Leaders are effectively preparing to leave people stranded in the future, by not preparing our organizations and the individuals within, for the coming turbulence of future shifts in the present.
As Thomas Frey, Senior Futurist at the Davinci Institute shares, “Humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in all of human history.” Changes that we see accelerating forward more and more, faster and faster, day by day. We find that we are definitely living in much more exponential times. For which Frey adds to these coming changes, “Risk factors will increase exponentially.”
The bells of change are clanging all around us, but it is up to us to determine if we are going to pay attention to their ringing. A ringing that is becoming more incessant and accelerated as each day goes by. Changes that are broad and deep in their scope and intention, especially in how the shifts are and will alter our world and how we live and work forever. We hear of automation and artificial intelligence that is aiming at ending jobs in certain sectors, or of driverless cars focused on eliminating the necessity for ownership.
How these changes will affect us in the future is yet to be seen, be that positive or negative.
We just know that it will be different…
More and more, in the face of the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) that these shifts are creating, the more proactive we can and must be in preparing and future-casting our way forward, then the better prepared we will be to face these changes with greater awareness, adaptability and agility.
Which will be vital in preparing our organizations and people for the future, especially as we see the disruptive nature of the changes that lie before us now and on the horizon.
Whether it is in the next 5 or 20 years, there is this expectation that we are going to see big changes and shifts in and coming to our institutions and organizations, such as government, healthcare, education, as well as the economy and finance, work and jobs, basic services, technology, including automation and artificial intelligence, communication, transportation and delivery, manufacturing and construction, and even the foods we eat and produce.
The thing is that we cannot say how or when these changes will occur, or even if they will occur. But preparing for these kinds of shifts and changes in rigorous in its proposition.
Which means that being proactive in preparing assures that we are not being reactive and flat-footed when and if these changes do come. As Hemingway says, “Gradually, then suddenly.” Relevance is often lost when we find ourselves lulled into a sense of complacency during the “gradually” period, being left in a reactive and overwhelmed state when “suddenly” appears.
When our organizations and individuals don’t prepare for next steps in the present of the “gradually” then we find ourselves stranded in the future when the state of “suddenly” arrives, often in a volatile fashion.
We have to be aware that we are living in a very different world that is accelerating at a much more turbulent pace, which requires greater awareness, especially of our thinking towards our systems and processes if we are going to become and stay future ready. Which takes not only a greater level of systems thinking, but design thinking as well.
There will always be fear and anxiety in considering the future, especially a future that is claiming such exponential shifts and disruptions, but having greater awareness and clarity of these coming changes will not only provide the urgency, but the proactive preparation to push past the uncertainty that often mires us in stasis and static ways of doing and being.
In times of accelerated change, disruption and discontinuity, how we leverage these shifts and changes will determine our future relevance.
Which requires us to begin to ask very different questions:
How do we prepare for a jobless future?
A gig economy?
A workforce possibly decimated by automation and artificial intelligence?
What do these changes mean for our organizations, institutions and the future of work?
How does it change the focus of education in preparing our students for this future?
Asking these questions not only allows us to get better at designing, iterating and test-driving our way forward into the future…
It allows us to not leave our people and our organizations stranded in the future.
“We are thinking about the future in a local and linear fashion…today we live in a world that is global and exponential.” -Peter Diamondis
DCulberhouse 