Kahane asked them not to bring predictions or advice but to explore only possibilities: what could happen.

He’s learned that, while it’s easy to talk about adaptive leadership, it’s hard to produce.

If artists have the capacity to make work that defies time, it is because instead of trying to force-fit a predetermined idea of the future, they have learned to live productively with ambiguity, to see it as a rich source of discovery and exploration. Instead of trying to reduce complexity, they mine it, undaunted by contradictions and paradoxes.

The emerging view of our brain (and, by extension, of our mental, emotional and physical lives) shows that we routinely create, assemble and discover a vast array of possibilities not only at big, dramatic crossroads but throughout our lives.

We have moved from a complicated world to a complex one. The two aren’t the same – and complexity isn’t just complicated on steroids. Complicated environments are linear, follow rules and are predictable; like an assembly line, they can be planned, managed, repeated and controlled. They’re maximised by routine and efficiency. But the advent of glob

The probability ratings, just like the colour-coded threat levels Manningham-Buller introduced, articulate ambiguity, reflecting that all information about the future is not equal, comprehensive or conclusive.

Approach the future with fervent curiosity, not with an ideology or itinerary but with a methodology that progresses with questions: what do we need to do now? What do we need to be now? What must we preserve at all cost?

The scenario planning Wack developed at Shell, and that the company still conducts today, follows certain rules. Multiple scenarios must be produced (usually two to four) based on the same rigorously researched and reliable datasets. Like the evidence presented to the Irish citizens’ assembly, data cannot be ideological, nor can it be vague, opinio

A ghost tells Hamlet that his uncle murdered his father. But is the ghost reliable? Real? Is the information true? What if it isn’t? What if it is? Ambiguity paralyses Hamlet. What should he do? He does experiments. Putting on a play – ‘The Mousetrap’ – is an experiment. When Claudius explodes with rage, evidence mounts that he is a murderer. But t