Money's no object The notion of a war for talent has been around for at least a quarter of a century. As business jargon goes it has stood the test of time. The militaristic language adds drama. Blood may be spilt. One imagines Google and Microsoft in a tug of war competition with the talented AI specialist performing the role of a low tensile rope. Scarcity fuelled the war for talent. There are not enough skilled management consultants, Java programmers or derivatives traders, so we have no choice but to pander to their remuneration demands. In essence the war for talent was a problem that could be fixed with cash. Yesterday's problem? But the world has changed and continues to change. Some leaders are pinning their hopes on AI eventually obviating the need for people. Like generalised AI, this is a fantasy and will be for some time. So people have a value-creating role to play in most organisations, particularly in respect of innovation. As a reader of this newsletter, you will know that innovation is the mechanism by which organisations adapt to an increasingly unknowable world. And as you may have observed most organisations are not organised to distil the creativity of their people in pursuit of innovation. That is an existential table stakes problem. Similarly the war for talent has changed. Throwing money at the problem will not cut it. Talented people are less willing to do meaningless work even if they are rewarded very generously for what is in effect trading their lifeforce units for money. Not so easily fooled Key drivers of this change include: Demographic shifts – An aging workforce is more likely to value meaningful work than well paid meaningless work that connotes status and spending power. Hybrid work expectations – Some people have decided they like their family more than their employer and are not interested in organisations that would prefer the opposite. Global fluidity – Your organisation is no longer the only game in town. Remote work has opened the stage to a global beauty pageant of opportunities for top talent. Experiences trump careers – Some people have woken up to the fact that they only have one life, so they want to experience life in a manner that might be considered extreme work-life integration. The key to the c-suite bathroom has lost its allure. So perhaps for the first time ever, organisations will need to think of talented people as individuals rather than resources / cogs for the machine. HR departments will need to develop a passion for people rather than people processes. Why your organisation? So how do you move forward? The first step is to determine how strongly your employer brand contributes to attracting and retaining talent. Here is a simple tool to find out. Ask each employee which level reflects their primary reason for working.   Survival:  I have bills to pay. Stability:  I like having a predictable income. Comfort:  The remuneration enables me to have a comfortable lifestyle. Competence  – I like doing a job that conveys social status. Engagement  – I enjoy what I do. Mastery  – I like getting better at what I do. Craft  – I think of work as a form of self-expression. Contribution  – I like the idea that my employer is a force for good. Legacy  – I like the idea that my outputs will still be of value long after I am gone. Transformation  – I like working for a company that has a vision to change the world. On this scale it should be fairly obvious where Amazon fulfilment driver and SpaceX janitor sit. There are in essence three levels: Hygiene: 1 to 3 Professionalism: 4 to 7 Spiritual: 8 to 10. The scores are in Hygienic:   If your organisation scores in this zone, its chance of survival depends on whether you can automate everything and eliminate people. Organisations do not exist simply to make people comfortable. Today’s organisations need people who can turn cognitive horsepower into value. That requires much more than adhering to the ops manual. Professional:   There is something noble about becoming a craftsman. But organisations, particularly in times of disruption, are not monasteries. They must adapt to the macroenvironmental forces bearing down on them. People who are unwilling to adapt because they have a vision of themselves as an authority on for example agentic AI, or worse still data warehousing, will increasingly become a HR headache. Spiritual:   Such organisations attract people who see beyond their own interests. They will do what it takes to progress the mission. They will even role with a change of mission if the organisation maintains its ‘Don’t be evil’ stance. This is a problem if your organisation is predicated on: Giving young children type 2 diabetes. Dismantling families by empowering the breadwinner to always be within easy reach of a virtual Las Vegas. This need to support the greater good is a consequence of us being social animals. Smart employers will exploit this superpower / vulnerability. And the employees will love them for it. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

Health warning In this article, I will be delving into what many might consider an indelicate matter. It is important to highlight from the outset that I am not a gastroenterologist. This article is metaphorical and does not represent in any way a medical breakthrough in respect of this debilitating condition. The Symptoms Telltale signs of organisational constipation, include: Loss of appetite   – Your leadership team seems to lack ambition. The organisation appears to be coasting. Discomfort   – Getting even the simplest things done feels like an uphill challenge. Bloating   - Bureaucracy appears to be spreading into the simplest of processes, not unlike a yeast infection. Stagnation   – Your organisation is no longer brimming with creativity, and decision making is grinding to a halt. Headaches   – Your leadership team are tetchier than usual. Thus there is a tendency to leave them to it. Consequently, they no longer receive the intelligence needed to make strategic decisions and the staff feel they are on a rudderless boat. The causes Broadly the issue can be collectively considered as a lack of guts. Specifically, the guts to: Remove high performing, but culturally toxic staff. Demise grand vision projects that are clearly going nowhere. ‘Sack’ lucrative, but high maintenance clients. Turn off products and services that no longer have value in an increasingly chaotic world. Strip away processes, particularly those that stifle creativity. Take measured risks. Less a lack of guts, and more a lack of gut contents - A diversified gut biome is the basis for a healthy body. We still don’t really know its full contribution, but the evidence to date suggests that the link is critical to overall health and wellbeing. Organisationally, homogenous cultures are a precursor to poor organisational health. Treatment These include a mixture of invasive and non-invasive approaches: Stress management   will go a long way to avoiding this condition. However stress is unlikely to evaporate until the organisation feels confident that it can operate in what is an increasingly disruptive and disorienting environment. A healthy gut , as mentioned, will sidestep this issue. Please note, diversity is not an exercise in recreating something akin to a Benetton advert. Cognitive diversity is what we are seeking. Life experience variety, regardless of colour, gender or height, is as good a metric as any. Move   – Movement is a natural means of stimulating several of our internal systems. Organisationally, this means creating a sense of direction and then focusing the organisation on getting there. An inspiring vision will lift, and mobilise, the most curmudgeonly of spirits. Shock treatment   – There is no need to orchestrate this. The market has much to offer in this respect. Disruption is a natural and readily available laxative. Movement, particularly of the faint hearted / uncommitted, will follow. Routine   – Our bodies thrive on routines for many reasons, not least for the energetic benefits that the cultivation of habits affords us. The annual review is such an example. But as we all know, a year is a little too long when it comes to ‘purging’. Something closer to real-time makes more sense. Such reviews might well include clients, products/services and projects. Fibre –optics – Smooth and reliable communications across the organisation will ensure smooth decision making and will thus significantly decrease the likelihood of organisational stagnation.   Digital convenience In organisational circles, the topic du jour is typically more digital / AI focused. And perhaps there is a role for tech to play in respect of the above treatments. I am not holding my breath in respect of Harvard or INSEAD adding a ‘constipation module’ to their MBA syllabi. Nonetheless, I believe this represents a fundamental organisational challenge. One that will determine its future vitality and viability. I chose to tackle this socially awkward topic as it links very closely to one of   the eight key characteristics of a living, and thus intelligent system , namely ‘excretion’. I suspect a direct nod to this in the title might be a little too much for LinkedIn’s more censorious moderators. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

Check this out I’ve previously argued that organisations must behave more like living organisms if they are to thrive in an increasingly disruptive world. In this edition, I want to take that idea further and in a manner that can serve as a practical vitality checklist. Biologists, who know a thing or two about living systems, have a living systems checklist comprising eight characteristics. Let’s see how well organisations in general, ie those embracing industrial era principles, match the criteria. Well done! Traditional organisations score well in three areas: Metabolism -  Living organisms consume resources to grow, repair and stay in play Organisational metabolism takes the form of turning resources into market pleasing value. Traditional organisations are metabolically well-tuned. Perhaps overly so. Efficiency is an industrial god – zero waste is the creed. Such leanness is a problem when unexpected challenges or opportunities occur. Nature may value efficiency, but it prizes survival above all else. Traditional organisations, however, rarely treat survival as a core imperative—an approach that is anything but intelligent. Waste management-  Living organisms expel waste Again, organisations generally do this well. Though sometimes there are environmental consequences. Successful organisations shed obsolete practices. People who are not pulling their weight or willing to develop new skills are typically jettisoned. In some sectors it is difficult to move such people. This may be considered a form of corporate constipation. Some organisations jettison capable people because of age, gender, colour etc. This might be considered the extreme opposite of constipation. Neither are healthy. Growth -  Living organisms grow and mature Organisations typically follow a path that evolves from immaturity (start-up) and, if all goes well, after a period of growth they will settle into a mature state – a value stock, if publicly quoted. The extent to which they can navigate their environment in old age, survive the setbacks and provide value will determine for how long they can delay the inevitable. Not bad Traditional organisations are okay in these two areas: Structure  – Living organisms are not just a random collection of molecules Nature promotes a cellular structure. Living systems, particularly mammals, have billions of cells, the building blocks of life, all coordinating in real-time. Traditional organisations generally get the idea of modularity - functions, geographies, product lines, client sectors and so on. But these units are often clunkily pieced together in inflexible hierarchies, managed by a very centralised leadership approach. A more genuinely cellular approach requires significant decentralisation of governance. Thus enabling cells (people, teams, departments etc) to respond to threats and opportunities without delay. Reproduction -  Living organisms self-reproduce Smart organisations encourage spin offs. They anticipate staff who have entrepreneurial tendencies and provide them with the ecosystem to do their own thing with the organisation’s support. Sometimes the organisation will decouple a business unit because its growth is hampered by organisational constrictions. I believe that organisations will increasingly need to behave like venture capital / private equity firms in order to maintain a suitable level of business model diversity. This guards against a single point of existential business model failure. A reproduction variant for some organisations is the alumni network. This is not about the generation of offspring but the creation of new clients and suppliers. Perhaps this is more akin to livestock farming than reproduction. Oh dear Traditional organisations generally struggle in these three areas: Homeostasis  – Living organisms maintain internal stability despite external changes Leaders today will readily admit that they do not know how to cope with the increasing levels of disruption. They hope a playbook or a strategy paper with an action list from a top tier consulting firm will lead them out of what feels like a war zone. But these are likely to be ineffective. One of the reasons being that the culture and organisational design are optimised for a steady state environment. Thus the organisation simply (over) reacts to environmental anomalies and then quickly returns to its steady state posture. A good example is – AI is here. Let’s fire lots of people. AI is not all its cracked up to be. Let’s rehire those people. Responsiveness  – Living organisms are sensitive to their environment We need organisations to respond intelligently, ie. dance with disruption, rather than reacting arthritically. Such organisations need to be able to sense, decide and act in real-time. Traditional organisations respond well to changes in the steady state – the market wants more / less cars, etc. But they are less sensitive to novel situations, including the foreshocks that herald a forthcoming tsunami. Adaptiveness  – Living organisms sustain long-term homeostasis with the environment Adaptiveness is the organisation’s ability to stay aligned with its environment on an ongoing basis. This is less about ‘crossing the chasm’ every decade or so and more about transformation as an operating model.   Today. many organisations are running transformation projects. They realise that where they are today (A) is a problem and so they are working towards getting to an ideal state (B). Unfortunately thanks to increasing disruption B is now hyperactive. It just won’t sit still. The problem word here is ‘project’. The problem issue is that leaders do not understand that patching the old model / sprinkling it with tech is not enough. In fairness, Covid showed the latent capacity of businesses and governments to act quickly. But this ran counter to their operating model and so they have quietly reverted to the ‘steady as she goes’ sausage machine. So what we witnessed in reality was less adaptation and more ‘organisational convulsion’. School report summary A mean-spirited summary might score traditional organisations three out of eight. Pollyanna might score five out of eight (63%, a ‘B’) and conclude that traditional organisations have sufficiently embraced living systems. Thus allowing their leaders to channel their limited resources towards day-to-day operational headaches. Unfortunately, the three areas where traditional organisations struggle are the three characteristics critical to surviving in an increasingly chaotic world.   This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

The typical employer-employee relationship is adversarial in nature. It rarely comes to blows. It sometimes comes to lawyers. It always involves a contract. Fair trade? Work in many cases, particularly where  Taylorism  has left its mark, is an inhumane activity that requires the worker to unnaturally contort themselves into an industrial process, which they then repeat ad infinitum. This might include quality control checks at a sex toy factory or staring into a spreadsheet trying to reconcile the chasmic divide that separates reality from the answer your boss is expecting. Each of these requires a suppression of our human nature in exchange for money. Remote working At the sadistic end of management, your boss adopts a sympathetic tone. She seems to care. Just keep in mind her job is to eliminate ‘conveyor belt friction’, not nurture future friendships.  At the compassionate end of management, the boss is typically cold and abrupt. She recognises that your humanity, and her own, are compromised. She cannot allow a relationship to form with you because that would take her deeper down the sociopathic path than necessary. The job of management in the modern factory is to maximise return on resources, including the human ones. The jig is up Unlike my generation, who saw this power imbalance as intrinsic to work, many young people are not buying it. They have seen what a lifetime of process work did to their parents and they are not impressed. At the top end, this includes the acquisition of a big house, shiny cars and an inability to savour the moment.  Such people can be found at dinner parties trying to convince their fellow diners that their professional career meant something, and perhaps was even noble. In essence it was a prolonged exercise in kowtowing to unreasonable bosses in order to keep their career on track. Perhaps the only ‘salve’ of this model was that they got to do the same to those that worked for them. This is what regeneration meant in the industrial era. Careers are over As I have covered elsewhere, whilst careers have been around for a very long time, they do not sit well with an increasingly disruptive world. Thanks to technological advances, my ambition to become a world-class database expert would have quickly led to a career cul-de-sac. You could argue that in all professions there is and always will be an element of progression, eg. apprentice, journey man and master. Well let’s take a highly skilled job such as a heart surgeon. We are just a few years away from that role having the social status of a Kwikfit Tyre operative. So what next? Imagine a workplace where the management-employee relationship was not adversarial - where a win for either was a win for both and where the organisation capitalised on their employees’ humanity. I have inferred such a model from studying many leading employers. They recognise that fundamentally they are in the cognition business. Cognition being the fuel that drives innovation (a well-established cure for chaos). Stressed people have less cognitive bandwidth and are thus less innovative. Being permitted to express your humanity at work is a surefire way to significantly calm the mind. In such environments, the worker is perceived as a cognitive athlete rather than a process cog. The work environment is now a cognitive gymnasium where high performing athletes go to raise their game in the company of other high performers. What was once a sociopathic boss is now a cognitive coach. Their skill lies in helping the athletes they coach improve their performance. To do that they need to create a psychologically safe space that enables the intimate conversations that reflect a healthy coach-athlete relationship. Good at what? But how does this play out in a post-career world? None of us know what lies ahead societally or professionally. The workplace will increasingly require the sort of person that has more in common with our scavenging ancestors than our white-collar parents. Our mental, emotional and even physical capabilities will need to be more attuned. Such is the nature of innovating in an increasingly chaotic world. So how will we then map meaning onto our professional lives? Well think of your career as less about becoming the master of something and more about mastering yourself. Think intellectual elegance, emotional maturity and physical confidence. In many respects the best version of you is the most innovative version of you. Organisations will pay money for that. Furry handcuffs? This is not a reference to the quality control role I mentioned earlier. The smartest employers will look to ‘lock you in’ not through comfortable captivity (golden / furry handcuffs) embedded in a draconian contract, but by offering you the conditions where you get to develop and thrive alongside worldclass athletes. Why would you ever leave such an environment? This in my view is the future of talent management. And this will increasingly be the reason why people want to work for your organisation. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

Goodbyes are hard There are three types of existential threats: Goodbye organisation Adios humanity Au revoir the planet. Few of us truly contemplate a universe in which Earth no longer exists. Some of us are acutely aware that humanity is playing with fire. Yet my sense is that many leaders are giving too little attention — not only to the fate of humanity, but even to the survival of their own organisations. Black swans flock To assess risk when we talk about threats, we usually weigh two factors - impact and likelihood. Existential threats, by definition, sit at the extreme end of impact. This raises two questions: What are these threats? What is their likelihood? Wargames We can take a simple example. Imagine there is a war happening somewhere (not difficult). It may well challenge your supply chain at some point if it escalates or spreads. At the same time, your organisation is the target of a state-sponsored cyberattack. To what extent has your crisis management planning anticipated such a scenario? Do you have a self-healing supply chain in place? Will your crisis management plan work with no access to digital communications? Is there enough trust and loyalty woven into your culture to ensure your key people will do what it takes to keep your organisation above water? How long could your organisation hold its breath if this disruption left you unable to serve your market, or if that market ceased to exist altogether? Having substantial reserves might help you ride out this challenging period. But what if this is not so much an extended seismic event and more a chaotic variant of business as usual, the ‘new abnormal’? This is a simplistic scenario, the conflation of two macroenvironmental forces, geopolitics and technology. There’s more to it Now consider every combination of all the variants of the following macroenvironmental forces: P olitical E conomic S ocial T echnological L egal E nvironmental. You can see that there are approximately an infinite number of scenarios. So developing a crisis management plan for each is infeasible. Even though each of these infinite cases represents an existential risk, you might be tempted to choose the 5, 10 or 100 that you feel are most likely. The reality is that no one can reliably gauge likelihood in an environment that is, at best, complex, and increasingly chaotic. So do you keep your fingers crossed, adopt an ostrich posture or hope that this becomes a headache for your successor? These are tempting options given most leaders are judged on the next quarter. Everything-proof But imagine if you could future-proof your organisation not only to be braced for a handful of existential organisational scenarios but for all those that may lead to the end of humanity or the evisceration of the planet. Such governance would certainly impress investors and analysts. In fact where this is the case, governance itself is less a set of processes and more an organisational asset that amplifies the value of all the other organisational assets. Another day at the office So how do you get to this level of risk management maturity? The living systems in play today have a successful track record in not succumbing to existential threats. Their success, in all cases, go back millions of years. The fact that our ancestors looked quite different to us, eg. they could live underwater or moved around on all fours, attests to our adaptiveness as a species. This is why I believe organisations need to become more akin to living systems, particularly in respect to environmental responsiveness (today) and adaptiveness (tomorrow). Being a living organism does not guarantee complete protection from disasters, but it significantly increases our organisation’s chances of survival. Intelligence, both natural and artificial, is key. Rethink leadership Leaders are an emerging single point of failure. Having a more distributed approach to sensing, deciding and acting reduces this risk. Portfolio management Organisations can improve their chances of survival by evolving from a single business model to a portfolio of diverse models, so reducing the risk of a single point of failure. In short, organisations can regenerate and so live forever if they take an innovative approach to cultivating a diverse set of planetary and human-friendly income streams. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

Historians are underrated. Perhaps because history in school was often taught as a dry exercise in memorising dates and events. Yet without an understanding of history, we risk forgetting the hard-won lessons our forebears acquired at great cost. Citizens who have never experienced war, or its immediate consequences, are more likely to see it as a viable political instrument. Cycles Some historians look at the big picture. They have picked up on a repeating cycle of about eighty to one hundred years. Each new cycle is triggered by the culmination of a major crisis. Examples of such triggers include: The fall of the Roman empire The Black Death US and French revolutions US Civil War World Wars I and II. We appear to be in the crisis stage of the current cycle. Historians might well suggest that 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis or the Pandemic were early indicators (pre-shocks) of the current crisis. The next cycle feels close. Other indicators include: Disillusionment with authority – Government is failing the people. Extreme social and economic disparity – The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Ideological polarisation – We are right, and you are simply wrong. Self-centredness – The individual trumps the community. So the conditions are perfect for a cycle change. But there’s good news Even though there is every possibility that the current crisis culmination may ‘end in a III’, what will follow is likely to include: Increased trust in authority. A significant reduction is social and economic disparity. Moderation. A focus on community and civility. This will explain why elderly people value civility and politeness over being their ‘authentic selves’. What does this mean organisationally? Organisations that survive the current crisis need to be optimised for disruption. Organisations that thrive in the next cycle (at least for a decade or two) will also need to be human-centric. By that I don’t mean catering for the needs of the individual, but in catering for the collective needs of all stakeholders, including society and the planet. Whilst profit is important in creating a viable organisation, creating value through growing assets (human capital, natural capital etc) will be the goal. But how? Decentralise leadership   – Generally people are paid based on the value they deliver. Value is determined by the extent to which people can play a role in decision making. Thus the more we decentralise leadership, the more value creation is distributed across the organisation. Thus the spoils are more evenly shared. Ultimately this reduces social disparity and economic inequality. Reward gracefulness   – Recruit people who can disagree agreeably. People who do not leave a comet trail of anger as a consequence of their low emotional intelligence, think bullying and micro-aggressions. Imagine an organisation that is known for its results and its cheerfulness. Focus on all stakeholders   – Shareholders have rights too and this is not in any way an argument to dilute their interests. However, smart shareholders will realise that a happy society is good for business. Clearly some industries will not buy into this, particularly those that cultivate the notion that you are not enough (without their offering). But keep in mind that a cheerful nation can co-exist with a well-armed nation. A fighter who knows they can defeat allcomers will likely be more good-natured; at least in social situations. Stay alert   – The post-crisis high will not last indefinitely. And even the culmination of a crisis doesn’t eliminate uncertainty and volatility. So build an intelligent organisation based on living system principles, where your people are collaborating cells. Final thought If you are a leader who frequently dreams of a people-less organisation run by AI agents, then there is no reason why you, a human, are needed. Companies such as Uber, Foxconn, Alibaba and Amazon are well on their way in this respect. Nonetheless, we will still need organisations that recognise the value people can create through the expression of their cognitive potential. These organisations will attract the attention of investors and analysts (and the top talent), as they will also excel at capitalising on humanity’s innate superpower, our sociality. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

Firstly, this post is not a primer on how to build your own secret service (CIA, MI6, FSB etc), though there are parallels. Intelligent organisations, in my opinion, are very attuned to their environments and adapt homeostatically. Process-driven organisations regard their environment as a static backdrop,where disruptions, ie reality, are treated as exceptional, and thus inconvenient events.   In any case, cognition fuels intelligent organisations and it comes in two forms: Natural (people) Artificial (tech).  Thanks to the arrival of AI, the much referenced war for talent (McKinsey & Co.) is now a war for intelligence. Be on the winning side in this war by embracing the following five approaches: Trait – The new skill Avoid recruiting for skills , un less you have an enduring and specific need, eg. brain surgeon (hospital), cyber security specialist, painter (Severn Bridge). Of course you can hire ‘disposable’ contractors. The best return will be in recruiting those who are quick to learn and do not have ossified career notions.   3H Swiss educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi believed that for learning to be valuable it needed to embrace head, heart and hands. Mapping it on to my Intelligent Organisation model: Head (IQ)   – Can potential recruiters demonstrate rationality, particularly when under pressure. Are they able to distinguish between facts, truth, opinion and advertising. Can they make decisions without having the requisite data (eg. applying Occam’s Razor). Whilst higher education is not in itself a measure of intelligence, the sciences and the humanities tend to develop circumspect graduates. Heart (EQ)   – Look for people who have life stories that one would not expect to find on a CV but increasingly see paraded in LinkedIn posts. Challenging upbringings and exposure to extreme stress come to mind. For example, early exposure to violence tends to develop people who are hyper-sensitive to their environment, including the impact of what they say on other people. These people can become your organisation’s sensors. Hand (PQ)   – Engaging with one’s environment is what makes the difference. Rationalising the rage from a fellow drinker in a crowded bar who has gone from stranger to shover in a matter of seconds is not enough. Action is required. So we need people who are focused on executing and in particular delivering / shipping rather than obsessing over perfection. In an increasingly disruptive world each output is an experiment. Your organisation’s survivability is proportional to its experimentation velocity. BTW P equals physical. AI AI , and tech in general, is a key element of building an intelligent organisation. Much nonsense is written in respect of AI, including the wisdom in being polite when asking Chat-GPT questions, given its purported rate of evolution coupled with its good memory. Today, for most organisations of any size, job number one is getting your data act together, which means getting your systems integration act together. The bigger picture Given this article’s focus distribution in respect of people and tech you might conclude that I am some sort of humanist Luddite. This is not so. Both have an important role to play. My view is that we are overcooking AI and undervaluing people. This has been the case since the Agricultural Revolution. Undoing over ten thousand years of ingrained behaviour will of course require more than one article. Intelligent leaders will hopefully infer that they are sitting on a cognitive goldmine. By taking a more enlightened approach to talent management, they will unearth significant value for all stakeholders. On reflection, the secret service sector might be on to something. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

Doctor Holliday, I presume One would expect board level directors to recognise that the CEO can represent a single point of failure for the organisation. Think of the lone, bold gun slinger brought in to clean up the town. Great if she gets the job done, but disastrous if things go south at the OK Corral. But most CEOs operate within that liminal state that sits between the day of their appointment and being able to justify their remuneration package. But no problem. The appointing body notes how she is settling in nicely, has established a strong leadership team and is revered by the employees. At best this is a loose indicator of potential. But it is not in itself a strong indicator that results are forthcoming. Pop the bonnet To really understand whether the CEO is made of the right stuff, we need to understand their capability from a neurological perspective. At the risk of irritating modern neuroscientists, we will explore this from the brain’s three main layers, namely: The Reptilian brain (Amygdala) The Mammalian brain (Limbic) The Human brain (Neocortex). It was believed that as we evolved from reptiles (more accurately vertebrates) to humans we acquired new layering to our control centre. So the key question for the board is where from an evolutionary perspective does the CEO sit. Exploring each layer in turn: The Reptilian brain Reptiles are focused on survival, particularly their own. Anything that makes them look good in the eyes of those that matter will be pursued. Thus they tend to focus on very specific pain points, particularly those that are perceived by the media / business press as urgent or fashionable. If the pain is both urgent and existential, they will likely take a knee jerk approach. Tariff challenges – cut costs, market softening – cut costs, pandemic – cut costs. Masquerading profitability is their goal. Product and service vendors often play to the Reptilian brain. The Mammalian brain Mammals are social creatures, but are very desire driven. They look beyond the pain and work towards a better future, eg. a transformed / agile organisation, AI-everywhere etc. They haven’t given it much thought but have been seduced by the narratives of the day and take it as read that these are remarkable goals. Being social, and thus competitive, they are looking to be CEO of the year, have the ‘biggest’ data or turn a successful traditional engineering business into a quantum computing boutique. This will probably excite the board directors as they have even less of a clue as to what big data and quantum computing are. In many respects this is like Usain Bolt declaring that he is going head-to-head with the starter and the timekeepers. They are indeed significant figures when it comes to sprinting, but it implies a misunderstanding of what really matters. Advisory firms often play to the Mammalian brain. The Human brain Humans, in theory at least, are capable of restraint, reflection and analysis. They do not simply react instinctively when threatened, nor do they pursue fanciful and questionable goals. Humans learn from mistakes and see failure as part of the process. Humans are also willing to make sacrifices today to create a better future that in some cases they are unlikely to experience; think stonemasons who contribute to the development of cathedrals they will never see completed. To make matters worse, we live in a world where such multi-decade projects are far too risky. What seems like a good idea today might not seem so wise in twenty years. The market may have moved on and the associated underlying technologies will appear antiquated. So human CEOs are less about putting fires out and grand visions and more about adapting to reality. This requires the ability to sense what is happening in their environment, making an intelligent decision and executing quickly. Don’t blame the CEOs This is only possible if we are less reliant on one person. So a more distributed leadership approach is needed. The challenge we have is that the vendor market, from product to strategic consulting, has not yet woken up to this. Neither have the headhunters nor the business schools. Until boardroom directors wake up to this, organisations will continue down a path that increasingly deviates from reality. But that in turn requires investors and analysts to understand what makes a business successful in these increasingly chaotic times. There is work to be done. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

AiRMs race Here’s a quick acid-test to establish whether your AI investment to date is likely to yield value for your ecosystem: Do you have a Chief Information Officer in your leadership team? Does your CIO focus mainly on eliciting value from data or just on technology management? The answer to both needs to be ‘yes.’ Many organisations do not have a CIO in the top team, and even where they do, the CIO is often focused on tech matters. This is a problem. Firstly technology management is important, but thanks to the cloud, less so than when the role of CIO was first created. So even in the most forward thinking of organisations, AI is seen as a technology purchase. A focus on AI might even paper over a failed digital transformation programme. So we are witnessing an arms race where the buyers have no idea when and how to use the armaments. The arms dealers are the marketing functions of the big tech players. Consequently on the face of it, we are seeing organisation building their AI capability, but not their AI competence. Amsterdamned Unlike the tulips in the Tulip mania period, AI has transformational potential. However speculation about its potential is surpassing its intrinsic value to leaders, investors and other interested parties in the organisation’s ecosystem. Prefixing everything with AI, from the name of your new startup to the title of your LinkedIn newsletter article, has the power to elevate its perceived value. Social contagion, particularly amongst leaders, is driving irrational behaviour. Buckle up, if it’s your first bubble. But it is unlikely to be your first, here are some recent ones: Solar / green tech Robotics and drones Edtech The Metaverse Meme stock Housing. Should I be worried? Given that approximately one third of the S&P 500 index is index-linked to AI’s fortunes, this is a cause for concern, particularly if you are a: Big tech player. A heavy investor in big tech players OR you have a ‘diversified’ pension. An over-inflated startup / scaleup. You are a leader who has not made provision for an AI reset. But to put this in perspective, it is unlikely to be as seismic as a housing bubble pop. But seismic enough. Agentic delusion As a leader, you need to understand what value AI brings to your organisation and how you unleash that value. Much AI usage today is around cost management, rather than strategic differentiation and adaptiveness engineering. As I am fond of mentioning, sprinkling your old school model with tech pixie dust is not going to save it. The changes that need to be made are much more profound. AI has the potential to be a game changer. Generative AI is only one element of the role it can play. Out of the car crash we will likely see steady, undramatic growth in AI’s capability. But again capability is not competence. The fundamental question to ask is - why do we need AI beyond automating the ‘sausage machine?’. Here’s the science We need to zoom out to remind ourselves that the world is becoming increasingly chaotic. And so: Chaos gives rise to novel situations. Novel situations require an innovative response. Innovation is fuelled by cognition. Cognition comes in two forms – natural (people) and artificial (AI). QED AI-augmented workers are the way in which to thrive in an increasingly disruptive world. Chief Tailent Officer? So organisational leaders need to revise their operating model to reflect that increasing disruption has put them squarely in the business of cognition management. So perhaps a further test is to ask: Do you have HR representation in the leadership team? Do they care about people and not just people-processes? You can guess what the correct answers are. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

Disruption revisited Disruption has always been part of organisational life. For quite some time it was something that companies (usually based in Silicon Valley) did to other companies. But today it also includes the wider macroenvironmental forces (both natural and manmade) bearing down on the organisation, as well as the internal disruption that these forces generate in respect of worker behaviour. Many of these forces are compounding, some exponentially. But they are also conflating to make the future unknowable. So the clean, deterministic linearity of Taylorism, plan-execute, input-process-output approach, has given way to what is a very messy, complex/chaotic barroom brawl. And this disharmony is growing in both size and frequency. However disruption is still spoken about as something to be managed through. A period of instability before things return to normal. A spike. A phase. An exception. The associated discussions tend to coalesce around themes such as: Cost management Digital transformation Workforce resilience. This language suggest that leaders have not quite grasped the profound implications associated with increasing disruption in respect of organisational design.   Disruption: The default state Disruption today cannot be anticipated. As you scan intently for the lion, you are bitten by a snake. Again events (geopolitical, technological, meteorological and so on) are entwining. Second-order effects emerge before first-order ones have been resolved. By the time organisations respond to one shift, another has already altered the context. Transformation is impossible if point B won’t sit still. There is no clear return to baseline. No obvious settling point. The environment continues to move even as organisations attempt to stabilise. This is not volatility in the traditional sense. It is a different operating condition, and this requires a fundamentally different approach. Assumption, revisited Much of modern organisational design rests on a quiet assumption: that the future can be predicted well enough to plan for. For a long time, this assumption held. Change was slower. Cause and effect were clearer. Plans aged at a manageable rate. This assumption no longer holds. Today, investor forecasts and strategic plans are obsolete before the authors hit the save button. Organisations predicated on predictability and optimised for efficiency will increasingly struggle in an increasingly unpredictable world. New products or services will not save them. The problem is much more fundamental. Brace, brace, brace When disruption is treated as episodic, organisations respond by: Doubling down on planning Tightening control Sweating the staff Embracing radical efficiency. Forecasting becomes more frequent. Targets are tightened. Execution is scrutinised. Leaders are expected to absorb increasing levels of uncertainty on behalf of the system. Workers are expected to operate at ‘ramming speed’ day in day out. Given these are potions for a bygone era, they have the exact opposite effect and simply amplify organisational stress and so eventually catalyse an organisational tailspin. Using the old language, the ensuing stress might well be attributed to process failure, leadership overload or a skills shortage. These are symptoms. The issue is the widening gap between organisational behaviour and reality. The organisation continues to operate as if the world will settle back into a steady state, even though there is nothing to suggest this will happen. Stress becomes a signal not of individual failure, but of an organisational design mismatch. Organisational introspection Seen this way, disruption is no longer something organisations occasionally respond to; it is a permanent environmental and market condition. Embracing disruption, rather than attempting to control it, is now table stakes for organisational viability. This shifts the question from how disruption is managed to what kind of organisational design makes sense when disruption is continuous. That reframing alters how planning, decision-making, coordination, and leadership are understood. It changes what is optimised for, what is tolerated, and what is expected of people inside the organisation. But it begins with a simpler recognition: the environment has changed in kind, not just in degree. A new world requires a new approach Treating disruption as temporary leads organisations to optimise for a world that no longer exists. Recognising disruption as an operating condition does not immediately provide answers. But it does change the questions that matter, and the assumptions those questions rest upon. Until that recognition is made, many organisations will continue to experience strain. Not because they are poorly led or poorly run, but because they remain organised for a reality that has quietly disappeared. This article also appeared in the   Intelligent Organisation   newsletter on LinkedIn.

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.

AI and robots are not enough There is a growing school of thought that if you plaster enough AI across your business, it will henceforth be intelligent. And that is without any consideration of the data cesspit used to fuel the AI. Of course artificial is not the only form of intelligence business leaders have access to. However, Taylorism considers natural intelligence as problematic. Original thought would likely lead to process deviation and that can only result in inefficiency, which in turn threatens the organisation’s profitability. AI will save us It is unlikely to end well, if business leaders put all their chips on AI in the hope that it will enable their process-oriented, inert factory to navigate the compounding storms of disruption. The factory model was designed for more innocent, steady state, times. A focus on process only works well when the market is predictable. An AI-driven factory will resemble an energetic, directionless and rapidly deflating balloon. But mercifully not for long. Towards an intelligent buisness So what might an intelligent business look like: It would recognise that innovation is the only way to respond to the novel situations that disruption will increasingly present. It would recognise that the cognition of the workforce is a largely untapped asset that when coupled with AI would turn the workforce into a legion of superhuman cognitive athletes. This would make the workplace a cognitive gym and the bosses would become cognitive coaches. It would look less like an inert factory and more like a living organism, sensing, deciding and acting in real-time. Thus an intelligent business is an adaptive organisation. It would use both technology-sourced data and the senses of the people. It would recognise that asset growth trumps profitability. Assets provide a buffer against an uncertain future. Leadership would be contextual and ubiquitous. Whoever is closest to the ball(s) at any given time is the team captain. Intelligent businesses recognise that having only one business model, ie. one set of services, one financial model and one go to market model, is a single point of failure. Thus intelligent businesses are in the business of creating more intelligent businesses. Intelligent businesses seek harmony and thus avoid conflict to ensure valuable resources are not squandered. They create new markets rather than endeavouring to muscle in on established markets. Intelligent businesses do not eschew efficiency. Again it is important not to be wasteful. However survival trumps efficiency and so taking risks, which can be inefficient, is important in respect of ‘staying in play’. They never rest on their laurels. Everyday is day one. There is no innovator’s dilemma. And there is no need to worry about crossing the chasm when you live in the chasm. Master of Business Adaptiveness? Some leaders will be disturbed by this interpretation of intelligent. It flies in the face of their business education. This is less about mastering factory administration and more about creating a corporate nervous system that enables the organisation to thrive in what will increasingly appear to be a hostile terrain.