Gray Rhinos, Park Rangers & a Capability Roadmap

The People Matters L&D Conference has come to a close. What a fantastic two days it was - full of inspiring conversations, insightful discussions and the generation of collective answers to some of the most pressing questions of our present moment. Through conferences such as these - and with your help, a little courage and a lot of effort - I am reassured more and more everyday that we will be able to navigate the difficulties and accelerate a successful transformation into the new reality of work. 

That’s not to say the journey is easy. The theme of this year’s L&D Conference was Rev-Up Growth for business, organization, individuals and society at large. There’s little doubt COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on our lives, on our business and on our economies. We don’t even fully understand the extent of that impact yet. Unless you are younger than 80 or 90 years old, this is clearly the most significant historical event we have faced in our lives and it is a transformational time for all of us. How can we start to make sense of it? 

In a recent interaction with People Matters Sandbox members, Goh Swee Chen former Chairman of Shell Companies for Singapore and current non-executive director on the boards of Singapore Airlines and Capitaland shared with us the concept of the ‘Gray Rhino.’ 

Coined by Michelle Wucker in her 2016 book “The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore,” the term refers to events that are “highly probable, high impactful, yet neglected.” In other words: issues we know, we are aware of and we should be acting upon, but aren’t. Given that a global pandemic such as COVID-19 had been predicted for many years, it’s safe to say we are currently living through the repercussions of our own Gray Rhino event. All the signs were there, and yet the world was caught largely unprepared for an outbreak of this magnitude. 

Why do Gray Rhinos happen? 

According to Wucker, part of the problem is leaders who ignore what they don’t want to hear. We’re programmed to pay more attention to information that we like than information that we don’t like. Similarly, groups that are very homogenous are less likely to engage in constructive debate and so much depends on decision-making structures. Culture accounts for Gray Rhinos too - including corporate cultures - in that we tend to make heroes out of people who clean up messes, but we don’t hold those accountable who let these messes happen in the first place. In other words, we’re quick to celebrate the solution but quickly forget the cause. This has to change. 

Is capability-building your Gray Rhino? 

The Gray Rhino is “a metaphor for missing the big, obvious thing that’s coming at you.” Think about your organisation or business. The fundamental ways in which we interact with customers is changing. We need more innovation. The level of trust, decision-making and empowerment is rising. Capability is at the core of innovation, empowerment, agility & competitive advantage. To ignore investment in capability-building is to ignore the Gray Rhino charging across the room towards you, ready to create damage and mayhem. At the moment, one trick is to ask yourself: what if there is a solution that will handle multiple Gray Rhinos at once? 

Our business needs Park Rangers 

So, how can we control Gray Rhinos i.e. take charge of the issues we know are on the horizon, but that we simply don’t want to look at directly? We need Park Rangers. For this, we should ask ourselves a series of questions: 

• What are the shifts you need to make in your business strategy? 
• What critical activities are needed to serve our customers? 
• What skills, behaviours and dispositions do we need to develop in our teams? 
• What kind of interventions will be most effective and impactful? 

These Park Rangers can also help in controlling the other unruly and dangerous animal out there: the Black Swan, a phrase popularised by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe events that are highly improbable but highly consequential. 

The truth is, we have real influence. We can have a greater impact than we ever have had before. While it can be difficult and uncomfortable to have to look at the Gray Rhinos in our organisations, it’s absolutely critical we have the courage to do so. This involves an honest and complete reassessment of our values, our purpose and our culture. We cannot ever completely avoid the impacts of Gray Rhinos, but we have the power to identify the most dangerous ones, act proactively and turn the challenge into an opportunity.

We are hopeful that the People Matters L&D Conference helped you, in some way, to think about all these topics and really get to the heart of many factors (not only COVID!) that are at play in the current world of work. We’re immensely grateful to all our speakers, attendees, sponsors and collaborators for joining us on this journey and look forward to the next one!