Chapter 2: Why Braids?

The Institute for the Future is a think tank located in Palo Alto, California. Its specialty, as its name implies, is forecasting future trends. Its specialty is a 10-year forecast; 10 years is long enough to predict significant shifts in the world but short enough to still be reasonably accurate. Each year, the Institute updates its 10-year forecast. It has been doing this for 40 years. If you were to compare the forecasts done in the early years with the most recent ones, you would note a sharp contrast. The future has become more complex and less predictable, due to advances in technology and the effects of chaotic events that trigger unanticipated outcomes at the intersection of the global economy, the environment, politics, demographics, health, human migration, energy, innovation, and societal change. What this means, in brief, is that the world is becoming a less predictable and less deterministic place. Simple formulas like “Just work hard and you will get ahead,” no longer hold. It also means that the design of your organization is probably out of date. Unless you are operating like an agile network that allows people to shift their attention from moment to moment and access resources from the ecosystem at will, you probably are not where you need to be.