Disruptive trends - What lies ahead in an unknowable world

Introduction

This report captures some of the emerging trends that are largely driven by increasing disruption. These trends might well be indicative of a forthcoming reset in society. As you will read many of these trends are eroding the foundations upon which contemporary society rest.

Individuals, organisations that acknowledge these trends and adapt accordingly will be at an advantage. It is particularly important that business, government and societal leaders acknowledge that seismic change lies ahead and prepare their people and organisations accordingly.

This is a live document and so will be updated as new signals become apparent. Please note that some of the trends are within our control and thus may well end up being transient in nature. Disruption will no doubt have a disruptive impact on these trends.

Thus some are likely to be incorrect given enough time. It would not be unfair to say that  some of these trends may in fact not be trends and are simply lose bits of data that the author has overly leant upon.

The focus of this report is not so much to be accurate as to be a clarion call for everyone to realise the world is changing dramatically and this will affect us both individually and professionally. It will impact organisations, governments, societies and the planet as a whole. Some of these trends will be a cause for concern and some will give you hope in respect of humanity’s future.

Recognisng Societal trend #3, I have structured the report so that you can dip into the trends that catch your eye. Beyond that, I encourage you to read the next section on Disruption, along with An Intelligent response section and The Conclusion.

This collection of trends is somewhat overwhelming. It would be easy to either deny what lies ahead or to simply take your deckchair to the beach to have a front row seat when the tidal waves arrive. The reality is that it is too late to do the latter as many of the waves have already struck land.

As a leader, our role is to shape the future at some level. In many respects, we are all leaders and so whilst we may not all be able to influence government policy or the corporate vision, we can prepare ourselves to dance with the associated consequences.

The good news is that we as a species are wired for disruption. So now is a good time to rekindle your natural adaptive capability.

Again this is a living document. Your feedback is always welcome.

Disruption

Much like the mythical boiled frog many of us are in danger of being caught out by the accelerating pace of disruption. There are obvious signs such as advancements in consumer tech and regenerative AI. Wars are perhaps seen as ‘one offs’ rather than indicative of a trend. Even civil unrest or lone wolf attacks on strangers might similarly be perceived as isolated events. But even isolated events can contribute / trigger to ongoing and accelerating trends.

The reality is that we as individuals, and even organisationally, are all at the mercy of macroenvironmental forces. These can be natural, ie related to, for example:

• Weather – Typhoons

• Geology – Earthquakes

• Biology – Pandemics

• Cosmic – Solar flares.

  
  

Or manmade, for example:

• Geopolitics

• Economics

• Technology advancement

• Extraterrestrial colonialism

• Viruses

• Pollution

• Deforestation

• Mining

• Culture

• Media and social media

• Supply chains.

  
  

Many of these forces are compounding and even conflating to make the world essentially unknowable. The world has thus become more complex. Everything is connected to everything and thus everything impacts everything. Thus it is impossible to predict what lies ahead.

One can state with confidence that the modern world as we know it is based on certain assumptions that are increasingly proving to be false.  For example, the trend of upward mobility in respect of the socioeconomic improvement of a generation relative to previous generations. Or organisationally – past successes being indicative of future successes.

Accelerating disruption is debunking these assumptions. Thus the foundations on which modern society is based are loosening. At one extreme this could lead to revolution or anarchy as societies readjust to the new realities. Ideally there will be an orderly transition to what might be referred to as the post-industrial era. The smoothness of this transition will be largely down to the foresight of our business, government and civil society leaders.

The signals – In summary

So let’s look at the signals that are suggestive that a major reset is underway. Whilst it is tempting to categorise these signals into say organisational, societal and individual, this sort of compartmentalised thinking ultimately fails to recognise that everything impacts everything in an increasingly disruptive world. Nonetheless, I have endeavoured to do this to create (the illusion of) structure and to ease reader navigation.

Global

1.      A radical demographic shift

2.      Increasing corporate influence in global affairs

3.      The retailisation of anger

4.      An increase in extreme natural phenomena

5.      A surge in economic migration

6.      A shift from information to biological technology

7.      A resurgence in nationhood

Societal

1.      A decentralisation of government

2.      Entrenched polarisation

3.      Shallower thinking

4.      Rising incivility

5.      The shredding of the social contract

6.      Increasing hardship

7.      Goodbye rote learning

8.      The emergence of community

9.      Extreme short termism

Organisational

1.      The rise in zombie businesses

2.      The demise of the heroic leader

3.      The fictionalisation of strategy

4.      The demonisation of efficiency

5.      The culling of managers

6.      The demise of digital transformation

7.      The rise of natural cognition management

8.      Increasing worker burnout

Professional

1.      The end of pseudo-productivity

2.      The end of careers – Gig economy

3.      Increasing economic irrelevance

4.      Increasing precarity

5.      Sayonara gold watch

Personal

1.      The end of three squares

2.      Sleep – but different

3.      The dissolution of the weekend

4.      Feeling more human

5.      Feeling more freedom

6.      Embracing stochasticity

Global

1.   A radical demographic shift

The global population is getting older. That is to say that the increase in the number of old people exceeds that of young people. This is a sign that we are gravitating towards eventual population decline. It has already started in some countries and by circa 2060 will likely be a global trend.

Knowing this, young people are reluctant to support a system that whilst currently benefitting the old is unlikely to benefit them in their old age. The pension industry feels like a Ponzi scheme that is on the verge of collapse. This will have a profound impact on young people’s attitudes towards devoting the bulk of their life to work. Managers will struggle to motivate these ‘Gen Zoomers’.

The good news for old people is that services will be increasingly oriented towards their needs. Think:

• Care homes options.

• Daytime nightclubs.

• An uptick in longevity research.

2.   Increasing corporate influence in global affairs

Some companies have wealth that exceeds the GDP of some nations. If such nations ran into trouble, they could be bailed out by a tech giant. Imagine:

• Italy – An Apple country

• Canada – Brought to you by Microsoft

• Amazon Australia.

Thus some companies have the resources to influence national and even global policies. Countries have citizens, whereas some companies have loyal fans. Being able to mobilise a billion or more people is a powerful resource, particularly when they have a greater affiliation to the corporate brand than their nation.

This is starting to manifest itself in big tech players orienting the world in respect of controlling government operations, influencing citizen behaviour and capturing / monetising our personal data. Apple, for example, through its Apple Watch is on track to becoming the world’s largest healthcare company. This worries me as an Android user.

3.   The retailisation of anger

Social media may well have started out with the intention of developing collective wisdom through unbounded discourse. But to make it economically viable, it had to promote attention over civility.

Angry and hurtful responses draw more attention than those that are supportive. And advertisers seem to like attention regardless of how it is generated. The platform owners have made it easier for the advertisers by enabling likeminded users to gather in what are often trigger-themed groups. This gives rise to deep polarisation.

These echo chambers are in essence market segments that make it even easier for advertisers to promote their services. The platform owners have turned anger management into a data-driven science.

Ultimately society will lose out as reasoned civil discourse, an opportunity to learn from people who see the world differently, is replaced by synchronised yelling.

4.   An increase in extreme natural phenomena

Planet Earth is naturally the recipient of extreme natural phenomena, courtesy of its precessional axial spin coupled with the elliptical shape of its orbit around the Sun.

Gravitational effects from surrounding celestial bodies also have an impact, as does solar behaviour and the occasional sizeable meteor. We are due another ice age, but that might be tomorrow or in a thousand years’ time.

However mankind’s behaviour is likely to introduce further shocks. For example, the felling of large swathes of forest impacts the weather. Pollution has a destructive impact on coral reefs which act as natural sea defences. These are just two examples.

The exponential impact of such actions is such that they go unnoticed for a period. Invisibly, these individual forces quietly compound and then eventually conflate at which point we become acutely aware of their impact. These manmade own goals will likely accelerate / exacerbate the impact of the natural extreme phenomena that are part and parcel of living on this small rock.

5.   A surge in economic migration

People naturally want to avoid poverty, war, persecution and to seek a better life for their families. The trend is to head towards liberal democracies. These emigrants are willing to take great risks for a better life.

To reflect this growing demand, organised criminals have developed human smuggling and even trafficking services.

Increasing geopolitical tensions, economic precarity and natural disasters will add fire to the fuel in respect of large-scale migration.

6.   A shift from information to biological technology

The twentieth century was the era of IT. The 21^st century is the era of biology. Genes are the new bits. Digital computing with its mechanistic approach is giving way to a more probabilistic approach to problem solving. The world is turning away from silicon and towards biology as a means of both improving computing capacity and solving some of mankind’s thorniest challenges.

Living organisms are optimised for uncertainty and are highly adaptive. Thus there is much about biology we can apply to organisational design. As many nations grow older, the interest in curing death is becoming more acute. This may well give rise to a shift from illness to wellness. Though Big Food and Big Pharma may do what they can to obstruct such a shift.

7.   The emergence of multi-polarism

Since the early nineties, the US has been the global superpower.  Some countries have benefited from supporting the US agenda and some have found themselves an ‘enemy of the States’.

Some countries have resented this geopolitical reality or at least felt that a US-centric approach was not aligned with their needs. Some of these countries are either now or soon to be in a position to create their own economic ecosystems. Their defence capability and access to resources is boosting their influence in global affairs. 

China comes to mind. But other poles might include:

• The European Union

• Russia

• Brazil

• Japan

• India.

  
  

This is not to suggest that the US has peaked in respect of power or even that China’s ascendency will continue. How this will play out is unclear. But it is not difficult to imagine a de-globalised world where trade and even the Internet is divided around multiple poles of power.

8.   A resurgence in nationhood

Covid and war have made countries nervous in respect of relying on global supply chains. Thus there will likely be a trend towards either sourcing onshore or through one or more trading blocs. See The emergence of multi-polarism.

An exception to this might be the European Union where the goal is perhaps nation-lite. There are clear benefits and challenges associated with this experiment. The centralised decision-making model does not augur well as it reflects bureaucratic industrial era practice, which is ill-suited to a dynamic and increasingly volatile world. This is perhaps exhibited by a rise in nationalism in some member states.

Societal

1.   A decentralisation of government

In developing countries, disruption is a natural feature of people’s lives. In the developed world increasing disruption unsettles citizens. Governments could respond aggressively and suppress the associated discontent. Though this is not a sustainable approach, particularly when a government makes an enemy of the middleclass, unless totalitarianism is the goal.

A more intelligent approach would be to work with citizens to take a more distributed approach to embracing disruption. It is of course a little presumptuous to suggest governments will behave intelligently. But if increased centralisation is a government’s chosen approach, it will likely be followed by a bloody transition to something much more decentralised.

2.   Entrenched polarisation

Possibly it is the natural evolution of an increasingly digital society that opinions, beliefs and perspectives fall into one of two diametrically opposed camps. There is perhaps a sense that being at one end of the battlefield is safer than being in the middle.

Injustice abounds so there is no shortage of causes to align with and support. The problem emerges when an extreme position is taken, listening stops and group narcissism take over. The group is no longer looking for equality or parity but are pushing for dominance, which is just a variant of the original injustice.

Another manifestation of this is the emergence of departments dedicated to the cause of say DEI or sustainability. This is intended to signal that the organisation cares. But in practise, it:

• Segregates the issue by compartmentalising it and thus making it less of a strategic distraction.

• Inadvertently promotes the problem as there is now a department that relies on the problem existing.

• Fails to address the genuine opportunity of say fully embracing diversity. Thus DEI is perceived negatively as another box to tick or risk to be managed. The supposed beneficiaries lose out, as does the organisation.

• It feeds the wokeism argument used to maintain the status quo.

Given enough time, the associated noise-to-action ratio increases to the point where societal weariness kicks in. The cause becomes unpopular and so disappears into the background, where it will fester until a trigger of some sort moves it back to centre stage and in turn adds another barrier to genuine reconciliation.

3.   Shallower thinking

Content appears to be increasingly used as a form of self-medication, both as a sedative and a stimulant. It offers hormonal shots that either calm or excite us. Content is an easy way to reset ourselves from the pressures of reality.

The content providers compete for your attention, so they ramp up the dosage. If you compare films today with films of the mid twentieth century, you will note that the rate of scene change has increased ‘dramatically’.  More broadly, video is so easy to consume that reading is now seen as hard work.

But even video struggles to retain our attention. How many of us multi-task in respect of content consumption? The film you are watching isn’t keeping your attention, so you turn to your phone.

Social media provides an endless feed of content. So even our recent ancestors would be shocked at how much content we consume in the course of a day and thus how little time we spend engaging with reality.

Whilst it may be more correlation than causation, shallow thinking might well make us more impatient. We have become accustomed to getting what we want now and in large volumes. Think - all you can consume streaming media. Thus we end up with underdeveloped deferred gratification muscles. Thus endeavours that require some investment before a return is crystalised will become increasingly unattractive. This will make us increasingly vulnerable to ‘get rich quick’ schemes and erode our grit and overall resilience. A society comprising impatient citizens who are used to instant gratification will likely be a breeding ground for incivility. Think children let loose in a sweet shop.

This up-ramp of increasingly attention-grabbing content is turning us into shallow thinkers. Going deep on a topic feels too much like hard work. Ultimately shallow thinking results in decision making that one would expect from a child. This is not something we want in our leaders, or even in our scientists and philosophers.

Given the increasing weaponisation of content, whether that be to exploit us commercially or ideologically, we are perhaps losing our ability to think freely. Thus we are becoming increasingly programmable.

4.   Rising incivility

An increasingly unpredictable world makes us more anxious. Anxiety consumes mental bandwidth that would otherwise be used to pay attention to our environment and how we engage with it. Thus we are less likely to notice someone who needs a seat on a crowded train.  Or we overreact to the most minor of infractions.

Our increasing anxiety turns us into sociopaths. A society of sociopaths is an oxymoron.

A collapsed society is a breeding ground for disorder and chaos.

Disruptive forces that lie beyond government and citizen control may also choose to capitalise on this situation. Social media provides a mechanism for planting societal cluster bombs, including the weaponisation of vulnerable individuals. Think lit matches being thrown into a firework factory from different angles until it eventually explodes.

5.   The shredding of the social contract

A less violent but equally telling trend is the fraying of the social contract. This is a sign that governments are struggling to adapt to increasing disruption. Despite attempts to keep all the plates spinning, some are now starting to fall and smash.

A precursor to the smashing plate is the process of social contract modification. So for example, what might have been a free service, say a GP consultation, will be limited to three appointments per year. Caveats will start to emerge in respect of a given service.

So illnesses that can plausibly be considered as self-induced will fall outside the social contract, regardless of the underlying cause.

6.   Increasing hardship

The industrial era has been in part an exercise in reducing hardship. It has resulted in clear improvements in respect of health, quality of life and material wellbeing. Some have benefitted more than others, but overall the trend has been positive.

We expect our purchases to work and we increasingly choose them based on their social signalling value as well as their affordances in respect of comfort and convenience. 

There was a time when there was a correlation between academic achievement and socioeconomic mobility. Today tertiary education does not guarantee even a job, never mind a career. However by virtue of the associated student loan it does in many cases guarantee you a lifetime of being tethered to a societal yoke. This governmental claim on your lifetime earnings simply erodes one’s sense of freedom and contributes to a ratchetting up of stress for young people.

More broadly, Increased hardship for some might mean having to sell the holiday home or drop the country club membership. For others it will be uncertainty around where the next meal is coming from or for how long they will be able to keep a roof over their heads.

It is not so easy to monitor the changes in holiday home surrender rates. However an uptick in the level of homelessness and the number of foodbanks are more visible signals. 

7.   Goodbye rote learning

The arrival of the calculator diminished the need for children to learn their ‘times tables’. The arrival of the Internet and in particular Wikipedia made the need to retain the names of Henry the Eighth’s wives unnecessary. With the arrival of generative AI and AI-driven avatars, it is now possible to demonstrate your grasp of complex issues via your very own YouTube channel without needing anything approaching a grasp of the subject matter.

In the business world, as intelligent automation becomes more prevalent, the need for workers to learn the operations manual process steps will fade away.

It could be argued that this will make us less intelligent because increasingly every aspect of life will be technology assisted. Smarter technology requires us to be less smart. Clearly smarter technology and dumber people is not a good trend.

A more positive perspective is that by delegating rote tasks to the technology, we will have more mental bandwidth to apply to creative endeavours and deep learning. Imagine a world where people are completing their doctorates at 16.

8.   The emergence of community

Communities have been on the decline since the industrial revolution. However working from home has enabled people to reacquaint themselves with their families and in many cases see this as a positive. Increasing disruption is giving rise to challenges that are encouraging neighbours and the wider community to collaborate.

Emergencies such as flooding or supporting exiles from war zones can foster a common esprit de corp.

In respect of small towns and villages, increased working from home can stimulate the emergence of local services and thus local entrepreneurism. 

Clearly community development is more difficult outside of the cities if a significant percentage of the property in a village or town is owned by people whose main place of residence is elsewhere. However as working from home gains traction then such holiday homes may see an increase in owner usage.

Some local authorities recognise the importance of community and thus maintain community / social spaces. However these discretionary services are the first to go when they are under budgetary pressure.

9.   Extreme short termism

Random disruptions / shocks will make it more difficult for organisation to plan too far into the future.

At a personal level, Careers will be replaced by a more situationally aware opportunism. Gig work does not always require a fulltime commitment, so if something unexpected yet appealing pops up you can add it to your work portfolio. Gig work can stop abruptly for many reasons, so again it is unwise to be too rigid in respect of your professional journey.

Similarly, holiday planning horizons will shorten as no one knows for sure whether the target destination will be, in say nine months, caught up in a geopolitical or even geological challenge that will make it less attractive / safe.

Organisational

1.   The rise in zombie businesses

The traditional factory / process-centric model cannot cope with increasing disruption. Leaders of such organisations are masquerading profitability by focusing on cost cutting, rather than innovation. This is not sustainable. Their organisational model is dead, but to the investors they appear to be alive.

2.   The demise of the heroic leader

The traditional factory model, where in essence everyone followed a process, required at least one person to make all the big decisions. Thanks to Hollywood and the unhealthy ecosystem comprising business schools, business media, headhunters and management consultancies, this ‘saviour’ approach to leadership has become a given.

However it is no longer fit for purpose as it leads to sclerotic decision making and is a single point of existential failure.  This will be one of the last detectable signals because the old model is so entrenched. The business schools have turned the old model into a cash cow, so there is no incentive to change. Unfortunately we need a more distributed approach to leadership today if we are to reset society in an orderly manner.

Leaders of process-driven organisations (aka factories) are not leaders in the true sense. You know you are a leader when you turn around and see followers. What we have today are administrators of the factory machine. This is of course reflected in the name of that that prestigious business school qualification.

3.   The fictionalisation of strategy

Strategy is essential. Strategic plans are increasingly less so. Growing volatility is accelerating ‘business time’, so to speak. Thus strategic plans are out of date by the time the edits have been agreed and the save button has been pressed. Thus rendering the document a work of fiction.

Unfortunately this document underpins the system by which organisational health is established. Again this will be a late-stage realisation, as stock markets, analysts and investors are currently too focused on the next quarter to see the big picture.

Business and society are now real-time systems. That is to say, there will be consequences if threats, or opportunities, remain undetected.

4.   The demonisation of efficiency

Industrial era organisations and societies worship efficiency. It’s core to profitability. At a personal level, it allows us to squeeze more into our day. Thus feeding the undocumented spiritual practice of mindlessness.

Efficiency and failure do not sit well together. Failure is a consequence of experimentation. And experimentation is the price of innovation. Unfortunately in a world where novel situations abound, innovation is not an optional extra.

Consequently, organisations that fail to fail are bound to fail. This realisation will eventually result in a backlash against efficiency. However it is so ingrained into both business and society that we do not even recognise it as a guiding principle.

5.   The culling of managers

Managers exist to ensure reluctant workers do what they must in a timely manner. As we gravitate towards an increasingly gig-based economy, workers will become self-motivated and so won’t need extrinsic management pressure to deliver. The gig worker’s next gig will be easier to acquire if they do a good job on this one, so there is no need for carrot dangling or stick waving theatre. In any case, task management is something for which AI is well equipped. Increasingly more of us will have an ‘algo boss’.

6.   The demise of digital transformation

Despite the overwhelming evidence that so call digital transformation generally ends in failure, leaders still take the view that a technology makeover is going to somehow futureproof their organisation. Think family members insisting their elderly dying relative dons street style clothing in the hope that this will lead to a reversal in aging.

7.   The rise of natural cognition management

Some organisations will recognise that a more distributed approach to leadership is required, and this will result in all staff having to bring their cognitive faculties to bear.

Think ubiquitous leadership. Everyone will bear the burden of responsibility but will also enjoy a high degree of autonomy and thus a greater opportunity to be creative.

Over time such organisations will simply be characterised by being more akin to successful living organisms than simply people-free technology-driven factories.

8.   Increasing worker burnout

An early signal that a business is failing is worker burnout. The emerging chasm between the strategic plan and reality typically results in a doubling down on efficiency management. Thus the hamster wheel is turned to spin mode.

Managers today seem to believe that their role is to get the most from their people, rather than their best. This is what happens when people are considered as resources.

Professional

1.   The end of pseudo-productivity

This is a term coined by productivity expert Cal Newport to highlight the problem managers have had in respect of managing the productivity of knowledge workers.

Productivity was easy to manage in the agricultural era, think ‘return on field’. In the early industrial era improvements in productivity could be measured in, for example, the number of cars produced per day. This metric could be increased by providing the assembly line workers with better tools, better ergonomic design and better training.

But how do you manage productivity when the work is more creative than mechanical? Academics are judged on their research paper prolificity. But this is no indication of output quality. ‘Number of paper citations’ is perhaps a better measurement, but that is to judge workers on outcomes that are not under their control. Having your paper mentioned on TV or in a pop science book may give it an unexpected social, and thus citation, boost. If someone in Sweden likes it, you might even get a Nobel prize.

Managing knowledge workers requires a high degree of trust. A poor understanding of productivity forces managers to focus on activity. So workers have learnt to appear busy, making activity a proxy for productivity. Presenteeism, sticking around the office beyond core working hours to give the illusion of commitment, emerged as a popular approach in the late industrial era. Not everyone was this cynical, but if promotion was your goal, rather than doing good work, however measured, it was a smart energy-efficient approach.

We are now starting to see a reversal of this pseudo productivity trend. This façade has been replaced by what is referred to as ‘quiet quitting’. Having had time during the pandemic to reflect on the role work plays in our lives, people are now doing the bare minimum to stay employed. Refreshingly, young people in particular are more comfortable than their parents in protecting their boundaries in respect of unreasonable employer demands.

So if organisations are going to attract and retain the best people they will need to offer stimulating work, be clear on what success looks like and trust the worker to decide how best to go about delivery. Thus having to keep to stringent office hours and then to be available for the remaining hours of the day to respond to management requests will need to stop. So we are likely to see a thinning out of meaningless work, an increase in worker autonomy and a greater sense that work is a form of self-expression, a kind of artistry, that reflects the brand of the worker as much as that of the employer.

2.   The end of careers – Gig economy

In some countries it is still the case that to operate as a freelancer or sole contractor is to have fallen from the career ladder and thus failed professionally. For a long time there was the generally held belief that permanent employment provided security, a steady income, a generous pension and possibly even perks like private healthcare or a car.

Large organisations saw the value in retaining good people and so developed career pathways that kept the staff motivated. Though invariably this model, in most cases, promoted staff to a level where they ceased to be competent.

In any case, such a pathway was possible because the business operated in a steady state market and so there was predictability in respect of talent planning. As the world becomes more unpredictable, talent managers are less able to predict what skills they require. On top of that, the extent to which a particular skill is required might be short lived and so training up a permanent member of staff may not be cost effective. The ability to engage skilled freelancers at short notice and to be able to move them on when no longer needed is becoming increasingly attractive.

Thus freelancing is on the increase and consequently so is the gig economy. It is a more precarious way of working economically, particularly if you are relatively unskilled, eg. a crop picker, delivery driver or shelf stacker. However, if you are world class in something the market values then you can pick and choose which gigs you take and thus develop greater autonomy over your life and lifestyle.

Gig workers have less security and more precarity. They have more freedom and if they are good at what they do, more autonomy. Gig work might not appeal to everybody. At some point, we will all be gig workers, so it will increasingly not be optional.

3.   Increasing economic irrelevance

As technology grows in sophistication it will increasingly take on roles previously carried out by humans. The automation of blue-collar work is well underway. What we are starting to witness is the ‘blue collarisation’ of white-collar work. Examples include:

• Salespeople being replaced by ecommerce websites.

• Service centre staff replaced by chatbots.

• Fully automated legal services.

• Wearable health screening devices and self-service health diagnostic tools.

None of us can be sure as to whether we will be economically relevant in the foreseeable. Invariably an entrepreneurial professional colleague you develops a technology offering that captures her expertise digitally, as well as yours. Thus she can deliver value, at scale, without the need to be present. The economies of scale allow her to charge a fraction of what she charged in person. Thus there is a market alternative to you that is both cheaper and readily available when needed.

Even actors are in danger of becoming digitalised. Once electronically captured the actor is no longer needed for the purposes of producing a film. Eventually it is likely that films will be tailorable to the needs of the viewer and so the viewer becomes both the casting director and screen writer. They may well use self-designed avatars rather than the digital renderings of real people. 

4.   Increasing precarity

This has been mentioned, but worth bringing to the fore. In keeping with an unpredictable world, life will become unpredictable. New models of engaging workers will make the idea of a predictable, steady income a thing of the past.

This will require us to be more alert to market currents and more opportunistic to income opportunities that in the past we might have ignored.

5.   Sayonara gold watch

Retirement marked the end of our economic relevance and the start of our pre-death winddown. The choice of retirement age was most likely determined by the average age that people became more of a liability than an asset to the company, particularly where physical strength was a necessary employee trait.

The pension model was developed to give us some form of income in that small window that sat between retirement and our demise. But thanks to medical advances (courtesy of the industrial age) we are living longer. With work being less physical, this means that our capacity to be economically effective is extending in time. It also means that we are not dying as quickly as the pension providers would prefer.

Thus we are starting to work later into life and increasingly for some retirement will never happen. Some will work simply as a means to keep their brains active and to continue to enjoy the associated social benefits. Some will have no choice because the only way they could acquire a property was to take out a mortgage that extended beyond their official retirement age.

So instead of paying out pensions, the financial service providers are receiving mortgage payments. If the financial services sector likes something, it is only a matter of time before it becomes mainstream.

Personal

1.   The end of three squares

We are told that we should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. Within the constraints of the industrial era that makes good metabolic sense. We need the workers fully charged for work first thing. We don’t want them drowsy in the afternoon. And a lighter dinner will lead to good quality sleep to maximise the recharge.

Back on the savanna, we did not have this three-meal approach. We ate when the opportunity presented itself. Intermittent fasting was a regular practice, though the durations were not planned in advance. The breaking of the fast existed before the industrial era. Building pyramids and ploughing fields required an energised workforce.

The breakfast, lunch and dinner (aka breakfast, dinner and supper) cycle fitted neatly into the factory clock cycle. In the agricultural era eating patterns were influenced by the seasons, ie natural farming cycles. The industrial era regimented the current approach.

As disruption dismantles the industrial model, we will see an increase in people taking a more personalised approach. In some cases, reducing the number of meals to two, often missing out breakfast in order to give the body an extended metabolic rest. Increasing poverty will also likely have a role to play.

2.   Sleep – but different

Monophasic sleep, ie sleeping once per day is an industrial era practice. Prior to the industrial era, bi-phasic, or polyphasic sleep, was common. In warmer climates, afternoon naps were common are are still practised in rural areas.

The factory model and its rigid scheduling did not have room for mid-day naps and so monophasic sleep became the norm. It is interesting to observe some of the more progressive post-industrial firms providing sleeping facilities for their workers.

As we leave the industrial era, it is likely that we will see a decline in monophasic sleep and most likely a plummeting in the price of alarm clocks.

3.   The dissolution of the weekend

The idea of a day of rest and reflection each week has been around for several millennia. During the industrial era this was extended to one and a half days and eventually two. The weekend was an opportunity for the workforce to recharge for another week’s work.

For quite some time the weekend felt quite different to weekdays, less traffic and closed shops. But there has been a steady blending of the weekend into the rest of the week. As we wave goodbye to the rigidity of the factory, more of us will determine when we take our breaks. Though to what extent the schooling system can shake off this temporal rigidity is unclear at this stage. Thus we may have a more diluted form of the weekend for some time yet.

4.   Feeling more human

Increasing precarity will create an increased sense of discomfort and possibly have an impact on our mental health. Though it is likely that over time we will grow accustomed to this way of living as it is more aligned with the manner in which our ancestors lived.

Thus in many respects we are returning to the conditions for which our body is wired. So whilst it may feel uncomfortable, and irritatingly inconvenient at times, it will likely make us feel alive in a way that we have never experienced before. The need to sharpen our wits in order to survive will help us to discover who we really are.

5.   Feeling more freedom

The industrial era provided many of us with the opportunity not just to survive but to have a lifestyle, courtesy of disposable income. This could be spent in many ways, including the acquisition of material goods and the exposure to new experiences.

With experience and increased expertise, the return on our labour increased. So we could earn more in less time, thus freeing up more time to enjoy our lifestyle. However, oddly, many of us chose to use that newly acquired time to work more. This enabled us to earn more, but it denied us the opportunity to enjoy our wealth. Thus we became trapped by our own greed and social insecurity.

The pandemic offered the opportunity to jump off the hamster wheel and reflect on how we were spending our time. Many reacquainted themselves with their families and found them to be not so bad company, after all. This has led to a heightened awareness of what is important and so money is no longer the primary factor for those that earn more than enough to survive.

Being less addicted to money helps us see more clearly and gives us more economic options. Thus allowing us to pursue work that is meaningful to us, rather than just being a means to building a cash stockpile. This is both empowering and creates a sense of freedom. At the end of the day, time is our most important asset. More time equates to more freedom, assuming our basic needs are met.

6.   Embracing stochasticity

Some of us remember a world where there was a good chance that your daily ‘to do’ list had a fair chance of completion. Increasing disruption has made that an impossibility unless you work ‘off the grid’.

Another way of looking at disruption, whether it takes the form of a natural disaster or an urgent request from a loved one, is that it is an opportunity to:

• Learn a new skill

• Experience something new

• ‘Pressure test’ your character.

Such stochastic / random interrupts to your day are to be embraced. Natural systems evolve and adapt through their ability to capitalise on randomness. A missed turning on a journey might result in you spotting an old school friend.

I use the term stochasticity rather than randomness because it is a term you will hear more of as systems thinking and complexity bleed their way into the mainstream.

An intelligent response

Intellectual intelligence (IQ)

Most people are employed for their compliance rather than their intellect. Even work that requires significant cognitive horsepower is constrained by organisational design. “This is how we do things around here. So keep your bright ideas to yourself”.

In fairness, even within these constraints, there are roles that are allowed to deviate if an unexpected situation emerges, eg:

• Surgeons

• Special forces operatives

• Staff at very upmarket hotels / leisure resorts.

  • This is a form of distributed leadership and is to be encouraged. The person closest to the ball is the team captain in that moment.

What might be a hangover of industrial thinking, much of the developed world’s thinking involves viewing the world as a set of components rather than as a whole. So doctors become more specialised as they become more experienced. This approach works well when developing software, but less so in respect of humans. Thus intellectual endeavours focus on components and the associated mechanisms, rather than the system as a whole and its interactions with other systems. The industrial era approach might be said to reflect left brain thinking.

Whilst this has led to great breakthroughs in respect of chemistry, computing and genetics, it has led to problems in respect of how organisations and governments operate in an increasingly disruptive world. This requires more of a systems thinking approach. Such thinking looks at the bigger picture. AI for example has made great strides by focusing on data manipulation. But if it is to truly replicate how intention, attention, the mind and consciousness works a more holistic, right brain, approach is required. Please explore Dr Iain McGilchrist’s work for a present day understanding of how our brain works from a hemisphere perspective.

In many respects, as we leave the industrial era and realise that a component view of the world has limited applicability, particularly in respect of how we continue to develop organisations, society and even technology, we will see an increasing focus in respect of systems thinking and complex systems.

Emotional intelligence (EQ)

Circa 60% of the world’s population live in cities. These cities were largely built with commerce in mind and not human flourishing and community. This generates citizen stress and again erodes our cognitive bandwidth. Once the stress levels rise above a certain threshold, the city in effect becomes populated with petulant and narcissistic children. Consequently, with increasing disruption, emotional intelligence is in decline.

Social media has encouraged us to strip out social niceties. The greetings and small talk that oil the wheels of civil society are dispensed with. We can shoot down strangers whose views we do not like. We use messaging apps as a tool for getting our needs met by our loved ones and friends, with the minimum number of taps.

Ironically, whilst the industrial era has given us an economic surplus, it has strengthened our sense of independence. Now that we don’t really need other people to survive, we don’t have to make an effort socially. Some sociopolitical ideologies reinforce the freedom of the individual, which both steers us away from community and fosters narcissism.

Unfortunately the pandemic both diminished the opportunity to exercise our emotional intelligence muscles and stunted the brain development of everyone from infants to people entering the workforce for the first time. This wide spectrum of people has missed out on various critical elements of social development. They are now starting to enter the workplace and that is proving a problem for employers who somehow or other need to address this emotional shortfall.

In recent years, and in large part thanks to the pandemic, there is now a focus on wellbeing. This has reintroduced us to the idea of sociality and community. So it would appear that one of the signs that the world is changing is the uptick in respect of attention paid to emotional intelligence and the importance of human connection.

Though this human reawakening is starting from a very low bar.

Nonetheless the increasing focus on EQ is an indicator that the world is changing. Raising our emotional game as a species may well be what saves us from ourselves.

Physical intelligence (PQ)

Modern society has decreased the need for physical intelligence. We have motorised vehicles to handle the transportation of goods and people. Comfort and convenience, which were worshipped during the industrial era, continue to be revered. Thanks to ultra processed food, we don’t even need to tax our jaws.

We no longer need to outrun predators. We don’t even have to run after the bus thanks to improvements in public transportation and taxi apps.

In the workplace, it would appear that our body is simply a vehicle for getting our brain from one meeting to the next. The pandemic has taken this a step further, we now only need to use a finger to jump from meeting to meeting.

Our ancestors spent a significant part of their day on the move. This may well have included carrying prey, planting seeds and climbing trees. Today, the only way to stave off obesity is by simulating our ancestor’s behaviour. They would look on aghast as we came back from our run covered in sweat with nothing to show for our efforts by way of captured prey. This goes against the importance nature places on energy management. The industrial era has created a world where there are more than enough calories to go around.

The problem with PQ being seem as an optional extra in modern society is that our intellectual and mental health are totally dependent on our physical health.

Thus we are likely to see a growing focus on physical development. This will likely move away from the component-based approach (biceps and calves on Tuesday etc) to more holistic approaches such as running, dancing, swimming and parkour. When we use our body in ways for which it was originally designed, we not only become healthier, we feel more human. 

In due course, we will see governments wake up to this reality. Eventually, we will see a shift from physical and mental illness to a focus on wellness.

Conclusion

Increasing disruption is a stark reminder that we operate within a complex system where there is a high degree of interdependence and unknowability in respect of the future. Thus we need to build adaptive organisations and of course embrace personal adaptiveness.

Disruption is forcing us to rethink the manner in which we have operated over the last few centuries. It will hopefully encourage us to take a less mechanistic view of the world and our role within it. Embracing our humanity and our sociality will be both liberating and essential to our ongoing journey.

You would be forgiven for finding the prospect of increasing disruption unpalatable, particularly when you were hoping this was just a prolonged rough patch your nation has been going through. We all have a responsibility to prepare ourselves and our loved ones for what likely lies ahead. This is something that cannot be left to academic institutions, governments or employers to manage on our behalf. Though they have an important role to play.

Some may see the future through an apocalyptic lens. Others will see this as an overdue correction/reset. Many of us have enjoyed a high degree of security, but it has to some extent come at the cost of our freedom. That is a given of the social contract between governments and their people. However, governments can no longer control the big picture, and thus disruption, and so this is about to flip.

At the very least you can use this information for your own amusement. Think disruption bingo. Each day you might count how many of these signals you can detect. Ideally you will become an agent for change, preparing yourself and preparing those whom you lead, in whatever capacity. Forewarned is forearmed.

It would be interesting to hear what other trends you have observed.

This report was first published in November 2024.