Since the start of the crisis I’ve been regularly updating my LinkedIn feed with relevant insights about how this is unfolding. I’ve found a high level of engagement with this format rather than Twitter or indeed on this blog, so if you’d like to learn more about my thinking, please check my LinkedIn feed regularly.

Stay safe.

The Vice Chairman of Korn Ferry and a McKinsey partner have published a short book that has studied the benefits of long term thinking.  There’s an interview with the authors on the Wharton site that gives some context and one extract from this stands out:

Just beware of the trends going on in the world. Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, which manages $6 trillion in assets, says that it would be key for CEOs to realize some of the changes going on in society. For example, [consider] this shift towards automation and artificial intelligence. A McKinsey study we cite in the book says that [those technologies] could displace 30% of American workers.

CEOs who want to survive in the long run, and want their companies to survive in the long run, have to be aware of what’s going on in society, and try to steer their companies to address some of these issues. If they do that, they’ll get the support of their investors, customers and employees.

As most of my updates now go to my clients rather than here on my blog, this post may seem out of place compared to previous writings.  However I’ve become increasingly concerned about the failure of governments to understand the implications of the:

1. interplay of complex systems that form the framework of modern society (including the complex system that is the climate)
2. effects of automation
3. alarming rise in inequality
4. threats from cybersecurity

There are significantly more risks to consider in the years ahead, and these have severe implications for stability.  Bain and Company has completed some good work on this recently, and a summary has just appeared on the HBR site.  I don’t usually include large quotes here, but this piece of work is a concise summary that is hard to beat (the highlights are mine):

The benefits of automation, by contrast, will flow to about 20% of workers—primarily highly compensated, highly skilled workers—as well as to the owners of capital. The growing scarcity of highly-skilled workers may push their incomes even higher relative to less-skilled workers. As a result, automation has the potential to significantly increase income inequality.

The speed of change matters. A large transformation that unfolds at a slower pace allows economies the time to adjust and grow to reabsorb unemployed workers back into the labor force. However, our analysis shows that the automation of the U.S. service sector could eliminate jobs two to three times more rapidly than in previous periods of labor transformation in modern history.

Of course, the clear pattern of history is that creating more value with fewer resources has led to rising material wealth and prosperity for centuries. We see no reason to believe that this time will be different—eventually. But the time horizon for our analysis stretches only into the early 2030s. If the automation investment boom turns to bust in that time frame, as we expect, many societies will develop severe imbalances.

The coming decade will test leadership teams profoundly. There is no set formula for managing through significant economic upheaval, but companies can take many practical steps to assess how a vastly changed landscape might affect their business. Resilient organizations that can absorb shocks and change course quickly will have the best chance of thriving in the turbulent 2020s and beyond.

The full report from Bain is also well worth reading, and is available here.

Among colleagues around the world at the moment, there’s a definite recognition that VUCA is increasing.  One of more interesting theories about why this is happening comes from the work of academic Carlota Perez who has studied long-wave change theories for three decades.  In a nutshell, she believes that we’re currently transitioning from what she calls the “installation period” (where technology is developed) to the “deployment period” (where economic booms occur).  Perez believes that the levels of VUCA we are seeing now are reflective of the transition.

So how do you know when you’re in the gap between the two?  Here’s one metric that she uses to support her view:

During Installation, there is always strong asset inflation (both in equity and in real estate) while incomes and consumption products do not keep pace. This creates a growing imbalance in which the asset-rich get richer and the asset-poor get poorer. When salaries can buy houses again, we will be closer to the golden age.

In many countries around the world there is a profound disconnect between average income and the ability to buy a house. For example in Canada the average home price was $480,743 for July 2016 while the average Canadian employee makes just over $49,000 a year. 

In parts of the UK such as Trafford (and it’s important to note that this isn’t London) house prices are now 8.9 times higher than average wages and 7 times higher in Stockport. In Manchester, the number has risen to 5.1 times in 2015.

In New Zealand the average house price is now six times the annual household income.

One of the other key changes Perez points to as an indicator, is the birth of new economic instruments:

…there need to be innumerable investments and business innovations to complete the fabric of the new economy. Here’s one small example: Millions of self-employed entrepreneurs work from home with uneven sources of income. Where are the financial instruments to smooth out their money flow so they can work and live without anxiety?

This sounds remarkably like the innovations surrounding the deployment of blockchain, where one of the best quotes that I’ve heard about this technology is that:

If the Internet is a disruptive platform designed to facilitate the dissemination of information, then Blockchain technology is a disruptive platform designed to facilitate the exchange of value.

Perez quotes two other indicators that can be used to spot the transition: the first is more financial regulation at a global level.  However the complexity at play here is that in a world that is heading away from globalisation, it’s very difficult to bring nations together to agree on these types of initiatives.  It may take another severe financial crisis to induce a global agreement.

The final indicator is increasingly stable industry structures, and I’d argue that currently this is harder to discern.  However one signal may be in the form of  digital consolidation of internet traffic by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon.  Most of the world’s internet flows through one of these organisations and they also act as enablers – for example the creation of a store front with Amazon with promotion via Facebook/Google.

Whichever way you look at the current macro global situation, it’s clear we’re not in what Perez calls the “Golden Age.”  Perez herself notes that the Golden Age might not even eventuate, and that patterns from the past might not foretell the future:

Historical regularities are not a blueprint; they only indicate likelihood. We are at the crossroads right now.

This is an insightful piece from the NY Times about the rise of American tech giants, but it also touches on an issue which increases the VUCA score of the world (my emphasis in bold below):

“What’s happening right now is the nation-state is losing its grip,” said Jane K. Winn, also a professor at the University of Washington School of Law, who studies international business transactions. “One of the hallmarks of modernity is that you have a nation-state that claims they are the exclusive source of a universal legal system that addresses all legal issues. But now people in one jurisdiction are subject to rules that come from outside the government — and often it’s companies that run these huge networks that are pushing their own rules.”

Ms. Winn pointed to Amazon as an example. The e-commerce giant sells both its own goods and those from other merchants through its marketplace. In this way, it imposes a universal set of rules on many merchants in countries in which it operates. The larger Amazon gets, the more its rules — rather than any particular nation’s — can come to be regarded as the most important regulations governing commerce.

Source: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants