A big part of any manager’s job is to THINK.

Yet some well-intentioned managers dwell way too much on the future. They draft detailed one-, three- and five-year plans after a series of long brainstorming meetings with staffers.

There’s just one problem. Forecasting the future in any real depth is a waste of time.

Getting your employees to gaze into a crystal ball and guess about, say, consumer demand, energy usage or economic trends is foolhardy. No one knows—and the odds of making an accurate prediction are slim.

There’s another trap with making long-range plans based on sketchy assumptions: By relying on long-term hunches, you and your team may make faulty short-term strategic decisions. For instance, you may choose to invest too much upfront in a new technology based on a bet that it will win out over other technologies in the years ahead. Yet any experienced techie will warn you that abrupt changes can uproot the best laid plans.

Rather than plan the future, extract lessons from the past. Study cause-effect relationships. Identify lessons learned. Take responsibility for mistakes—and encourage your employees to do the same.

That will lead to far more wisdom than casting a net into an uncertain future and pretending to understand more than you–and your workers–can possibly know.

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