Why Are We Hooked on Speed?

Issue 187, November 21, 2024

Why are we always in such a hurry?  We launched 5,481,437 startups in 2023.  We introduce 91.9 million new websites every year: that’s 252,000 new websites each day.  We debut 30,000 CPG products annually to add to the bewildering choice of favorite brands and 30 to 40 new domestic car models every year. It’s no different in the business world; in 2023 the retail trade had the majority of new business applications with over 978,000 followed by professional services with 686,000. And they are all in a hurry to become profitable.

As a side note, while we’re on the topic of speed, New Yorkers are accused as fast talkers and fast walkers; maybe it’s because they have 24 seconds to cross a four-lane boulevard before the walk sign turns red.  The walk signs in Washington DC are set for 60 seconds; we’ll you draw your own conclusions. That said, we are here to explore why we are addicted to fast and furious disruption in terms of transformational change.

Disruptor-in-Chief

We’ve been led to believe that blowing things up and then restructuring is a fast track to disruption and productive change.  Not so fast. The practice of “let’s change everything and see what happens” is the updated version of throwing pasta on a wall and seeing what sticks.

Ivory Towers: Unlocking the Gap of Theory to Practice in Business Transformation

Issue 186, November 14, 2024

How often have you encountered a compelling transformation or change strategy that failed in execution?

In today’s rapidly evolving, dynamically changing business landscape, organizations face constant pressure to change and adapt. A theory provides an idealized roadmap for transformation, attempting to predict and explain how change should work under perfect conditions. However, reliance on theory alone comes with consequences. Interpretation of theory can be subjective in understanding how it’s infused by an environment, situation or challenge.

When Theory Creates a Gap

Consider a theory we often write about — technological determinism. Although the theory may appear simple, it is actually complex. The concept is that technology is fundamentally driving change in the human species and our society, yet it is designed and activated by humans who have the inherent capacities and capabilities to mirror the technology they are creating.  Depending on your opinion, the theory can be made to “fit” and therefore is inconclusive either way. Like technological determinism, many business theories are like the proverbial chicken and egg argument; which came first and how do we choose the most productive path forward?

Will AI Replace You?

Issue 185, November 7, 2024

One of the most popular debates of 2024 is what AI won’t replace. Is it me? Is it you? Is it all of us? Is it none of us?

Surely you can think back to movies that projected what a possible future might look like as technology becomes more immersed in all aspects of our lives. Science fiction often isn’t fiction, but rather prediction. In real life, some of us will place visors over our eyes and live life virtually while technology makes all the decisions for us in alt-worlds. The ethicists debate whether technology will have the agency to determine what is right or wrong without human intervention. The optimists hope that technological prowess will become a source of energy and transform our value and purpose. The pragmatists will support tech to make life easier, remove boring and repetitive tasks and give us more time for a rich life instead of our all-consuming necessity to work. And the Alphas are already saying life is complicated and complex, so let’s try to make it easier.

De-Risking Too Much Choice in Organizational Decision-Making

Issue 184, October 31, 2024

You are ready to publish an article in the content section of your website and you go to GPT4 to game the system and fine-tune the title with SEO phrases to attract the most search traffic possible.  You cut and paste the article into OpenAI’s tool, enter the prompt and voila!  GPT spits out 20 choices. It then asks you if you want it to expand on any of its choices. You review the list but it’s hard to know what to prioritize and what would and wouldn’t work. Instead of feeling as if you accomplished the task with a smart tool, you feel overwhelmed by the choices.

To recover, you take a break and go to Starbucks, only to be confronted by over 30 coffee blends. Defeated you go back to work and google some help for the SEO dilemma. You get 27 pages of responses. Maybe influencers could help.  But which of the countless self-professed business thought leaders do you tune into?  Or TikTok?

How Talented Are You at Achieving Consensus?

Issue 183, October 24, 2024

One of the major sticking points in organizational (even family) decision-making is the pursuit of a shared goal in building consensus while recognizing the diversity of opinions, thoughts and expertise of those involved.

But first, for the record, consensus is a general agreement about something, either an idea or opinion that is shared by all the people in a group (Brittanica). And add to that, the result of consensus is a decision that is intended to factor in everyone’s opinions and perspectives.

For many leaders, however, majority rule is the guiding decision-making principle, so they aren’t disintermediated by a group decision. But to be impartial and fair, consensus is a better approach and also avoids any blowback later from anyone who wasn’t 100 percent in agreement.

That said, in practice, consensus is often based on compromise resulting from negotiation, backing down, exerting personal power and how cultural norms form the foundation and consideration of the outcome. That sounds like a lot to manage.

To level the game, consensus can best be achieved based on data that overrules personal opinion and disintermediates any bias. The only caveat is that the data must be based on asking the right questions from the right people. So, consensus, like transformation or change in any organization, comes down to the human factor which we wrote extensively about in our book, The Truth About Transformation.

Who Are Your Teachers?

Issue 182, October 17, 2024

Several years ago, we attended a thought leadership conference that explored emerging trends. At the end of a session on sustainability (not just climate change, but resilience and prosperity) Chief Oren Lyons, the Haudenosaunee Faithkeeper of the Onondaga and Seneca Nations of the Six Nations of the Grand River, looked straight at the audience and asked us, “Who are your teachers?” It was one of those moments in time when a profoundly provocative and unexpected question caught a room full of adults off guard.

Wisdom Lifeline

It reminded us at the time that teachers transcend the sixth grade.  If we are paying attention and actively listening, we have teachers our entire lives. Chief Lyons went on to explain that in the Native Peoples culture there is a natural progression of leadership based on age and wisdom. The next generations in his culture definitely want their voices heard along with their peers worldwide, but they are brought up to have respect for their elders recognizing them as wise teachers and leaders.

Experience results in perspective and wisdom. Young people are the evolving sums of their parts just as any young organization is the evolving sum of its own parts. In both cases, teachers play a formative role. There is always a benefit personally and professionally in considering what others, older and wiser, have experienced and taught.

A Closer Look at Testing

Issue 181, October 10, 2024

A core strategy in any decision-making is whether we are asking the right questions. Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business School professor and economist asked the classic question, “What business are you in?” Transformative examples are Uber is a technology company, not a ride-sharing company — ditto for Airbnb, Google and Amazon as tech companies, not the obvious.

Okay for asking questions.

But what about challenging the sacrosanct strategy of testing new concepts?

Why Do We Lie? The Sequel

Issue 180, October 3, 2024

Even the most optimistic among us must admit that we are living in an unprecedented and unpredictable public arena of deliberate misinformation and lies. It has become accepted behavior, and among some, a badge of honor. It is confusing and discouraging that intentional lies have become part of the fabric of our lives. If we don’t know what is true and whom to trust, it can lead to the systemic unraveling of our institutions and organizations. Just as it has in the past.

Telling Lies, Redux

Several years ago, one of our newsletters, “Why Do We Lie?” addressed a troubling issue at that time.

The Necessity and Risk of Taking Sides in Change

Issue 179, September 26, 2024

You believe you are an individual with principles.  You consider yourself to be fair and an advocate of fair play. You follow your North Star, have a shared purpose with others, and show courage as a leader. At work, you are a proponent of the bigger picture and how each member of a team plays a role in contributing diversity of opinions and perspectives.  In short, you are a modern leader dedicated to the greater good.

But the real truth is that we all operate driven by inherent bias.  And that bias is often at the subconscious or unconscious level, so we’re not even aware of our motivations. Our self-righteousness may be a cover for what we don’t know we don’t know.

As we head to the final innings of a polarized election season, we thought it might be a good idea to use the political scene as a backdrop for any parallels that have seeped into our organizations. We aren’t here to provoke, choose a side or contribute to the ever-expanding political commentary. Your online feeds are already full of that. We are talking specifically about how to manage change in an organization where the leaders and the workforce are significantly opposed in opinion, decision-making, and direction.

The Power of Letting Go

Issue 178, September 19, 2024

The Autumnal Equinox has made its annual appearance, and if you are anything like us, the change in seasons is bittersweet. On a simple level, we are leaving the sentimental idea of happy, sunny, summer days behind as we cross the bridge to winter’s edge. If we’re more realistic, we have to admit that the Summer of 2024 was the fourth hottest on record, and by August 15, 29,917 fires burned more than 5.2 million acres. It was also a time when it was nearly impossible for first-time homeowners to buy houses and food prices went through the roof. In happier news, Deloitte’s financial well-being index rose for the third month in a row in July, reaching a four-year high of 102.6.

Risk Management: Are You a Responder or Solver?

Issue 177, September 12, 2024

We were recently invited to sit in on a cybersecurity simulation at a cybertech conference.  The simulation was staged as an interactive exercise between the experts and the audience.  The expert panel was comprised of local, state and federal disaster relief experts, a US Congress representative, the military and a few private sector officials.

The simulation started with a cyberattack, not unlike those we see in movies, where online systems and communications channels are blocked in major US and European cities by a nefarious skill and bones logo incessantly blinking on every available screen. Then the situation escalated with two nuclear explosions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, followed by the power grid takedown of a Caribbean nation and then a full shutdown of a major US West Coast city.

As each additional attack unfolded, the panel responded with what they would do to protect the areas and mobilize relief efforts.

How to Recognize Bad Intentions

Issue 176, September 5, 2024

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So, is the road to paradise paved by bad intentions? As absurd as that may sound, being aware of any bad intentions (as opposed to assuming good intentions) may pave a better way forward. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, emotionally, psychologically and in the case of business, strategically.

Organizations are complex interconnecting systems. The human system within an organization remains the most influential in achieving change and transformation. We define the human system as the “workers” and “leaders” inside the organization, as well as those who sit on the edge of the organization as partners, providers and supporters. Each individual in the system has a role to play, motivations (good and/or bad) and intentions (good and/or bad).

Good Intentions

But first a word about the ambiguity of good intentions. Good intentions are generally understood as holding optimistic thoughts that everything comes out as it should leading to a good ending.

Here’s a real-life example.

Does Substance Always Matter?

Issue 175, August 29, 2024

Style over substance. This is a matter of debate that keeps social commentators relevant – at least in their own eyes. And it’s the eyes, the optics, that seem to be winning the popularity contest over substance. Think about our political arena. Fashion pundits are weighing in on the candidates’ attire with their deep psychological explanations about the colors of ties, designers of dresses and why navy blue is the new white. We suspect that analysis may get more page views than endless scrolls on policy and economic programs.

In an age where what you see becomes blurred with what’s actually there, style transcends substance. A 60-second TikTok video is hard-pressed to be substantive. Insta moments are built on picture-perfect moments.  And let’s not forget the fantasy stylish lives your friends project on Facebook. Add to that all the new GenAI imaging programs, and we’re all at odds in separating fiction from reality, at least on the surface of things.

So, does substance always matter?

The Power of Optimism in Organizational Storytelling

Issue 174, August 22, 2024

We become the stories we tell as do organizations (companies, governments, non-profits and the like). The more we tell them and elaborate on the narrative, the more we believe them to be true and represent who we are in our purpose, relationships and how we use our energy mentally and physically.

These stories can become family legends, cultural origin stories, national histories, and an epic organizational tool.  Psychologist Jonathan Adler says that stories tend to become our identities, and we see ourselves as central actors in our own stories. “You tell the story first, and then you live your way into it,” he says. This behavior may explain the unbridled optimism of startups and entrepreneurs and the near-viral nature of some movements.

Dynamics at Play: How to Leverage Determinants

Issue 173, August 15, 2024

Last week we wrote on trends, cycles and determinants, giving a new twist on understanding the process of change and transformation. To quickly review, determinants are the underlying elements that shape cycles and ultimately determine outcomes (positive, negative or neutral). As we navigate an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world, the ability to distinguish between trends, shifts, and determinants shaping our environment becomes ever more crucial. Also important is understanding when determinants started in the cycle as they may have been playing a role for longer than we can imagine. Further, identifying the determinants across cycles is critical for effectively leading an organization forward. One of the key challenges leaders face is recognizing if they’re on the cusp of a trend, at the end of a cycle, or just experiencing a one-off shift. Needless to say, this distinction is critical because it informs everything from strategic decision-making to resource allocation.

So, the obvious question is how do you reveal determinants and assess their influence? At the crux of these challenges is the power of anticipatory leadership.

How to Navigate the Currents of Change: Trends, Shifts and Cycles

Issue 172, August 8, 2024

In our rapidly evolving marketplace, distinguishing between fleeting changes and significant trends is crucial for organizational success. At 2040 Digital, we’ve long emphasized the importance of contextual intelligence and systems thinking in navigating change and transformation. As we wrote in “The Truth About Transformation,” understanding often conflicting dynamics at play is essential for leaders to steer their organizations through disruptive times. We’re going to tackle a twist on those dynamics by diving into a less talked-about aspect of change and transformation: determinants.

Cycles and Determinants

To effectively manage change, we must understand the interplay between cycles and determinants. A cycle, as we define it, is an interval of time that is a sequence of a recurring succession of events or phenomena. Cycles are the natural rhythms of business and society that we can often predict and prepare for. They represent social, economic, political, religious, business, and more. Think of product launch cycles in the tech industry or economic boom-bust cycles.

Is Centrism an Opportunity?

Issue 171, August 1, 2024

When was the last time you thought about centrism?  It seems almost quaint in our increasingly polarized public discourse. William Butler Yeats wrote The Second Coming in 1919. The poem has been cited for over 100 years as a cautionary voice for things falling out of balance, evocatively described in the first stanza.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

According to the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, the year 1919 was transformative around the world. On the global stage, troops returned home from World War I; the Treaty of Versailles was signed; and the idea of self-determination, fueled by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s desire for a liberal international order took hold. It was in essence a year of transition emerging from years of war resulting in 40 million causalities. The world was still reeling, and the peace treaty was for all intents and purposes a form of centrism.

Centrism

We prefer to hold onto our viewpoints, professionally and personally, sometimes at all costs. What concerns us is the cost, especially as it impacts an organization.

Are You Trapped in a Wake? What Is Prevalence Inflation?

Issue 170, July 25, 2024

Imagine this hypothetical situation. You are sucked into the slipstream of a fast-moving vehicle, controlled within a narrow bandwidth by its velocity.  This may sound improbable, but racecar drivers use this technique to their advantage. It’s called drafting, and the low-pressure wake behind a leading car reduces the aerodynamic resistance on the front of the trailing car, allowing the second car to pull closer. As the second car nears the first, it pushes high-pressure air forward so less fast-moving air hits the lead car’s spoiler. (Wiki) Very risky, but strategic.

In boating, its wake may endanger others. A boat’s wake may rock, swamp, or capsize other boats and passengers may be thrown off balance or overboard, leading to serious injury. (Boat-Ed) Like racecar drivers, some boats ride inside of other boats’ wakes to smooth out the water. Wakes can be hazardous to others on many fronts and like most things in life, require proactive thinking and even a strategy to navigate the risks and consequences.

Prevalence Inflation

But there’s an even more potentially harmful wake phenomenon that we recently read about: prevalence inflation, coined by researchers Lucy Foulkes and Jack Andrews.

Is America Ready for a Reset: Unity?

Issue 169: July 18, 2024

We feel compelled to weigh in on recent developments. As a nation, we appear to be at a crossroads this week. The political discourse has taken another sharp turn, and the divisiveness and unsettling violence in our country keep accelerating. Let’s take a step back and think of the meta description of Americans: We are optimistic, resilient, problem-solvers. Add to that the rugged individualism that led us across the country to live out a manifest destiny. For over two centuries, we have been the envy of the rest of the world for our commitment to our ideals, ability to innovate, and embrace of the future.

American Reset

But that may not be the case any longer.

Why Do Great Ideas Get Ignored?

Issue 168, July 11, 2024

How great are you at getting your ideas understood and accepted?  You’ve  been mulling over how to solve a problem for a couple of weeks now. You’ve reviewed the facts, recognized the challenges and thought long and hard about how to ensure impressive results. It has been a struggle given so many distractions with the surface noise of meetings, emails and intermittent mental exhaustion. But yesterday you woke up with the solution completely framed out in your mind. You are excited; you check your calendar and see that there is a management meeting today where you can share your ideas. As you get ready for work you make some notes that you want to share. The meeting comes and you take your moment. But all you get in return is a room full of dead stares. You deflate like a burst balloon.

Independence Day 2024 Reads: Become an Independent Thinker

Issue 167, July 4, 2024

We’ve all got summer reading lists.  Ours is understandably eclectic. In celebration of Independence Day, we thought it timely to share a selection of our most popular newsletters; what they have in common (no surprise) is independent thinking, which is a useful skill in our admittedly confusing times. If the recent presidential debate showed room for improvement in critical thinking and credibility, our readers put those themes at the top of their favorite Ideas and Innovations list. Enjoy reviewing the “people’s choice” topics that we have tackled recently.

Are You a Renaissance Leader?

Issue 166, June 27, 2024

Just when you thought leaders have been disintermediated by demanding younger employees who want a seat at their bosses’ tables, these leaders are more important than ever. So much has been reported and written about working to live, life/work balance, and the quality-of-life fulfillment of remote work that managers and their roles have been shoved to the side.

But in truth, leaders have their work cut out for them.

The Rise of Loneliness and Disengagement

Leaders need to call on new skills when the workforce, as reported by a new Gallup poll, is not alright: “62% of global employees are not engaged at work, another 15% are actively disengaged, only 34% of workers would describe themselves as thriving, and around 20% of employees describe themselves as lonely — plus those numbers get even worse for younger workers (Fortune).

Mindful Management: The Power of Gratitude and Building Trust 

Issue 165, June 20, 2024

“Do you see me?  Can you hear me? I mean really see me.”  This is a refrain of so many younger employees. Having been sheltered from the public for years during the pandemic, the shadow of anxiety follows them into the world at large. And the need for recognition is not exclusive to next gens. Increasingly many people feel they are wearing invisibility cloaks at work and in society. There is a lot of hype about customization and personalization in social media, ecommerce, newsfeeds, and any other number of other communications. But don’t confuse any of that with relevancy.

The elephant in the room we are tackling today is the root cause of the current, pervasive wave of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and frustration: it’s the lack of recognition and trust. If you were one of the many who went to a theater to see Inside Out 2 last weekend, you know what we are talking about. The emotion of anxiety is not just for animated 13-year-olds. Disney and Pixar are definitely onto something with this $155 million opening sequel, and anxiety played a front-and-center role undaunted by peppy, persistent joy.

What Is Gratitude in a Disruptive Marketplace?

Whistleblowers and Trust: Revealing Courageous Leadership

Issue 164, June 13, 2024

Who do we trust in the public forum? It’s hard to judge with cascades of misinformation and intentional disinformation swirling around on the internet, in the courts and at the rallies. It’s also hard to identify any public heroes in a polarized society.  One person’s champion is another’s enemy. To say it’s confusing is an understatement. Psychology Today describes heroes as individuals who give us hope, energize us, heal us, impart wisdom, are role models for morality, offer safety and protection, give us meaning and purpose, provide social connection and reduce loneliness, help individuals achieve personal goals, and help society achieve societal goals. It’s an ambitious list but it could become a personal playbook for everyone to lead a mindful, compassionate life.

Speaking of heroes, we’ve noticed that whistleblowers have been making headlines recently. Courageous individuals have resigned from well-respected brands over ethical principles. We feel a review of courage in leadership is due for a review, with a focus on the vagaries we face with the added pressure of AI, which incidentally is coming to the new iPhone via OpenAI. Yes, even Apple has succumbed to aligning with the current market leader. The impact of that innovation is a topic for another day.

Bursting Bubbles: Frugality, No-Buy, and Societal Trends

Issue 163, June 6, 2024

We recently wrote about a few socioeconomic bubbles we suggested were about to burst. As fate would have it, one of our predictions about customer backlash against price hikes, inflation, asymmetrical stock market performance, and missteps by brands manifested into a renaissance of the no-buy day which was transformed into no-buy July to the no-buy year and then the no-buy challenge.

Holding Back

As observers of consumer behavior and leadership strategy, we have conflated the public discontent with current economic conditions with a parallel thread of the lack of loyalty and trust, as well as a consumer shift to categorize needs and wants as commodities. Increasingly, when a product meets customers’ needs and performs, it doesn’t matter what organization or brand makes it or delivers it. For example, the importance of wearing logo-emblazoned apparel, being seen driving a particular automobile model, or shopping in a specific store is decreasing among younger generations. They are pragmatic and fickle. We surfaced the shifts toward commoditization and near rebellion against organizations that take advantage of consumers, have unsustainable business and manufacturing practices, and aren’t aligned with consumers’ personal values in our book The Truth About Transformation as well as our newsletters “Is This Us”, “Are You Sure You Matter” and “What is Normal”.

Looking Ahead: 2024 Runway

What You Need to Be Thinking About

Issue 162, May 30, 2024

We know that the second half of 2024 starts in a month, but we want to get a jump on what to pay attention to for the rest of this tumultuous year. As we move into summer mindsets to rest and restore, it’s a good time to process and plan for when fall arrives. Being mindful of what lies ahead ensures an ability to adapt our approaches and solutions, recognizing so many conflicting factors and variables at play.

The markers we have outlined are social and cultural observations that will impact our lives professionally and personally. We are not economists, psychologists, or technologists.  But we are business cultural anthropologists with a deep curiosity about human nature and our collective consciousness, or lack thereof.

So, we offer an opinionated take on the mega and microtrends that keep us up at night, much of it based on our observations of too many organizations running business as usual, retrenching to the past, or simply throwing their hands up with the excuse that it’s too hard to move with forward momentum.

It’s Really the Journey that Matters

Issue 161, May 23, 2024

In our never-ending quest to understand human behavior in the context of organizational culture, we study a lot of nontraditional, surprising, and often seemingly unrelated, strange material. There is plenty written about pop psychology and behavior, but every once in a while, we discover a paradigm-shifting visionary. Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s book Behave, written in 2017 is still relevant and a seminal thought-shifting proposition. We introduced our admiration of Sapolsky and his writings a few months ago in one of our most popular issues of this newsletter “Is this Us.” We discussed Sapolsky’s book: Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will which reveals how little is really in our conscious control.

The Trouble with Making Assumptions and Over-Generalizations

Issue 160, May 16, 2024

We’ve noticed a disturbing trend over the past three years. To put it bluntly, organizations including governments, are making many assumptions about their stakeholders and constituents. The assumptions stem from over-generalizations, past knowledge, or due to wearing blinders.  In each instance, we will discuss how you, the consumer, will bear the cost and impact of these behaviors.

Failing to See the Total System

Let’s take a US political case in point: global trade.

The Misfortunes of Uninformed Urgency

Issue 159, May 9, 2024

We write often and passionately about the sense of urgency organizations should feel as they manage disruptive marketplaces, unpredictable consumer trends, and geopolitical instability. Coupled with urgency are our mantras about market orientation, shared purpose, and critical thinking.  We could stop right there but we’re not going to! We don’t want our advocation about modern leadership and organizational strategies to become platitudes and buzzwords. In that spirit, we’re taking a fresh look at urgency and the nuanced meaning of “informed” urgency.

Why Strategic Re-Think Is Today’s Prerequisite Strategy

Issue 158, May 2, 2024

Although it seems counterintuitive in today’s dynamically changing marketplace, many organizations still live, breathe, and sometimes die by their static three- or five-year strategic plans. It takes so much work and time to develop these long-term plans, often structured more as a laundry list of aspirations, that they are hard to let go of. This multi-year term model is often disconnected from the actual capability or capacity of an organization at any given time. It is also a routine hodge-podge list, built by consensus, and often out of touch with evolving marketplace dynamics. Most often it is written without a roadmap for how any of the plan can be achieved or what activities relate to the expected outcome. A sense of entropy can result, leaving fixed plans in place that may no longer be relevant, triggering an organizational decline. Informed urgency is often missing as the dynamism of the market brings the future to the present.

The Importance of Language in Organizational Transformation

Issue 157, April 25, 2024

Think about this for a moment.  The English language we speak is referred to as Modern English dating back to 1450. It‘s related to the emergence of the printing press and was adopted through the expanded volume of printed materials including Shakespeare in the late 1500s and the King James Bible in 1611 (study.com). That was over 570 years ago.  If you’re following us here, it might dawn on you to ask: How can a language that old possibly describe, accommodate, and explain technology and all its ramifications as well the problems, situations, and environments we now find ourselves in?

Where Has Our Optimism Gone?

Issue 156, April 18, 2024

If you were asked to describe the personality of America you might use the adjectives resilient, optimistic, can-do, problem-solving. Our history has been built on these principles and they are still very much embedded in what drives our economy.  However, what’s driving our culture seems to be shifting from these positive “optimistic, can-do” characteristics and turning to a darker, more fractious side – if you believe what you see, hear, or read in news reports.

Last week in discussing reactive and reflective decision-making, we alluded to a potential trend towards pessimism resulting from the near-constant flow of information, all representing various opinions and views. The frustration for individuals results in how to determine fact from fiction. Feelings of being beaten down and/or overwhelmed may have a direct influence on how we see and interpret the world around us.

The Value of Reflective Decision-Making

Issue 155, April 11, 2024

Admit it, most of us are stressed out and often filled with anxiety.  We are time-pressed. Overbooked. Distracted. Confused. Dumbfounded. Surprised. And potentially even trending to pessimism. We are trying to make sense of events we can’t control that are hurtling toward us daily through our news feeds.

A Moment in Time

We’re also grappling with the speed of change in the digital economy and our connected society. The news we consume is both fact and fiction leading to polarized factions across the world and strident beliefs. We have so much information coming at us that it may seem we are in constant reaction mode.

Reactive Decision-Making, Social, and Youth

Issue 154, April 4, 2024

We’re worried about the members of our younger generations – your customers, employees, children, and family members. We’re worried as well about the kneejerk attempts of some of our leaders and those with influence to solve what is perceived as a problem without truly understanding it or the consequences of the solution they attempt to put into place.

Reactive States of Mind

Post-pandemic society appears to be in reaction mode, and playing whack-a-mole has become the forward-thinking, strategic, and tactical direction.

Are We Playing Monopoly as a Society?

Issue 153, March 28, 2024

Big tech has been taken to task repeatedly often without a complete understanding of who they are, what they do and how their business model functions. For many, it seems elusive to understand their motives, wrapped up in proprietary strategy. And frankly, just about no one (certainly not the average individual) can figure out what they’ve been up to and what their intentions are.  Are they out to help us or are they manipulating us for their purposes and goals? The fraternity is a tech cabal that is incestuous. These enterprises are founded by visionaries (oh so young at the time) who see the world as they predict, not necessarily the way it is or ever will be.

What We Know About You: Welcome to the Surveillance State

Issue 152, March 21, 2024

We recently read a report in The Wall Street Journal that got our attention.  Commercial data brokers are selling their third-party data to the government. If you’re an optimist, you would think this could be a good thing. Our intelligence agencies and the defense department may be able to identify patterns that could predict and prevent an unfortunate event – terrorism, for example.  But honestly, how would you feel if all the conversations in your house that Siri and Alexa are silently listening in on are sold in the aggregate to the government…or something else?

Unintended Consequences: Decision-Making and Economic Interconnectedness

Issue 151, March 14, 2024

We’re entering the fray in the debate on the economy. And central to this debate is a refresher focused on our inability to make connections, see patterns and anticipate how micro and macro trends can radically and consequentially compromise our approach to solving real or perceived problems.

In solving what we see as immediate problems (low wages, inflation, price-gouging, lack of skilled workers and migration as examples), there are often unintended consequences because we simply don’t see what we don’t see. We don’t connect the consequential lines across a myriad of factors and variables to understand the impacts, changes and influences across a system or set of systems.

AI: Spring Awakenings

Issue 150, March 7, 2024

We think the onset of Spring is a good time for house cleaning and taking a pause to reassess AI. It has taken over both the imagination and the anxiety of most anyone who has been paying attention. Take a straw poll and you may have two oppositional results. AI is a tool that will help human beings achieve higher levels of productivity and more efficient levels of profitability. Or AI is a threat to national security and humanity as it is the pathway to transcend human cognitive abilities and will supersede the human mind, ultimately taking over humanity.

The Need for Reversed Learning

Issue 149, February 29, 2024

Is it really true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?  If you’re an old dog in a digital marketplace, you don’t have a choice. Let’s say you are an editor. You used to work with writers to create provocative, well-researched, surprising articles. Today, you have to write titles, headlines, and content to optimize search and game the online systems. Or let’s say you are a marketer. You used common sense, judgment, and intuition to develop strategic marketing campaigns. Now, you use data, analytics, algorithms, and AI to optimize and measure your messaging. Leaders who used to monitor the progress of teams in weekly in-person meetings have had to learn how to manage individuals who work remotely and relearn on-screen physical cues instead of reading the room.

What we have been doing, probably without realizing it, is reversed learning.

The Value and Challenge of Compromise

Issue 148, February 22, 2024

How many times did your parents tell you to, “Pick your battle.” And then in the next breath say, “Never compromise your values.” That ambiguity could be confusing to a child, but is mind-bending to an adult navigating our complex, polarized society. Increasingly public opinion is becoming less compromising, leaving common ground hard to find.

Compromise: Positive or Negative?

Do You Fall Prey to Oversimplification?

Issue 147, February 15, 2024

We all do it.  We oversimplify when it suits us or when we believe that is what our audience wants to hear. In business, we have been programmed not to share too many financial details and just report the high-level numbers. Or not get all techy; talk in plain English. Avoid all those legal terms that make heads spin. Can’t you just say that a different way? Add to that programming the urban myth that human beings hate to read anything too complicated; get to the point quickly.

Separate But Equal

A behavioral truth is that ultimately each of us seeks to conserve our energy and take the easiest path, which falls into the temptation to oversimplify. After all, deep diving into every issue, problem, and solution comes with the risk that everyone around the table will take a short snooze. We believe that a few important bullet points and the most concise communication of information will be a crowd-pleaser. If we get exhausted from “too much information,” we believe everyone will too. But those shouldn’t be excuses.

How Clock Time Reshaped the World and Work

Issue 146, February 8, 2024

We think it’s safe to say that most of us take clock time for granted.  Timepieces are ubiquitous; they are on our stoves, microwaves, refrigerators, walls, radios, wrists, and mobile phones. From 1300 to 1600, they were the centerpiece of small towns placed on towers and public buildings, which dramatically changed how people ordered their lives. So fast forward and timepieces have become so affordable and mobile phones are so ubiquitous that they have replaced watches, all bringing the measurement of time into clear focus. Without getting into the physics of timepieces, what we probably don’t realize is that clock time changed our lives dramatically and changed the way work was measured and evaluated.

The Art of Time Keeping

But first, let’s step back into a moment in time.

Randomness and Flukes: Changing the Course of History

Issue 145, February 1, 2024

Hindsight is foresight, yet we may be better equipped to predict the future with the benefit of so much emerging tech. But what AI and ML don’t anticipate is the random moments that change the course of history. What’s frustrating is that you rarely see those moments in real-time. We suggest the reason is that we are looking for the wrong thing, making those random occurrences nearly impossible to recognize.

We were intrigued by a new perspective on randomness and chaos theory by author and associate professor in Global Politics at the London School of Economics, Brian Klass. He has just released a new book, Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters that deconstructs the unintended consequences of events that had significant impacts on society, the economy, and the environment. We are making him the center point of this newsletter.

Vulnerability as an Asset

Issue 144, January 25, 2024

We’ve all heard about EQ as the skill and management strategy transcending IQ. Emotional Quotient is defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions (Wiki) and the ability to manage one’s own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict (HelpGuide). Any way you define it, it’s an essential leadership approach in today’s culture that is increasingly fraught than normal with division and contention.  But there is another way to understand this operational strategy, and it’s called vulnerability.

Why Vulnerability?

The Risk of Certainty

Issue 143, January 18, 2024

Human nature, at its deepest core, reinforces our longing for certainty and the prospect of security and stability. We don’t want things around us to change. We want assurance that what we know is true and real. We want certainty that we made the right decisions and choices so that outputs and outcomes will be what we expect. Ambiguity creates anxiety and insecurity and makes us defensive. Ambiguity makes most of us feel uncomfortable, yet ambiguity and uncertainty can result in our biggest jumps forward in progress.

What is Normal?

Issue 142, January 11, 2024

How many times have we heard, “the new normal.” Or conversely, the longing to return to what was normal. Or an optimistic claim to create a modern normal.  Well, guess what, there is no normal.  Nor was there ever one. We have operated in a disruptive, asymmetrical marketplace for over a century of continuous change. The difference today is the speed of communications that transmit the market conditions that we face 24/7.  This speed brings changes to the forefront of our consciousness, giving the illusion that we are experiencing daily radical new waves of disruption upending our lives. In the minds of many, the changes seem radical, immediate, and often negative. Others relish disruption — real or perceived. In either case, it’s becoming more difficult to sort through it all to understand what it all means and how it matters. And not to be prosaic, but speed kills.

Last week we asked the question: “Is this us?”

Is This Us?

Issue 141, January 4, 2024

If you just landed on the planet from elsewhere, or you are a student of modern media, you might believe that America is polarized, disappointed, angry, mentally ill, always dancing in front of its mobile phones, and with a chip on its shoulder.

Is this really us? Is this who we are? The issue is whether our actions, beliefs, and values are representative of who’ve always been. Or in the current fractious environment, when societal norms and decorum seem to have taken a backseat to civil discourse, are we changing and showing new colors?

2023’s Reader’s Choice: The 5 Most Popular Issues of 2040’s Ideas and Innovations

Issue 140, December 21, 2023

2023 is wrapping up and we’re doing a reader’s choice this week. After all, we preach customer centrism and make it a practice with our clients.  So, what’s interesting when we look at the top five newsletters we have published over 2023, which we sent to you and posted on LinkedIn, Medium, our website, and our Substack Newsletter, it says as much about all our readers as it says about the message.

Select continue reading to explore the top 5 issues.

When Your Reach Exceeds Your Grasp

Issue 139, December 14, 2023

Here’s a question for you as we wrap up 2023: Why have so many organizations reset themselves by dramatically cutting back on their staff and operations?  Why did their aspirations seem so out of line with their new reality? Whatever happened to foresight?

This syndrome makes us think of two quotes from two distinctly different individuals. Poet Robert Browning said, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s heaven for?” And then Teddy Roosevelt’s grave site offers a corollary thought, “Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.” And if you want to add one more layer of complexity, poet Virgil wrote in the Aeneid in 29 BC, “Reach for the stars.” So, if you unpack all this advice, you might question the sanity of what’s going on in the tech industry.

In other words, why do organizations build up their staffs and then come to the realization that what they had hoped for doesn’t match their forecasts and hopes? How could they be so disconnected from the reality of the market, the size of the audience, and the desire for their products or services? Is it a lack of critical thinking? And how could the workers who were once so critical to them then become irrelevant?

Inspiration for Commitment, Redefinition, and Reinvention

Issue 138, December 7, 2023

What We Can Learn From Others

For many of us, this year has been one of surprises and some unexpected gifts. Global events have become 24/7 headlines on our newsfeeds and most of the news is troubling.  2023 is the hottest year on record for the planet.  Two wars are being waged simultaneously at great costs. Inflation remains a persistent worry despite improving economic data. The vision of an EV future is in question by consumers who haven’t yet decided it is worth the higher cost to be climate sensitive. The concept of work and professional careers is being upended by Gen Z, millennials, and even Gen X. All these concurrent events, shifts, and movements are begging society for a near-total reset.

So, what are people doing in response to this?

Me Versus You, Bias Revisited

Issue 137, November 30, 2023

If you have been following our newsletters, you know that we have a fascination about bias. In fact, from our observations about workplace dysfunction, leadership disconnect, market orientation dislocation, and digital transformation gone awry, conscious, or subconscious bias is usually at the root of the problem. It may sound simplistic, but what we don’t know we don’t know can shortstop the best of intentions and the most optimistic plans.

When we think of bias, most of us don’t see its practical application to the workplace. We typically think of biases as about personal beliefs, politics, parenting – anything other than a potentially subversive unconscious bias that can infect an organization. So, let’s take a deeper look at some of the common biases that can demoralize, disappoint, and derail.

Why Does Belonging Matter?

Issue 136, November 23, 2023

The most fundamental motivation among the human species is to belong.  Belonging is implicit in sharing trust, affinity and caring about someone or something bigger than yourself. Renowned philosopher Dan Dennett in a TED talk in 2006 encouraged everyone to dedicate and devote themselves to something more important than themselves to find meaning and purpose in their lives. We’ll let you draw your own conclusions whether the audience of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors were paying attention. We would add here that the point of communication is not the exchange of information but rather the exchange of understanding. And understanding is what makes belonging matter.

Are You Subject to Power Plays?

Issue 135, November 16, 2023

As mindful observers of today’s national and global discourse, we would be among the first to remind you that we are all both a witness and a victim to power positioning among politicians, world leaders, global business moguls, and everyday bullies.  And as is often the case, when bad behavior is prevalent on the world stage, it tends to trickle down to the local level in organizations, relationships, families, and institutions.  It is as though individuals have permission to mimic bad behavior emulating once well-respected public personalities.

With this in mind, we are going to review a phenomenon that often occurs within dysfunctional organizations. We wrote extensively about power positioning in The Truth About Transformation and are updating our findings lurking in the shadow of global events.

Power Positioning

For starters, let’s define exactly what we mean by power positioning.

The Risk of Certainty

Issue 143, January 18, 2024

Human nature, at its deepest core, reinforces our longing for certainty and the prospect of security and stability. We don’t want things around us to change. We want assurance that what we know is true and real. We want certainty that we made the right decisions and choices so that outputs and outcomes will be what we expect. Ambiguity creates anxiety and insecurity and makes us defensive. Ambiguity makes most of us feel uncomfortable, yet ambiguity and uncertainty can result in our biggest jumps forward in progress.

Why Women at Work Remains an Issue

Issue 134, November 9, 2023

We’re going to tackle an issue that, in our opinion, should no longer be an issue: gender parity in the workplace. McKinsey in its latest Women in the Workplace study reports, “Over the past nine years, women—and especially women of color—remain underrepresented across the corporate pipeline. However, we see a growing bright spot in senior leadership. Since 2015, the number of women in the C-suite has increased from 17% to 28%, and the representation of women at the VP and SVP levels has also improved significantly.”

Honestly? That’s a pretty low bar.

Ironically, there is clearly parity in the gender distribution in the US which has remained steady for several years, with women accounting for approximately 51.1 percent of the population since 2013, according to Statistica.

Our report is by no means comprehensive about this critical issue. It’s our selective canvas of the facts and realities that are holding gender parity back, which is shocking to us in the year 2023. We also have to ask why this was ever an issue, why society is so slow to change, and why gender roles have never reflected a fair and level playing field.

Leadership Gaps

So, why is there still such a leadership gap between women and men?

Are You Sure You Matter?

Issue 133, November 2, 2023

Holding onto next-gen workers and customers (born between 1997 and 2012) requires more than a trick up your sleeve.  They are actively changing up the rules of engagement in, and for, organizations of all sizes — whether they are employees or customers.  Call them naïve or a brutal force of nature with critical mass, they are redefining the workplace culture and the brand/customer value proposition.

Here’s the key thought: You risk irrelevance when your products and services are viewed by Gen Z simply as commodities. Gen Z and Alpha are pragmatic. They have little loyalty to any one brand. They view brands to serve a purpose, and if the brands fail, they move on. This is not just in context of the consumer culture; it relates to employers, associations, organizations, financial institutions, retailers – any brand they engage with. If you don’t deliver what they want, they will find someone/thing that will. They have choice because they can. And that means the concept and strategy for developing a brand, one that builds loyalty ensuring customers come back time and again or retain their relationship with you, goes out the window.

What is a commodity?

The Value of Intangibles

Issue 132, October 26, 2023

We continue to be fascinated by the value proposition of intangibles. This isn’t some weird magical idea. We’re talking about assets that have no physical form but are nonetheless valuable. Considering that we are living in a digital marketplace, intangibility has a profound relevance despite our inherent and deeply programmed need to see, feel, and touch something tangible. If it can be seen, felt, and touched we believe it is real.

An intangible asset is non-monetary and not physical, and therefore cannot be manipulated physically. We cannot touch it, we cannot feel it and other than viewing it on a computer screen represented by the joining of millions of pixels, we actually cannot see it in three dimensions. Common types of intangible assets include brands, goodwill, patents, copyrights, trade names, trademarks, and intellectual property. Other types include social media feeds, digital images, bitcoin, blockchain, NFTs, and data created and managed in the digital realm. Businesses have several ways to value these assets, which can be challenging because of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Individual value determination can only come from “viewing” the intangible via computer or mobile interface.

Therefore, can we be sure it really exists and has value?

Misinformation, AI, Cyber Troops, and Our Need for Guardrails

Issue 131, October 19, 2023

We’re taking a moment (again) to consider the implications of the speed of technological change confronting us daily. What was charmingly referred to as the information superhighway by Al Gore back in 1993 has morphed into a bullet train … run by AI. What’s more, we face those with malicious intent to manipulate our opinions, bend our minds into believing fiction and influence us in what we believe is the truth.

Our questions for today are: Who can we rely on to place guardrails on the technological opportunistic race to the future? Is it ourselves? Our government?  Our organizations? Or do we put all the responsibility on generative AI to protect us? The key point?

The Present

Issue 130, October 12, 2023

We’re picking up on a theme we’ve been hearing recently. It’s not exactly a new idea, but it resonates as we are challenged by living in an increasingly disruptive and disturbing world. It is, quite simply, living in the present.

Professor Scott Galloway (love him or not) has increasingly peppered his critical commentaries with the realization that his career has been defined by planning for the future informed by the past. His existential question is “Was I ever really here?” He wonders if he was ever in the now, the here, the moment.

It’s a good question to ask yourself when under pressure to outperform, out-innovate, and out-compete. If we are constantly scenario planning for an uncertain future and judging ourselves on the past, to Galloway’s question, are we really here in the moment?

So, we’re taking a slight departure from many of our recent newsletters. We’re exploring the paradoxical nature of living in the present, and we went to an inventor, artist and big thinker, Scott Thrift. He has built a business on The Present, which has captured our imagination. The Present is a collection of handcrafted timepieces that offer a more meaningful way of measuring time by revealing the present moment within life’s natural cycles. To give some context, he has engineered a 365-day “clock,” (illustrated above) and a monthly moon phase timepiece – all calibrated to your location. These unconventional timepieces give you a dramatically different understanding of time, the passing of time, and the present. Why does this matter?

The Motivation of Manipulating Data and Information to a Desired Outcome

Issue 129, October 5, 2023

Some recent headlines have reported disturbing news about respected and respectable scholars falsifying or just ignoring data conclusions in scholarly papers. This is another example of the skepticism many of us have with the shifts in misinformation flooding our inboxes and newsfeeds, compelling each of us to exercise our critical thinking skills.  And the examples we’re referring to aren’t even results of AI.  It is human error, strong bias at play, or manipulative intention for one purpose or another.

This leads us to another topic in our continuing explorations of human motivation. Why do we lie? Why do we cheat?  We covered these topics expansively in our book, The Truth About Transformation, in terms of behavior in the workplace.  Based on the recent news, we’re going to take a deeper dive.

There are cases of deception with public anti-heroes Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos and Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, younger poster children for egregious fraud. But there are also reports of Marc Tessier-Lavigne who stepped down last month as president of Stanford University, and in the irony of all ironies, Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, who stands accused of cheating in her published studies of why people cheat.

Pretty Big Lies

We’re going to start with a few big lies>

What Would You Do?

Issue 128, September 28, 2023

We’ve all been in business situations that are uncomfortable, confrontational, and dysfunctional. Even after spending decades building a career, we can get a curveball that puts us in an untenable position.

In our newsletters we seek to surface new ideas and realities of the workplace, always recognizing that the human factor is always of paramount importance and influence. It is our intention to help you and your organization manage change, successfully transform, and adapt to an ever-evolving marketplace.

We have covered topics and explorations focused on leadership, communication, workforce alignment, and more. In that regard, we hope we have given you the perspective, tools, and approaches that assist you in looking at situations, problems — and yes even innovations — in a new, informed light.

Preventive and Supportive Questions

Issue 127, September 21, 2023

Chances are when things go wrong it’s because of poor communication. You’d think that we would have figured out by now how to communicate with each other effectively. All the strategy in the world goes down the tubes if you can’t speak it.  And managing a team starts and stops with listening and communicating clearly and empathetically.

The biggest landmine?  Asking questions.  Do it wrong and the conversation comes to a screeching halt. And most of us are not conscious of doing it wrong. We’ve established our style and we’re sticking with it.

So, we’re going to explore some of the more subtle, nuanced aspects of asking questions in the hope that we can become better communicators.

Preventive Questions

This may be a new one for you. And we’re all guilty of it from time to time.

How the European Union Is Ahead on Privacy

Issue 126, September 14, 2023

It has been over a year since we summarized privacy policy actions (or inactions) that will impact you as well as your organization. Why haven’t we written more on the topic? To be honest, there has been little if any action here in the US at the Federal level despite continued news about incidents that result in negative consequences across our society. While inaction continues at the highest levels in the US, many states caught up in the vacuum of no country-wide policy have enacted their own policies and regulations to protect their residents.

The Value of Observation Through the Lens of Complexity Theory

Issue 125, September 7, 2023

One of anyone’s life goals is to be a good observer. It’s fruitful to watch how things unfold around us as we try to make sense of the patterns and connections. Almost everything around us is connected, has interdependence, and influences all the parts that comprise the whole of a system. And that includes the systems of society and, of course, our organizations.

In that spirit, we’ve been observing how societies seem to be undergoing stress tests that challenge their very foundations.  Presidential candidates are assassinated. Military chiefs usurp a government. Prime ministers are replaced in a series of revolving doors.  And in this country, it appears that we have at least two different interpretations of our constitution.

What Is an Observer to Do? 

Defining Innovation

Issue 124, August 31, 2023

Innovation is one of the most hackneyed, misinterpreted, and overused buzzwords in today’s business vocabulary. Ask anyone – including yourself – to define innovation in context of the strategy and operations of doing business in the ever-changing digital economy. You may struggle to define it and asking others will often result in wildly different responses.

We did a straw poll to see what the general consensus was on what innovation means.

Here are just a few interpretations:

Planning Ahead: How Do You Ensure Better Outcomes?

Issue 123, August 24, 2023

With all the data at our disposal, why aren’t we connecting the dots to ensure better outcomes? To be more specific, let’s look at our healthcare system – and you can use it as a metaphor for your own strategic planning.

Next Gen Career Shifts

Take two trends: the US population is aging and so many next gens are more interested in entrepreneurship and tech startups than medicine as a career. What are the unintended consequences? There are not now, nor will there be enough physicians and healthcare workers in the near future to care for our population. Projections show the gap will continue at least through 2034.

Why We Overcommit

Issue 122, August 17, 2023

Nike may disagree, but just say no!

Let’s take a pause to consider how we make decisions and why we often over-commit. We wrote an entire book, The Truth About Transformation, about the misconceptions surrounding change and transformation. Many think the greatest obstacle to a significant change is the lack of resources or technological finesse. Those are contributing factors for sure, but the single barrier to change is: Us.

Individuals. Our leadership, management, and workforce. The reasons we do what we do or don’t, why we make one decision or another, why we react, peacock, roadblock, turn away, shut down and yes, overcommit, all result from unconscious and conscious behaviors. To sum it up: We are the most overlooked part of the change equation.

Anti-Perfectionism Is on the Rise

Issue 121, August 10, 2023

Recently it has come to our attention, and no doubt yours as well, that some organizations are having a rough go at it stabilizing new workplace models. Hell, society itself seems to be generally on edge finding some new stabilizing normal way to make sense of our ongoing disruptive quality of life.

On the one hand in organizations, hybrid models have settled into a norm. On the other hand, many CEOs are ordering employees back into the office five days a week. On top of this asymmetrical approach, many executives are struggling with how to lead. The result is a mashup of what work looks like in mid-2023 and such a diversity of viewpoints on how an organization should adapt, even rise to the occasion, that it often results in knee jerk reactions.

Professional and Personal Value Metrics

What is today’s measure of successful workforce performance and how are we individually assessing our own personal and professional value? There is a connection between the two as well as a co-dependence.

Mid-Summer Checkpoints

Issue 120, August 3, 2023

It’s been a hot summer for most of us. The political conversation continues to escalate. The war drags on. Inequity and inequality divide us. Next gens still raise their voices with demands and pleas for the planet.

But not all news is divisive and frustrating. One fact in the ongoing swirl is that only change endures. It would appear that our marketplaces and societies are settling into new models and realities as we assimilate all the changes we experienced over the past few years. Yes, we know the shifts caused by the pandemic have been over-reported, but it’s worth taking a pause to review some new changes that seem to be finding their way into better mindsets and improved situations. Here are a few top notes which are interrelated and when viewed holistically form a connective tissue.

The Case for AI Guardrails

Issue 119, July 27, 2023

Whatever you think about the U.S. government or our elected officials, it does have guardrails in place to protect its citizens. For pharma and food products, it’s the FDA.  For workplace safety there’s OSHA. For mobility safety, it’s the Department of Transportation. For safe investments, there’s the SEC. For consumer protection, there’s the Federal Trade Commission. For AI and emerging tech, there’s nothing.

Setting Boundaries

By human nature, we set boundaries made of guardrails to protect ourselves.

Change Is a Team Sport: We All Play a Role

Issue 118, July 20, 2023

Last week we gave you a case study to demonstrate how critical the human factor (and personalities and our own blind spots) becomes in seeking to innovate, make change and transform. Change is ever-present in daily life. It is also a constant in response to an organization’s market, system, and the needs and wants of customers and workforce. Resistance to innovation, change, and transformation is often unintentional given the failure to recognize that it is indeed a team sport where everyone involved must share knowledge and purpose — and everyone must know their roles and how their roles will evolve.

We are committed to bringing you the stories behind transformational theory and strategy to provide context as well as advice. In this issue, we offer some practical food for thought with our top 11 impediments that influence change and create organizational/cultural resistance.

As a start, we are getting interactive, so please take our pop quiz: Why do you, resist change?

Case Study: A Tale of Two Cities

Issue 117: July 13, 2023

We now present a true story, a tale as old as time, of what happens when you unknowingly create resistance to change.  We’ll share the saga and let you draw your own conclusions about the outcome.

Succession

The founder of a digital media platform specializing in the strategy and operations of the design industry for a C-level audience needs a succession plan.  She is in her early eighties and wants to be sure the brand she has nurtured and loved for 50+ years will have a home after she decides to step down.  Having said that, she admittedly reports she will work until she can’t, assuming she will pass on defiantly at her keyboard.

Leadership in Contentious Times

Issue 116, July 6, 2023

If you’re a leader of a public (or private) organization today, you may feel you wake up to a firing squad every morning. Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock has abandoned references to ESG because he feels that it was becoming politicized. Brian Cornell, CEO of Target made no public statements in response to several of his stores attacked by protesters during Gay Pride Month. And we all read about the dust-up with Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Any leader in our asymmetrical, disruptive marketplace is increasingly barraged by consumer groups advocating for so many causes that it puts true leadership to the test.

And then there are emerging tech issues that not only test leadership but confound it. Even Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve has weighed in on the vagaries of AI. As reported by Bloomberg, “On AI, we’re doing what everyone else is doing. We’re trying to get smart about it and it obviously has huge possibilities. Technologies tend to propagate through the economy fairly slowly and this may be the exception. It’s something that we’re spending a lot of time on. It’s way too early for conclusions.”

We believe that organizations during the rest of 2023 will have to reset, retrench and reformulate. It could be the result of continuing fallout from the pandemic, vocal consumer muscle, and the natural evolution of organizations that did not transform in time to compete in a digital marketplace. But, now more than ever, leading with courage has become table stakes. So, having just observed this country’s 247th independence, which was an 18th-century testament to courageous leadership, we believe it’s a good time to re-review our piece on “Leading with Courage.” And while you’re at it, check out our book, The Truth About Transformation, for an in-depth exploration of how successful organizations have navigated the uneasy balance between reinvention and empathy in empowering today’s empowered workforce.

Risk, Reward, Innovation, and Hubris

Issue 115, June 29, 2023

Every day we assess the potential rewards along with the real and perceived risks of the situations, desires, tasks, and ideas we confront. We may not be consciously aware of these assessments, but they are happening all the time.

Our ever-expanding technical prowess has resulted in new tools, more efficient production, opportunities to transform ideas into reality, and new platforms to engage and connect. We also have access to expanding our knowledge and deferring to AI to do the meaningless work for us.

Social Proof and the Powers of Persuasion

Issue 114, June 22, 2023

How often when you are choosing a new restaurant do you refer to Yelp or your local food critic’s review? Or when deciding on a weekend movie, you check out the film reviews, leaning toward the ones with star rankings.  How do you find a hotel in another city? And when you are buying apparel online, do you go for the recommendations for how to accessorize it, or in Amazon’s case, “We think you might also like this.” Informally, this is the practice of the power of the “wisdom of the crowds” philosophy that others may know more than you do. If your style, tastes, and interests align with the recommended sources, it’s a handy shortcut for decision-making. It works best when it is fundamentally built on trust.

As the World Turns

Issue 113, June 15, 2023

We’re taking a pause to share several trends that we believe are bellwethers for a sustainable future. And we’re not including climate change, although it clearly ranks high on anyone’s list as a cause for concern. We’re talking about two trends that don’t get much attention: population shifts and life expectancy.

Here’s the big picture from the UN: The world’s population is expected to increase by two billion people, from 7.7 billion at present to 9.7 billion in 2050, before reaching a peak of nearly 11 billion by the end of the century as fertility rates continue to decline. Where that population lives and works, where a percentage of the population is growing or declining, who comprises the overall population (think age, gender. and ethnicity), plus the economic conditions and opportunities where segments of the population are located are all more important to you than you may think.

Are You Ready? Are Your Customers Ready for Change?

Issue 112, June 8, 2023

Wrong question. Are your customers ready? Is the market ready? Actually, the real question is a fusion of both. Is the customer base in your market ready to adopt what you have considered building and offering as you seek to stabilize, grow, and expand your organization? Put another way, is what you are contemplating developing something nice to have or necessary? Then add a layer of complexity to that: if the customer isn’t ready, how do you develop a need for your innovation? How do you ensure that its promise, benefits, and value are something the customer feels compelled to want? Then how do you ensure the customer believes it is something to adopt? Not to cloud the issue, but organizations can be super prepared, but not necessarily ready for market disruptions and seismic shifts. More on this last point later.

The Case for Slow Work

Mistaking Haste for Urgency

Issue 111, May 31, 2023

How do we anticipate what’s next before the breakthroughs are even made that will ultimately shape the future? History is written in the eye of the beholder. False assumptions are the roots of history, only to be reversed/updated/revised when new information is revealed to correct the false narrative. One way to look at it is how Piet Hut, astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, describes scientific advances: Research scientists are bodhisattvas, both teachers and iterative learners. They never achieve ultimate enlightenment (like the Buddha) because their role is to build on the knowledge that came before them, as they build their knowledge for future scientists.

When you think about it, that’s the role that the most talented leaders play. The innovations, moon shots and a quantum shift in new products and services are the domain of the iconoclasts, outliers, and geniuses. But the world advances with the wisdom and perseverance of the bodhisattvas – individuals who lead without being driven by personal success. And that generally takes time and mindfulness.

Spring Awakening: Assessing Your Leadership Skills for Change and Transformation

Issue 110, May 25, 2023

It’s Spring and we are coming up on a major holiday weekend where we hope for good weather and time outdoors with family and friends.  At 2040 we’re feeling optimistic and seeking opportunities for renewal (even escape) as we see the landscape around us come to life once again. In fact, we recently came to the realization that organizations seeking to change, and transform could easily be compared to a natural landscape and garden. In this regard, organizational leaders can become master gardeners. Sound like a stretch? Think about it. Gardens represent a belief there is a future filled with promise. That there is regeneration and rejuvenation as well as fresh opportunities. In a garden, change and ongoing transformation occur as the months pass.

Like most things in life, honing a skill is an iterative learning experience just like a gardener who experiments and refines. And a skilled master gardener can step back and envision how to fill that canvas with a range of colors to create order out of chaos, identify natural resources, nurture a diverse group of plants and flowers, and help orchestrate all the parts of the garden to create an inter-dependent whole.

Can You Imagine Living Only in the Past?

Issue 109, May 18, 2023

What if there were term limits on your ideas, thoughts, hopes and dreams? What if you reached a point in your life where you learned nothing new and were limited by your past experiences and body of knowledge? And if this were the case, and you led an organization, you might become irrelevant pretty quickly since you wouldn’t have the knowledge and scope to address today’s issues and challenges.

Generative AI may be a liberally interpreted case of technological dementia; it’s similar to individuals who are trapped in the past with a repetitive present or a future only informed by what they have known.

A  White Knight, or Dark Force?

Making Faulty Assumptions, Part II

Issue 108, May 11, 2023

Last week we explored how making bad assumptions can derail a business model and debilitate a team. Operational assessment and readiness can fall victim overnight based on assumptions that are out of alignment with shared purpose and market orientation. As we have stated, often the infrastructure can be so dysfunctional that bringing new strategies to life and achieving new goals simply isn’t possible. Here are a few signs that indicate a lack of readiness for change:

What Happens When You Make Assumptions?

Issue 106, May 4, 2023

Does your organization have what it takes to succeed? For example, how many times a day do you make an assumption? On a scale of magnitude, perhaps it’s the assumption that the sun will rise each morning and gravity will still be in place at night — to assuming that other people will drive responsibly and the trash in your neighborhood will be picked up.  Assumptions are based on trust that something or someone external to yourself will perform as expected. In fact, enlightened societies are built on a series of layered assumptions that keep them operational.

Yes, but. How many assumptions do you make that are wrong?

What Do Top Performing Organizations Get Right?

Issue 105, April 27, 2023

For anyone that insists on predictability and familiar expectations, today’s disruptive marketplace can throw a wrench into a rigid planner’s world. Will there be a recession? Is inflation going to abate? Are current economic conditions the new normal? Will customers continue to pull back on their spending? There are so many moving parts to evaluate and consider for aligning organizational purpose, direction and focus.

Since we are hardwired to feel more comfortable with what we know and are anxious about change and what we don’t know we don’t know, operating in a digital marketplace in constant flux can be disorienting.

Why You Need to Listen to Gen Z

Issue 104, April 20, 2023

How well do you know your Gen Z employees?  For that matter, how well do you know the millennials, Gen Xers and boomers?  We have written extensively in The Truth About Transformation about the benefits and challenges of managing a multigenerational workforce. Since things continue to evolve and pivot at warp speed, we thought it was timely to update you on the trendline of recent developments in Gen Z’s attitudes about work. They are important. Their perspectives are important.  They are the majority of your current workforce and your near-term future leaders.

Where Gen Z Wants to Work

Where do they want to work?

The Distortion of Time

Issue 103, April 13, 2023

With our celebration and awe of emerging tech (think generative AI), there is a basic issue that we rarely consider: the distortion of time. What we mean is that we are in such a hurry to develop and adopt new tech that we frequently leapfrog over its actual relevance, usefulness or even its consequences to our organizations and business models. Let alone do we address the potential legal or policy issues that relate to the application and applicability of the technology to our society, and yes, to our organizations and even ourselves.

Digital transformation presents an essential problem: By the time we build, adopt or buy tech solutions, the technology is often outdated or is unable to solve new problems that have emerged. These new problems may have resulted from the transformation process itself or new ideas that we have advanced.

The Future of Personal Agency

Issue 102, April 6, 2023

It can’t come as a surprise that many people feel they are losing their sense of personal agency in the face of such rapid technological change, global disruptions and polarized social and political factions. Personal agency? It’s a “sense that I am the one who is causing or generating an action. A person with a sense of personal agency perceives himself/herself as the subject influencing his/her own actions and life circumstances,” according to Springer. And Wiki defines self-agency that is also known as “the phenomenal will” — the sense that actions are self-generated. Scientist Benjamin Libet was the first to study it, concluding that “brain activity predicts the action before one even has conscious awareness of his or her intention to act upon that action.” And that ability to predict is precisely how we have created AI, mimicking our brain function.

How does this compromised feeling of personal agency show up in life?

What Were They Thinking?

Issue 101, March 30, 2023

Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, asked a profound question referring to the ancients in Easter Island. When they cut down the last tree on the island, what were they thinking? Seriously, what sane society would make a valuable natural resource extinct with one final hatchet job? Which in turn made their people extinct? Or how about a more complicated social problem replacing the US draft with an all-volunteer military, ultimately making war-related collateral damage and death for troops a problem principally for lower socioeconomic groups, not college grads from more affluent families for whom war is no longer personal.

But we could ask so many of the same questions., Here are just a few — in no particular order. What were they thinking?

The Pathway to Continuous Learning

Issue 100, March 23, 2023

Editor’s Note: Welcome to the 100^th Issue of 2040’s Ideas and Innovations Weekly Newsletter. We thank you for your continued readership and your feedback and comments weekly.

Everyone has a personal learning style. Independent learners buck the system and find alternative ways to learn on their own terms. Traditional learners are comfortable with the classic teacher-student relationship. And then there is everyone else in between.  Whatever preference you have, continuous learning is a requirement to be well-informed and capable in today’s dynamic society. The pace of change is enabled by continuous technological developments, and just like the necessity of machine learning iterations to stay relevant, recent research suggests that people also benefit from iterative learning throughout their lives.

Organizations seeking to change and transform need to recognize that when a workforce practices continuous learning, it enables an organization to evolve and grow, as well as to adapt. We are not yet at a point where machines can do it all for us and we can simply sit back and derive the benefits. Despite the hype of ChatGPT and the slew of similar AI tools, humans are still essential. Without individuals, an organization would be unable to perform and produce. And strengthened by promoting continuous learning throughout the workforce, an organization is better poised to be more knowledgeable and competitive.

Does Your Organization Have Tunnel Vision?

Issue 99, March 16, 2023

You think you see a light at the end of the digital tunnel, and then you realize it is the blinding light of tunnel vision that has derailed you. In considering how to change, transform or simply adapt to changing conditions across a market or profession, organizations (including ourselves) often fall back to doing what we know best and what has worked in the past under different circumstances. Believing we already know how to handle a problem, situation or even a request from others brings comfort and a sense of personal competency. We hold onto a (possibly false) level of confidence that we know how to lead, despite the dynamics of change that define us and our organizations.

Stalled in the Past

Generally speaking, we rely on our inherent, accumulated knowledge and experience to understand organizational systems, technologies, and market conditions. In truth, however, that reliance typically comes from over-confidence in believing that things stay the same. To follow this logic then, it shouldn’t be surprising when we are stopped short in understanding how to solve new problems that don’t conform to our preconceived views.

At 2040, we work with clients to identify what prevents them from “seeing” and “knowing.” There are so many factors and variables that influence what should be considered and understood to inform an action they are about to take. There are other perspectives that can contribute to solutions. And there are more relevant ways to respond to and interact with others that result in better outcomes using collective intelligence.

Case Study: Sidestepping Accountabilities

Issue 98, March 9, 2023

At 2040 we work closely with our clients to bridge theory to practice.  Strategy is great, but if you don’t know how to apply the great ideas, it becomes a hard stop to any forward progress.  We can get mired down by details, overthinking – and worst of all, not keeping out of our own way.  So, back by popular demand, we bring you another case study that you may be able to relate to. It’s a common story about building a brand, a workplace culture, a pathway to profitability – and leadership blinds spots.  Enjoy the read and see how you would solve the problems! For more real-life case studies and a playbook for managing an organization in today’s highly volatile digital marketplace, check out our book, The Truth About Transformation.

The Back Story

A young software technology company went public through a SPAC and overnight was infused with many millions of shareholder dollars.  The CEO, Gabriel, co-founded his company 12 years ago and has been running the show alongside his original partners. As a public company, he now reports to a board of directors with direct fiduciary responsibility under regulatory oversight. Gabriel fired the chief revenue officer for criticizing the executive team in front of employees, among other reasons. Unhappy, the ex-sales director wrote a vengeful letter to the independent board members outlining a series of activities that he deemed negligent on the part of the CEO and executive management. The board had no choice but to open an internal investigation and retained a prestigious law firm (think, Mueller Investigation) to conduct it. Seven months and over $1.2 million in legal fees later, the executive management team was completely exonerated. The board, however, identified a hostile work culture that needed some immediate remediation, requiring that the CEO get some leadership coaching. It also put in place additional board oversight and “guardrail” mechanisms to ensure that executive management brings about genuine workplace cultural change.

Breaking the Bond of Trust

Issue 97, March 2, 2023

One of the unexpected outcomes of the pandemic was the development of a new level of trust between leaders and their corporate level workforce. With entire skilled workers at organizations forced out of the office and working remotely, the workforce and management had to implicitly trust one another to meet deadlines, goals, and quarterly expectations. During this time a shift to measuring performance by outcomes, not time or face-to-face contact emerged. This change shed the layers of an industrial age mentality for a predominantly white-collar workforce.

For a command-and-control leader, this was a moment of crisis infused with insecurity, suspicion, and defensiveness based on a lack of clarity or established baseline in how to lead this new model. The acceleration of non-stop, on-screen meetings was an attempt to keep control … or at a minimum, a way to keep tabs on employees. But using the same on-site leadership skills with a remote workforce quickly failed. Some super controlling organizations moved to measure screen time, keystrokes, and other computer-based metrics to monitor their newly remote workers. It was a time when everyone had to rethink work and reinvent how and where to get work done.

Connecting the Dots

During the pandemic at 2040 we counseled our clients on the necessity to release the past in order to adapt and change in a highly dynamic, tech infused world where many individuals reassessed and realigned what was truly important to them (and their mental health).

Can You Hear Me … Now?

Issue 96, February 23, 2023

The challenge of communicating with colleagues has become increasingly difficult. With the proliferation of tech experts and Next Gens in the workforce, we may need a translator to ensure we all understand each other.

Here’s a real-life example. A content team is struggling to understand how to load a certification testing module into a new software platform. The project lead from the platform is a developer who thinks with a literal, sequential mindset.  The content team leader, although logical, is more of freeform thinker, making associations and finding patterns in conversations intuitively.  Which is to say, the mindset is horizontal, holistic, and nonlinear. The two leads are currently at an impasse; neither individual understands the other, which makes conversations awkward, at cross purposes, and impedes forward progress.

The inability or lack of desire to listen and hear others can be a deal breaker.  Understanding how to actively listen, ingest what is being said, and how to fundamentally recognize that although we seemingly are similar individuals, we have very different and diverse ways and means by which we communicate. Those differences and the diversity represented by individual personalities, life experiences, values, generational life stages and regional or cultural nuances can make communications a test. Few individuals share the same life experiences and values as others outside of their immediate families (and even then, siblings are more like their parents than each other). And to further complicate the process, our individual minds are programmed to communicate literally, conceptually, in freeform, directly, complexly and even dismissively.  Finding the right match of speaker to listener is yet another hurdle.

ChatGPT: Shapeshifting Our World

Issue 95, February 16, 2023

If you’ve been paying even a nanosecond of attention to the tech news headlines, you might think the universe shifted on November 30, 2022, when OpenAI introduced its natural language, generative program that produces text and images in response to user prompts, ChatGPT. Yes, we know that everyone under the tech corridors’ suns have weighed in on its disruption.  And guess what, we’re going to as well, and as you will discover, for a different reason.

What are the Consequences of Unbounded Optimism?

Issue 94, February 9, 2023

All societies live by stated or perceived mantras. In the United States we reach for the stars, believe the sky is the limit, and if we build it, they will come. These sentiments permeate our culture, inspire our children, and guide our business leaders.

We love entrepreneurialism; we reward it, admire it, and aspire to it.  The entrepreneurial spirit and manifest destiny represent the American can-do ingenuity and genius of overcoming adversity and risk. Agility and being nimble are standards of excellence.

Optimism on the Edge

But not so fast. Blind embrace of optimism can result in a misperception of true reality. Unbounded optimism can infuse organizational actions and decisions and make them out of step with current or emerging market conditions and customer needs.

We’ve seen the tech unicorns breakthrough with impressive solutions and influence.  And we’ve also watched 90% of all startups fail. We’ve also witnessed organizations build expansive workforces, revise forecasts, and commit to goals with shareholders based on optimism that is out of context with the realities of the market and society.

How Do You and Your Organization Master the Art of Storytelling?

Issue 93, February 2, 2023

Origin Stories

Storytelling and narrative have become the buzzwords of modern marketing.  You’ve heard it before: What’s your organization’s brand story? Make your organization come alive through narrative. Help customers relate emotionally to your business by telling a story. And possibly the most ominous: Tell your story, or else your stakeholders will write it for you.

Storytelling has been around as long as humans; the 50,000-year-old cave paintings and petroglyphs tell stories and validate “I was here.” What those stories mean is still a matter of debate. We recently visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York and saw an exhibition on Guillermo del Toro’s making of Pinocchio, nominated for one of this year’s Oscars as a best-animated feature film.  Aside from the fascinating models and videos of stop-action technology, there was a storyboard about the arc of Pinocchio’s life that caught our attention. When we studied the production notes, we realized that we are looking at the blueprint of the story of an organization’s life, from birth to old age, and life after death when it transitions to another level.

Too Big to Manage? When Less Is More

Issue 92, January 26, 2023

“We’re too big to fail.” Try that one out on Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg.  If there were ever two visionaries with an overabundance of hubris, they’re the ones. Although the concept of “too big to fail” technically refers to an organization that is so important to a financial system that a government would not allow it to go bankrupt due to the seriousness of the economic repercussions (Wiki), one could argue that what we are experiencing in the tech sector right now can also refer to the egos and perceptions of self-importance of tech leaders. Economist Alan Greenspan, has said of overlarge organizations, “If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big.” And if the tech sector is faltering, chances are it is because it has become too big to manage, is spending most of its time and effort focused internally to manage the complexity it has created, has too big an imprint on the global economy and is vulnerable to implosion from the inside out.

And that leads us to the topic of this week’s newsletter, when less is more.

The Future Isn’t Going to Look Like You Think

Issue 91, January 19, 2023

Organizations founded on exponential growth are in for a wake-up call. In reverse-trend thinking, some experts believe that good enough is just good enough. Entrepreneurs believe that there are no limits to growth. What do we believe? It requires a deeper look at what is going on in our global population shifts to really understand future growth…or constriction. We wrote about this in our book, The Truth About Transformation, detailing the facts about the future population shift, re-sizing of markets, the demise of data point over generalizations, and the revelations of transformation hidden in plain sight.

Surprise, Surprise

Your market and workforce are going to look very different in the future. Demographic factors and variables must be considered in context of your own organization, whom your organization serves, and whom your organization employs. Stresses and tensions to find the right individuals with the right skills in a constantly evolving competitive environment are made even more complex by shifting and changing cultural attitudes and demographic shifts.

Consider the implications of the most significant demographic changes underway across the globe. Immigration, migration, changes in family structures, the changing role of women in the workforce, increasing mobility, declining birth rates, growing diversity, and generational shifts are just a few of the factors to watch and understand. Each of these megatrends relates to your current and future workforce and customer base, and should guide you in determining where your organization may be heading.

According to Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, authors of Empty Planet, the global population will peak around the middle of this century and then begin to decline especially in what we consider to be the most affluent places on the planet. According to the authors, Japan, Korea, Spain, Italy and much of Europe are facing long-term reproduction rates that won’t be able to sustain their current population levels.

The Future by the Numbers>

Do You Have It? Anger? Rage?

Issue 90, January 12, 2023

A group of white men wearing T-shirts, Patagonia fleece vests or zip-front sweaters, Allbirds sneakers, and faded jeans are sitting around a conference table. It is 7:30 in the morning. They are collegial, familiar with one another, and engaged in friendly banter. The senior team turns their attention to their leader who has just walked into the room; he looks exactly like they do. Two women follow him, dressed in the female version of the unofficial company uniform. They are the comms and HR executives. The meeting starts; the agenda is to review recent diversity and inclusion initiatives and try to figure out why so many of their employees are quitting. The leader admits he has no idea why a third of his younger workforce is either losing pace or outright abandoning him. He is convinced he is a role model for a balls-to-the-walls work ethic, logging in longer hours and more weekends than anyone else to deliver on the organization’s short-term goals.

The executive team comes to attention, each with a Starbucks cup placed to the right of their mobiles, which they watch attentively not to miss any texts, emails, or breaking news. The meeting begins.

Forging Your Pathway into 2023

Issue, 89, January 5, 2023

Two of the most important qualities we need (personally and professionally) to make good decisions are perspective and context. In order to move forward, both give relevance to how the past informs the present and can be predictive of how to plan for the future. If we take three tenses, we can reflect on what we have learned and how those insights can guide us today and tomorrow. Having said that, we are not talking about using the past as a static standard, but rather part of the flow that shapes our lives. As we contemplate the year ahead, we look forward to bringing you new insights based on our perspective in context of the ever-evolving, disruptive marketplaces we operate in.

Reflections

Here at 2040 we want to take this opportunity to thank all of our readers who have shared their appreciation and support when they found a newsletter highly connected to a challenge they were experiencing or simply as a reminder to consider a problem or situation differently with a new perspective. In that context, your feedback inspires us as we move forward.

As we look back across 52 issues of our 2022 newsletters, we learned from your feedback how a few key issues are shared among many of our readers.

Taking Stock: Our Predictions and Considerations for 2023

Issue 88, December 29, 2022

One could argue that January 1 is an arbitrary date to evaluate the past 12 months. We routinely like to look back to the past calendar year, determine what went well and reflect on what we wanted to change. We view January 1 as a fresh start to tackle our procrastination, fix things that are broken, generally refresh, and forge a committed pathway forward. We all know that for many, these reflections, decisions, and goals are soon forgotten or made less important than they were in the moments leading up to January 1. And that results in an endless loop of déjà vu, which stalls progress.

The Truth about Transformation

Book Preview Excerpt

Organizations, whether private companies, non-profits, charities or governments seek to transform to take advantage of new opportunities, including technological advances. Often, technology is the major driver of change that results in transformation. As a result, the organization often fails to achieve its objective and goal to truly transform. You see, technology remains an enabler, not a silver bullet. True transformative change requires understanding of the human factors at play, human conscious and subconscious behaviors, how humans inter-relate and how society itself and all of its members are changing.

Our workforces are changing, the expertise we need is becoming harder to acquire and roles are shifting. In addition, before and because of Covid in 2020, the world around us is becoming very different, a new reality is taking hold, one that will fundamentally change who we are, how we work and yes, how we seek to ensure organizations transform for today and for the future.

The Truth about Transformation, a new book by Kevin Novak, is now available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Apple Books. Enjoy a short preview.ard and upward from the 2040 Team