Powerful Times
Abhinav Mathur, PhD
Passionate about Startups, Climate Change, Sustainability, and Education. Impacting global education and sustainability through the world largest and most loved Teacher Capacity Building platform Chalklit
Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World - by Eammon Kelly
An extremely interesting book which explains some of the reasons for the world uncertain world to better understand how can one rise up to the Challenge of our uncertain world. One thing is certain that the future world will look nothing like the past. Today is a time of great “cognitive dissonance,” as popular notions about the world seem less and less relevant to what’s actually happening. It's the renaissance once again only happening much faster.
It very clearly identifies and explains the seven paired forces which are changing the world and making it uncertain at the same time. These seven paired forces are
- clarity and craziness
- secular and sacred
- power and vulnerability
- advancing technology and a pull back
- intangible and physical economics
- prosperity and decline
- people and the planet.
These changes are not being felt within any nation but it is running across national boundaries which require that each of the countries and individual act on a global level for the same. Each of these changes will create new competition and new markets across the globe. The leaders will require to take a more holistic view and work in collaboration with other leaders globally.
There are various forces especially Social Forces, Political Forces and Historical Forces that are shaping occurrences. People are unable to comprehend and understand these forces. The very concept of Privacy is changing completely
There will be clear distribution of wealth as the western populations age. Much of the economy of the future will involve a significant amount of trade in intangibles.
As more people get involved, the global economy will move from "either/or" to "both/and" logic. The changes that we will see all around will require both a "bottom up" and a "top down" approach one approach will not be enough.
Proliferating information will makes the world appear to be transparent and the amount of information and the nature of the media will allow certain players to guide the narrative and this will be overwhelming to most people.
Every individual and organisation must act now to slow the negative environmental changes. The world certainly faces many threats, but these are the most destructive and costly. Business would hopefully start to view the world change as an invitation to innovation: every change is an opportunity to develop sustainable new products, designs and processes. The world will need to begin to consider not just profit, but moral, spiritual, individual, organisational and environmental concerns.