reflections on 25 years of future-gazing
what we got right (and wrong) - and why it was never really about the predictions
In strategy, the hardest challenge isn’t seeing the future. It’s thinking beyond the present long enough to shape it.
That was the instinct behind Future Back.
Back in 2000, we sat with our clients and asked: what kind of world might you be working in 25 years from now? Not because we had a crystal ball. But because big, complex change doesn’t arrive on a tidy roadmap – and the leaders we worked with knew they needed to get ahead of it.
So we turned the usual planning horizon on its head.
Future Back is about lifting your gaze. You start at the far end: the world you think you’ll be living and working in 10, 25 or even 50 years from now. Then you work back to today, asking what that future implies for the decisions in front of you. It’s not prediction. It’s preparation.
And it works. Because it helps organisations break free from the gravitational pull of the present – and lead with intent.
Looking back at our future back
Every so often, we go back and test our own thinking. We revisit those early sessions and ask: were we right? Were we close? Were we even in the right ballpark?
The short answer: mostly.
About 80% of what we foresaw landed pretty much as expected. Around 15% were directionally right – we got the trajectory, even if the fine detail was off. And the final 5%? Spectacularly wide of the mark. That 2006 prediction about oil hitting $350 a barrel by 2020? We’ll own that one.
But in the end, the misses mattered less than the habit. Because our clients weren’t looking for a list of headlines. They wanted a way to think more clearly about the future they were trying to build – and what it would take to get there.
What we got right
Some of the wins feel so ordinary now, they barely warrant a mention. Cloud computing. AI. Contactless payments on the Tube. Robotic vacuum cleaners humming around your kitchen floor.
Others were bigger and harder to face – but just as important. The rise in chronic illness. The impacts of demographic change. The early signs of climate disruption. Back then, we gave clients data on fertility rates, ageing populations, and the expected rise of cancer, dementia and obesity. Most of those forecasts have held up.
This wasn’t about being clever. It was about paying attention. And it was about having the space – and courage – to look further ahead than the next financial year.
What we got almost right
Some signals are still emerging. Driverless cars aren’t everywhere yet, but they’re coming. Space tourism, organ cloning, geopolitical pressures around water – are all happening right now in different corners of the world, but we’re not quite sure what they’re going to become, yet.
We weren’t alone in calling these, of course. But by naming them early, our clients had time to prepare (for example, a pharmacy retailer we were working with used this research to radically alter their strategy to increase their health offering, a pivot that contributed in no small part to their ongoing success today). That head start can be a quiet competitive advantage.
The bits we got wrong
Some misses still raise a smile. Solar roads with built-in data-sharing. RFID chips in our hands. Mouthwash replacing brushing. Telepathic cars.
We didn’t see Ozempic coming. Or foresee the impact of shale oil. And in our future back work, we avoided the ‘unknown unknowns’ and stuck, predominately, to what we ‘know’ the world will actually be like. (For example, the rise of populism and its impact across Europe and the US wasn’t within our research scope).
But this is the point. If you never get it wrong, you probably didn’t go far enough.
The practice of stretching thinking – of imagining bold, plausible futures – is what counts. It’s what enables better decisions under uncertainty.
Why this still matters
If we’ve learned anything in 25 years, it’s that context is everything.
The accuracy of individual predictions matters far less than the discipline of regularly stepping back and looking forward. In a world where volatility is the norm, foresight is a leadership muscle – and Future Back is how you keep it in shape.
In today’s boardrooms, there’s a pull to stay in the moment. To focus on the next delivery cycle, the next funding round, the next threat. But the future hasn’t gone away. It’s just harder to pin down.
Our work has always been about helping leaders stay human while thinking boldly. That means accepting complexity, embracing uncertainty – and still making clear decisions.
We don’t claim to get everything right. But we know how to help you think in the right direction.
And that, more than any single prediction, is what has stood the test of time.