A new trend will emerge , which is from the early 19th century

Have you realized that we most often perform better when we are led by someone. You go to fitness club or a gym so that you join a group or follow the instructor, while you can do the same exercises watching a YouTube video at home, by yourself. The discipline of a soldier exists generally because he or she was asked to follow a routine throughout their career with no personal inputs. Large corporate giants have strict rules around productivity and results hence there are specific KPIs for thousands of employees to follow.

We have millions or Billions of people who are either willingly or unwillingly following an instruction, a rule, a policy or a law. The way the system has been created that it gives very little space or opportunity to “Self-correct” or “Introspect” change possibilities. Everything needs to complete its cycle and then by the time everyone finishes and reaches the end, we have a conclusion which is either good or bad. The few that step out of this zone become leaders that drive change and create a difference.

“Difference” today means something entirely different to what it meant to those that were leaders in the early part of the 19th century. Imagine Henry ford as a young entrepreneur born in the 90’s , do you really think he would be driven to launch an industrial automobile giant or would he choose to be among the hundreds of entrepreneurs who are creating some difference or the other in the field of autonomous cars and mobility. Would Alexander Graham Bell as CEO of Nokia go for developing an “App store” at Nokia in the late 90’s or stay he have stayed with the hardware business. The creative leaders of today are certainly making a lot of noise but is this noise heading somewhere or is it …. just “Noise”

Innovation in the early part of the century was original as the innovators were driven to think out of the box from a place where no box existed, that’s why the number of groundbreaking inventions then and now differ to a great degree. The originality that survived then due to lack of information and resources is today not possible due to the influence of ideas, excess to information and new tech development. I sometimes think that most new ideas today are either an off shoot, clone, me-too or a good disguise of something that exists or something that’s already successful. COVID19 has probably given the industry a dose of good originality in terms of new ideas and new thinking.

The new entrepreneur needs to start from the beginning and drive innovation from zero. The challenges today are unparalleled to everything we have seen for decades. The losses, economic collapse, drop in oil prices, closure of major high street businesses, loss of jobs, breakdown of the banking sector, collapse of the housing market, breakdown in social classes globally. The time has come for every person to lead themselves and not wait for instructors, tutors and leaders as the current tsunami of challenges are not those that can be burdened by a few. We all need to rethink the approach and start to carve out a roadmap of recovery rather than look for a current solution.

 2021 will be a year when your new life will begin as by then you would have understood the intensity of impact that has been inflicted on you. This will be the year when the clock will turn back in time and take us somewhere close to the great depression of the early 19th century. Thankfully the circumstances, lack of resources, isolation and economic depravity will once again lead some of us to be some of the worlds most amazing innovators, thinkers and creators.

Rest assured ……..We are heading for a “Happy ending”

Written by Abdulla Hassan      

?Global speaker on Entrepreneurship , Co-Founder & CEO VC Fund