Curiosity: it’s where the future starts

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Christophe Pelletier

The challenges ahead are bigger than ever before, and be assured that they will bigger in the future. The good news is that progress and new developments in science and technology are bigger and faster than ever, too. From a technical point of view, I would dare to say that the solutions to the challenges already exist or are very close. Often, the problem is that these solutions are not immediately economically viable. In such a fast-changing world, curiosity is undoubtedly one of the most desirable qualities to adapt timely and find new ways of running the business.

Perhaps, it is because a lot of my work is about finding as much information and gathering as much knowledge as possible about all sorts of technologies, facts, systems, science and experiences that I find curiosity quite natural. Perhaps it is also because I have a curious nature. In my daily activities, I find that people are relatively not curious enough. I also can see that the ones who have that quality are always ahead of the pack. What is really amazing is how much is already out there. The trick is to find it and to know about it. Often, the information originates from very different business sectors or comes from other parts of the world or is available in a different language. I can see regularly a lot of organizations busy reinventing the wheel, going through the pain of setting up research and spending vast amounts of time, money and resources to find out results that are already available and that they could have taken over and adjusted to their particular situations. Curiosity can deliver huge savings.

Curiosity is quite time consuming. That is a fact and its main drawback. This may be the reason why it does not happen enough. The quest does not always deliver, although for those who have a proper strategy, the yield is quite good. Curiosity, for a business, cannot be a random activity. It has to be structured and carried out with discipline. There is quite a similarity between curiosity and access to food. There are those who know where to find the tasty mushrooms in the woods and those who get lost in the forest. It is the same thing when going out there to find knowledge. Some are talented and find it often and fast and others just wander endlessly without spotting anything significant. Just as it is important to know the right spots to find food when hunting and gathering, there are some places where the good knowledge is. As with food, it is important to know the supplier and know the origin of the knowledge. To pursue the comparison with mushrooms, some knowledge is good and some can be toxic. The supply chain is just as important, especially considering how fast and far social media can replicate and distribute information. When it comes to knowledge, the reliability, seriousness and quality of the sources is of utmost importance. A discerning knowledge consumer must be critical about what they find. A solid critical sense is of the utmost importance. Regardless of whether the knowledge is found through a hunting/gathering activity or comes from a knowledge farm, it is essential to double-check its validity. The packaging can be deceiving.

Next to focused curiosity activities, it is also important to encourage what I would call open curiosity, in which there is no particular objective but just letting new findings lead to new discoveries. There is no business discipline involved. It more often research you would do in your free time. One piece of information generates interest to know more and you just follow. It is similar to a child-like exploration in which each answer triggers the next “why?” question. It is pure learning. There is no way to tell when or even whether the new learned knowledge will be useful, but there is no such thing as too much knowledge. The trick is to be able to retrieve it when it is needed.

Another important aspect of curiosity is to link experience to knowledge. Usually, knowledge is the result of certain protocols. The knowledge itself takes its full dimension and value only through the use we make of it. Some people make good use and others do not. When gathering new knowledge, it is essential to also learn about the lessons from the experience of those who used it. Why did certain things work in certain conditions and others did not? Which factors influenced the outcome and how would different conditions or a different environment affect the outcome? Getting the big picture is a very important part of curiosity. Expanding the scope and seeing how the pieces of the puzzle come together are the foundation of future successful strategy and adaptation.

Curiosity is a great asset when it comes to face and prepare the future. It is not the whole story, though. Food and agriculture are not intellectual exercises. They must deliver concrete products and results. It is nice to be curious but what do you do with that? The answer to this question is quite simple: action.

According to the saying, knowledge is power. Knowledge is true power only when it is active and circulates. Knowledge that remains in a brain or in a drawer is not very useful for the greater good. The first step that I advise curious people to do is to share what they learn. It is even easier today with the Internet, and there is a lot of knowledge out there. By sharing, I do not mean simply copy and paste or click the share button. Before sharing, it is essential to make sure that what you share is quality. There is too much information that is spread on social media while clearly not critically reviewed, not to say not even read, as it is quite often the case. The mindset here is a mix of enthusiasm, critical thinking and practical service orientation. The knowledge must be correct and the message must come over. It also must be useful to the recipients. It must connect to their needs and add value to them. The final result has to be better food through more efficient and sustainable systems that are financially viable. In the food and agriculture sector, it must lead to always more collaboration and knowledge transfer in all directions within the entire value chain. Often, the weakness of communication is that it stays too long in the same circle and other links, consumers in particular, are kept too long out of the loop. It results too often in misunderstanding, distrust and erroneous perception.

Through collaboration and brainstorming, curiosity helps create a more accurate and achievable vision of the future, on which action can further be carried out to shape the future. From this angle, it makes no doubt that collaboration between all stakeholders is an ongoing process. This is especially true with technology. There are new developments all the time and it certainly takes a curious mind to be able to keep up with novelties. It actually takes many curious minds, considering how huge the quantity of knowledge and information is. It also takes minds that can connect all the dots, and also connect with each other. Although time consuming, the back and forth collaboration, together with ongoing feedback about performance and new demands, allows all links of the chain to know better what the objectives are and how to foster ongoing improvement. As many new technological developments come from outside the food and agriculture sectors, I believe it is critical that the food producers be proactive in the development of technologies and applications, but stating clearly what they expect from technology suppliers and tell them what they expect from them. It is never too early to let them know what your problems, limitations and/or objectives are, so that they can work on it as soon as possible. Being proactive will help speed up the development of the right products, systems and applications.

In this process, leadership is of the essence. Leadership is essential to create the right dynamics to make knowledge transfer happen, fast and well. The role of leaders here is to make knowledge transfer attractive and stimulating for others, so that more stakeholders participate in the development of innovation. The more pressure they will be on suppliers to bring better solutions to the food sector, the higher the chances it happens, indeed. Leaders must also foster connections and networking across the disciplines, even or actually especially with partners outside of the food and agriculture sector. A vision that includes the bigger picture will have more chances of stimulating the cross-discipline and cross-sector collaboration. At the same time, it is crucial to stay practical. The goal is to produce food, and that must be in the minds of all participants.

Curiosity is really the starting point. It feeds an entire chain of ideas and decisions that are the basis for improvement. There is no doubt that fortune favors the bold. In the never-ending quest towards better foods and better agricultural practices, such a process becomes an illustration of “the best way to predict the future is to create it”. This saying may have not been so true as today. Progress and food security depend on it.

Adapting our thinking to the future – part 2

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Christophe Pelletier

At the end of part 1 of this article, I had mentioned how our elders used to make progress by blending the modern with the traditional. It is quite important to keep this way of looking at our life environment quite alive. How we evolved to where we are today determines very much why we have the current possibilities available. They are the direct result of our history. Whether we like it or not, our future has its roots in our past. The art is to improve what we have, and to improve, we need to learn from the mistakes of the past. Rejecting solutions for the simple reason that they are old-fashioned or not based on science is really excluding diversity, while diversity is the fuel of progress. Reducing diversity comes down to reducing options to move forward. As someone who looks toward the future and tries to find out what is likely to come as well as what is desirable to create, I find this balance between past and future especially interesting. I often am surprised to see how many people are actually busy reinventing the wheel, while they think that they are busy innovating. Many projects and research that I see taking place have actually already been carried out in some way either in another place or in another industry. I regularly have to tell some of my contacts about similar projects that took place years and sometimes even decades ago. This is why I always insist on the need to be curious. For the future, curiosity is an asset. I could never urge anyone enough to have an open mind for anything that happens anywhere and in any industry. Maybe, I am doing some sort of transfer about this and I wished others would be as curious and eager to learn as I am, but this is so helpful to foresee the changes to come, that anyone who is interested in the future should be wired like that. Unfortunately, I find most people to not be really curious. They seem to be interested in what will serve them directly in the short term, but much less for what may serve others now but also in the future. Until someone can tell me that it is better to limit one’s perception and understanding of the world and of its possibilities, I will keep being curious and open-minded.

People really need to expand their horizons. Not only is it useful to be prepared for the future, the main reason is that it is incredibly fun to learn to know new things and new people. For the sake of humanity, it is time to open up towards others. The attitude of future business will not be about pushing new products and services to others, but to have a “what can I do for you “ and “how can I help you” mindset. The business of the future is the one that delivers solutions. In the future, successful products will be at least as much about the service included as it is about the actual physical product. This is what circular thinking will deliver. In a future where others are really what matters the most, the social perception will also change. “Old boys clubs” (which are nowadays just as much girls clubs) and other clans are not really the most dynamic organizations. There is no doubt that they are incredibly comfortable, because they are basically made out of clones. Everyone thinks the same, shares the same values, comes from the same university or social group, lives in the same country or region, has the same feeling of importance, and looks to the outsiders just as such: outsiders. There is a lack of diversity; therefore there is a lack of progress. A new interesting development that, to me, shows the quality of networks has appeared recently on LinkedIn. They visualize how much of your network belong to which organizations. I recently have seen some of the apparently very social individuals that have close to 40% of their network linked to only one company, and the second organization in his network only 1%. To me, that does not spell open network. And I thought that the main organization in my LinkedIn network was already high at 5%. Personally, I prefer by far those who have a balanced distribution of their networks. The chances are much higher that people who have a more balanced distribution of their networks have been exposed to more diversified experiences, and are likely to be more open and more flexible to different or challenging ideas. For a successful future, we must not think in terms of networks, but we all should be interconnected in the same one that would be the complete integration and interaction of all the ones that exist. My customers have demonstrated this to me. About all of my business has come from my being on the web with this blog and my books. They caught my customers’ attention who decided to get in contact with me. None of them knew me personally beforehand. The result has been business. Actually, I have not prospected once for the Food Futurist services. I just found a way of being visible beyond any limitation of network boundaries. The Food Futurist has become part of that global web.

One of the main differences between nowadays and yesterday lies in how intricate our world has become. In the past, things used to be more compartmented. Today, the whole world has opened. Knowledge travels fast and is accessible from almost anywhere on the planet. The level of interaction between industries and technologies is much higher now than it used to be. Most innovation that will help progress in food and agriculture in the future will not originate from the food and agriculture community, but from many different fields such as robotics, nanotechnologies, telecommunications, software development or medicine, just to give a few examples. Although technology will definitely play a major role in improving what we do, it will be important to not see technology as a panacea with dictatorial tendencies. I always underline the importance of the balance that we must maintain between technology and steering human nature for the best. In the end, technology is only as good and useful as the way we use and master it. Just take the example of gun powder. When the Chinese started to use it, they made fireworks for entertainment purposes. The “white man” chose to use it to kill others. Clearly, a similar technology used with different philosophies of life will serve different purposes. This is still true with today’s technology and it will be true with tomorrow’s. It will depend on the leadership. Technology needs to pass the test of morals and ethics, unless we accept that it might serve to be used against us. Technology and leadership go together, just like science and philosophy do. It is important to not forget it. If curiosity is an asset for the future, clearly, so is having a critical mind for the reasons just presented. It is essential to keep control on what we do and that we address concerns. Of course, this may delay some valuable financial objectives for some, but the quality of the future will depend on us doing the right things. The debate that results from critical thinking may be time-consuming, but open debate is an integral part of the democratic process. Open debates protect us from going back to dark ages. Looking back how what such ages have caused in human history, and unfortunately still do in some parts of the world, the need to learn from the past is clearly essential for a prosperous future.

Other advantages of critical thinking are that it stimulates reflection and is a source of ideas. It is also important to make clear that critical thinking is not about criticizing but about questioning. Sterile boring criticism is just as useless for our future as not thinking at all. Let’s face it, critical thinking is not easy. It requires emotional distance. It is about accepting that what we may have believed appears to be wrong, or that they are better ways and beliefs. To be a good critical thinker, one needs to have enough confidence to overcome disappointment and to accept to change the course. Not that many people are willing to deal with such challenges. Yet, if we want to prepare for a prosperous future, we will have to accept that exercise, because, the future will be quite different, and in particular our interaction with our environment and the world will change and evolve further. Critical thinking actually requires a rather Zen mindset. One needs to have the calm and openness to observe and listen before speaking. One needs to accept being wrong as the debate that arises from the exercise will also show the value of other people’s points of views. Critical thinking is an exercise in humility. Humility is a highly valuable, yet often neglected quality. Yet, it is essential to be humble when thinking about the future. The challenges are quite serious and dealing with natural forces that may or may not be about to unleash upon us will not be an easy task. We will need to understand our relationship with Nature and accept the idea that, in spite of all our cool technologies, we are vulnerable and mortal. One of the arts of future thinking will be about pushing the system while knowing where the limits are that we must not transgress. That is what sustainability really is about. We really do not want to open Mother Nature’ Pandora’s Box. To be equipped properly to face the future, we need leaders that will think like chess players. We need leaders in all areas of society that can understand how the consequences of their decisions and of their vision will trickle down through the system. They must be able to foresee what may happen when they make their moves. Many already hardly can foresee what comes next. Those we need are the ones who can visualize what happens two, three, four and more degrees ahead, so that they can adjust their choices and already develop alternatives before troubles arise. A good plan A always includes a plan B, and preferably even a plan C. Plans that lack alternatives are not plans, they are merely wish lists.