There is nothing we like more in the world of work than a big bold prediction. Throughout my working life I’ve been bombarded with confident assertions about the future – first in print, at conferences and later online. The advent of the echo chamber of social media amplifies the latest fad, creating an almost overwhelming sense of universal confirmation and certainty.

But the reality is that most of these big changes, these bold predictions have been wrong.

One of the major reasons why, is that they tend to be incredibly insular and fail to take into account broader macro economic and societal events. Of course the defenders would say that, ceteris paribus their assertions would have come true. But the idea of all things remaining equal is theoretical nonsense and wholly paradoxical. If anyone had written an article five years ago on how businesses should handle a global pandemic, it would have had a minimal readership and been placed firmly in the “niche” classification. Or how about a global economic crisis driven by a European war? And don’t get me started about BRIC.

Which is why statements about “disruption of the workplace”, or “the future of work” are just farcical and a little bit insulting for the majority of the workforce who are entirely focused on the here and now, dealing with escalating energy prices and feel like they’ve been disrupted enough over the last two years without a bunch of consultants and guns for hire telling them that they want to artificially create more. What they want is stability, security and work that allows them to lead their life.

Far from being harmless theory, the group think that coalesces around these predictions and assertions is a dangerous distraction from the focus that we should be placing on our organisations and the way in which we look after our colleagues and our workforces. We listen to false prophets at our peril when the real source of intelligence and wisdom is all around us if only we choose to recognise it.

In reality, predictions of the future are as old as time and will continue for as long as the human race. But what we can change is our mindless repetition and augmentation of them without reference back to the living realities of the majority of the working population and a large does of pragmatism and, “it depends”. Let’s start by fixing the now, the future will come whether we like it or not and not even the brightest star can predict how that will be.