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After more than three years and 1,400 attempts to see what was coming next, futurist and author Ron Immink reached an uncomfortable conclusion: he was wrong around 80% of the time.
That became the point.
His new book, STOP PREDICTING: 13 lessons from 1,400 attempts to see what was coming, challenges the idea that leaders need better forecasts. Instead, it argues that organisations need to become better at sensing change, connecting weak signals and responding before disruption becomes obvious.
Beginning in February 2023, Immink published an almost daily stream of scenario prompts covering artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, synthetic biology, new materials, energy, the future of work and organisational change.
Many individual predictions went nowhere. But across hundreds of signals, deeper patterns began to emerge.
The book distils those patterns into 13 practical lessons for CEOs, boards, strategists and leadership teams operating in an environment where technology is moving faster than traditional planning cycles.
Among its conclusions: AI may only be the warm-up act for a much larger technological convergence; organisations often know more than they are capable of acting upon; competitive advantage is shifting from access to technology towards context, judgement and orchestration; and the most important upgrade available to an organisation may ultimately be human rather than technological.
STOP PREDICTING is not a trends report or a conventional book about forecasting. Its central argument is that prediction creates a false sense of certainty.
The better question is not: “What will happen?” It is: “How quickly will we notice when something important is changing, and how quickly can we respond?”
The book is available in Kindle, paperback and hardcover editions through Amazon.