The Hunt for Grey Swans — Top 15 Methods & Frameworks — #13 ADOR Edges

Chasing Possibilities, Wild Cards and Extremes by Adopting Two Opposing Peripheral Minds

Author: Sean Moffitt, Grey Swan Guild Founder and CEO, Cygnus Ventures

“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” — Hunter S. Thompson

These last two years have seen the meteoric rise of generative AI capabilities like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Jasper, Google Gemini, Notion, Komo and others. These platforms have been transformative in how we work, how we search and research, and how we produce. At the risk of being controversial, despite all their AI powers, they are pretty darn average at peering into an unknown future (I can already hear the “ats” from my AI brethren).

For the moment at least, they could produce something you might expect from a safe, unseasoned strategic planner, analyst or futurist. Try it yourself and use the prompt “tell me the 5 most important wild card about the future”. I havbe many times before this posts and well ... the results are decent and expected, but most firms aren’t paying or acting on decent or expected.

AI platforms are not constructed to build an understanding (at least independently) about the edges of the future. This shouldn’t be startling. It’s true for three reasons. First, AI tools are math machines that consolidate, synthesize and produce the average or typical answers of what they been prompted to seek - it’s what make them effective, but not extraordinarily lateral in their outputs. Also, the platforms try to avoid producing hallucinations as much as possible to ensure credibility, and thus, steer clear of producing what might seem like extreme or wild card answer. Finally, the ability to abstract is a uniquely human trait — we need minimal information, can consider opposable thoughts routinely, and can correct our mistaken thinking quickly — less so for current AI models according to NYU’s Center for Data Science. At least for now, talented humans can imagine and judge the wild cards of the future better than our latge langue model cousins (although using AI as an assistant along the way is admittedly amazingly helpful).

The Challenge with SWOT

For the last 60 years if you asked most leaders and managers, what is their go-to tool for surfacing a viewpoint on their worlds — SWOT would likely be the answer. SWOT is a decent tool for its purpose — it’s quick, easy to understand and thus everybody can contribute.

John Smart in his book Introduction to Foresight: Executive Edition makes three very salient points about SWOT and the need for a better lens into strategy production:

• Order of operations — SWOT demands companies look internally first (SW) followed by external factors (OT) — as foresighters we believe this is flawed and leads to primacy bias and the what-I-already-know, garbage in, garbage out executive work effort
• valence of considerations — SWOT analysis puts demarcation lines into the unequivocally good or bad 2x2 boxes and tends to have a negativity, loss aversion and sunk cost bias; from academic research Smart provides about successful foresight study — the sentiment needs to be rebalanced and ordered positive to negative to be effective (see more down below)
• semantical categories — beyond the order and valence issues oF SWOT, Strengths and Weaknesses, in particular, are flawed categories that don’t recognize all contributing elements. These labels dismiss elements that may be outside a company’s four walls and thus, blur with the external orientation of opportunities and threats. We need better nomenclature.

We applaud Smart’s voluminous work to try to do foresight better. We think we can push it even further. Let’s try.

The Opposites of Foresight

There is a goldilocks effect in foresight. Not too pessimisstic, or you will be seen as an Eeyore, the curmudgeonly donkey in Winnie the Pooh books, that can not aspire to a better foot forward. Not too optimistic, or you risk becoming a Pollyanna , at risk of seeing the good and positive in everything blinded to reality and the true sentiment of the crowd. But where is that line?

It can be unfortunate that seeing foresight clearly can take on a political ideology. Popular US election slogans like Trump’s “Make America Great Again” and Barack Obama’s “Yes, We Can” are not developed by accident. They evoke clearly the appeal from the varying conservative and progressive constituencies they attract. Republicans and the right generally have a positive view of nostalgia and seek to revert or maintain the status quo. Democrats and the left generally have a negative view of the past, and seek a better future. It’s interesting but dangerous to apply at an individual level but plays out in the dominent news and political narratives.

In research Smart cites, Gabriele Oettingen, in her book Rethinking Positive Thinking, points to twenty years of research that suggest positive thinking by itself does not evoke better futures but that mentally contrasting both sides, optimism and pessimism, and importantly, peering into the positive first, leads to much better performance in three areas — foresight (50–100% less prediction error), productivity (30–150% getting more done) and persistence/motivation.

So when we consider various foresight activities, we see the optimism-pessimism Opposable Mind balance at work:

• Visioning & Selling (8-to-1 optimism to pessimism sentiment ratio)
• Leadership, Adaptation & Relationship Management (4-to-1 O:P)
• Opportunity and Advantage Assessment (or the SO in SWOT) (2:1 O:P)
• Strategic Planning, Sentiment Audit and Realistic Portrayal (1:1 O:P)
• Disruption Implications and Risk Assessment (or the WT in SWOT) (1:2 O:P)
• Critique and Critical Review & Assessment (1:4 O:P)
• Mass Influence, Conflict and Panic Reaction (1:8 O:P)

This is a powerful insight to recognize the optimism and pessimism ratios our fellow peers, media and institutions use to be effective. Not one is summarily good or bad, but is designed for different elements of the foresight pie. In total, balancing opposable minds and processes leads to better foresight, with the caveat of looking at the positive first is generally more effective.

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.” — James Branch Cabell

A reminder of the area our continuing Grey Swan series is covering:

Grey Swan Definition: Grey Swans are those unlikely but conceivable forces, capable of being thought about, prepared for, with impacts big enough to shake the world, for better or worse.

The Full Collection of Grey Swan Methods & Frameworks

“The Chinese character for “crisis,” he pointed out to me, combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” — Roger Martin, The Opposable Mind

Method #13: ADOR Edges

Our ADOR Edges tool is the next generation of SWOT and an adapted approach of a little known framework ADOR (invented by 4U Foresight University). When I spotted this tool for the first time, I saw the benefit of the familiar, progressive and need to stretch for unknowns. The familiar as it obviously had roots in a four quadrant SWOT-like approach. The progressive in better documenting the categories, and tackling positive and external developments first. And the stretch to ensure that four levels of foresight thinking get applied into each quadrant considering the dominant and well-accepted consensus but also documenting the possible, improbable and extreme. Our hybrid tool provides the whys and the whats of both high probability consensus thinking and lower probability, high impact Grey Swan thinking.

“Success and failure are two edges of the same blade, two sides of the same coin. To fear one is to forever deny the possibility of the other.” -Michelle Sagara

Invented by: Developed by John Smart of Foresight University — a multidisciplinary group that realizes thepower, promise and first-generation disruptions and risks of exponential science and technologies and also adds rigour into putting foresight into leadership. Adapted by Sean Moffitt of Futureproofing and Cygnus Ventures to serve the needs of Grey Swan thinking and considering less than certain (<25% chance) possibilities

Category: Strategic planning and development, Divergent/convergent thinking, Environmental assessment, Organizational auditing, Decision-making and theory, Foresight Development

Why we Love It as a Grey Swan Tool: ADOR Edges plays with multi-dimensional futures — not uniformly good or bad, what happens inside or outside your four walls, or what is probable vs. possible — it recognizes futures are messy and that we can play with opposing forces to tease out actionable views and plans.

Overcomes the sin of: SWOT-itis — coming to the table with your inherited and acquired strategic gripes and critiques as a collaboration, and expecting revolutionary new thinking. Instead, ADOR Edges forces a balance of positive followed by constructively pessimistic, external environment shifts followed by internal events, and accepts that four levels of possibility may need to be looked at.

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” — William Arthur Ward

ADOR Edges Work Preceded By:

• Define the Deliverable: Clearly focus and make relevant the purpose of the ADOR Edges exercise and analysis — be it related to a specific project, business decision, or strategic plan.
• Balanced Team: Include individuals from different areas or perspectives to get a comprehensive view. Diversity in experience and knowledge can provide valuable insights, but make clear that each group will operate with the four mindsets of the tool — we do not need 100% perma-fanatics or perma-critics.
• Progressive Environment Scan: Get participants to venture externally and internally and look for aspects in sequence — positive then negative, external then internal. Sequence is so important to capture the benefits of this exercise. Consider all 4 squares and 16 facets of the ADOR Edges tool (visualized above) with supporting evidence, analysis, signals and probabilities to support.

The Heart of the ADOR Edges Work:

• Scan and Identify Advantages — Find and examine the external positive factors (i.e. benchmarks, data, expertise, advances) of the external environment (e.g. market trends, regulatory changes, technological advancements, or untapped customer segments) that give us an advantage or show progress. Categorize a manageable set of factors by possibility ranges: core advantages (likely), possible key progress (<25% likelhood) , fortunate wild card developments (<10% likelihood) and extreme & exponential advancements (<1% likelihood).
• Scan and Identify Disruptions — Find and examine external undesirable or unanticipated limitations or challenges that could significantly impact your progress (e.g. competition, economic conditions, or industry shifts). Categorize a set of manageable factors by possibility ranges: biggest disruptions, conceivable upheavals, extraordinary/revolutionary headwinds, and staggering/almost unbelievable chaos.
• Evaluate and Identify Opportunities — List and examine internal factors that positively accumulate our benefits or reduce our risks (e.g. strategies, innovations, assets, behaviours, or models). Categorize a set of manageable factors by possibility ranges: top opportunities, powerful potentialities, chance fortunate developments, and almost unimaginable breakthroughs
• Evaluate and Identify Risks— List and examine internal
  factors that could negatively impact your objective (e.g. gaps in resources, expertise, or operational inefficiencies). Categorize a set of manageable factors by possibility ranges: key risks, reasonable liability exposures, cautionary remote dangers, and existential unknown peril.
• Ranks Top Factors by Category : Rank the combined likelihood, impact and ability to respond/influence to each factor identified. Create a list of priorities across each of the 16 categories (4 quadrants x 4 possibility levels).
• Explore Balanced Strategies and Plans for Each: Apply teams and resources to tap into the insights and use tthe discussions to create actionable startegies and tangible plans based on an equal balance of external/internal, positive/negative and a 40/30/20/10 split on priority levels.

ADOR Edges work followed by:

• Monitor and Referee Bias: ADOR Edge sessions are a great way to see the leadership styles of participants individually and in aggregate. Appoint an observer to consider the mindsets, behaviours, biases, tendencies and gaps people use to evaluate their environment, organization and strategies.
• Create teams of ADOR excellence: Once established as a tool, document how these efforts work in your environment and apply to a broader set of activities and applications , with initial participants playing the role of champions and ambassadors for the balanced approach.

Additional Commentary on ADOR Edges:

“With ADOR Edges we are standing on the shoulders of management thinking champions who have improved how we do strategy and exploration better over the last half century. You have to admit it’s a much different and faster world now and although we talk a good game — there are four key gaps to address in practice across these planning efforts. Most organizational strategies tend to be: insular, past or present-based, focused on the annoyances, and acting only on near certainty. We need to inject more externalities, foresights, balancing perspectives and possibilities into these efforts. ADOR Edges redresses these issues without looking so foreign to the steadfast ‘this is how we have always done it strategy overlords.’” — Sean Moffitt

Grey Swans — A Month of Specialty Posts:

This is number thirteen of a set of fifteen posts on different methods and frameworks for chasing Grey Swans. but we have so much other commentary on this valuable but often overlooked chase for the non-obvious:

• I — Grey Swan Week and defining Grey Swans
• II — Our 2023 Report Card of Grey Swans (last year’s review and performance)
• III — Fifteen Ways to Hunt for Grey Swans (methods and frameworks) — #1 CIPHER,
• #2 SCAMPER
• #3 SUPERCAFFEINATED U
• #4 FUTURES WHEEL
• #5 CONE OF POSSIBILITIES
• #6 WEAK SIGNALS
• #7 SWAN SOURCING
• #8 SCENARIO ARCHETYPES
• #9 OUTSIDE-IN COLLISIONS
• #10 POSSIBILITY PREMORTEMS
• #11 RED TEAMING
• #12 WHAT IF … EXPLORATION
• #13 ADOR EDGES
• #14 CRITICAL UNCERTAINTIES
• #15 MULTI-VIEW SCENARIOS
• IV — Fifty Grey Swan Wild Card Influences in 2025 (ranking the categories)
• V — Twelve Grey Swans Revealed (<25%) — Cloudy Swans
• VI — Twelve Grey Swans Revealed (<5%) — Stormy Swans
• VII — Twelve Grey Swans Revealed (<1%) — Shadow Swans

Stay tuned with us here, as well as on our website for all the rundowns.

Participate in our Hunt for Grey Swans

Don’t worry it’s a humane hunt. We have already invited some of our regular contributors to provide us the seeds of what will be our authoritative list of one hundred 2024 Grey Swans.

These are the improbable, disruptive and remote developments that decision makers better keep at least one eye peeled open for so they don’t blindside them. Perhaps you have some you’ve considered yourself.

Be among the most talented and wide-eyed observers. Let us know your Grey Swan additions and we will add them to our annual collection with our 2024 Grey Swan Guild Submission Form. Other benefits and collabroations may follow.

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Grey Swan Guild — Making Sense of the World and Next Grey Swans

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