Management Perspectives

MYTH 1: Whew. Glad that’s over! Let’s get back to normal
In the early days of the pandemic, an unknown author in Hong Kong graffiti’d a prescient warning about what we all are now seeking: ‘We can’t return to normal, because the normal that we had was precisely the problem.’

You have lived through a global dumpster-fire. A perfect storm of destructive and disruptive forces that few could have ever imagined. Suddenly, across the globe, everything changed, including our shared future.

How you work, learn, live, play, and socialise were all completely disrupted, and we are just now beginning to get back to ‘normal.’ And that dumpster fire exposed an inconvenient truth—definitive proof that our education, business, and economic systems were designed to leave far too many people behind. That is the mother of all myths we must face, that the systems that we are all used to, that we once called ‘normal’, truly worked for most of us. They did not!

The eyes of the future are watching us, wondering what we will do next. Will we rebuild what we had, with all the inequities still in place?

Will each of us step up, as individuals, team leaders, or organisational leaders, and do our part to build back better? Or will we let others do the building for us, and take our chances with how many inequities get built back into those systems? The pandemic has created new, once-in-alifetime opportunities for each of us to rethink our role in creating our own future, and everyone’s future. What will you do? Will you be a Believer? A Breaker? Or a Builder? All three roles are crucial to a new and amazing-for-all future.

MYTH 2: The future is limitless, abundant, amazing!
Of course, it is! There is no denying that. Taking the long-view, we have every reason to believe that the future will be amazing! For some of us, of course. And that’s the point.

While the challenges we faced in the past year served as excellent proof that our human spirit is infinitely resilient, and that we have every right to be optimistic—it also proved how quickly so many of us can be swept away, with no safety net. An Oxfam report said that by the time the pandemic is over, its impact could thrust half of the world’s population into poverty. Whoa.

Are we taking that into account as we build back better?

We need to embrace this myth, not to be gloomy and depressed—but to be empathetic leaders, builders, breakers, and believers. To always walk a mile in the other person’s shoes. The solution to this myth is ‘disruptive empathy’.

Yes, innovate, disrupt, change, and transform. We need all that. But we also need more.

So many costs of this new future— how to robotproof and disrupt oneself at warp speed, societal conflict, economic class polarisation, personal vulnerability, and risks—are thrust upon each individual and ignored by most organisations.

These ‘off our books’ costs are not discussed in boardrooms. The costs for amazing futures for the few are being offloaded onto the many. And that offloading will only increase. Unless we first bear witness to, and feel the pain and struggles of, all those we are leaving behind.

MYTH 3: All dreams and aspirations matter
For several decades I have been researching the future of work. And one specific data-point inspired my new book, The Day Tomorrow Said No.

I asked thousands of people across the globe a simple question that no one else was asking: “Can you achieve your dreams where you currently work?” Less than 10 per cent (9.8 per cent) of those in the middle and frontlines of organisations said yes. That is unacceptable! We are still building businesses and workflows based on an Industrial Age model: Where the dreams and aspirations of those doing the work do not matter, they are not valued. And we are about to take that antiquated model and inject it with AI (artificial intelligence)—where algorithms will drive many of our tasks and behaviours.

Sure, if you are an entrepreneur, an executive, an innovator, an investor—the future is a blank canvas that can be vibrantly painted with your dreams. But if you are a worker bee, very few organisations value your personal dreams and aspirations. You are still part of a machine designed mainly to generate profits.

Says economist Paul Collier, “Modern capitalism has the potential to lift us all to unprecedented prosperity, but it is morally bankrupt and on track for tragedy. If capitalism is to work for everyone, it needs to be managed so as to deliver purpose as well as productivity.”

The solution is servant leadership. We need leaders who understand and cherish the value of every individual’s dreams and aspirations, who build organisations that talk about dreams and value every individual’s personal agency, as well as profits and productivity.

All dreams and aspirations should matter! Will you be the leader to help us realise that?

Myth 4: We’re on top of this
Sure, most leaders have talked the talk: “People are our most important asset.” But are they, really? “We’re building an amazing future.” But are we, really? The pandemic made clear that we are building a future that is designed to leave too many people behind.

Most of our leaders (inappropriately, overconfidently) believe that they are on top of the changes required to build an amazing future. They, and we, need to face some difficult realities.

The World Economic Forum says that a reskilling revolution is absolutely required to keep up with future needs, and industry watchers tell us that this revolution is happening far too slowly. “Every company is doing something in this area,” said J P Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, “but it’s got to be ten times more.”

Busting the myth of ‘being on top of this’ requires humility, vulnerability, and curiosity—a willness to understand how little we still understand, a desire to win the race to wisdom by asking the questions no one else is asking.

The COVID pandemic was just the beginning. In the coming decades, we will all be subjected to massive disruptions that we cannot even imagine with our current ways of thinking. We need less self-assured cockiness and more passionate exploration of the unknowns that lie ahead of us.

Myth 5: The future is created by leaders, disruptors, innovators
We are still too dependent on heroes to blaze new paths, innovators to create new solutions, and technologies to create new possibilities. Sure, we still need those people and tools. But to bust this hero-worshipping myth we must also realise that the entire workforce is filled with amazing lifelong learners who must also play a role in co-designing the future—their future.

In my book, I described the three roles of these passionate co-designers.

Believers are passionate, everyday people who tirelessly toil to make their dreams come true, and who protest when current systems do not work. Not just advocating for self: passionaly advocating for change in systems beyond one’s personal control, helping all of us achieve our dreams.

Breakers are passionate pioneers who break with the past, and reimagine what is possible. Rule-breaking, truth-facing, trailblazers who break us away from our limiting beliefs. Builders are fiery leaders who reimagine entire systems. Big systems like clean energy, water, and tackling poverty and disease. Little systems like how teams and organisations work together. Systems that no one owns, and everyone owns. Each of us, regardless of our tasks or title, needs to work throughout our lives as either a Believer, Breaker, or Builder, or some combination of those three.

That is the ultimate myth-busting activity and responsibility. That is what it takes for us to leave a lot less people behind and to create a future where tomorrow says: Yes!