For the past few years I’ve co-hosted an interesting dinner, where I ask each guest to speak briefly on a way they think the world will change in the next 5 years – that is not obvious.
In November I hosted 55 leaders in a wide variety of disciplines – from horticulture to economics. The guest list included; 2 Governors, a Senator, 5 CEO’s of companies of more than $2 billion in revenue, Chief Investment Officers of more than $38 Billion, 11 venture capitalists, etc….so you get the idea.
The 55 ideas were then voted on by each table, and below is the first of the 6 finalists – on ways the world will change that are not obvious. Please share your ideas on other non-obvious predictions and your thoughts about this one.
Table III: Catastrophe time vs. Normal business time
This idea is not so much about the future but what is going on now. We will see more ecological disasters with financial, epidemics, terrorism — in the US economies and other economies.
That means two things: the first is that the balance between “normal time” and “disaster time” — which used to be ninety five percent normal time and five percent crisis time — is moving towards 50% / 50%.
If you take the US over the past seven years, there is not a single period of more than six months that we have not had a major crisis: 9/11, Enron, the Challenger in space, an actual disaster, or a financial crisis. I do not know which one will be the next one but there will be a disaster six or ten months from now. How well prepared are we for this new world of global turbulence and large scale dislocations that can result when a series of local events creates impacts on a large scale?
From a business view that means that if in your company you do not already have a great team working on creating new products for disaster time, for protecting your company but also for making a lot of money out of disaster time, you are already late.
Many companies are thinking that way now — saying, I used to do business for that normal time, but if disaster time is going to be thirty percent of the entire spectrum, I better start thinking about creating new products to help in disaster time.
Additionally, interdependencies are much stronger today. We are more interdependent with each other, and by that I do not mean all of us here, but what is going on with China, what is going on in the Middle East, perhaps being selfish today means taking care of others. I am not thinking about social issues here — I mean that if you are the Wal-Mart and you have eighty-five percent of your suppliers in China, a big earthquake in China is not a Chinese issue, that is a Wal-Mart issue.
A few Key Lessons:
- Science teaches us about the regularities of our experience, but we need imagination to teach us about the singularities and prepare for ‘disaster time’.
- In the 80′s we isolated crises to deal with them, today we are much more interdependent so crises can quickly become global like Swine Flu. Global networks are key for a coordinated response.
- The more our economies become familiar with ‘disaster time’ the less catastrophic they will become.
The new balance between normal time and disaster time and the associated interdependences, are the new norm. There is a lot of money to be made by companies than can thrive in this new environment.
Is your firm scouting for the technology needed to compete in ‘disaster time’?
Thoughts? What is your Non-Obvious Idea?
Ben in Maine
I have been scoping for info on this for ever.
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