Ende August haben wir uns unter dem formidablen Titel «Auspicia ex Avibus» im Newsletter über die bescheidenen Vorhersagefähigkeiten unserer Experten mit Blick auf unseren gesetzlich festgelegten Umwandlungssatz ausgelassen. Jetzt werden wir in einem Artikel von Alex Murrell aufs schönste bestätigt. Er hat Prognosen von Deloitte, McKinsey und Boston Consulting Group unter die Lupe genommen und verschiedene Untersuchungen zu den Trefferquoten analysiert. Das Resultat ist niederschmetternd. Er schreibt:
«Viewed through the lens of Tetlock, it becomes clear that the 15,000 predictions with which I began this article are not forecasts but fantasies.
The projections look precise. They sound scientific. But these forecasts are nothing more than delusions with decimal places. Snake oil dressed up as statistics. Fiction masquerading as fact. They provide a feeling of certainty but they deliver anything but.
In his 1998 book The Fortune Sellers, the business writer William A. Sherden quantified our consensual hallucination:
“Each year the prediction industry showers us with $200 billion in (mostly erroneous) information. The forecasting track records for all types of experts are universally poor, whether we consider scientifically oriented professionals, such as economists, demographers, meteorologists, and seismologists, or psychic and astrological forecasters whose names are household words.”
The comparison between professional predictors and fortune tellers is apt.
From tarot cards to tea leaves, palmistry to pyromancy, clear visions of cloudy futures have always been sold to susceptible audiences. Today, marketers are one such audience. It’s time we opened our eyes.
Let’s stop clamouring over the ten-year trend decks. Let’s stop counting on the constant conjecture of consultants. Let’s stop trying to guess the future and start trying to build it.”
Artikel Murrell / Kommentar Auspicia