Today: science fiction. Tomorrow: strategy.
For centuries mankind has dreamed about the future; dreamed, and speculated, and invented. Science fiction is the meeting between scientific reality and fictive speculation, but it has real value when it comes to understanding how people view, understand, and relate to their future. By now a venerable branch of literature after at least 200 years, the tricks and tools of the science fiction writer have become useful for more than just entertainment and diversion. These methods offer powerful ways of understanding the immediate and long-term future for a business or an organization.
Since at least the early 19th century, science fiction has accompanied—and often anticipated—major technological shifts. When Frankenstein was published in 1818, it reflected contemporary debates about electricity, life, and scientific responsibility. Mary Shelley did not predict modern biotechnology, but she articulated questions that still resonate: *What happens when innovation outpaces ethics? Who bears responsibility for unintended consequences?*
Two centuries later, we find ourselves asking strikingly similar questions—about artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, climate engineering, and digital surveillance. The technologies differ, but the underlying tensions remain.
Science fiction writers are not prophets. They are frequently wrong in their predictions. Yet their value lies elsewhere: in the methods they use to think about the future and the questions they dare to ask. In a world where technological and societal change is accelerating, these methods have become increasingly relevant for leaders, strategists, and organizations.
Living in the future, not forecasting it
What distinguishes the “science fiction method” from conventional forecasting is perspective.
Rather than projecting today forward in a neat, linear progression, science fiction starts from the inside of a future world. It imagines what it feels like to live *there*. The future is treated not as an endpoint, but as a present—complete with routines, norms, blind spots, and unintended consequences.
This distinction matters. Linear reasoning tends to focus on how technologies evolve. Science fiction focuses on how they are *used*, *interpreted*, and *normalized* by people and institutions.
History offers countless examples. Text messaging was originally designed as a technical signaling system for telecom operators. Few linear forecasts anticipated that it would reshape language, social norms, and interpersonal communication. The same is true today for large language models, algorithmic decision-making, and immersive digital environments. Their technical capabilities are impressive—but their societal implications will only become visible once they are woven into everyday life.
To think like a science fiction writer is therefore to shift from prediction to immersion.
Seven principles for thinking like a sci-fi writer
#1. Think wider, not farther
The future rarely unfolds along a single, straight trajectory. Instead of extending current trends into the distance, examine how changes interact across systems—technology, culture, regulation, economics, and values. Strategic choices make sense only in context.
#2. Treat the future as a lived present
We do not understand our own lives by tracing historical cause-and-effect chains; we understand them by navigating the present. Apply the same logic to future thinking. Ask: *What does a normal day look like? What feels mundane? What new frictions appear?*
#3. Focus on meaning, not mechanics
Engineers ask how something works. Leaders need to ask what it *means*. A technology can be technically flawed yet socially transformative—or technically elegant but socially irrelevant. Meaning outlives implementation details.
#4. Dare to imagine utopia
Reasonableness is often a constraint disguised as prudence. Many of today’s realities—from smartphones to global digital networks—once appeared wildly unrealistic. Utopian thinking helps stretch assumptions and surface hidden constraints.
#5. Remember that utopias can fail
Few dystopias are designed deliberately. Most emerge from well-intentioned decisions made without sufficient foresight. Science fiction excels at exploring second- and third-order effects—the consequences that only appear once systems scale.
#6. Treat the future as a foreign culture
Future societies will not share today’s values, norms, or mental models. Understanding them requires the same humility and curiosity we apply when encountering unfamiliar cultures. This is particularly true in a world shaped by generational shifts and global diversity.
#7. Notice that the future is unevenly distributed
The future does not arrive everywhere at once. Advanced technologies may exist for decades in laboratories, niche markets, or specific regions before becoming mainstream. Weak signals matter. Early anomalies often reveal tomorrow’s normal.
Does your organization keep up?
Technical experts can estimate what an innovation *can* do. They are far less equipped to anticipate how it will be adopted, resisted, misunderstood, or repurposed. That gap is where strategy often fails.
By adopting the mindset of a science fiction writer—by imagining futures as lived realities rather than abstract projections—organizations can develop more resilient, flexible strategies. They become better at questioning what appears natural, inevitable, or immutable.
Almost every aspect of modern life was once considered implausible, impractical, or impossible. Science fiction reminds us of that—and, more importantly, helps us prepare for what comes next.
The future will be both wonderful and unsettling. The question is not whether change will come, but whether we are prepared to recognize it when it arrives.