Why predict, when one can mould

I am obsessed with prediction. My PhD is about predicting the future of HR. I am constantly trying to predict behaviours. We live in a world where people are trying to predict everything. In fact, those of us who use data and information to predict what will happen next are admired and showcased. Prediction seems so cool.

Today, 4 incidents occurred that made me wonder about predictions. Four events from mutually exclusive fields.

Event 1 – I was feeling this lack of purpose. Things have been a bit quieter than usual, and instead of enjoying it, I am looking for my next busy high. Therefore, I asked a friend who is 10 years older about what his ambition is, and what he chases. He said, ‘Nothing’. He does not chase anymore, he is happy just being and enjoying the moment. I, on the other hand, chase. I, in fact, live from event to event, from holiday to holiday, from some form of excitement to the next form. I wonder if I will ever just enjoy being. Maybe for some small period. However, I will always want to achieve something. I am very future-oriented and therefore, I am always trying to predict what the future looks like. Sometimes, I imagine what a particular situation will look like, and almost always get it wrong. And it gets me disappointed.

Lesson 1 - Prediction has been a part of who I am, or how I identify with the world.

Event 2 – During my lecture, I made my students do some free writing. One of the students wrote about how they feel dejected because the University is not preparing them for the future world. My response to her is that the University cannot really predict what the future skills are. We are all trying to predict, but we can never get it right. What we can do is to prepare you with what we already know, so that the past at least is not as obscure as the future is.

Lesson 2 -  By looking to the past, one may be better prepared to face the future, not because one can predict, but because one can only be prepared with what one already knows.

Event 3 – I was listening to a linguistics lecture on Audible on my way home, when the speaker spoke of how the process of grammaticalisation changed various words over the years. He spoke about how many words do not come from the etymology that we may assume in our current practice. For example, alone does not come from a-lone person, but from all-one. In fact, lone comes from alone and from all-one. Similarly, hamburger comes from Hamburg-er steak, which is a steak that was developed in Hamburg, Germany. Now we use the term burger to describe fish burgers and vegetarian burgers, because we assumed that burger was a piece of meat with ham, because ham is associated with meat. In other words, in linguistics, one cannot really predict what a particular word will evolve into. One can try, but never get it right always.

Lesson 3 -  Predictions can never be accurate. This is truer for social sciences, than for natural sciences. Even in natural sciences, predictions are only a 100% accurate in controlled environments. In general, there are way too many things that are out of one’s control.

Event 4 – The previous events got me thinking about the concept of project management, where planning is such an integral part of the process. The purpose of planning is to predict the steps that must be taken to achieve a particular outcome, and in the process, what the outcome will look like. However, if you look at design thinking, planning is not focused much on. It’s all about developing a prototype and working from it. Perhaps, the beauty of design thinking is in that one does not know what one will come up with. As long as the purpose is in the right place, the outcome can be developed.

Lesson 4 - We need to move from always trying to predict, to determining the purpose behind what we are trying to do. 

We will then shift from trying to control behaviour based on predictions and data to moulding behaviours based on purpose, which is definitely more convincing. In any case, one cannot predict behaviour, so why even bother trying? Let us rather mould the future, instead of wasting time predicting.