Margaret Heffernan is a Texas-born, Cambridge educated author, former media CEO, award-winning journalist, and BBC documentary maker whose TED Talks have been viewed more than twelve million times. Her six previous books include Willful Blindness, which was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times.

In this podcast with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses insights from her forthcoming book, Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future. Heffernan argues that the future is inherently unpredictable and, as such, we really need to stop force-fitting models for prediction onto business strategy and elsewhere, as doing so only provides us with a false sense of certainty and security.

Instead, she argues, the right approach is to embrace uncertainty and use scenario planning, experimentation, and imagination. She discusses several domains (art, military intelligence, “cathedral” projects like CERN) where acceptance of uncertainty and using creative approaches has led to great success.

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About the BCG Henderson Institute

The BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group's think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.