Jan 24, 2022
Dear Friend,
We are back with our Disrupt Disruption podcast. After a short break for the holidays, we kick things off with a conversation with Dave Friedman, CEO of AutonomyWorks, about the disruptive virtue of a neurodiverse workforce. Dave’s interview will be followed by luminaries such as Samantha Snabes, CEO of 3D printing company re:3D, Cecilia Tham, acclaimed futurist at Futurity Studio, and Bruce Smith, CEO of home fitness disruptor Hydrow. Stay tuned — and if you happen to know someone we ought to talk to for Disrupt Disruption, please drop us a note!
Happy disrupting this week.
FutureFWD
To make better decisions for the future, it’s critically important to learn from the decisions you’ve made in the past. Here’s a quick exercise we like from decision researcher and poker champ Annie Duke. Take a moment to identify the best decision you made last year. Got it? Now take another moment to consider whether that decision was your “best” because you were pleased with the outcome or because you were pleased with the thinking and process behind the decision. We have a very human tendency to confuse the quality of a decision with the favorability of its outcome, and this can easily lead both individuals and organizations to learn the wrong things, overestimate skill while underestimating luck, or jettison a sound process because it didn’t initially yield a desired result. Focusing on the quality of the decision itself — rather than the favorability of the result — nudges us toward the kind of probabilistic thinking that an uncertain future is more likely (😉) to reward.
Disrupt Disruption
Hugo award-winning Science Fiction author Charles Stross offers an interesting, and insightful, rule-of-thumb to predict the future: Looking 10 years ahead, about 55-60% of the people, building, infrastructure, and culture is already here today. Another 20-25% is not present yet but is predictable — under construction, software and hardware and drugs in development, children today who will be adults in a decade. And finally, there’s about a 20% element that comes from the “who ordered that” dimension: COVID-19, sharply rising populism around the world, etc. We find it a very helpful frame to figure out where to look and what to look for when thinking about the future.
What We Are Reading
🧑💼 How Leaders Can Balance the Needs to Perform and to Transform There has never been a tougher time to be a leader. Bill Taylor offers three sets of questions to help you focus on what’s important right now. He shares advice on managing time, handling the stress of leadership and how to encourage your people to stay upbeat and energetic so you can pass the leadership test of our time. Jane ⇢ Read
🍪 Cookies? Chips? Pizza? Here’s How to Own Your Cravings We’re engineered to have cravings. Don’t try to make them go away or immediately succumb to them; try identifying and observing the craving and then making a conscious decision of what to do with it. Mafe ⇢ Read
🧬 What Tech Futurists Get Wrong About Human Autonomy The narrow pursuit of autonomy as a key virtue could be preventing technologists from imagining the best and most humane future uses of AI and blockchain systems. Jeffrey ⇢ Read
🦸 Big tech’s supersized ambitions There seems to be a lot up for grabs and plenty of reason to get going. It’s definitely worth taking a look at the rise towards the new thing — not just from big tech, but the whole market. Julian ⇢ Read
🙋 Why do we forget? New theory proposes ‘forgetting’ is actually a form of learning You heard the old adage about “unlearning” a million times — turns out, it is right and important. Pascal ⇢ Read
Internet Finds
Are you playing golf? You might want to invest into this golf bag which shoots your clubs and a rocket powered golf club. Game on! ⛳️
In Case You Missed It
🏴☠️ The Heretic: Thinking About “Thinking Outside of the Box”
⚠️ Disrupt Disruption: Listen in on our conversation with Dave Friedman, CEO of AutonomyWorks. In this episode we explore the disruptive opportunity of expanding your teams neuro-diversity, and the ways you can engage with a neuro-diverse workforce. We also tap into Dave’s extensive knowledge of the retail industry and discuss opportunities and disruptions within the sector.
Radically yours, take good care, friend!
— Pascal, Mafe and the three Js (Jane, Jeffrey, and Julian)
