In an age of accelerating change, the ability to think strategically about the future is no longer optional—it’s a growing necessity. Yet many people still make important decisions based on gut instinct, guesswork, wishful thinking, or cling to obsolete methods that no longer work.

But today, geopolitical instability, trade wars, technological disruptions, and climate disasters often collide. The need to cultivate better forecasting habits is greater than ever. Business, government, and education leaders are wise not to assume that next quarter will look like the last, or that present trends will continue in the same direction. The digital age demands that we assault our assumptions, develop better antennae to alert us to disruptive changes, and futurize our decisions by looking farther ahead.

That’s where the practice of “superforecasting” comes in.

Over the past decade, a quiet revolution has reshaped how we think about and anticipate the future.. It all started when University of Pennsylvania researchers set out to identify people who consistently make more accurate predictions about complex global events. These researchers organized forecasting tournaments and recruited dozens of non-category experts to make educated guesses about where specific events would lead. Recruits weren’t intelligence analysts, hedge fund managers, or television pundits. Instead, they were librarians, engineers, and retirees. And lo and behold, they outperformed the expert prognosticators time and again.

What sets these highly competent forecasters apart? In their book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, authors Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner share their secrets. Turns out that participants who consistently scored highest weren’t necessarily smarter, just more disciplined problem-solvers. They broke big problems into smaller pieces, updated their beliefs frequently based on new evidence, kept track of their prediction accuracy, and refined their methods over time.

They embraced what the authors call probabilistic thinking—assigning confidence levels to predictions and adjusting them as new data emerged. Most importantly, they were intellectually humble. They didn’t pretend to know how the future would unfold; they just got better at estimating its contours.

We can all benefit from their strategies. To become a better forecaster in your personal and professional lives, try these steps:

1. Start with the base rate. Always ask: What usually happens in situations like this? You can use historical data as your anchor before considering specifics. This prevents you from being swayed by flashy outliers.

2. Break big questions into smaller, more manageable parts. Instead of asking “Will AI disrupt my industry?”, try: “ Which tasks in my industry are most likely to be taken over by machines or AI systems?” “How fast is adoption moving in comparable sectors?” Breaking down big questions allows you to assign probabilities to parts of a larger puzzle.

3. Balance inside and outside views. The “inside view” focuses on the unique traits of your specific case. The “outside view” looks at broader patterns and benchmarks. Superforecasters consciously toggle between the two to avoid tunnel vision.

4. Regularly update your beliefs. Treat your assumptions as hypotheses, not convictions. When new evidence arises, adjust your position—even if it means admitting you were wrong. Flexibility is a strength.

5. Assign numerical probabilities to your predictions. Avoid vague terms like “likely” or “maybe.” Instead, get comfortable estimating probabilities: a 60 percent chance, 85 percent, 30 percent. It sharpens your thinking and makes you trackable over time.

6. Add forecasting to your journal entries. Write down your predictions, your reasoning, and your confidence level. Revisit them periodically. This habit builds self-awareness and reveals your cognitive blind spots.

7. Seek disconfirmation, not just confirmation. Actively search for information that could prove you wrong. This counteracts confirmation bias and forces you to pressure-test your thinking.

8. Cultivate a diverse information diet. Avoid ideological echo chambers. Seek out sources from different ideological, cultural, and disciplinary perspectives. Diversity of input makes for more resilient thinking.

We can’t predict the future with certainty, but we can learn to navigate it more skillfully. As the superforecasters have shown, finding the future first is not about clairvoyance—it’s about curiosity, adaptability, and humility.

This article originally appeared in Forbes

Image credit: Pixabay

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China’s Disastrous One Child Policy

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Unraveling the Unintended Consequences

China's Disastrous One Child Policy

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

In 1979, China’s leaders implemented the now-infamous “One Child Policy.” Designed to curb population growth, the policy succeeded in reducing birth rates almost immediately. But it also unleashed a cascade of severe and unintended social consequences that the nation is still trying to untangle.

Because many Chinese couples favored boys over girls, the One Child policy began to skew the gender ratio. It gave rise to the so-called “little emperor” syndrome among only children. Most significantly, a birth dearth gave rise to a rapidly aging population.

Today, that aging population poses a long-term crisis threatening to upend China’s economic momentum. With a shrinking workforce and fewer young workers, productivity has declined as soaring healthcare and pension costs strain national resources.

Decades of restricting birth have created a demographic imbalance. Fewer caregivers are available to support a growing elderly population. Once a driver of China’s growth, consumer spending is shifting away from housing, education, and discretionary goods. Industries across the board are feeling the squeeze, while the burden on younger generations grows ever heavier.

China is scrambling to undo the decision: raising the retirement age, pushing automation in fields and factories, and offering incentives for couples to have more children. But the results have been underwhelming. Reversing the unintended consequences of that single 1979 policy decision has been anything but easy.

Governmental responses include birth subsidies, stronger maternity and paternity leave, and numerous efforts to bolster workplace protections for women. No matter how creatively or emphatically the government promotes fertility, young Chinese couples are simply not making more babies.

Result: China stands to lose five to ten million working-age adults each year, while gaining an equal number of elderly people.

In researching a new book on decision-making in an uncertain world, I frequently encounter unintended consequences. The Trump administration’s recent imposition of across-the-board tariffs is an example. The announcement of these controversially named “reciprocal tariffs” prompted retaliation from trade partners and immediately triggered a stock market crash. The aggressive U.S. tariff policy will trigger a significant slowdown in the U.S. economy this year and next, with the median probability of recession in the next 12 months approaching 50 percent, according to economists polled by Reuters.

At the time, China’s One-Child Policy seemed like a no-brainer, a logical response to burgeoning, unsustainable population growth. But its long-term impacts on culture, economics, and national competitiveness were profoundly underestimated.

Key point: When making decisions of significant impact, consider what you want to happen and if your plan will bring this desired state into being. But consider also what might unfold if your plan doesn’t work — and if your plan works all too well. The payoff from taking the extra time will be worth it. Just ask China.

This article originally appeared in Forbes

Image credit: Pexels

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Six Key Lessons From COVID-19

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Six Key Lessons From COVID-19

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

During the fall of 2019, in a lab in Wuhan, China, a cluster of atoms weighing less than one-trillionth of a gram mutated ever so slightly, cascading into the greatest disruption to human life in over a century. COVID-19 would go on to the lives of over 20 million people worldwide and over a million in the United States.

In a matter of months, the coronavirus had reshaped our world. It forced us indoors, upended economies, and brought suffering and loss to millions. It exposed cracks in our systems and magnified existing inequalities. And it tested the leadership of institutions, governments, and businesses.

Yet amidst the upheaval, it also accelerated innovation in vaccine development, proved the potential of global collaboration, and offered valuable lessons—lessons we dare not ignore.

Five years on, with the benefit of hindsight, what lessons did we learn from the Covid Crisis? What are the takeaways? What ideas can we carry forward? And how can we better prepare for next time? Here are six enduring lessons that the pandemic offers:

1. COVID-19 United Us at First But Divided Us at last.

According to a recent Pew survey, seventy-two percent of Americans believe COVID-19 did more to drive the country apart than to bring it together. Trust in government plummeted to a new low. In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us, a new book that reviews the crisis, concludes that the scientific community overestimated the dangers of the virus and stifled dissenting scientific opinion. Models were designed solely to reduce deaths, failing to include other criteria, such as the effects of social isolation on children’s mental health. Locking down at the pandemic’s start may have been necessary, say these authors, but continuing the lockdowns for so long created lasting hardship and divisions.

Key takeaway: In a politically polarized era, one-size-fits-all health mandates from the National Institute of Health must be avoided. Public trust must be maintained, and local control ensured.

2. Resilience Is No Longer a Luxury—It’s a Necessity.

When COVID-19 struck, organizations and individuals who demonstrated resilience – did best. They exhibited the ability to keep calm, remain flexible, and adapt readily, and weathered the storm far better than those who went into denial mode or dismissed COVID-19 as a hoax or government conspiracy. When supply chains buckled, when health officials enforced lockdowns, organizations that had invested in contingency planning and crisis management demonstrated resilience and staying power.

Key takeaway: Leaders who encouraged experimentation found the path forward. Those that did not floundered and went out of business. Individuals who cultivated a learning mindset, continuously monitoring and following the latest directives, kept functioning and recovered faster.

3. Health Security Is National Security.

In a 2015 TED Talk, Bill Gates warned that the greatest threat to humanity would come “not from a missile but a microbe.” Before the pandemic, a cascade of warnings went unheeded. In 2019, White House economists warned that a pandemic could devastate America. As the pandemic unfolded, delayed responses, magical thinking, mixed messages, and lack of coordination cost precious time and countless lives.

Before COVID-19, most thought little about public health infrastructure or infectious disease modeling. COVID-19 made clear that underinvesting in public health is not just a medical risk but a geopolitical and economic risk as well. In today’s interconnected world, a virus emerging in one corner of the globe can bring entire economies to a halt and overwhelm healthcare systems thousands of miles away.

Key takeaway: Investments in early warning systems, stockpiling of essential medical supplies, and better international coordination must be considered strategic imperatives, not budget line items. Health security is just as important as military security.

4. Inequality Doesn’t Disappear in Crisis—It Gets Exposed.

While the virus itself was biologically impartial, its impacts were anything but. Marginalized and vulnerable communities bore the brunt of both the health and economic fallout. Disparities in access to healthcare, employment protections, digital connectivity, and even clean air and water became painfully visible.

Essential workers—once taken for granted—emerged as the backbone of society. Grocery clerks, delivery drivers, sanitation workers, and healthcare aides kept our systems running while risking their own health. For a brief moment, the conversation around equity and inclusion gained renewed urgency.

Key takeaway: The challenge now is to act on that awareness going forward. The post-pandemic world must actively work to close gaps, not widen them, because, in the next crisis, those disparities will come back to haunt us all over again.

5. Innovation Is Our Lifeline in Crisis, and in the Future We Create.

In the darkest days of the pandemic, human ingenuity shined. Scientists across borders collaborated at unprecedented speeds to develop vaccines using novel mRNA technology. Educators adapted to online teaching. Companies retooled their operations, launched new services, and shifted to digital business models practically overnight.

The rapid rise of video-conferencing tools transformed the workplace and accelerated the remote work revolution. Long-standing barriers to telemedicine were swept away, and the technology sector didn’t just survive; it became a vital infrastructure for continuity.

Key takeaway: Innovation wasn’t optional in meeting the Covid-19 criai—it was oxygen. And the systems that encouraged experimentation, rapid iteration, and bold thinking fared better. The lesson is clear: we must nurture innovation not just in emergencies but as a daily discipline.

6. Leadership in Times of Crisis Reveals Character

Every crisis is a test of leadership. COVID-19 revealed which leaders were prepared and which were not. Some communicated clearly, showed empathy, and made smart decisions that saved lives and stabilized communities. Others disappeared, floundered, delayed, denied, or deflected—often with tragic consequences.

Effective crisis leadership wasn’t about knowing all the answers. It was about asking the right questions, adapting quickly, and staying in touch with stakeholders. The best leaders demonstrated transparency, built trust, and showed compassion. The worst fueled division and confusion and stoked fear.

Key Takeaway: Leadership in crises reveals who we really are. The next disruption—whether from climate disaster, cyberattack, nuclear fallout, or global pandemic—won’t wait for us to prepare. Preparedness is a mindset we must cultivate for the times in which we suddenly find ourselves living.

This article originally appeared in Forbes

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Visualization’s Hidden Power

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Visualization's Hidden Power

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

Some years back, on a New Year’s morning in the mid-1980s, I poured myself a cup of coffee, sat down with my goal-setting notebook, and visualized living in a house in the hills above Santa Barbara. It would have forever ocean views, gleaming white walls, and blue skies. At the time, I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Van Nuys that was so small you had to step outside to change your mind.

Today, decades later, my wife Carolyn and I live in the very house that I visualized. On clear days, we can see all the way to the Channel Islands and watch cruise ships in the harbor. Coincidence? Maybe. I’m more inclined to credit the hidden and misunderstood power of visualization.

As a futurist and innovation coach, I help organizations and leaders design and build bigger futures. Individually, creating a vision of your future gives you uncommon power to navigate life’s twists and turns. It’s how we actualize what I like to call a future view. In a world that feels like it’s constantly on overdrive, the ability to visualize your future may be the one skill that keeps you grounded—and going forward.

During those early years living hand-to-mouth as a freelance writer in Los Angeles, I had the good fortune to interview many of the great motivators and thinkers of our time: Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Denis Waitley, Brian Tracy, Earl Nightingale, Og Mandino, and others whose names now sound like characters in a self-improvement Avengers movie. From them, I learned simple but timeless truths: Believe in yourself, your mission, and your potential. Avoid negative people like they carry a contagious brain fog. Visualize where you’re going — and keep moving.

Visualization was a consistent theme with all of them. Earl Nightingale, whose gravelly voice once boomed from over a thousand radio stations daily on his program Our Changing World, told me about growing up in poverty during the Great Depression. “When I was a kid,” he said, “what really bothered me was the idea that I might not have any control over my life.” He scoured books for a sign that he could direct his own fate. One day, he stumbled on a sentence that hit him like lightning: “We become what we think about most often.” Suddenly, everything clicked — from Buddha to the Bible: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Nightingale’s moment of illumination gave rise to The Strangest Secret, his legendary recording that became the first spoken-word album to go Gold. His message? You can shape your reality by envisioning your reality.

Scientific research backs this up. Neuroscientists now know that the human brain doesn’t distinguish much between a real event and a vividly imagined one. When athletes mentally rehearse a high-stakes performance, their brain activates the same neural circuits as during the actual event. Lindsey Vonn, one of the greatest female skiers in history, writes in her book, “I always visualize the ski run before I do it. By the time I get to the start gate, I’ve run the race 100 times already in my head.”

That’s a lot of imaginary skiing — and it works.

Pete Carroll, the endlessly upbeat head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders (formerly of the Seattle Seahawks), said, “Once you’ve created that vision, you’re on your way. But the diligence with which you stick to that vision allows you to get there.” Translation: visualizing yourself owning a Ferrari while binging on White Lotus doesn’t count.

Visualization isn’t just for Olympians or football coaches. Hall of Fame speaker Mark Sanborn said he uses it before every keynote speech he delivers. “You memorize words,” he told me, “but you visualize performance. The goal is a presentation that’s not stiff and rehearsed but prepared and conversational.” In other words, if you’re picturing the audience in their underwear, you’re doing it wrong.

Supermarket magnate Ronald Burkle, who orchestrated an $8 billion sale of Fred Meyer to Kroger and the $1.8 billion sale of Dominick’s to Safeway—all in the same week—told Architectural Digest that: “If you can’t visualize the future, you never know what can be possible.” Apparently, imagining billion-dollar deals can be good for business.

And let’s not forget envelope mogul Harvey Mackay, who once visualized his way from peddling paper products to authoring the bestseller Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. “Don’t be afraid to see your future,” Mackay told me. “Seeing and believing is achieving.”

Of course, visualization alone won’t do your taxes or get you to the gym. But paired with daily effort, it becomes a compass in turbulent times. Harvard psychologist Dr. Shelley Taylor found that people who visualize not just the outcome but the process — imagining the steps and challenges—are more likely to achieve their goals. That’s futurizing with boots on the ground.

Before vision boards were a visualization tool, motivators like Jim Cathcart (The Acorn Principal) suggested cutting pictures out of magazines: the car you want to drive, the house you want to live in. Stick them on your bathroom mirror so your subconscious gets the memo daily.

I did that. And I still do that—minus the magazine clippings. Over the years, I’ve collected quotes, created mind pictures, and rehearsed future scenarios as part of a regular practice. And it’s paid off.

So, what does this mean for you? Take a moment today. Close your eyes. Picture yourself doing the thing you’ve always wanted to do. Writing that book. Starting that business. Landing that big client or life partner. Really see it. Feel the moment. Smell the coffee, hear the applause, cash the check — whatever it takes. Do it often enough, and your brain will start thinking it’s real. And then, with effort, it just might become real.

In a world of constant change, visualization is more than wishful thinking. It’s how we rehearse greatness before we achieve it. Your future view is the future you.

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Gemini

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Changing Your Information Diet Can Change Your Life

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Changing Your Information Diet Can Change Your Life

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

In my 40-year study of the habits of leading innovators, I’m constantly struck by a little-discussed trait. I call it a superior information diet. They work at keeping abreast with uncommon passion. They pour over data. They do deep dives into new subjects they want to understand better. They are eager and voracious readers and highlight passages in books. They subscribe to a wide variety of publications. They ask questions, probe deeply, and open their minds to what the answers might mean. Wherever they are – at conferences, attending social events, while walking through airports, they are alert for news they can use.

We are suddenly living in an era when the news is treated as entertainment, where pundits are distrusted, where misinformation, disinformation, and extreme content are considered normal, and where conspiracy theories sprout like mushrooms after a summer rain.

Yet, we are also living at a time when one of the most important aptitudes you can develop is the ability to stay abreast of change and make your information intake the lodestar of lifelong learning.

Here below are my favorite strategies for developing a world-class intake valve:

1. Audit your information diet. Is the news something you consume while in line at Starbucks, or do you actively work at keeping informed about technology, politics, and the changing climate? Has reading non-fiction books dropped off your schedule? In the past 24 hours, how many articles, books, documentaries, substantive podcasts, and serious television programs have you “consumed”? By auditing your information diet, you will determine whether you are “being informed” (passively) or are “getting informed.” Your audit will help you to decide to upgrade your diet.

2. Be willing to pay for information. One of the key questions I pose when discussing someone’s information diet is: “What information are you currently paying for?” In other words, I’m looking for subscriptions, rather than free information used as marketing bait. To be sure, reputable research organizations like McKinsey and Pew give away some of the best strategic information available.

But if we assume information is free, the corollary is also true: you get what you pay for. If you are reading and subscribing to the New York Times, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, you are paying professionally trained journalists, writers, columnists, and editors to serve you with information that is fact-checked, reliable, and objectively researched. This type of information fuels your perspective and gives you a heads-up on developments and social trends. This comes back to the issue of the decline in social trust. We are in a period of acceleration where information and insight are the fuel of responsiveness.

3. Don’t rely on social media for a nutritious information diet. When Facebook launched in 2007, it gave us a new way to connect with friends, share photos, and keep up with daily life. Users “liked” and “loved” each other’s posts, and the platform felt like a digital scrapbook. At the time, few considered it a legitimate news source. But over the past decade, that has changed. Today, many people scroll, share, and debate the “news” they encounter on Facebook, often without verifying its accuracy. This shift has eroded our collective ability to discern fact from fiction. Misinformation spreads unchecked, fueling confusion and division. That’s why it’s imperative to audit your information diet. Be deliberate about where you get your news, seek diverse and credible sources, and cultivate a mindset of critical inquiry. Your success depends on it.

4. Look for reputable analysis and support knowledgeable analysts. In an age when everyone is a publisher, and with so many good columnists out there, why opt for junk food just because it caters to your bias? Junk food – Twinkies, donuts, candy, and other processed, sugar-saturated foods – are available to us from hack writers, those paid or free who post opinions based on hot air, or poorly paid staff writers who produce low-quality, rushed, biased, and unchecked work under crushing deadlines.

When I was growing up in the ’60s and ‘70s, reporting the news was a sacred duty, and journalists were respected for their hard work and objectivity. During Watergate, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein became my heroes, and I launched into a career as a freelance journalist because of their example of doggedness and courage under fire.

Back then, Americans read local papers filled with articles written by Associated Press and United Press International reporters, and we watched Walter Cronkite anchor the news.

But that was then, and today, as many local newspapers and magazines have disappeared, what has been lost is the strategic value of information and its impact on our lives and fortunes.

As the great motivational authority, Zig Ziglar used to say, “You are where you are and what you are by what has gone into your mind.”

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Gemini

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Deeply Seeking the Future of AI

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Deeply Seeking the Future of AI

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

Earlier this week, news that a Chinese startup called DeepSeek created a workable AI competitor to ChatGPT sent shock waves through Silicon Valley and Washington. In what is being called a “Sputnik Moment,” DeepSeek’s breakthrough has turned the $100 billion Stargate AI initiative that President Trump announced last week into an “Interstellar Graveyard,” noted a post on Fancaiju, a business blog on WeChat.

DeepSeek shocked the world with its new AI offering, which it developed for $5 million, contrasting sharply with the billions that OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google spent developing theirs. Result: a $1 trillion bloodbath on Wall Street and an assumption-assaulting moment heard worldwide.

While DeepSeek’s claims have yet to be verified, gone in a nanosecond is the assumption that the US is ahead of China in the AI arms race. Gone, too, is the assumption that only big tech firms with deep pockets can dominate the AI space.

The larger point here is that we now live in a world where making assumptions or going along unthinkingly with conventional wisdom can lead us into the jaws of disruption. In the Age of Acceleration, we can choose to challenge our assumptions, or somebody else will do it for us. (If they do, it won’t be pretty.)

As an innovation coach and futurist, I teach managers the techniques of identifying and “assaulting” individual, organizational, and big-picture assumptions, often called paradigms. I explain that assumptions are what everybody believes to be true … until it isn’t, as DeepSeek appears to have demonstrated. And I show how innovation begins where assumptions end.

Challenging assumptions is essential, whether personal (“I’m too old/young to do that”), organizational (“that’s not how we do things around here”), or national (“America is way out ahead in AI”).

One technique is to ask open-ended questions and invite new thinking. For example: “what’s a better way to do X?” is such a challenging question because it opens the mind to the realization that the way we do X currently might be obsolete.

In researching a book about navigating a world of hyper-change, I realized we will all need to build muscle mass in this area. The world is moving too fast to harbor erroneous assumptions. We are now living through an “inflection point” that is unlike anything in history. Over the coming decade, there will be more social, technological, and geopolitical change than over the past 100 years. And we are not ready for this world of constant overdrive.

The forces that will characterize this period are becoming clearer: the rise of authoritarianism both in the United States and globally; the pervasiveness of social media and the diminishment of freedom and human consciousness; China vs. the USA race for world dominion; and, most importantly, the burgeoning AI Revolution.

We now live in a world of exponential change, a clear departure in the human experience. Something that happens in a lab in Wuhan explodes into a global pandemic. And something that happens in a startup lab in China wipes out a trillion dollars in market value overnight. In such a world, assumptions are like barnacles on the side of a boat.

DeepSeek not only vaporizes assumptions we may have made about AI but also the future of humanity. One such assumption is that AI will lead us into the promised land. Silicon Valley promulgates this assumption with passionate intensity. It is techno-determinism writ large: If we can invent it, it must be a good thing for society.

But all too often, while technology brings about clear and immediate benefits – it has unintended consequences that become evident over time.

In 2011, 23 percent of teenagers in the United States and Western countries owned a smartphone, meaning they had only limited access to social media; most had to use the family computer to access the internet. But by 2016, 79 percent of teens owned a smartphone, as did 28 percent of children ages eight to 12. Teens indicated they spent an average of almost seven hours a day on screens. Researchers found that one out of every four young people admitted that they were “almost constantly” online. This meant that they spent far less time playing with, talking to, touching, or even making eye contact with their friends and families, according to researchers. Instead, they withdrew from “embodied social behaviors” essential for successful human development.

As researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and others have observed, signs of a mental health crisis began to emerge. Rates of mental illness among the young shot up dramatically in many Western countries between 2010 and 2015. Major depression among teens went up 145 percent among girls, and 161 percent among boys. A similar rise in anxiety disorders occurred.

Will AI have similar benefits and unintended consequences? Champions of AI see positive progress and productivity.

“Every person will have an AI assistant, coach, mentor, trainer, advisor, and therapist who is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely helpful,” observes Marc Andreessen in a widely read essay on why AI will save the world. “Your AI assistant will be present through all of life’s opportunities and challenges, maximizing every person’s outcomes.”

Perhaps AI will lead us to the promised land, but only if we challenge our assumptions, and consciously shape the future.

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Gemini

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Elon Musk’s Leadership Style Will Make or Break DOGE

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Elon Musk's Leadership Style Will Make or Break DOGE

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

The newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by tech billionaire Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswami, has the potential to revolutionize how the United States government functions.

As a futurist and innovation expert who’s participated in numerous corporate and government innovation initiatives, I commend this effort to deliver more for less to Americans at a time when belief in government is at a low ebb. However, achieving success in this new endeavor could prove to be as complex as colonizing Mars.

According to research by McKinsey, 70-90% of complex, large-scale corporate and government change initiatives fail to reach their stated goals. Yet, if anyone can pull this off, it’s likely to be outsiders with a proven track record of success at doing difficult things. As I wrote previously in Forbes, Musk has been able to disrupt every industry he’s entered: money transfer with PayPal, renewable energy with SolarCity, electric vehicles and batteries with Tesla, and space entrepreneurship with SpaceX. But these are all for-profit businesses, not government agencies.

Below are five leadership suggestions for making DOGE a moonshot success:

1. Realize this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve. According to McKinsey, the biggest reason large-scale initiatives go awry is the failure to set fact-based high aspirations. With DOGE, the stated goals are clear: to dismantle bureaucracy, cut regulations, restructure agencies, and save taxpayers a whopping $2 trillion! My advice to Musk: You can make a lasting impact if you take the high road and adjust your approach. The abrasive leadership style you used to lower costs at Twitter (firing 6,000 employees) will backfire here. DOGE is a unique opportunity to transform an organization that doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to all of us.

2. Do your own thinking, and don’t let others rule you. To succeed, Musk must resist the tendency to “stick it to the bureaucracy” or punish agencies such as the EPA and SEC that prosecuted him in the past. Also, to forget about clearing out the so-called “Deep State,” which doesn’t exist. Everyone is watching to see if Musk will succumb to partisan paradigms or Silicon Valley groupthink, which assumes that technology is the answer to every problem. As someone who researches the habits of leading innovators, I admire the way Musk does voluminous research, challenges conventional thinking, learns from failure, and experiments constantly while taking calculated risks. My advice to Musk: Form your own opinions and make decisions with an open mind, in short, be your own man. Don’t abandon the habits and best practices that got you where you are. Be willing to adjust your leadership style and adapt them to serving the government. If you pull this off, the appreciation and love will be worth it in the end.

3. Seek out innovators in government. Having served as an innovation coach to organizations as varied as the Army Corp of Engineers, DARPA, and VA Hospitals, my experience is that there are talented, dedicated, out-of-the-box-thinkers and doers within our government. The problem is they are not always heard. They may have practical ideas about how to do things better, cheaper, and faster, but there is no incentive to take the initiative for the hard work of innovation. My advice: Musk needs to acknowledge that the federal government does function: air traffic controllers keep planes flying, polluters get punished, Medicare checks go out, warfighters get trained and armed, FEMA workers show up at disasters, and taxes get collected. Instead of denigrating them, figure out ways to inspire and empower them instead. Find ways to lift them up, while challenging them to do better. My advice: make everyone in government a hero. Challenge them to join you in this once-in-a-lifetime endeavor to upgrade and revitalize the federal government.

4. Crowdsource for winning ideas. Idea crowdsourcing is the process of engaging employees, customers, suppliers, or other relevant audiences to contribute ideas to help an organization improve its products, services, or processes. Crowdsourcing ideas and creating a process for selecting and prioritizing those ideas will be critical to DOGE’s success. Outdated rules, like agencies being required to spend all allocated funds by year-end, drive wasteful spending and need changing. Modernizing antiquated data systems will enhance decision-making, accountability, and efficiency. Federal agencies need to be encouraged to identify efficiencies to improve outcomes, not just cut budgets. Federal employees need to be equipped with modern tools and strategies. Private-sector principles to improve citizen experience must be applied. The focus needs to be on shared goals and avoidance of partisanship.

In sum, Elon, this is your defining moment. Not just to modernize government but to inspire it to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Future generations will remember what you accomplished. If only you will lean in to serving America’s citizens in this time of need.

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Pixabay

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The Non-profits Tackling Tomorrow’s Biggest Challenges

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The Non-profits Tackling Tomorrow's Biggest Challenges

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

In a time when rapid change defines the world, the need for forward-thinking leadership is more urgent than ever, especially in the nonprofit sector. Yet, a recent survey reveals that the overwhelming majority of nonprofit leaders are overwhelmed when it comes to the future, rather than being prepared.

According to a survey by the Center for Effective Philanthropy of 200 CEOs of major foundations, only one percent feel “very prepared” to navigate coming societal shifts. An overwhelming 98% believe that their organizations need to change to meet society’s needs, but just 14% believe such transformation is “very likely.”

This gap, as philanthropic futurist Trista Harris observes, isn’t due to a lack of resources or ideas—it stems from a lack of belief. “The future is not out of our control,” Harris tells audiences. “It is determined by the choices we make today.”

Harris’s insights are resonating deeply in a world where crises—from climate change to economic inequality—demand immediate action, but which is overwhelmed with needs. As a sector of the economy, the nonprofit world employs 12.8 million people, is comprised of 1.8 million NGOs ranging from the Red Cross to smaller disaster rebuilding organizations to the local soup kitchen, and generates $3.7 trillion in annual revenues.

But until Harris came along, visionaries in the sector were few and far between. A firebrand champion of futurism in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, Harris empowers organizations to use the tools of futurism and innovation to address their biggest challenges while envisioning a better tomorrow.

The Roots of Futurism: From Crisis to Action

Harris’s journey into futurism for the nonprofit sector began during the 2008 Great Recession, a period of profound economic and social upheaval. Then president of Headwaters Foundation, she faced a stark reality: a steep drop in donor funds, with fewer assets leading to fewer resources for community support.

Harris realized that her NGO’s shortfall was universal. The traditional funding model— begging donors for donations, encouraging organizations to work independently on similar issues—was failing to create sustainable change. “We were funding important causes, but there wasn’t any larger momentum,” Harris recalls. “As funders, we were unintentionally fracturing [forward] movement.”

This realization spurred Harris to action. “In that moment, I wished for a crystal ball,” she admits. “The tools I had learned in graduate school were not useful in times of wholesale societal upheaval.” The search for solutions led her to the field of futurism—a discipline that emphasizes understanding the driving forces of change and using foresight to inform decision-making.

Harnessing Strategic Foresight

At the heart of Harris’s methodology is strategic foresight: the ability to recognize patterns in the present and project how they will shape the future. Unlike forecasting, which aims to predict specific outcomes, strategic foresight equips leaders with insights into emerging trends and potential disruptions.

“You can’t make good decisions if you don’t have a well-researched understanding of what’s coming,” Harris explains. “The goal isn’t to predict the future—it’s to prepare for it.”

This principle is evident in Harris’s work with communities like North Minneapolis, where she helped residents envision their collective future. Using a large chalkboard, community members were invited to share their dreams—ranging from “an ice cream shop” to broader aspirations like safe streets and equitable housing. By fostering community dialogue and shared vision, Harris demonstrates how futurism can unite communities around common goals.

Bridging the Belief Gap

Despite its transformative potential, futurism often faces skepticism—particularly in sectors accustomed to reacting to immediate crises. Harris addresses this “belief gap” by encouraging organizations to imagine what success looks like. “If your issue is homelessness, visualize a world where every resident has housing,” she advises. “This exercise shifts the focus from managing problems to creating solutions.”

In her book, FutureGood: How to Use Futurism to Save the World, Harris outlines practical tools for applying foresight to social change. From trend analysis to scenario planning, these methods help leaders navigate uncertainty and build resilience. “The purpose of paying attention to the future isn’t to know exactly what will happen,” Harris emphasizes. “It’s to change what you do today to make tomorrow better.”

The Stakes of Inaction

The urgency of Harris’s message is underscored by the challenges looming on the horizon. From climate-induced natural disasters to potential AI-driven societal disruptions, the world faces an era of unprecedented complexity. The COVID-19 pandemic offered a stark reminder of our vulnerability to unforeseen crises—and the high cost of unpreparedness.

Yet, on balance, Harris remains optimistic about humanity’s capacity to adapt. “The world we’re entering will be an mixture of incredible breakthroughs and daunting crises,” she notes. “But with the right tools and mindset, we can navigate this landscape and emerge stronger.”

Building a FutureGood Movement

As president of FutureGood, a consultancy dedicated to visionary leaders build an equitable and more beautiful future, Harris is building a movement of changemakers committed to shaping a better future. Her approach combines the rigor of strategic foresight with the creativity of grassroots innovation, empowering individuals and organizations to act boldly in the face of uncertainty.

The key, Harris argues, is to view challenges as opportunities. Whether addressing the fallout of economic downturns or tackling systemic inequality, futurism offers a roadmap for action. By aligning resources, fostering collaboration, and embracing the possibilities of change, we can turn today’s crises into tomorrow’s solutions.

A Call to Action

The social sector increasingly is being tasked with huge responsibilities to feed, cloth, assist, and house millions of people and provide for their most basic human needs. By championing a proactive, visionary approach, Harris is redefining what it means to be a forward-looking nonprofit leader. Her tools and insights are not just for policymakers and CEOs—they’re for anyone willing to think differently about challenges

Harris’s message — and her mission — are both timely and transformative to a sector of the economy greatly in need of new thinking. Her journey reminds us that the future is not written in stone —it’s the result of the choices we make today. As she puts it: “We don’t have a resource gap or even an idea gap. We have a belief gap that problems however big can actually be solved. And closing that gap starts with imagining what’s possible.”

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Paul Gilmore

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Will AI Threaten Your Job?

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Take This Quiz To Get Future-Ready

Will AI Threaten Your Job?

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

Will artificial intelligence threaten your job? Not to alarm you, but it probably already does. The assessment below will tell you if you have the mindset and skillset that makes you future-proof.

The current “white collar” recession is at least partially attributable to productivity gains from AI. Since 2022, Silicon Valley firms have eliminated 552,000 jobs. Numerous firms from Accenture (19,000 jobs eliminated in 2024 alone) to Nike are quietly shedding jobs. Already, companies are finding they can get by with fewer workers.

In years past, blue collar jobs were threatened by recession and automation. But the future economy infused with a growing array of AI tools, is showing that white collar office jobs are vulnerable. More importantly, the organization of the future will demand different skillsets from those who work in offices. There is a shift underway.

LinkedIn researcher Aneesh Raman and Maria Flynn, president of Jobs for the Future, recently examined what they call “a huge shift in the skills our economy values most.” They parsed which skills any given job actually requires. From this, they then identified over 500 jobs likely to be affected by generative AI technologies. For example, they discovered that 96 percent of a software engineer’s current skills — mainly proficiency in programming languages — can eventually be replicated by AI. Skills associated with jobs like legal associates and finance officers will also be highly exposed.

“Technical and data skills that have been highly sought after for decades appear to be among the most exposed to advances in artificial intelligence,” note Raman and Flynn. “But other skills, particularly the people skills that we have long undervalued as soft, will very likely remain the most durable. That is a hopeful sign that AI could usher in a world of work that is anchored more, not less, around human ability.”

Yet while large organizations the world over are shedding jobs, they are desperately in need of people with what I call innovation skills (I-Skills) — the all too rare talent who can think ahead of the curve, conceptualize new products and services that grow revenue, delight customers, slash costs, motivate teams, and achieve outsized results.

Below are 14 questions that will help you determine if you’re AI vulnerable.

Print out this assessment and rate yourself on your I-Skills. If you strongly agree with the statement, give yourself a 10. If you strongly disagree, give yourself a 1 or 2. Remember to consider not only your self-perception, but also the perception of your coworkers, customers and your boss.

  1. I approach my work with an opportunity mindset and show initiative and solve problems with a “can-do” attitude.
  2. I embrace and use new technology (AI) and am often among the first in my organization to try out new tools.
  3. I volunteer to lead new initiatives. I regularly get involved in projects having to do with building the future of my organization.
  4. I align myself with the strategic goals of my organization’s senior leadership.
  5. I engage deeply with people in my company and work to improve my communication, collaboration, and innovation skills.
  6. I have a genuine passion for serving the end user (internal or external customer).
  7. I look for ways to take on the customer’s problem.
  8. I often take calculated risks.
  9. I collaborate effectively in cross-functional teams.
  10. I see through barriers and hurdles to achieving my goals.
  11. I welcome feedback and use it to grow.
  12. I am idea-oriented and constantly gather new ideas to build more creative outcomes.
  13. I work to build a network of people who I create value for and receive value from.
  14. I sell my ideas effectively and work hard at enrolling and converting others to my vision.

Here’s how to score yourself on your I-Skills.

As you completed the survey, did you consider your coworkers’ perceptions of you, or did you answer the questions based on your self-perception? Bear in mind that it’s not only about how you perceive your I-Skills. It’s about what you do and what you’re recognized for by others on your team. If you’re going to add unique value to your organization, you must take all your great ideas, skills, and abilities and turn them into concrete actions and initiatives that make a positive difference.

If you scored yourself 100 or higher, congratulations. You’ve developed quite a few of the I-Skills already. If you scored yourself in the 75 to 99 range, you’re still ahead of most of your peers, but you’ve got some skill building to do.

If you scored below 74, take heart. These are new skills for the vast majority of people, ones they haven’t had to use to be successful in the past.

Summary: AI doesn’t have to threaten your job. Not as long as you work to build up your I-Skills. The time to get started on this is right now.

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Pexels

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Six Leadership Strategies for Navigating the Singularity

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Mastering The Futurist Mindset

Six Leadership Strategies for Navigating the Singularity

GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

In a world that’s shifting faster than we can often comprehend, the ability to anticipate the direction of change isn’t just an asset—it’s an essential competitive advantage. Intel, IBM, and Chevron once dominated their industries. Today, they are struggling to remain relevant. Jobs, and professionals, that once seemed secure are now encountering the burgeoning impacts of artificial intelligence and automation. For leaders in every industry, insight into what’s coming next can make the difference between thriving and being blindsided by change.

That’s where adopting the futurist mindset can give you an edge.

Contrary to popular perception, futurists aren’t crystal ball gazers. Yes, some of us, such as futurist Ray Kurzweil, make specific predictions about when the AI-Singularity will occur (2029, the point at which machines will become smarter than humans), but our value is not in our predictive capabilities.

Instead, futurists are methodical, systematic thinkers who approach the future not as a fixed path, but as a set of possibilities and probabilities that can be influenced and even shaped.

“The future is coming at us with mind-boggling speed,” observes Zurich-based futurist Gerd Leonhard. “What I do is not prediction — it’s observation. Just paying attention. I can’t tell you how many of my clients are just not paying attention to what’s happening. They don’t listen to their kids or their wives, never mind the futurists, because they’re so busy with the present.”

Being overwhelmed with the present is all too easy when change is accelerating this rapidly. The good news is that with effort, you can learn to think like a futurist. Here’s how.

1. Expand Your Time Horizon

One of the first shifts to make when thinking like a futurist is to expand your time horizon. Most humans operate on a relatively short timeline—weeks, months, or a year or two ahead. Futurists, on the other hand, look five, ten, or even twenty years into the future. We help our clients ask strategic questions: What are the forces that could shape the world a decade from now? Which of these forces are most likely to impact our industry/organization? Where are the opportunities emerging, and how do we exploit them?

Futurist Peter Schwartz, author of The Art of the Long View, emphasizes looking beyond the immediate future and considering multiple time frames. Schwartz encourages leaders to look at emerging trends and societal issues, weak signals, and scenarios that might seem distant or far-fetched but could have profound impacts if they come to fruition. To adopt Schwartz’s long-view perspective, start by asking yourself: What will my profession/industry look like in 2035? What will customers want from us that today remain unarticulated? What new business models (Airbnb, Uber, SpaceX) might one day come to your industry? What technological shifts are redefining the competitive landscape?

2. Use Scenarios to Explore Alternate Futures

A staple of futurist thinking is scenario planning. This technique was pioneered by futurists such as Herman Kahn and popularized by companies like Royal Dutch Shell, who used it to anticipate the oil crises of the 1970s. Scenarios aren’t predictions; they’re plausible and detailed stories about different ways the future might unfold. The idea is to build a range of possible futures based on variables such as technology, consumer behavior, regulatory shifts, and geopolitical changes.

When using scenario planning, consider factors that are both uncertain and important. For instance, how would a widespread adoption of artificial intelligence impact your business? What would happen if geopolitical tensions between the United States and China escalate in our markets? What would the impact be on our supply chain?

Scenario planning is best done in cross-functional group settings, especially at offsites, free from distraction. I encourage my clients to imagine three to four distinct scenarios for how things will unfold: an optimistic scenario, a pessimistic, all-hell-break-loose scenario, a most likely-to-happen scenario, and a wildcard scenario. Next, I invite participants to think through how you and your organization will navigate each scenario environment should it materialize. Such exercises not only prepare you and your organization for multiple futures but also help in identifying opportunities and risks you may not have considered.

3. Revamp Your Information Diet (and Track Trends)

To think like a futurist, scan and monitor differently. Think about how you “consume” news and reports. Audit your “information diet,” and avoid reading the news for trivia and entertainment. Are you exposing your mind to the best thinkers on how, for example, innovations like AI, the climate crisis, and the rise of authoritarianism are altering the landscape?

Recalibrating your information diet will help you understand the driving forces of change, or what futurists Thomas Koulopoulos and Nathaniel Palmer call “Gigatrends,” important developments that will shape the future for billions of people. Trends are often misunderstood. A trend is not a fad or a blip on the radar; it’s a sustained, underlying force that, over time, will create fundamental change.

There are different types of trends to watch: social, technological, economic, environmental, political, and demographic (often referred to as STEEPD). Each of these trend categories can have multiple drivers and intersections with others.

One technique favored by futurist Amy Webb, author of The Signals are Talking, is trend mapping. Webb’s approach involves categorizing trends as either signals (early-stage indicators), patterns (when signals repeat), or movements (when they reach critical mass). By mapping these trends, you can visualize how they interact and predict where they might lead.

To get started with trend tracking, begin by regularly reading a diverse array of information sources that go beyond your industry’s usual publications. Attend conferences outside your field. Be curious about what’s happening in adjacent industries.

4. Seek Out Weak Signals

Weak signals are often subtle indicators of change—so subtle that they’re easy to overlook. Yet, they can be precursors to major disruptions. As futurist and scenario planning expert Joseph Voros puts it, weak signals are “seeds of the future.”

These can be new technologies that are still in experimental stages, social movements that haven’t hit the mainstream, or unexpected behaviors by new demographic segments. One way to spot weak signals is to look for anomalies—data points or events that don’t fit into the current understanding of your industry or market.

To get better at recognizing weak signals, develop a “peripheral vision” strategy. This involves scanning not just what’s in front of you, but what’s happening at the edges. What innovations are startups in your sector working on? What’s happening in markets that aren’t your primary focus? Keep a log of these signals and review them periodically to see if they’re gaining traction.

5. Cultivate a Cross-Disciplinary Mindset

Futurists rarely work in isolation. They’re skilled at synthesizing insights from multiple disciplines. They draw connections between technology and society, economics and politics, or psychology and design. Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, was known for his ability to weave together insights from various fields to present a coherent view of the future.

This cross-disciplinary mindset enables futurists to see patterns and implications that specialists might miss. To cultivate it, expose yourself to new fields of study. Read books and articles from disciplines you’re unfamiliar with. Attend workshops that are outside your usual areas of expertise. Ask, “What might a biologist, an economist, or a technologist see that I don’t?”

6. Challenge Assumptions

Perhaps most importantly, thinking like a futurist means challenging the status quo and questioning long-held assumptions. What are the unspoken assumptions that guide decision-making in your organization? What beliefs are holding you back from seeing new opportunities?

One powerful technique is to use “backcasting.” Instead of starting from the present and projecting forward, imagine it’s ten years from now, and you’ve achieved your most aspirational goals. Then work backward: What had to happen for you to get there? What obstacles did you overcome? What assumptions did you have to discard?

By incorporating these techniques and frameworks into your thinking, you’ll be well on your way to thinking like a futurist. You’ll be prepared not just to anticipate the future, but to shape it. The key is to stay curious, remain vigilant, and never stop questioning. After all, your future view is the future you.

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Pexels

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