We're still feeling the effects of the global pandemic. Oil prices fluctuate wildly. War has returned to Europe. The climate is in crisis. Generative AI has arrived.  

And political, social and technological change is only going to get faster, more frantic – and harder to foresee. It’s the epitome of a "VUCA world": volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. [1] It’s become very difficult to see any kind of clear view ahead. 

“May you live in interesting times” was always meant as a curse, after all. 

But there are also opportunities amid unpredictability – if you're ready to grab them. And, while many businesses are going by the wayside, many others are finding ways to survive and thrive. They keep a grip on their future – however fractured things get. 

And usually, it’s because they have a plan. 

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail 

In turbulent times, mid-to-long-term planning lets you and your organization focus on the things you can control – and at least be aware of the things you can't. Get it right, and you'll keep a handle on who you are as a company, what you want to achieve, how you’re going to do that, by when, and with what effect. And you'll spot some of the difficulties and dangers ahead.  

Your plan isn't a rigid list of actions you can take to guarantee success, because that's just not possible now – and probably never was. 

Instead, it's a well-thought-out map for the way forward, with room for a little "course correction" along the way. And it lets you bring others on the journey with you. Even if the direction has been set by the C-suite, managers at all levels need to know how they fit in, to make sure the core work gets done. Only then can they inspire their teams to help turn aspirations into actions.  

Without a plan, you’re lost. 

Business Planning, the Family Way! 

I know the power of a good plan from personal experience. 

Eighteen years ago, my family life felt like its own little VUCA world. My wife and I both worked in radio, and our industry was changing fast: new technology, unexpected challengers, different ways of doing things. And in the radio station where we worked, large-scale change was looming. 

We had two young children then, and suddenly there were big decisions to make – about our jobs, where to live, how to share the childcare, what to do about schools… It felt overwhelming trying to consider everything: to know what would be best for everyone, and how to achieve it all. 

So we made a five-year plan – a fairly small-scale one, granted, but, in retrospect, it was actually a very business-minded approach. Because it covered many of the things that commercial enterprises need to put in their plans (just couched in ways that made sense for two parents and their kids!). 

Business Planning Basics 

Here’s an example of the type of business plan I’m talking about. It shows what many companies consider when they’re starting out, or looking for new investment, or launching new products or services, or – like us – just in need of more clarity about where to go in the next few years and how to get there. There are nine common components: 

• Executive summary 
• Mission statement 
• SWOT analysis 
• Goals and metrics 
• Industry analysis 
• Competitor analysis 
• Financials 
• Marketing plan 
• Conclusion 

And here’s how that collection of information, analysis and ideas can work in practice – as experienced by my wife and me! 

Business Planning in Action 

We started with our version of the executive summary – an in-a-nutshell description of all the information and ideas we’d be pulling together – then followed it by drafting a kind of mission statement, based on who we were, what we wanted to achieve, and why we felt it was important.  

For us, that highlighted the importance of getting a good work-life balance, doing jobs we felt passionate about, and finding a community where our family could thrive. For businesses, it’s often a useful way to summarize plans for stakeholders – or maybe prospective investors. 

We did our own version of a SWOT analysis, listing all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that we could think of, relating to our family. My wife and I both love learning, for example, and could retrain if we decided to – that was a strength. We had little help with childcare though – that was a weakness. The value of our house had gone up recently – so there were opportunities there. But we also saw a new level of competition for jobs where we worked, adding urgency to our decision-making.  

In a commercial plan, this is a particularly important part of the process, helping to shape ambitious but achievable strategies, and to secure internal and external support.  

For us, all of this led naturally to defining our goals – and trying to do it in a SMART, businesslike way. We looked for useful metrics, including the income we’d need at different points in the plan. And, since a key goal was to have more time for the kids, we chose some fairly loose ways to measure that, too. 

We did our own kind of industry analysis. As in a typical business plan, we thought about our industry – radio – as it was then, and how it was likely to change in the near future.  

I suppose we even did some competitor analysis – thinking about the people who might be coming for our jobs, as well as the market forces that were putting the whole industry under pressure. 

By this point, we'd already begun thinking about leaving radio – potentially to retrain as teachers. So we had a new target audience to research. Were there enough opportunities for us there? What needs could we satisfy – and what did we have to offer?  

And then, to make that shift, how would we show off our experience and skills? A marketing plan of sorts emerged as we decided to spruce up our CVs, and targeted people to talk to. As in a commercial business plan, all the earlier analysis focused our ideas.  

The financials were particularly important. Like any business we looked back at our records, drew up budgets, and made projections. More companies use complex algorithms to do that. We took a simpler approach, but we still had to be rigorous. Any five-year plan needs to make financial sense, with regular checkpoints, a little wriggle room, and at least some form of safety net in case things get really tight.  

Looking back, that financial part turned out to be the one we relied on the most. It helped us make decisions, gave us confidence – and, occasionally, confronted us with hard truths – as we enacted our plan. 

The last element was a conclusion, bringing together everything we’d collected and explored. In a commercial five-year plan, this summary often becomes a rallying call to stakeholders and a powerful message to potential investors. For us, too, it was a clear call to action. It crystallized everything we’d been thinking and talking about. 

Suddenly we had a route to follow to the future we wanted. It fueled our confidence to push ahead – and, as we did, we learned even more about the full power of a well-made plan. 

The Benefits of a Five-Year Plan 

Whether you’re managing people in a company or a family, having a plan helps at every turn. 

It provides clarity for everyone involved and influences everything you do – from the people you gather around you, to the products or services you decide to develop, to the way you end up delivering them.  

It can help you to secure funding if you need it, and keep your stakeholders involved and informed as you move forward. 

However busy things get, you’ve got a document to refer to that reminds you of your purpose and your priorities. It helps you to do the things that move you in the right direction – and say no to the things that don’t.  

It’s a way to avoid overwhelm, manage stress, and stay motivated. But it also lets you see when to adjust your course a little – because, inevitably, things will change. 

Five Years Later… 

Five years after making our plan, we were both fully trained teachers, living in a new city, and our children were happy in their schools. Some of our work-life balance was right, although that part was still very much a work in progress. And we’d taken a financial hit that would take a while to heal. But our plan had helped us get the big things right, bounce back from the odd misstep, stay afloat financially, and just about manage all the moving parts of family life.  

Some of the thinking we did back then still guides our decisions today. It's good to look back at our original goals and see how far we’ve come. And we may well repeat the process before long. The kids are starting to leave home. Retirement is no longer a distant prospect. Where do we want to be five years from now – and how are we going to get there? 

Meanwhile, times are likely to keep getting more “interesting” for everyone. In families and businesses everywhere, VUCA levels can make it hard to see anything beyond the struggles of the here and now. 

But experience tells me that, when you feel like there’s simply no point making any meaningful plans, that’s exactly when you need them most.  

To learn more about business planning, Mind Tools members have a range of resources to choose from, including:

Practical Business Planning

Business Requirements Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Managing in a VUCA World.  

Reference: 

[1] U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (2018). Who first originated the term VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity)? [online]. Available here. [Accessed June 9, 2023.] 

About the Author:

After a 15-year career as a BBC presenter and producer, Jonathan switched to education, where he spent a decade as a teacher and school leader. With numerous books about memory and learning to his name, he compiles quiz questions for TV shows and heads up the U.K.'s Junior Memory Championship. Since 2019 he's been a writer and editor at Mind Tools, working on a wide range of resources and co-presenting the Expert Voices podcast. Outside of work, he loves watching soccer, tending his garden, and running – everything from 5Ks to ultramarathons.

The post What's the Point of Planning? The Benefits of a 5-Year Business Plan appeared first on Mind Tools.

We've become accustomed to digital assistants that recognize our voice to conjure up information on demand. And we're as comfortable to use fingerprint scanners to unlock our phones as to accept facial recognition technology to cross a border or to catch a criminal.

The pace of technological change is fast and phenomenal. But how afraid should we be that it will run away with us, creating a world where our identities are swallowed up and reshaped for profit and control?

This is a question for a futurist – someone like Tracey Follows (pictured above), the author of a new book titled "The Future of You: Can Your Identity Survive 21st-Century Technology?"

When I spoke to her for the latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, she stressed the importance of engaging with the march of technological progress, rather than ignoring or resisting it. Each of us, she says, has to "operate as a digital persona" to function in today's world, whether we like it or not.

Below is an audio clip from our conversation. You can download a transcript here.

As Follows emphasizes, "if our identity is being digitized, then we want to be in control of it."

Technology: Possible, Probable or Preferable?

According to Follows, members of the "futuring community" can be divided into those who think you can predict the future, and those who think you can't, but you can do some useful preparation for what might come. She's the second kind.

"Obviously, anything societal or cultural is a lot more difficult to predict, and so that's really more about preparing," she explains. "So you're preparing for different possible outcomes or different possible futures, as we would call them, not just the probable future."

In her book, she brings together research and insight about several aspects of our identities in the 21st century, in chapters that indicate their focus. There's "Knowing You," about data collection; "Watching You," about digital surveillance; "Creating You," about our online personas; and "Connecting You," about communication. The others are "Replacing You," "Enhancing You," and "Destroying You."

This builds a mostly dystopian vision of the future, where governments and companies can influence who you are and what you do. I asked Follows if people can opt out of this by simply not using technology. After all, not everyone has an online life. Her answer? It's not that simple.

"It doesn't really matter how much or how little you're using technology. Society is using technology and the state certainly is using technology. And that obviously has ramifications for not only who you are, but how you are treated and how you are assumed to be someone you are," she says.

Creating "You" Through Technology

So what can we control? Our social media personas, for one. We can curate a digital image of ourselves that is close to the reality, or very far from it. Or something in between – a better version of ourselves, if you will. And while this may be fun, it can also have a fascinating impact on our day-to-day lives, back on Planet Earth.

Follows explores this in the chapter "Creating You," in a discussion about avatars. This stood out for me, with its logical and tantalizing upside.

She cites research by Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford University, looking at how people represented by avatars behave in virtual environments.

"What he found was that their own behavior was very much affected by the avatar they thought they were. So how they thought they showed up affected their own behavior," she reports.

"If they thought they were a really tall person in a virtual reality space, they might be much more confident. He found that they were, I think, better negotiators, because they felt like they were more imposing when they were taller. And if they felt like they were very small avatars, they acted differently. Likewise, if they were more 'attractive,' they would be much more confident."

Follows encountered a similar effect among people in Tokyo who spent a lot of time on live social media feeds. The avatars they chose allowed them to be "discovered" – and in more ways than one.

"Sometimes when they are themselves on some of these social platforms, they are less confident," she says. "And if they can take on an avatar suddenly, they're able to turn up in these environments and sing their heart out or play the piano, and they've found these amazing talents."

Tech to Hide Behind or to Shine Through

An avatar can be a mask that hides a person's identity, but it can also enable people to adopt a new identity, with the power to draw out new strengths. It's an intriguing idea, particularly since we increasingly communicate online.

"Who we turn up as, who we represent ourselves as, how we profile ourselves, is obviously having a really fundamental and quite profound effect on our communication and our interaction in lots and lots of different ways," Follows reflects.

Granted, there are moral dilemmas and even mental health risks if "we build ourselves a wardrobe of avatars" for different situations, or to deal with different people in different ways. But on the positive side, unlike some of the other scenarios presented in Follows' book, this is one technological advance that we can manage – and benefit from – ourselves.

Transhumanism and Transparent Government

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Tracey Follows. In it, she also touches on the use (and abuse) of technology for democracy, physical and mental augmentation, creativity, and more. It comes with a complete transcript.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ audio Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo with one of our team.

Meanwhile, you can read more from me, Rachel Salaman, by searching the Expert Interview blog topic.

The post Avatars, AI and Authentication, with Tracey Follows appeared first on Mind Tools.

If you think racism is a U.S.-only issue, think again. If you believe solving racism is best left to governments, think again. If you're under the impression racial equity is just a new twist on racial equality, think again. And if you think racial equity is just another training program to roll out, then, yes – think again.

Every society has centers of influence, such as education, religion, healthcare, and government. The workplace is another of these centers. From the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, the workplace has been where we experience change in the making.

Business leaders around the globe are now leading another transformation: creating a workplace that reflects the multicultural world in which we live.

Business Leads Change

For several decades, the global communications firm, Edelman, has conducted an annual trust and credibility study. They call it The Edelman Trust Barometer. Last year's results (of 38,000 respondents from 28 countries) found that "business," once again, is the most trusted source. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they trust business, ahead of NGOs at 59 percent, government at 52 percent, and media at 50 percent. This puts business leaders in the best position to advance racial equity in the workplace, and in turn, society.

What Is Racial Equity?

Through our own exploration, we define equity as a measure of diversity and inclusion, which together make DEI (or EDI). Neither finite nor absolute, "E" measures how and to what extent "D" and "I" are embedded into an organization’s business strategy and every business policy and practice. An organization's "E" perpetually monitors and, as necessary, recalibrates "D" and "I" to stay ahead of potential relapse and continually advance toward an antiracist workplace.

When something is a little tricky to understand, sometimes it's helpful to describe what isn't. Racial equity is not a Black Lives Matter statement on your company's website; it's not an addendum to your company's values statement; it's not checking a box for Human Resources that confirms you sponsored or attended a workshop on unconscious bias; it's not writing a check to your favorite non-profit organization. It takes more than that to embed equity in your organization.

Equity Versus Equality

We are often asked, "So what's the difference between equity and equality?" We believe that the Annie E. Casey Foundation describes it best:

"Equi­ty involves try­ing to under­stand and give peo­ple what they need to enjoy full, healthy lives. Equal­i­ty, in con­trast, aims to ensure that every­one gets the same things in order to enjoy full, healthy lives. Like equi­ty, equal­i­ty aims to pro­mote fair­ness and jus­tice, but it can only work if every­one starts from the same place and needs the same things."

The Racial Equity Continuum

Before you can embed racial equity into your business strategy, you must define what racial equity means for your organization specifically. Equity is a relative newcomer to the diversity and inclusion space. Many DEI professionals and business leaders alike are still wrestling with what it means and how to implement it.

Two internal DEI professionals, from two different global companies (one tech, one research), recently shared with us how their organizations define equity:

1. When there are no systemic biases that impact the employee lifecycle.
2. When race is no longer a predictor of our outcomes.

Notice how the first definition does not mention race, while the second one does.

By not specifically mentioning race in its definition, it may signal that this organization is “race tentative,” to use the term the Annie E. Casey Foundation uses in its learning continuum for race-focused work (see figure below). The continuum shows the stages an organization goes on in its journey toward embedding equity.

After decades of work, some organizations have moved from "color-blind" (avoids or shuts down conversations about race, believing it will only create unmanageable discord), to "diversity-only" (proposes universal strategies that are presumed to work for all employees), to "race-tentative" (employees or management has gone through antiracism or unconscious bias training, but the organization is still unclear about what to do next), and now to "equity-focused"(measures are in place for management accountability). This transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It requires intention, commitment and resources.

Conversation Is Key

Another DEI professional we interviewed for our book, The Business of Race, was Nereida Perez, from the global spice company McCormick. Perez believes that understanding workplace racial equity surfaces from cross-functional conversations about how your company will measure progress, like you do for any other strategic business priority. "What I've seen in the industry is the term 'equity’ being introduced, but these deeper conversations are not happening," Perez told us.

We agree. Your definition of racial equity will only surface through deep conversations – and not solely with your most senior team. One of the resounding themes from the more than two dozen business leaders we interviewed was that you cannot do this work in a vacuum: you must engage your employees and other key collaborators.

Racial Equity in Action

Once you commit to having deeper conversations on what racial equity means for your organization, you can then begin to examine your policies and practices to see how racially equitable they are. But don't try to tackle every policy and practice at once.

Instead, pick one. Then create a diverse, cross-functional team to examine the current state, define the desired state, set specific goals with clear accountabilities, identify measures, and then report on progress – just like you do for other strategic priorities.

Want to take it a step further? Tie a percentage of executive compensation to the achievement of your racial equity goals, like Starbucks, Prudential Financial, and other companies have done.

Closing the Wage Gap

Let's take a closer look at one thing that we can all relate to, regardless of where we sit in an organization: compensation.

A September 2020 report by the global banking and financial services company, Citigroup, found a plethora of inequities between Black and White communities in the U.S. Specific to the workplace, the economists found income levels peak for Black men sooner and lower (ages 45–49, $43,849) than for White men (ages 50–54, $66,250).

Pay inequities related to race are not unique to the U.S. According to the Resolution Foundation, Black male university graduates are paid 17 percent less than White male university graduates in the U.K. – the equivalent of £3.90 an hour, or £7,000 over a year. And Black female university graduates are paid 9 percent less than White female university graduates, or £3,000 less over a year.

Fixing Pay Inequity

To combat this trend, we recommend organizations conduct a pay equity analysis, that includes a focus on race, to establish a baseline. Be transparent in your reporting of where you are today and identify steps with clear accountabilities to close the gaps. Repeat the process annually to measure progress, just like you would for any other strategic priority.

What will you gain by ensuring your pay is racially equitable? A competitive advantage. You'll be more likely to attract and retain talent when they know there is fair compensation.

A growing number of U.S. federal states and local municipalities have passed laws requiring employers of a minimum number of employees (some as few as one) to disclose salary ranges or minimum/maximum wages for open positions and in some cases, current positions. Some innovative companies, like software development firm Truss, implemented pay transparency long before it was mandated. Why? Because they knew it would attract and retain more diverse talent.

If the state or city you do business in has not enacted pay transparency laws, get ahead of the curve and begin this work now. Competition for talent continues to be at or near the top of the greatest business challenges list of nearly every executive we work with.

The Journey to Equity

Embedding racial equity into your business strategy is a journey. A journey that will be both exciting and daunting. One that is fraught with missteps and filled with surprising giant steps. A journey that is both self-reflective and other-focused. What's one actionable step you can take to advance a more racially equitable workplace?

About the Authors

Margaret H. Greenberg and Gina Greenlee are executive coaches, organizational development (OD) consultants, and the coauthors of "The Business of Race: How to Create and Sustain an Antiracist Workplace and Why It's Actually Good for Business" (McGraw-Hill, 2021).

They recently added two more cohorts of their 6-part, live series, Embedding Racial Equity into Your Business Strategy. One cohort kicks off January 19th 4:00-5:30 pm EST (UTC -5) and the other on January 23th 7:00-8:30 am (UTC -5). See their website to learn more and reserve your virtual seat.

The post Embedding Racial Equity in Your Business Strategy appeared first on Mind Tools.

During our Mind Tools Expert Interview, the U.S. professor, founder and strategist shared with me stories of how her father instilled a problem-solving attitude in her and her brother. This came to fruition when, with his guidance, the youngsters invented a tidying tool for local diners that was quickly adopted and mass produced.

Marchand told me that that experience – at the tender age of 13 – taught her two things. First, that children are boundlessly creative, and as adults, we can all "tap back" into that spirit. And second, that every successful innovation has to solve a problem that’s a genuine pain point for the customer. 

Be Curious to Innovate

In this clip from our conversation, she offers advice on how to home in on the problems that can lead to great innovations. According to Marchand, it’s all about employing your curiosity, developing observation skills, and asking great questions.

Marchand’s innovation process starts with identifying the "right" problem to solve. Sometimes, a problem may look like it’s caused by one thing when, in fact, something quite different is behind it. Other times, we may think there’s no problem at all. We can get used to long wait times and faulty tech.  

Innovation Begins at Home 

My interviewee said, "The best problems to solve are the ones that you have personal involvement with." A case in point that I’ve noticed in my own life is the variety of ways that publicly funded doctors’ offices try to meet the huge demand for their services here in the U.K. 

Some practices offer patients appointments on a "first come, first served" basis. As each slot fills, availability tightens to the point where patients end up being offered dates that are weeks ahead. But they want action now. 

Other offices run a daily appointment book. Call from 8am and hope to grab one of that day’s slots – along with dozens of other patients scrambling for the same thing. You have to prepare yourself for a long wait on the phone, and when you finally get through, you may be told there’s no space that day. Try again tomorrow. 

Some practices operate a nurse triage system, with nurses talking to patients before any appointment is made. This may weed out time wasters and simple admin. But, by definition, nurses don’t have the same diagnostic training or experience as doctors. What if they make a wrong call? 

I’ve always been impressed by the solution offered by my own healthcare center, which is a mixture of the above. If you want a consultation with a doctor, you can call in the morning and leave your name and number, and a brief description of your issue. Then a senior doctor will call you back quickly, bringing all their authority and medical knowledge to bear. They decide if you need to be seen that day or later, and they can give instant medical advice over the phone as well. 

At first glance, the "pain point" in this scenario appears to be the desire to see a doctor. But it’s actually the desire to know if you need to see a doctor. Face time with a doctor when you don’t need it is a nuisance for everyone. So a short call with a senior doctor before an appointment is even made addresses the "right" problem.  

Step by Step Invention

During my conversation with Marchand, I was reminded of an event I covered a few years ago in central London. It was a "design hackathon" attended by around 100 teenage girls, who were invited there on a Saturday for a fun day of learning. 

The point was to teach them a five-step process to innovation, the first two being researching and defining a suitable problem. Sound familiar? The other steps were: to think through solutions, create a prototype of the best one, and test it with potential users. 

The girls were put into groups, each of which had to come up with an innovation by applying those five steps. During the day, they had access to lots of making materials, from cardboard and glue to feathers, straws and balloons. This was for their prototypes. 

The solutions they came up with were inspiring, ranging from a magnetic levitation hospital bed, through a smart fridge to help people cook nutritious meals, to a teaching app that allowed users to select their preferred level of language complexity. 

Women and Innovation 

I think Marchand would have approved of this event for girls. Women innovators still face unique challenges, and she devotes a whole chapter to this in her book, "The Innovation Mindset," exploring what the sticking points are, why they happen, and how to change things for the better. 

"When we look at the companies that are invested in, still only around two or three percent of founders or co-founders are women," she points out.

Her aim is to help "lift women up and get them to think more strategically, creatively, about being innovators and know that this is something that’s available to them."

For a few dozen young women in London, at least, I’m pretty sure that message has landed. 

8 Ways to Innovate

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Lorraine Marchand. It comes with a complete transcript so you can easily review all eight practical steps in her innovation model while being inspired by her encouraging and creative attitude.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ audio Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo with one of our team.

Meanwhile, you can read more from me, Rachel Salaman, by searching the Expert Interview blog topic.

Your Turn!

Have you seen a problem that no one else has spotted or knows how to fix? What innovative ideas do you have, and how will you test them? Share your innovation successes and failures in the Comments, below!

The post "Become an Observer Every Day!" Lorraine Marchand on Innovation appeared first on Mind Tools.

It's remarkable that, these days, each of these visions is as likely as the others, because people are living for longer and in very different ways. Some of us decline over decades. Others stay fit until the end.

Personal financial insecurity may dictate that people remain in (or return to) the workplace later in life, or it could be a creative passion that keeps them involved. Either way, they're consumers too, equating to a potential $22 trillion market worldwide.

The nuances – and opportunities – of this diverse picture aren't lost on Susan Wilner Golden, a former venture capitalist who now leads a program on the business implications of longevity at Stanford Business School.

She recently brought some of her ideas together in a new book, "Stage (Not Age)." In this clip from my Expert Interview podcast with Susan, she explains what's behind that title.

Breaking Age Stereotypes

Shakespeare wrote of "the seven ages of man." Wilner Golden believes it's more like 18 stages.

Some of them, like caregiving and formal education, may come around a few times in one life. And everyone will experience their stages differently.

"The key is to stop thinking of all older adults as just one type of person," she says. "It's much more important to think about what stage of life they're in. Are they in their repurposed stage, a new renaissance stage?"

Yet the idea that all older people are alike remains stubbornly prevalent in the business world.

"You can look at a lot of advertising and marketing toward older adults. It often portrays people as one type of person, which is frail. Somebody's holding their hand. And that maybe is needed, but that's not true for everybody," she points out.

Opportunities of Age

The "old person" stereotypes may be outdated, but older people still have specific needs, as they move from one stage to another. This is where the business opportunities lie.

Take communication as an example. My aunt Kate has struggled to use smartphones since she first got one. That isn't unusual among her peers. They came to the digital world later in life than others.

The irony is that the model Aunt Kate struggled with the most claimed to be designed for older people. That's why she picked it.

I remember trying to help her perform simple functions such as text and search, but I failed. The icons were large, so they were easy to see, but they weren't standard or intuitive. And when I touched them, they didn't take me where I was expecting.

The designers had set out with a good business idea aimed at serving this large, growing, and often wealthy segment of the population. But they'd ended up with a device that did the opposite of what it promised. It increased stress and a sense of inadequacy among its target users.

Wilner Golden has a simple tip for companies looking to serve older people in the right way: create intergenerational teams.

As well as increasing the likelihood of producing something truly useful, it may give new purpose to the older employees involved, who might otherwise feel like they're counting down to retirement.

Don't Assume – Include!

If an older person had helped design Aunt Kate's phone, perhaps the icons would have been familiar, just a little larger or brighter than usual. Wilner Golden calls such tweaks "stealth features." And the navigation pathways would have matched those of mainstream models. Not everything has to change.

"Having someone to design with, rather than for, is the mantra in the field," Wilner Golden says, "because you may not know what the needs and wants of an older adult are, but your older employees may well."

This applies equally to younger employees. Your millennial and Gen Z team members can bring valuable insight into product design for their peer groups, too. It's all about working well together, regardless of age.

Indeed, for Wilner Golden, "engaging intergenerational opportunities" is the "secret sauce" for companies and individuals looking to win in our changing world.

"We cannot be an age-segregated society," she believes. "To integrate more would be wonderfully powerful going forward."

A Strategy for Older Age Inclusion

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Susan Wilner Golden, in which she discusses her work with students aged 50-80, the imperative to build digital literacy across generations, and which companies are leading the way in inclusion for older employees and customers alike.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo.

When Will You Retire?

Do you love your work too much to leave, or has financial insecurity forced you to return? What product would you like to see redesigned so that you could use it into later life? Share your experiences in the Comments, below!

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I was reminded of this recently during a parents' evening at my children's school. Both of them – I'm pleased to say – are bright, happy kids. But a discussion about other kids who compete with each other to be "the best" brought that quote to mind.

What exactly did "being the best" mean, I wondered. It sounds noble enough, but did I want my children to join in? And thinking of that old quote, why might "being unique" trump "being the best?"

I thought about it some more and remembered what my dad used to say when I was a kid. "Just try your hardest," he would tell me. "I don't mind if you're not the best; just try hard and be yourself." Nobody's word carried more weight than my father's did back then. And if being myself was more important to him than being the best, then I was ready to listen.

Racing to the Bottom Is Not Unique

I realized that the tussle at school to become numero uno was probably destructive and self-defeating. OK, so whoever emerged on top might have their podium moment, but at what cost? How many playground friendships might unravel? How many tender souls might end up nursing battered egos?

Instead of being, as at first it appeared to be, a competition to reach the top, these schoolyard shenanigans were actually a race to the bottom. Kids were competing by matching each other's moves – copying notes, drawings, language, and even looks.

Any time someone arrived with a new hairstyle, the latest sneakers, or a fancy pencil case, their classmates would imitate them to gain an advantage. This most innocent of environments was becoming a dog-eat-dog world. Kids were competing to be the best by being the same.

Michael Porter in Pictures

All this was fresh in my mind when I read the excellent "What Is Strategy? An Illustrated Guide to Michael Porter," by Joan Magretta and Emile Holmewood.

It's a graphic novel – essentially, a short book in which text, illustrations, speech bubbles, and commentary panels interplay in a kind of storyboard format. And at first glance it does seems like an awkward marriage of business and children's publishing.

The book's theme and cartoon animals seem unlikely bedfellows. But it's actually a fantastically accessible introduction to the fundamentals of strategy.

Read on, and you'll pick up takeaways from the mind of world-renowned strategist, Michael Porter, famous for his Five Forces Model. One such takeaway is the importance of adopting the right mindset. This sounds a little woolly but it's a foundation for the more theoretical stuff that comes later.

Think of the outlook that your favorite team carries onto the field with them. Whatever the sport, players set out to be "the best." They have to, it's the only way to win.

Compare that to your favorite musician, dancer, or comedian. People in the performing arts don't reach the top of the tree by crushing the opposition. They do it by being creative, by developing unique identities and approaches to what they do.

No two bands sound exactly alike (even the dodgy tribute acts) and no two singers have the same voice. Each actor, each circus performer, each magician can develop an audience and successfully create unique value for their customers. This generates a self-sustaining, flourishing field in which everyone can win.

Best vs. Unique

The sports analogy reflects what goes on in my kids' school – the trap of competing to "be the best." It might work on the soccer pitch but it doesn't work in the classroom, and it doesn't work in business either.

It's the second approach – the creative, "performing arts" mindset – that pays dividends, both at school and in the world of work.

Not adopting it means making what Porter calls "the worst error in strategy" – that is, competing with your rivals within the same dimensions.

Playing by Your Own Rules

I'm happy to say that my kids stand slightly apart from these playground tussles. They're part of the crowd but don't jockey for position within it, and they're confident enough in themselves to play by their own rules.

That both my kids are as stubbornly independent as they are sometimes drives me to distraction. But it also makes me very proud.

Every so often, they tell me about a classmate who leaves the competitive mêlée to sidle up to them when there's work to be done. All will get on and do what they each want to do and resist the urge to instigate an imitation game or a bout of one-upmanship. Maybe they're learning that there's a better way. Maybe the right mindset is spreading.

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In his book, "The Business of Choice: How Human Instinct Influences Everyone's Decisions," he digs deep into "behavioral insights." In other words, how unconscious instincts can sometimes nudge us to choose one thing over another.

How Does Human Instinct Sway Choice?

Willcox works in marketing, where this knowledge can help organizations sell products and services. But he believes that understanding how our instincts dictate our choices can be useful to anyone.

Looking at my toilet paper purchase through a behavioral science lens, I can see a few instincts at play.

For a start, there's what Willcox calls "Social Proof." This is when we're encouraged to do something because other people are doing it. One example Willcox references is how the U.K. government persuaded more people to pay a hard-to-collect tax by sending them a letter stating that similar folks had paid it on time.

I bought my toilet paper with a £5 discount voucher sent to me by a friend. She also got £5 off her next purchase. Not only did this give us a sense of togetherness in our choice of brand, it also had a little financial perk.

Positioning the Consumer as Expert

Getting a bargain made me feel positive about my purchase, and this speaks to a fundamental human instinct – our desire to feel good. There are lots of ways for marketers to achieve this, according to Matthew Willcox. From the age-old tactic of offering discounts, to using quizzes and surveys, which makes consumers feel more like experts.

For me, the toilet paper brand's sustainability credentials made the most difference. The product is 100 percent recycled, and 50 percent of the profits go toward building toilets in communities where they're needed. This boosted the "feel-good" factor of my purchase. It also wrapped in another behavioral insight: we're hardwired to compare.

"If you put us in front of one washing machine and you ask us to assess its capabilities, we don't do very well," Willcox says. "But, if you put two different machines in front of us, we will be able to compare one to the other. We will probably not stop until somebody tells us to stop doing it, because suddenly we have a frame of reference."

Comparing Comes Easy

This rings true for me. It was easy to compare my new toilet paper brand's green credentials with my old brand's lack of them. But I didn't stop there. Before I placed my order, I compared the number of sheets in each toilet roll with the product I used to buy. The new eco choice had more than double, further reinforcing my decision.

This instinct to compare is driven by how our brains work, Willcox says. For example, we naturally reach for the familiar. In this case, the familiar is my old brand of toilet paper, which I used as a comparator. And we like things to be easy.

"It's much easier to play off an existing mental model we have, an existing sense of something we have... and apply that to the new thing, than it is to create something new from the ground up," he explains.

Ethical Nudging

Nudging people's decisions with their own instincts can be a powerful tool. But one that should be wielded carefully and ethically.

Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. For example, Willcox says, "...there have been a number of cases where insights from behavioral science have been used to get people to sign up for loans with ridiculously high interest rates... You have to make sure you're encouraging people to make choices that are beneficial for them."

If this sounds a bit like manipulation, consider the alternative – if you can persuade people to make a beneficial decision by activating their instincts, isn't it worse to keep them in the dark?

"If you don't do anything, you're also affecting a choice," Willcox points out. "There's no neutral, really, in the world of choice architecture."

Certainly, as a consumer, I want to know that my toilet paper is recycled and helps to build facilities for people who don't have them. Do I mind that the brand is using the feel-good factor to get my custom? Frankly, in this case, not at all.

Listen to My Interview With Matthew Willcox

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That approach didn't work.

"It would take me an hour just to read one page in a book with a magnifying glass, with eye fatigue," she recalls, in my Expert Interview podcast. "Actually, at one point, I started thinking I was stupid, like, 'What's wrong with me? I can't keep up in class'."

Then Cox had a revelation – she could get the information she wanted in other ways. She didn't have to see it... she could feel it or hear it instead. The problem wasn't her lack of vision. It was people's attitude toward it. Mindset made all the difference.

"When that changed for me, it really opened up my life," she says.

Are You "Decorating the Fish" Instead of Fixing the Problem?

This insight has impacted her distinguished career as a top public official, and it's one of the many useful lessons in her book, "Stop Decorating The Fish: Which Solutions to Ignore and Which Problems Really Matter," co-written with the entrepreneur and economist, Yishai Ashlag.

What Are the Seductive Seven Solutions?

Like the townsfolk in the book, and Cox's helpers in college, many of us assume our problems are caused by a lack of something.

We might think we need more technology, for example, more data, a new strategy, or more training and communication. Perhaps a reorganization would do the trick, or do we just need to blame someone for the problem? Or maybe we should throw more money at it, to make it go away.

Cox calls these perceived solutions the "Seductive Seven," because they can be dangerously distracting.

Haunted by Phantom Problems

It reminds me of a job I had at a start-up, years ago. The company failed after a few years, but not before ripping through many of the Seductive Seven.

The company produced multimedia cross-cultural training tools, designed for people living and working abroad. When the initial venture capital ran out, it needed to generate revenue, but no one was buying the product.

The owners upgraded the computers and software, to streamline and accelerate workflow. That didn't boost sales. So they developed a new strategy, which involved switching the focus from corporate clients to consumers. That didn't work either.

Then came the inevitable "blame game." If a product isn't selling, it must be the marketing team's fault. A couple of people were fired and replaced. Again, nothing changed.

The final push was a new influx of capital from a trusting investor, which carried the company through to its collapse a few months later.

All that remedial action made the owners feel like they were tackling the problem. The truth is they weren't even addressing it, because they hadn't figured out what it really was.

Finding the Real Problem: The Customer's Always Right!

"So many of the Seductive Seven are great for management. We can feel successful launching a new initiative or a new strategic plan," Cox observes. "The hardest thing to get in leadership or management, or even in our own lives, is clarity. What is the problem we're trying to solve?"

To identify this in any given situation, we need to adopt the end user's perspective.

"It sounds so simple, but know your goal for your customer... and this is true in product design, it's true for R&D, it's true for value," Cox says.

"You see some of the biggest companies over time losing profit share [because] they started focusing on what they're going to get, not what they're going to give. And I think that's where we can all lose our way."

More Isn't Always Better

If my former employers had focused on the customer experience, the company might still be around today. The product was of high quality and looked great, but the delivery method was awkward. This made it hard for people to access the content. That's why the product didn't sell.

Sometimes, one of the Seductive Seven may indeed be part of the solution. Technology might have helped my former company create a better user interface, for example. But often, we don't lack anything. We just need to take a fresh look at what we already have.

Listen to My Interview With Kristen Cox

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My Mum was a working single parent, so every school day, I dropped into my grandparents' for lunch. And every day I'd see Grandad hunched over the racing pages, poring over form guides. He believed fervently that he could unlock the secrets buried in those mountains of stats. The big win was just around the corner.

I took an interest. It looked like my idea of fun. (I was an odd kid.) And it was educational. Working out the winnings on a five-horse accumulator (or parlay) was an excellent way to sharpen my mental arithmetic.

So how did he do? Well, he won enough to buy the occasional treat for his grandkids. But mostly, he kept the results to himself. Because mostly, he lost. Not badly. He enjoyed gambling, but money was always tight, and he was responsible. Even so, I doubt that he broke even most years.

Problem is, horse races are complex events. Unreliable trainers, jockeys who could not be relied upon, unexpectedly heavy ground: there was always a reason why his number never quite came up. (A former cavalryman, he never actually blamed the horse.)

And yet his lack of success never shook his faith in the power of prediction. One day, he knew, his painstaking research would pay off, and put him on easy street.

Prediction and Complexity

I thought of Grandad a lot while reading "Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together," by Margaret Heffernan. It's a book that casts a cold eye on our ability to predict the future, and our obsession with wanting to do so.

Increasingly, we face hugely complex circumstances and events in our lives. So in response, we crave certainty and security. And as the world becomes more complex, prediction seems to offer us that certainty.

Just think of those investment "gurus" who offer sure-fire stock market tips. They have legions of followers. Never mind that they rarely beat the market over time.

Big Data, Big Success?

We also face the constant presence of Big Data. Big Data is seductive. Because it promises that if we know enough, or let others know enough about us, our lives will be more efficient, eliminating waste and error. With enough data, you can predict all your future needs.

Consider the algorithm that uses your previous online searches to suggest products you might want to buy in future. Or the digital assistant that tells you when you're likely running low on coffee, and might want to order more. Handy, right?

And stock management algorithms allow businesses to predict their customers' behavior, and order exactly the right amount of stock to meet predicted demand. Prediction rules.

Well, maybe. What if a global pandemic causes a sudden spike in buying as people stockpile? How does your predictive algorithm look then? Empty shelves and angry shoppers suggest a system that doesn't work when situations become complex and disrupted. It's not robust.

Planning Without Prediction

"Uncharted" takes a different view. It examines other ways to plan and take control of our futures, both professionally and personally. These ways don't involve prediction. Because in complex situations, prediction doesn't work well enough.

Instead, these methods ask a succession of "What if" questions to sketch out a series of possible futures.

These futures vary enormously. Whole communities come together to work on huge projects. They adopt an approach called "scenario planning" – essentially, asking a series of focused but open questions about a situation. These questions help to build a series of possible narratives about the future.

Such projects acknowledge the limits of prediction. Instead, they plan based on experiment, and by using the insights of people from a wide range of backgrounds. They are truly collaborative.

But Heffernan doesn't just focus on the big picture. She homes in on personal, even intimate, territory.

Shaping Our Own Futures

One particular chapter gave me a jolt. It's called "Who Wants to Live Forever?" In it, Heffernan discusses the final lifestyle change for all of us: death.

In particular, she talks of planning a "good death." Of resisting the urge to preserve life no matter what. And shaping as much as you can of that ultimate change. It's an engrossing read. And for me, it was a very personal one.

My Grandad passed away after years of illness. After suffering several heart attacks, and cancer, he took the decision to refuse further treatment.

After he died, Mum went round to help sort out his personal effects. And she found them in perfect order, from his army paybook to his will. He had sorted out everything, with military precision.

He had decided how he wanted to go. And he took charge of what he could control, letting go of what he couldn't.

This is the most powerful idea in the book. That any of us can take control of our lives, our careers, or the projects we work on. At any time. And we don't need a prediction to tell us when to do it.

Downloading our "Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together" Book Insight

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His new book, "Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity, and How We're Thriving in a New World of Possibility," aims to dispel our fears about the future in the Internet Age, and offers some practical advice on how to thrive, too.

Weinberger has been watching technological change for more than two decades. In 1999, he co-authored the "Cluetrain Manifesto," a treatise on the transformative power of the internet.

Machine Learning

There's no doubt that the exponential growth of technology in our daily lives has been a mixed blessing. Weinberger is the first to admit that it has left many problems in its wake. Machine learning is a good example.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines machine learning as, "The process by which a computer is able to improve its own performance by continuously incorporating new data into an existing statistical model."

This innovation has so much promise, but it needs to be handled with great care and attention. The data that feeds machine learning is not always neutral, and this can have unpleasant consequences.

In our interview, Weinberger uses the example of recruitment.

"If you feed in employment information – because you're trying to train a machine-learning system to be able to sort through job applications, to pick out who should be interviewed by a human – it's very likely that that machine-learning system is going to "learn" that being a woman does not correlate very well with being a senior manager. Because that's the historic bias that the data represents," he explains.

"It can be very hard to notice that bias, and find all the factors that might reflect that bias in the data, to get rid of that bias. So machine learning represents a genuine danger of not only reproducing, but actually amplifying, existing biases. That's a real issue, for sure."

Mitigating Machine Bias

But this doesn't mean that we should give up on the immense potential of machine learning. The key is for humans to realize that they are in control of technology, not the other way around.

"For example, it's common now… to make sure that a diverse and representative set of people are involved in every phase of the development of the machine-learning system, including thinking through the data that's being collected and where there might be reflections of hidden bias, but also in the sort of outcomes that are desired," Weinberger says.

"The human side of this needs to thoroughly surround the design, development and deployment of machine-learning systems."

Interoperability

This idea is reflected in another theme in his book, "interoperability" – or working together across platforms – which he calls, "the very heart of the internet itself."

When companies share ideas and capabilities, and individuals weigh in too, everyone can benefit. That's the true glory of our connected world, Weinberger believes.

"Rather than thinking that you are always in a zero-sum game (in which it's either you or your competitors), when it makes sense – it doesn't always, but when it does – engage with your competitors in order to make more things possible," he suggests.

Likewise, "Rather than thinking about your customers as consumers of your product, [try] recognizing that they are full partners in the success of your product, listening to them, enabling them to add value to your product by adding features, transforming the way it works."

Interoperability gives us the opportunity to work together, for the better.

Constructive Chaos

In short, Weinberger believes that the chaos of our age should not make us despair and back away. We should view the huge, unpredictable changes taking place "as an opportunity to make more possibility."

We just need to stay open and alert in order to reap the rewards.

Listen to Our Interview With David Weinberger.

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