It’s complex….and it always has been

Since the beginning of the year there’s been a wide range of commentary emanating from around the world about the state of the world economy and specific country’s economies; global financial markets volatility and instability; that many nations balance sheets are stretched and welfare systems are showing their fragility.

Just today I read the headline in the Australian Financial Review: 'Incomes to be weak for years: IMF. The article lead with the prediction that ‘real incomes will barely grow over the next six years and living standards are destined for a slowdown unless a wave of major economic reforms and technology innovation by business can unless productivity….’

In addition we are being bombarded with predictions about the impact of IOT, AI and robotisation on everything, particularly future employment opportunities or the lack thereof.

On top of this is the breakdown of the social contract that was capitalism, trickle-down and the sharing of wealth. Inequality has increased since the GFC and is driving social tensions across the world – there’s no need to list them, we’re all aware of what they are and unaware of numerous others.

Depending on what and who your read we’re living through ‘the most turbulent environment seen in the last century’ arguably 'through unprecedented times’, ‘the most volatile’, the most uncertain…pretty much ‘the most anything’.

Change is the ONLY constant

For starters, I am not so sure we are. Sure, the past 15-20 years has been a period of significant and fast change. So was the beginning, middle and end of the 1900s.

So were the 1800s and the 1700s.

So were the 1600s

And to go back even further...try living in the times of ancient Egyptians, Alexander the Great, the Assyrians . . .

The changes in geography, nations, countries, cities, towns over all these centuries created enormous uncertainty for the people who lived through them. It MAY have been slower, but even our conception of the speed of change is relative.

Interestingly I am reading a book at the moment, Out of the flames, by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone about the book written by Michael Servetus who was executed because ‘he was unwilling to live his life without being true to his beliefs and his principles so wrote and published a book.’ That book was the Christianismi Restitutio, a heretical work of biblical scholarship published in 1553.

While Out of flames is about the impact of a specific book, it explains the impact that the development of the Guttenberg press had on the world at that time…no less transformative that what we’re experiencing now. Knowledge was written down, published and shared in way that had never occurred before. Books in the 1600s were the equivalent of Google, the IOT and perhaps way more transformative.

It’s your mindset that will count

Secondly, I think attitude, well mindset, has a lot to do with how people, companies and nations deal with uncertainty. As Bernard Salt noted in 2018 it’s all about mindset and the most important mindset he listed was flexibility.

           “In order to prosper as a worker {company/country} you need to have the right mindset.

           “It’s how you view it [change]. Can you learn new skills, meet new people, reinvent yourself? Do you see it [change] as a positive opportunity as opposed to something that is quite threatening?”

How each of us view the world is all a matter of perspective, sharing knowledge, ‘leaning in’, being open to new ideas, ways of working, new business models, new community/society models, being prepared to listen to those who disagree with you and think beyond your own, immediate self interest.

Richard Schutte, has been exploring the world of change, complexity, knowledge and wisdom in a terrific series of posts on LinkedIn since the beginning of the year. Summarising just a few of his key themes he notes that as individuals, companies and communities we need to shift our mindsets.

As we progress through the fourth industrial revolution the interplay between accelerating technology (e.g. digital, AI, networks, decentralised databases, genetics, robotics), social (e.g. aging demographics, urbanisation, rise of millennials/generation-z, geo-politics), economic (e.g. social inequality, shifts in composition and geography of global GDP, global financial imbalances) and environmental change (e.g. pollution, environmental degradation/extraction), changing consumer and community expectations and new channels and business models are rapidly transforming the world around us.

This acceleration in the pace of change by its very nature is increasing the uncertainty in the systems we inhabit.

Our systems and organisational structure responses need to be more flexible, scalable, permeable and adaptable rather than the current fixed, siloed and rigid models that tend to prevail today.

The mindset of the future? Flexibility

Bernard Salt highlights flexibility as the mindset that will get us all through the current period of complexity.

 'It makes sense with all this disruption and with the changed global influences. Organisations have to reinvent/realign/be agile.'

Workers also need the ‘right mindset’… If you don’t, according to Bernard then you’re certainly going to be wrong-footed.

Richard Schutte comments:

We need to have an "outside-in" mindset  – asking the What?, So What? and the Now What?

scanning & sensing the shifts underway (What?);

contextualising these trends for our customers & community (So What?); and 

enabling our customers & community navigate and respond to change underway (Now What?).

It’s how you view it.

Can you learn new skills, meet new people, reinvent yourself? Do you see it as a positive opportunity as opposed to something that is threatening? 

I get the flexibility/reinvention thing as I’ve had to do it myself. But it’s seriously hard on many levels and it takes a huge amount of personal reflection, courage, money and time to reinvent yourself. It quickly becomes an exercise on how to reinvent yourself before the money runs out. And if you're in a job that you need to put food on the table its not about courage, time to reinvent...it's about surviving. No flexibility there.

It’s complex.

Some people can reinvent themselves…have skills, the time, money and courage to do this. Others don’t. Where does a fast-changing, complex world leave them?

So, to being flexible…some of us are flexible in all senses of the word. We work on contract not in full-time salaried positions, whatever skill level we are at. We've 'gone online', secured a VA, signed up to an alphabet soup of widgets, software tools, funnels alongside new-paradigm online business growth courses (no wonder the FAANGS are doing so well). We're being flexible, reinventing ourselves while still paying all the old bills and now a raft of monthly subscription services. Last count I've got 12 subscription-based 'tools' to run The Book Adviser. Two years ago I had no idea any of these even existed.

Younger people (my son) face different 'flexibility' challenges. He won’t ever have a full time, permanent job…the gig economy is his world. No sick pay, holiday pay, superannuation . . . and he hasn't even finished his university degree. His challenge is finding a part-time job (not unpaid internship) that can remotely use his maths and physics skills. These are not the same as computer programming, altho he could do this...maybe he needs to be 'more flexible'. Hey, I made pizzas for 2 years to help pay may way through uni.

Retirees now have to be flexible and not entitled… and they’re the ones with the assets and the superannuation.

Sacked financial and banking employees have to be flexible.

Mortgage brokers have to be flexible.

Methinks the only group that doesn’t have to be flexible is government employees and politicians…just behind tenured university professors.

Life happens

Well, actually SHIT happens. That’s life and you have to be flexible to deal with it.

Yes, it’s complex at times, seem incomprehensible and hard to keep up with, that you have no capacity to ‘be flexible/agile/iterate etc…but the reality is this is what most of us do every day.

We respond to our circumstances, or not.

We go with the flow, or not.

We protect, vote, advocate for what we want for us and our family/group at the expense of others (rent seeking) or not.

We look at what we’re entitled to, or not.

We don’t give a shit because we’ve worked out the system and we’re ‘sweet’, or not.

It’s complex, and it’s not.

You either embrace change or you don't. It’s that simple and that hard.

It's about your mindset, and it always has been.

That’s not complex.