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Non Obvious: How To Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict the Future, by Rohit Bhargava
“THE simple aim of this book is to teach you how to see the things that others miss,” explains author Rohit Bhargava. The ability to see what is “non-obvious” can be very valuable in enhancing your business and your career.
This is a how-to book to guide and help you in identifying trends for yourself.
Clarifying the extent to which you can predict trends will indicate what they are not. Consider the phenomenal rise of Twitter. The number of trend forecasters who predicted something like this was exactly zero!
“The most powerful trends offer predictions for the short-term future based on observing the present,” Bhargava explains. He defines a trend as an observation about the present that will accelerate in the future.
To arrive at what is going to accelerate requires a method of collecting observations over time from a wide arena. The process of collection soon becomes “curation”, much like a museum curator collects paintings and arranges them so that they change from “noise into meaning”.
To discover real trends requires a combination of curiosity and care-filled observation. You will need to add your insights to the collection that results to turn them into something of value.
Trends must be curated, not spotted
There are some myths regarding trend identification that will shed light on the process.
Trends are not spotted; they must be curated from information and insights in order to have meaning. Spotting trends does not require hard data as much as it requires really good observation. Trends are not fads; fads are fleeting, trends are much longer-lasting.
The title of the book - Non Obvious - points to how a trend is “an idea that describes the accelerating present in a new, unique way”.
There are essential habits of trend curators, the description of which make this book so valuable. After all, not everyone needs to be a trend identifier, but I can think of no one in a senior position in any business who would not benefit from acquiring these habits.
The first is to be curious, always wanting to know why and wanting to learn more. In 1982, John Naisbitt published Megatrends, a book that changed the way governments, businesses and people thought about the future. He predicted, among other important issues, the evolution from an industrial society to an information society, a decade before the internet.
The book is still the single best-selling book about the future, having sold 14 million copies worldwide.
Naisbitt is described by those who know him as having a “boundless curiosity about people, cultures and organisations”. He scans hundreds of newspapers and magazines, from Scientific American to Tricycle to Buddhism magazines, in his insatiable desire to learn.
The second habit is being observant, seeing the small details in events and activities that others ignore or miss as significant.
Then there is habit of being thoughtful, “taking enough time to develop a meaningful point of view and patiently considering alternative viewpoints before finalizing an idea”. In business, as in any other meaningful pursuit, you need enough moments of “quiet contemplation” to truly understand what you have in front of you.
The method to find trends is termed by the author “the Haystack Method”. “This combination of collection and contemplation is central to being able to effectively curate ideas and learn to predict the future.”
The Haystack Method requires that you first gather stories, information and ideas (the hay) and then use them to define a trend (the needle) that makes sense of them all. “Trend curators don’t seek needles; they gather the hay and stick a needle into the middle of it,” Bhargava explains.
Gathering the hay is simply collecting stories and ideas from anywhere and everywhere – people, talks, magazines, movies, entertainment, experiences, travel, and so on. It is necessary to capture these snippets and keep them all in one place so you can review and reflect on them intermittently at set times – monthly, or annually.
“Set yourself a specific time when you can go back and reflect on what you have gathered to uncover the bigger insights,” the author advises.
Not all insights are important trends. Every trend must have three critical factors: an idea with impact on your context that will accelerate with time.
Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck wrote a book in 2006, with a deceptively simple idea with-wide ranging implication. Dweck proposed that most people have one of two types of mindsets: a fixed mindset, this is “what I was born with and all I can do”, or a growth mindset – “I can grow into much more.” The power of this notion of mindsets is that everyone has the ability to change their mindset, one simply has to choose to.
The haystack mindset is one worth changing to because it will have impact on your business and career.
Readability: Light --+-- Serious
Insights: High --+-- Low
Practical: High --+-- Low
*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.
