Dr Denise Bjorkman
“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment – that which they cannot anticipate.” Sun Tzu. The Art of War
People who predict, seem able to garner followers easily. Although a prediction is uncertain and often inaccurate, paradoxically it provides a measure of certainty in an uncertain world. Predictors are usually men and risk tolerance may be part of that question. Prediction is seen as a leadership behaviour which reduces risk and statistical experts such as actuaries feed executive decision makers. The act of prediction also provides direction as it narrows the margins of decision making which can be onerous for the brain.
Being in the presence of someone who predicts the future can either be comforting or a nightmare. Many are conspiracy theorists. With the fall of their reactionary leader Donald Trump, followers demonstrated their anxieties in Capitol Hill riots. The message and the messenger weigh in. Understanding what happens in the brain is important but first some background.
People who predict are often lumped together with those considered to be visionaries. Business visionaries have clout because they drive innovation as Elon Musk will testify. Some could just be dreamers. Visionaries say, ‘this is possible.’ They strive to achieve it. Predictors say ‘this is very likely to happen so design your plans accordingly.
Fear mongering works
Predictions can cause fear. The Nostradamus effect is no stranger to us. He still has cultish doomsday followers who interpret his writings fearfully through their own lenses leading to bizarre behaviour with end-of-the-world prophets. Nikita Khrushchev predicted that the wall of every state would disappear and make one global communist state. This is better known as the Comintern. He promoted national and global paranoia on a scale seldom seen, ending with ordinary people behind bars for crimes they did not commit. In South Africa wearing red socks could be interpreted as Communist leanings and mal intent at one stage. A red under every bed became a daily mantra for the leading party.
Bill Gates has been seen as an inspiring kind. Ask any audience where he has been a keynote speaker. It is not that Gates predicts events to enthrall an audience. He has a natural engagement with the future and fifteen of his predictions have hit pay dirt. It excites him to share his futuristic ideas. “I know where the future lies, and it lies in technology” he famously said at the World Economic Forum.
Television
Dr Albert Hertzog, once Minister of Posts and Telegraph in Apartheid South Africa, denounced the introduction of television believing it would change the tapestry of the country for the worse forever. He predicted darkly that it would end ‘the white civilized world.’ He saw it as a pathway for radicalization of black people who could be negatively influenced by Western ways. He was right and good came of it. It helped to drive political change. Black people who never had the means to travel to better climes were able to make comparisons between humane treatment of people of colour in international communities and the abusive Apartheid regime.
Enter neuroscience and genetics
Neuroscience and social biology have given us new takes on the predictor influence. Not only will knowledge of this help you to choose better leaders, but it also helps to unravel enduring mysteries of the brain of commanding leaders.
Back to our genes. We are hardwired to predict events for our own survival or safety. Prediction has a role in cognition. There is a high cost for surprises as army generals, neuroscientists and psychologists will tell you. Preparedness helps to optimize our neural systems for greater efficiency so we store knowledge from previous experiences accumulated over a lifetime, to minimise the cost of surprise.
Neuroscience also reveals that positive predictors in our midst consolidate that sense of safety. A polar bear ‘knows’ without knowing, that his fur needs to be doubled for the long winter months if he is to survive. He is patterned to predict this seasonal occurrence and he prepares for this unconsciously. Squirrels harvest nuts for the winter months.
Richard Dawkins is not for the serious reader only. Some may find his seminal book on genes and biology challenging. I advise you to read it slowly but read his endnote references too. It serves to explain much of our behaviour. Now deceased, his role as Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, shook frontiers of thinking. Not only was he responsible for coining the word meme, but his teachings also became a meme.
Prediction Errors
Prediction errors in humans are common because the brain is said to have a natural optimism. Ask any bride on her wedding day if she would fall in the statistic of two in four marriages ending in divorce.
Her answer would be ‘not me!’. How many are convinced that Lotto is just a vivid dream away.
I do, I do, I do
People tend to overestimate how successful their predictions will be so, so risks are minimized. Isn’t that what happened with the 9/11 disaster? Professor Michael Watkins of Harvard University is a cynic. He claims that most crises could have been averted through cognitive processing and studied predictions because all the warning flags were there all along. People chose to ignore them: the refugee crisis: displaced people; Putin’s foray into Ukraine; China’s expansionism; the Belgium airport bombings with advance warnings from Turkey and personality disorders of pilots who bring down passenger planes to end their own misery.
Prediction helps to determine the value of information. Behaviour patterns are based on the largest net benefit or WIFFM – or what-is-in-it-for-me now? As Dawkins argues ‘…any positive action consumption of energy and time, both of which could have been spent on doing other things.’ If doing nothing emerges as ‘the behaviour with the highest net benefit score, the model animal will do nothing.’ The human factor contribution to environmental damage or climate change is an example.
Blind follower trends
Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman is a man who successfully combined several disciplines: economic behaviours, psychology and neuroscience ad mathematics. He explains why some denialists refuse to acknowledge predictive trends even when the evidence is overwhelming. People support doomed cult leaders, even when their starts are dramatically in decline, such as that of OJ Simpson or the emotional Oscar Pistorius following.
Eva Peron, Idi Amin, Hitler, Ceausescu and Tito all had their blind following. Kahneman gives one explanation in his utility theory -what use is it to me now? The brain stem needs certainty. In the case of Saddam Hussein his people would argue that ‘at least our hero is known to us – stick with the devil we know.’ We are seeing the same with the African National Congress (ANC) Party following at elections in South Africa.
We have seen teenagers consume vast amounts of sugar in Colas without being able to project the potential danger to health in their middle years. Instant gratification gives them the instant reward of that much sought-after brain chemical – dopamine. So, the caveat of prediction is that it works better in the short term. Long term predictions belong in the basket of ‘it does not enhance my personal risk now.’
Making the world a better place.
Science is the grounding of many predictions and not guesstimates. We know about global warming and its catastrophic portents but only a handful of people bother to commit to action. COP21 (or the Paris Agreement) has come the closest to consensus about predictions of global warming with very tepid responses from the likes of the USA and China. China commits to carbon emission controls in several decades from now only. Scientist, Dr Kerry Sieh predicted the Boxing Day Tsunami. Nobody paid attention.
In neuroscience we now know that predictions can make the world a better place and that objective predictors need to be nurtured.
Know the leaders that can and will make a difference. Learn how to profile then and choose them wisely. We didn’t in South Africa.