At the beginning of each year, while many individuals make New Year’s resolutions, organizations make forecasts about the year ahead. Both have high fallibility. Forecasts are predictions about what will happen in the future based on information currently available. As such, they are exercises of imagination, which studies have shown are rarely correct in their particulars.

Despite being reliably incorrect, savvy leaders can find strategic value from forecasts. When reviewed in aggregate, they capture the zeitgeist. We just need to ask the right questions: What do experts believe is important and likely enough to forecast? Where do they agree, and more interestingly, where do they disagree? Even if forecasts are specifically wrong, what do they indicate about the underlying trends and pivotal issues?

After two tumultuous years of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the world looks ahead to what might become the new normal, it’s a particularly salient time to assess our views and hopes for the future. The study of previous global pandemics and other crises teaches us that the post-pandemic world will likely be notably different — but how?