"The sagacious businessman is constantly forecasting," said the great economist Irving Fisher, a man thoroughly convinced of the power of data to make the future legible. Fisher transformed economics and made millions as an entrepreneur, but died in penury. He is now best remembered as the tragic figure who, shortly before the cataclysmic Wall Street crash of 1929, informed the nation: "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
Poor Professor Fisher appears early on in Uncharted. Margaret Heffernan's book is less a smackdown of failed forecasts than an engaging ramble across our attempts to predict, control, explore or embrace an uncertain future. Heffernan is admired for books that question the received wisdom of how management works; she is a business guru who brings the stern discipline of good sense to the business book genre.
In this book, she turns her attention to a topic that absorbs most business leaders — and the rest of us too: how to think about what the future holds.
Gazing into the future is not fruitless, she argues, but it is unnerving and hard work. Lazy and fearful, we are far too quick to reach for overblown gurus, or misleading data or other useless guides. Even a good tool, such as GPS, can dull our senses.
"What matters most isn't the predictions themselves but how we respond to them, and whether we respond to them at all," she writes. "The forecast that stupefies isn't helpful, but the one that provides fresh thinking can be."
And fresh thinking is what Heffernan wishes to provoke, mostly through storytelling, occasionally through rhetoric. Are we trapped by history? Only if we let our own narratives confine us. Can parents use an app to "predict life outcomes and . . . maximise the life-long potential of your child"? No. She finds the idea appalling.
Better, she suggests, to explore, empower, experiment. Whether you're running a multinational, pondering a career change or being a parent, the same wisdom applies: sometimes things go wrong, or go right, and we don't know why. Keep your eyes open. Stay engaged. Listen to others. Don't be afraid to change course. Contribute to your community, and make connections before trouble strikes: "Don't exchange business cards in a crisis."
At times, Uncharted resembles a collection of secular sermons illustrated with a story. Heffernan stands in the pulpit quietly admonishing us to be a little wiser, reflect a little more, to do the things that deep down we already know we should be doing.
Moments of counterintuitive astonishment are scarce, but the book is probably better for that. And it largely avoids the usual suspects: Apple, Google, 3M, the US military. Instead, we find ourselves in the shoes of a disillusioned Catholic priest, realising he has fallen in love and getting no help from the Church. Or in a room with a diverse group of Mexicans, from mobsters to senators, as they try to explore the future with a scenario-planning exercise. Or with the management of Nokia, wondering if there is life after cell phones. These are subtle tales of struggle and compromise.
The storytelling is not without its flaws. Physicist Marzio Nessi morphs into a Mr Messi, who is surely a different kind of genius. A discussion of fresh ideas in healthcare required multiple re-readings to sort out who was doing what, where, and whether these were diverse experiments across the nation. More than once I checked the index because I assumed I'd missed something. These are small things, but in a book that tries to flow so freely across so many stories, they are barnacles that produce a drag.
Are we trapped by history? Only if we let our own narratives confine us
That said, Heffernan is generally a deft storyteller and the book's reliance on such stories is a strength. Bad "smart thinking" books offer 2x2 matrices and jargon; good ones offer theory and evidence. Heffernan steps outside the category entirely. She wants us to engage with the particularities of people, places and the problems they faced — to emphatise with them, reflect on our own lives and our own careers, and to draw our own conclusions.
Uncharted is not a book to skim in the business class lounge. Heffernan's approach is more like a music lover trying to broaden the appreciation of a patient friend. "Here's an example; listen to this; here's another. Compare, contrast. Now do you see what I'm getting at?" It is messy, and occasionally frustrating, but wise and appealingly human.
Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together, by Margaret Heffernan, Simon & Schuster RRP£20, 353 pages
Tim Harford is a senior FT columnist. His new podcast is 'Cautionary Tales'
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