The future is predictable!

The new year is upon us. Most board rooms are locked up, planning for the future. The obvious question everyone asks is, what's changing? What is going to be the new trend? Talking about change captures our imagination. Speculation is exciting and has the fa?ade of intelligence. However, these may be futile questions to ask. The important events and trends that will shape the future are but unpredictable. Instead, we could try a different question. What will remain the same for the coming decade? What will perhaps never change??

You will always find people seeking the secret to a happy life. Companies seek certainty when none exists. We will always see overconfidence and shortsightedness that remind us of people's behavior today. Some things never change.?

Another timeless lesson is that stability leads to instability. For the past five decades, the world has not encountered a pandemic. However, through the early nineteenth century, pandemics occurred every decade. Our ancestors would tell stories of the wrath of mumps, measles, and chicken pox. As we grew up, there were half a dozen vaccines to deal with infectious diseases, and public health professionals did a stellar job navigating through this land mine. The better their work, the less we invest in public health. When COVID stuck, we were unprepared as hell! It's the stability that plants the seeds of instability. Hyman Minsky famously wrote, "?The more stable things become, and the longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits."

We always assume that the good news is permanent (the pandemic is an era bygone!), then you are oblivious to the bad news (dismiss the first reports of the pandemic), and then you deny the bad news(it will be contained). Then you panic at bad news(lockdown!). Then you accept bad news (masks, social distancing). Then you deny good news(Vaccine research). Then you accept good news (Mass inoculation). Then you assume the good news is permanent (Post-pandemic world).? ? ? ?

Closer home, a typical career cycle goes like this. Paranoia leads to success because it keeps you on your toes. But paranoia is stressful, so you abandon it quickly. Now, you have left what made you successful, and you begin to decline, which is even more stressful. Paranoia sets in again. Now, superimpose this cycle in business, investing, careers, and relationships. As a young individual, you are paranoid about your career. You work hard and innovate at work. You are recognized and promoted. You achieve stability and harmony. But all this hard work and innovation is stressful, and you abandon it. Your career starts to stagnate and decline. You know how that goes. Take a financial crisis, economic upheaval, or your relationship. You get the drift...

A novel question for the boardroom could be - what has been stable for an extended period? What have we taken for granted? What are we oblivious to? Are we paranoid enough??

In the shadows of stress, humanity grows

We innovate, and creativity flows

yet as we shed the cloak of fear?

humanity declines when caution disappears.?

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