What “Super-Forecasters” Can Teach Us About Making Better Decisions

In an age of accelerating change, the ability to think strategically about the future is no longer optional—it’s a growing necessity. Yet many people still make important decisions based on gut instinct, guesswork, wishful thinking, or cling to obsolete methods that no longer work.

But today, geopolitical instability, trade wars, technological disruptions, and climate disasters often collide. The need to cultivate better forecasting habits is greater than ever. Business, government, and education leaders are wise not to assume that next quarter will look like the last, or that present trends will continue in the same direction. The digital age demands that we assault our assumptions, develop better antennae to alert us to disruptive changes, and futurize our decisions by looking farther ahead.

That’s where the practice of “superforecasting” comes in.

Over the past decade, a quiet revolution has reshaped how we think about and anticipate the future.. It all started when University of Pennsylvania researchers set out to identify people who consistently make more accurate predictions about complex global events. These researchers organized forecasting tournaments and recruited dozens of non-category experts to make educated guesses about where specific events would lead. Recruits weren’t intelligence analysts, hedge fund managers, or television pundits. Instead, they were librarians, engineers, and retirees. And lo and behold, they outperformed the expert prognosticators time and again.

What sets these highly competent forecasters apart? In their book Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, authors Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner share their secrets. Turns out that participants who consistently scored highest weren’t necessarily smarter, just more disciplined problem-solvers. They broke big problems into smaller pieces, updated their beliefs frequently based on new evidence, kept track of their prediction accuracy, and refined their methods over time.

They embraced what the authors call probabilistic thinking—assigning confidence levels to predictions and adjusting them as new data emerged. Most importantly, they were intellectually humble. They didn’t pretend to know how the future would unfold; they just got better at estimating its contours.

We can all benefit from their strategies. To become a better forecaster in your personal and professional lives, try these steps:

1. Start with the base rate. Always ask: What usually happens in situations like this? You can use historical data as your anchor before considering specifics. This prevents you from being swayed by flashy outliers.

2. Break big questions into smaller, more manageable parts. Instead of asking “Will AI disrupt my industry?”, try: “ Which tasks in my industry are most likely to be taken over by machines or AI systems?” “How fast is adoption moving in comparable sectors?” Breaking down big questions allows you to assign probabilities to parts of a larger puzzle.

3. Balance inside and outside views. The “inside view” focuses on the unique traits of your specific case. The “outside view” looks at broader patterns and benchmarks. Superforecasters consciously toggle between the two to avoid tunnel vision.

4. Regularly update your beliefs. Treat your assumptions as hypotheses, not convictions. When new evidence arises, adjust your position—even if it means admitting you were wrong. Flexibility is a strength.

5. Assign numerical probabilities to your predictions. Avoid vague terms like “likely” or “maybe.” Instead, get comfortable estimating probabilities: a 60 percent chance, 85 percent, 30 percent. It sharpens your thinking and makes you trackable over time.

6. Add forecasting to your journal entries. Write down your predictions, your reasoning, and your confidence level. Revisit them periodically. This habit builds self-awareness and reveals your cognitive blind spots.

7. Seek disconfirmation, not just confirmation. Actively search for information that could prove you wrong. This counteracts confirmation bias and forces you to pressure-test your thinking.

8. Cultivate a diverse information diet. Avoid ideological echo chambers. Seek out sources from different ideological, cultural, and disciplinary perspectives. Diversity of input makes for more resilient thinking.

We can’t predict the future with certainty, but we can learn to navigate it more skillfully. As the superforecasters have shown, finding the future first is not about clairvoyance—it’s about curiosity, adaptability, and humility.