Daniel Burrus (United States) has built a worldwide reputation for predicting technological change and its impact on the world of business. He is the author of seven books, including The New York Times bestseller Flash Foresight and his new book The Anticipatory Organization, and is followed by millions of readers on social media. He is the founder of six companies; three were national leaders in the United States in their first year, and five were profitable within the first year of business.
The New York Times has referred to Daniel Burrus as one of the top three business gurus in the world, and he is a strategic advisor to executives from Fortune 500 companies, helping them to develop game-changing strategies based on his methodologies for capitalizing on technology innovations and their future impact.
I’m fascinated by Burrus’s ability to accurately predict the future and not just guess. I’m also interested in his scientific approach to innovation and his methodologies on how to create business models and products that will actually work and succeed.
So, we met up and talked about the difference between hard and soft trends and Daniel’s ideas on a different approach to how companies plan and innovate.
You teach what you consider to be the biggest missing competency in companies and organizations today: the ability to anticipate. Please tell me more about this.
We live in a world that reacts. The pace of change is increasing everywhere, and many think agility is the best way to deal with rapid change. I’m not saying that agility isn’t good, because there are a lot of things that you can’t accurately predict. There will always be changes that come out of nowhere. However, there are an amazing number of things we can accurately predict when we learn how to distinguish between what I call hard trends, trends that will happen, and soft trends, trends that might happen. Think of it as a two-sided coin. Agility is on one side, allowing you to react fast to unforeseen change, and the other side is anticipatory, allowing you to see what is coming and take action before the change occurs.
What do you think of agile innovation?
Agility is basically reacting quickly to change. Therefore, it’s important to understand that agile innovation is reactive innovation. Agile innovation will keep you reacting to disruptive innovation created by others. For example, did Uber or Airbnb use agility to come up with their multi-billion-dollar innovations? No, agility would not help them leap ahead with confidence. They identified the hard trends that were going to happen either through them or someone else, and took action with the confidence certainty can provide. The same hard-trend strategy is used by Amazon and Apple, giving them the ability to leap ahead with low risk and innovate quickly.
In the past few years, there have been several large organizations writing and teaching about the subject of exponential organizations and exponential growth, which is just as valuable as agile innovation is. But if you are going exponentially fast in the wrong direction, you will get into trouble exponentially faster.
Way back in 1983, I was the first to write and speak about the predictability and power of technology-driven exponential change, and that is indeed an important element to drive innovation and growth. But predictable exponential change is only about speed, not direction. When you learn to identify the hard trends that will have a massive impact, you can gain crucial insights for driving business innovation as well as disruption.
You’re obviously right about that, but is that really something we can predict with a high level of certainty?
Absolutely! There is no shortage of trends out there. The problem is knowing which trends are going to happen and when. As I mentioned earlier, you can divide trends into two categories: hard trends and soft trends. Hard trends are based on future facts; they will happen. It’s 100% certain. You can’t stop them from happening, but you can see them ahead of time. The three main categories of hard trends are technology, demographics, and government regulation. The last one is usually a surprise, but equally surprising is how powerful this can be when you learn how to see the future of regulations and their related opportunities.
Using my hard-trend methodology, you can see disruptions, before they disrupt, and turn predictable disruption into an opportunity. You can see the problems you will have before you have them and pre-solve them. You can see the game-changers and take action on them before the game is changed on you.
What is a soft trend?
A soft trend might happen and is a trend that is based on an assumption, not future facts. There are various levels of assumptions with different levels of risk. The power of soft trends is that you can influence them to your advantage. In other words, if you don’t like a soft trend, you can change it.
My hard-trend methodology is a proven methodology that represents a powerful way to manage risk. Strategies based on uncertainty have high risk; strategies based on certainty have low risk. When leaders understand the difference between the soft and hard trends, it allows them to both innovate and even disrupt with low risk.
Is there a way to know when a hard trend will happen?
Based on my research in 1983, when I started my company, I came across Moore’s law, which basically states that processing power will double every 18 months as the price drops in half. Not a lot of people were looking at Moore’s law in the early 1980s, but I knew he nailed it. Based on Moore’s law, I identified what I called the Three Digital Accelerators: the predictable exponential growth of computing power, bandwidth, and digital storage. They don’t follow the exact same exponential curves as Moore’s law, but very close. Those are the three main factors driving the predictable and exponential pace of change. Hard trends provide the what and the Three Digital Accelerators provide the when to the visible future.
The key to harnessing the power of exponentiality is the ability to accurately anticipate the hard trends that are shaping the future.
I think that everybody wants to see the future, but can you tell me more about how you actually do it?
A key principle I teach is that if it can be done, it will be done, and if you don’t do it, someone else will.
I’ve conducted over 35 years of research to understand trends and the driving forces of change. For example, in 1983, I listed digital electronics, distributed computing and the internet, optical storage, wireless networking, artificial intelligence, nanotech, supercomputers, genetic engineering—20 technology categories in all that would drive economic growth for decades to come. My original list of 20 has stood the test of time.
Based on seven books, hundreds of articles, and 2800 keynote speeches worldwide, I have proven that it is possible to accurately predict the future, but more importantly, I can teach others to do this as well and turn change into an advantage.
Today, we’re at a unique tipping point in human history, where we can do things that were impossible just a few years ago. Because of this, it’s not enough to be agile solving problems quickly after they happen and innovating in a reactionary way. We need to get out in front and drive positive innovation and change with the confidence certainty can provide, as well as pre‑solve predictable problems way before they happen.
Pre‑solve predictable problems. I like that…
Yes. If you are waiting for problems to happen and then solve them as a reaction to the problem, the number of problems in the future will pile up on you and bury you. The key is to pre‑solve them before they happen.
First, you need to be able to separate hard trends from soft trends. Once you do this, you can see future problems and solve them before they happen.
Going back to soft trends, imagine that you’re managing a city and working with smart signage, new ways of parking, and so on. The question is, Will you add networked intelligence to make these things smart? The tools are there to do it, but I can’t accurately predict that you or someone else will decide to do it or not. The tools to do it are there and represent hard trends; they will happen. Whether you decide to transform your business processes, that is up to you; that is a soft trend.
Too many companies think that most of the future is unpredictable. However, this is a dangerous misconception and is a problem in our way of thinking. We are most often looking ahead using a rearview mirror mindset much more than the windshield. Most don’t have a future mindset based on the new realities. We’re too busy solving day-to-day problems. This is one of the biggest problems with most organizations today; they are simply too busy putting out fires to take the actions that will make them more relevant in the years ahead. Today, you can busy yourself right out of business.
I guess that most companies are busy doing business, because that is how they survive. Do you suggest that they stop focusing on their core business and look at the future instead?
No, but you do need to start devoting time to being an opportunity manager, not just a crisis manager reacting to change. You can start by devoting 1 hour per week and asking yourself: What am I certain about? What are the hard trends that are shaping the future?
To understand the hard trends shaping the future, start by creating a list of them and identifying the opportunities for each of them. Ask yourself: Which one could I do that would have the biggest payoff for my company? How can I benefit from this hard trend? Use the Three Digital Accelerators to see when will it happen.
When you start thinking like this, you train your anticipatory mindset. And if you encounter any problems, then you can use another principle I teach, you can take your problems and skip them. I call it problem-skipping.
Problem-skipping?
Yes. A problem could be that you don’t have a enough staff. Then skip the problem! Use outsourced people, virtualization, and A.I. as much as possible.
Another problem: I don’t have the money to do it. Skip the problem! Get the money upfront from an ideal customer to fund what you want to sell them.
The vast majority of problems and barriers are perceived problems. It creates a mental barrier. A big problem for many is their assumption that they can’t do something. They think of this assumption as a future fact, but it’s not! In other words, we spend too much energy looking at why we can’t do it. Try putting the same energy into the belief that you can actually do it.
I would like to go back to the hard trends to make sure that both the readers and I fully understand these.
Look at 4G wireless and what is now being implemented in some areas, 5G wireless. What is a hard trend related to this? We’re going to have 6G wireless followed by 7G. It will happen and, using my Three Digital Accelerators, we even know when it will happen and how powerful each will be. The accelerators are all advancing tech like this along a predictable exponential curve. Ask yourself, How can our company benefit from knowing this?
Another hard-trend example: Baby Boomers are going to get older, they will not get younger. This will happen. We can predict both opportunities and problems based on that. Try it!
In the United States, obesity is predicted to grow as a problem. The same with Alzheimer’s. Are these hard trends that can’t be changed? No! They are soft trends that we can influence or not; we have a choice.
You can’t make advances in artificial intelligence stop or disappear, and you can’t make mobility go away. They are hard trends that will just become increasingly powerful, so how can you benefit from this?
Your job as a leader, an innovator, and an entrepreneur is to turn these hard trends into opportunities. Make the trends come to life. Look at these opportunities for your business and for your customers.
When you start doing this and seeing the future more clearly, pick something that is in alignment with the direction that you’re going.
I’m fascinated by the idea and methods around hard trends, because most people think that you can’t predict the future and be right.
I have a 35-year record of showing that you can use hard trends to predict much of the future and be correct, and you can learn to do this as well. Here is a simple example of a future fact: the stock market will not go up forever; at some point it will go down and then back up. Do you think that I’m right? Yes, because of the science of cycles.
There are more than 500 known cycles. But there is another kind of predictable change; it’s linear in that it is not a cycle, it is going in one direction, and it’s exponential in its speed. Once you get a smartphone, you’re not going back to a “dumb” phone. Smartphones will get smarter. They will have more capabilities, not less. I know this for a fact. You know this for a fact.
Your way of thinking reminds me of the beautiful serenity prayer:
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Very true. My passion is to wake people up to the fact that you can learn to see more than enough of what is up ahead to make a significant difference in your organization and your life. And we can use that knowledge to shape a better future for all.
Over the decades, working with executives around the world, I’ve collected thousands of hard trends for my clients. And we’ve used them to transform their businesses. I started out as a researcher and I taught biology and physics. In other words, I’ve applied scientific principles to forecasting. Most futurists make educated guesses about the future and call them trends. My hard-trend methodology is changing how companies plan and innovate. You can do this as well.
Let us try looking at a very hyped thing at the moment and applying your methodology to it: self-driving cars. Elon Musk and others talk about them all the time. How will I know as a company when this will happen and what it will mean for my business?
I help companies become anticipatory organizations. This means following a number of principles—one of these being the both/and principle—when it comes to looking at technology.
Typically, we tend to think in either/or terms about new technology. Either the cars of the future will all be fully autonomous or this will not happen.
Using this principle, you will see that we will have both semiautonomous and autonomous vehicles in the future; it will depend on the use. For example, can you imagine Porsche selling a car without a steering wheel? Their customers like to drive, but as a Porsche customer, I don’t like accidents. So, in this case, Porsche will use this tech to eliminate the accident part of driving and at the same time let you drive when you want to drive. It’s both/and.
Better to ask, What is the ideal place for real autonomous vehicles? I predict very large companies with giant campuses and multiple buildings. Vehicles going from building to building. Buses are another great example, because they follow the same route and stop at the same places. It’s not all or nothing. It’s both/and.
Finally, I want to understand your principle of flash foresight, which was the name of your last book. What is that?
Flash foresight is the concept of using my principles to see the invisible and do the impossible. Humans have been doing impossible things ever since they set foot on the planet. We have created glasses, chairs, jet engines. Things that were at one time thought to be impossible.
How do you do impossible things? The answer is that when a solution to a seemingly impossible problem becomes visible, or when an invisible opportunity becomes visible, you get a flash of foresight that lets you move forward from where you were previously stuck.
What I want people to do is not be passive and hope for a better future. Hope is not a strategy. I want people to actively shape the future! And I want people to think big about their future and then realize that they just thought small. Never to the big, always to the bigger big. Let’s actively shape a better future together, and let’s do it today! You can learn more by going to www.Burrus.com.