Can we force our way into a desired future?
Looks like politicians are still going to give it a try
One of my favourite quotes is, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Said another way, a desired future will never happen without a clear plan followed by action to make it happen. While intuitive today, there was a recent yesterday when Gantt charts, Kanban Boards, Scrum Boards, Agile Sprints, and Lean Initiatives did not exist. There is much to be written about how to create the future, but this week I’ll suggest that the fundamental question that lies underneath this premise is a much more useful question to unpack.
Can we force the future to be what we want?
This is a deeply entrenched belief among politicians, underscored with the recent declaration by President-elect Donald Trump that he will implement new tariff’s on International trade with the US as a Day 1 action in his Presidency. By forcing the trade issue, President-elect Trump is revealing his underlying belief that he can force a future where other trade partners can solve real problems facing the US like illegal opioids, immigration, along with other issues that have yet to be demanded. Backlash has been swift due to its impacts, both perceived and real.
*As an aside, CBC’s “About That” series does some really solid explainers if you’ve yet to view the series.
Response to Trump’s threat has overtaken media cycles in Canada and elsewhere for good reason. Depending on your source, folks have argued that the has far-reaching effects could range from destructively catastrophic to profoundly transformative and beneficial.
I’m resisting the urge to jump in and debate both sides of this question, instead taking this opportunity to direct you back to the Cone of Plausibility. Developed by Charles Taylor in the 1970s, the CoP was a visual representation of how one might predict the future through exploring a range of possibilities — a stark contrast to cause and effect predictions we often make about the future.
The Cone of Plausibility assumes that that the future is not a straight line. The most detailed plans will encounter unexpected shifts: external shocks, emerging technologies, changes in public sentiment, and moments of unplanned for crisis. Instead of assuming control over the future, the cone asks us to consider what might happen and how we can navigate that uncertainty.
Why the Cone of Plausibility Matters
At its core, the Cone of Plausibility maps out a spectrum of futures:
Baseline futures represent what’s most likely to happen if current trends persist. This is often called the “Projected” future. What will happen if the status quo keeps status quo-ing.
Plausible futures widen the lens to include alternative scenarios based on uncertainties or potential disruptions. These are rooted in realistic “could happens”; scenarios that deviate from where we project things going to what might happen if certain signals and trends end up scaling even further. Sometimes these can be based on looking back at the past or looking to folks on the fringes who are working to create a different status quo.
Improbable futures exist along a continuum. Some improbable futures push the boundaries to consider what could happen, even if it’s far-fetched. Others can fit neatly in the “never going to happen” category.
Two points in how this is practically applied.
Firstly, it takes trial and error to categorize these futures in a useful way. The goal is to have the CoP be useful, not palatable. Said another way, the mental models we adhere to - rules of behaviour we’ve picked up based on past and current experiences that don’t always have to be true - often push us into categorizing differently that if we were to take a step back. This sounds much easier to do than it really is.
Secondly, its not until the far future becomes the near future and the near future becomes just a little past the present, that we can truly say whether we categorized properly. Some of your futures will bounce around from improbable to plausible to baseline and back again. Shifts in culture, economics, science, politics, environment, etc sometimes can truly come out of a blindspot. Our confidence can rise or fall in our predictions but the future is not set in stone until it becomes the present.
Our confidence in predicting a cause-and-effect future is misplaced
The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic is a good example. Though it fit neatly in the plausible category, the event itself was not something folks thought would inevitably happen. In retrospect however, I do wonder how we failed to place this in the baseline category of what would inevitably happen. Increasing hyper-mobility of persons from different places around the world combined with greater accessibility of travel to larger numbers of people meant a worldwide pandemic was inevitable along this status quo path. Vectors of future disease spread meant we were simply waiting for the right (or wrong) disease to come along. Going further with this example, lockdowns due to pandemics were in the improbable category. No one thought this a plausible future. In retrospect however, lockdowns are clearly plausible in the context of an unknown, rapidly spreading, airborne disease. We also have not moved off this baseline trend. Folks are still travelling and there is still the chance for lockdowns to be a part of a societal response if the situation becomes dire enough. In my own imagining of this scenario however, a stronger government response to enforce compliance is plausible as is a fragmentation of political structures as opposing sides become entrenched in their own approach to the crisis. Maybe in the next pandemic we could plausibly see regional governments split off from their national counterparts, something implausible not too long ago.
The Cone of Plausibility should reminds us that while we can shape the future through our actions, we can’t fully control or predict it. Instead, our task is to expand our thinking, prepare for uncertainty, and influence the pathways that align with our desired outcomes. No one can fully predict the future and no amount of work can guarantee what will happen tomorrow. We can’t lock in our eventual destination. But we can map out the terrain and start moving in a direction, shifting the path we take to get there as the impossible become improbable and improbable becomes plausible.
Can We Force the Future?
The short answer is no — and that’s a good thing. The beauty of the Cone of Plausibility lies in its acknowledgment that the future is a living, breathing space shaped by countless variables, many beyond our control. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless.
While we can’t force the future, we can:
Influence the path we individually take and the shared path we take together: By making strategic decisions and investing in meaningful actions today, we nudge the future toward outcomes we desire.
Prepare for uncertainty: Building resilience allows us to thrive even when the unexpected happens.
Adapt as we go: Flexibility in our approach ensures we remain effective, no matter how the future unfolds.
In this way, the cone becomes a tool not just for imagining what’s ahead but for shaping it — collaboratively, iteratively, and realistically.
What’s Next?
Now that we’ve laid the foundation for how we’ll look at the future its time to put today’s world through these frameworks.
What happens to our shared social systems? Political systems? Technology and culture?
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To add to the value of this newsletter I’ll be inviting subscribers to submit topics you’d like unpacked in future posts, with preference leaning towards paid subscribers. In January, these questions will become a part of a special bi-weekly video series just for subscribers called “Office Hours.” I’m also working on additional content that paid subscribers will be able to see first, with the intent to have content filter down to free subscribers over time.
Building an uncertain tomorrow
If we want a future that addresses today’s plethora of shared societal crises - affordability, housing, healthcare access, aging infrastructure, loneliness, among many others - we have to choose a direction and start working today to build tomorrow. What that tomorrow will be cannot be forced. But maybe its entirely plausible that if we can walk in the general direction and get most of the way there.