Snippets and Titbits 1. The Zoo of Future Risks

My first ‘Snippet and Titbit’—the first random reading or thought morsel I would like to share more widely! This one is fun but also important – especially for those of you who think the future is totally unpredictable, a mystery, while actually, it is a menagerie!

Animal metaphors have become common to describe the extent of predictability of major events. They often emerge from global shifts and megatrends which, as I highlight in one of my upcoming blog posts, we should be tracking to inform strategy and forward-looking evaluation. Here are some:

Black Swans, popularised by Nassim Taleb, are rare, unpredictable shocks with massive impact—only explained after they happened. The rise of the Internet or Google, the 2004 tsunami and 9/11 are positive and negative examples. All we can do is develop shock-absorption systems against any such ‘outlier’ negative shocks.

Grey Swans are ‘somewhat predictable’, extreme impact events that are conceivable and plausible but still surprising when they occur. They are failures of imagination or analysis, blindsiding us not because we could not foresee them, but because we failed to connect available dots or plan well-informed scenarios—consider COVID-19, the 2008 financial crisis, a major cyberattack or the ongoing rapid AI disruption. (And the election of Trump, a Grey Swan event although the intensity of his actions to date are more akin to a Black Swan). They show us that we should invest in predictive capacity, evidence-informed scenario planning and other forms of foresight.

Grey Rhinos (first described by Michele Wucker) are obvious, highly probable, high-impact threats we choose to ignore despite their visibility and high probability—essentially failures of will. They are charging straight at us—predictable and demanding urgent action. Examples include climate change, pandemics and the looming US debt crisis. The challenge we face in addressing them before they hit is behavioural and political: it requires disrupting vested interests, making uncomfortable trade-offs, investing resources in prevention rather than immediate gains, or focusing on systemic change which is seen as cumbersome and difficult.

Green Swans (according to the Bank of International Settlements) are climate-linked systemic collapses—predictable in trajectory but catastrophic in scale, like ecosystem failures, or climate-triggered migration and financial crises.

Green Swans also have another interpretation, offering hope—rare, exponential solutions that radically improve sustainability, positive surprises with cascading benefits. Examples are renewable energy breakthroughs or circular economy revolutions. These rare, positive disruptions prove collapse is not inevitable if we dare to amplify them.

White swans are major events that are predictable, expected and well understood based on current knowledge and historical patterns. They are the opposite of Black Swans. They do not surprise us, their impact is limited, and we can plan for them quite routinely—such as annual monsoons, seasonal flu outbreaks and recurring economic recessions.

Elephants in the Room are truths we deny—like inequality or natural resource depletion—making them paradoxically the most dangerous. Silence magnifies the destruction they wreak! They must be named, or they trample everything.

We waste energy fearing Black Swans while Grey Rhinos charge straight at us and Elephants crush the room!

Instead, we need to build systems resilient enough to handle the Grey Rhinos and Grey Swans we can see coming, honest enough to name the Elephants we have been avoiding, and visionary enough to nurture the Green Swans that can transform everything.

I would love to see what African, Asian or Indigenous versions of these animals would look like, with their own interpretation of the predictability of events. Worth exploring!