Stop "Knowing" and Start "Guessing"
Following Your Hunches
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In these uncertain times, we don’t know what the future holds. The reality is we can’t ever know the future for sure, but that’s especially true now. That makes knowledge something with limited value. Everything we know about the world is in the past, or present. Yet, what we need to plan for is the future. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that future won’t be like the past.
So, if we can’t rely on our knowledge, what are we supposed to do?
The answer: Hypothesize.
Questions this article explores
What is hypothesis thinking?
Why is knowledge limited when planning for the future?
What is falsifiability and why does it matter?
Does the brain predict the future?
The Discipline of Guessing
Hypothesize is a fancy word for “guess.” But not “wild-ass guessing” as one of my workshop participants once put it. Hypothesizing is a disciplined way of exploring informed ideas, or hunches. It’s what scientists do. Science is where you most often hear that term. But it’s also what entrepreneurs do…and detectives…and new product developers…and often journalists.
It’s also what your brain does. Hypothesizing is an attempt to predict the future. Neuroscientists believe your brain does that constantly moment-to-moment. That even your present experience is created this way. Think of those predictions as your brain first imagining what you experience and then confirming or disconfirming that with your senses.
It’s a tightly coupled feedback loop that operates in much the same way as the innovation cycle. Your brain imagines how the world is, then interacts with your environment in ways that test that expectation. That creates sensory feedback that supports or contradicts that prediction, which gives you information that enables you to learn and discover. The knowledge you gain then informs how your brain makes subsequent predictions.
And it all happens withing tiny fractions of a second.
This is why we so often crave certainty—because it makes predicting what’s coming easier.
Guided —and Misguided—Guesses
Your brain’s predictions are heavily guided by the assumptions and beliefs that make up your mindset. Those are also hypotheses and they’re heavily influenced by prior knowledge—even when that knowledge may no longer be true. The problem is that we frequently don’t treat them as hypotheses. They’re just what we “know.” Yet that presumed certainty doesn’t necessarily reflect the real world.
It’s important to recognize that danger. In the dynamic environment we’re in, we need to treat knowledge as something tentative rather than conclusive—as hypotheses. That means having some humility about how we think the world works. And it means something else.
Unlike knowledge and beliefs, hypotheses are not designed to simply be followed. They’re designed to be tested. Psychologists and consultants endlessly debate whether and when you should trust your gut instincts. But that’s the wrong question. The better question is how can you test those hunches?
Hypothesis Testing
How do you do that testing?
The same way scientists and other investigators do it. By gathering evidence, making astute observations, and conducting experiments. Asking questions like:
If this is true, what are the implications of that and are those things happening?
Does that idea or belief work? Does it accomplish what you want to accomplish?
It means getting your hands dirty by acting on your hunches, but without assuming they’re true.
Your brain is constantly hypothesis testing with all of your sensory input. But that’s unconscious. You need to do conscious testing.
Scientific experiments are tightly controlled. More so than you can typically do in the day-to-day real world. But many of the same principles apply. It’s important to guard against confirmation bias, by making accurate observations. You need to be willing to acknowledge that your hypothesis may be wrong. Scientists call that falsifiability. If you can’t be wrong, you’ve already put your thumb on the scale. That’s not a real experiment.
It takes discipline and humility to form and test promising hypotheses. But the value of doing that is demonstrated by the amazing success of the scientific method. And you don’t need to be a scientist to apply it.
Thinking hypothetically is how you explore new possibilities, give yourself options, and gradually figure out how the world works going forward. Not how it used to work or how you would like it to.
It’s the best strategy you have for responding to uncertainty.
Are you testing your ideas and beliefs? How might you do that?
No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the future.
– Ian E. Wilson
Hi, I’m Dennis Stauffer. I’m an internationally recognized expert on the mindset of world class innovators. I’ve studied innovativeness in entrepreneurs in cooperation with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and developed innovativeness in students under a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. I’m a neurodivergent Emmy Award-winning journalist, author, speaker, independent researcher, social entrepreneur, and innovation practitioner.
In other words, I’m still deciding what I want to be when I grow up.
My focus here is on developing the capabilities we all need, to respond to the dramatic changes coming at us, in the world and in our lives. Thanks for being here. Let’s go make the world better.
To learn more about my work, go to:
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