Disrupt or Die
The benefits of having our entire globe connected 24/7 has created unimaginable opportunities, whilst simultaneously creating “global systemic risk” – risks that are so complex that no one ever saw them coming. Most Fortune 500 executives I know are unprepared for this type of radical disruption and the speed of change.
Their organizations are simply too big, too slow and usually too inflexible to adapt. Sally Blount, dean of Kellogg School of Management, says “this is a world where we don’t know the new rules yet”. She acknowledges that “large human organizations move relatively slowly”, whilst tech-startups are moving at breakneck speed reinventing and disrupting entire industries.
Most Valuable Resource
What is your most valuable resource?
In our knowledge economy it is an easy mistake to think that knowledge is the most valuable resource, but it’s not. Our hyper-connected world offers us access to everything, immediately with a price – endlessly distractions. Surrounded by an incessant digital buzz – social media pings. What deserves our attention?
Our most valuable resource is focused attention. In Tony Crabbe’s book “Busy: How to Thrive in a World of Too Much” he explores how-to develop “focused attention” by making the “brutal choices” that are needed to “negotiate our life back”. Choices about: what should we stop doing, how-to create time to think differently, engage differently and deliberately do less.
Knowledge is useless if it doesn’t lead to making uncomfortably tough choices that change behavior. Crabbe defines focused attention as a “deep engagement in activities that really matter to us … found in the way we use our attention, not time”.
Network Economy
Fear captures our attention.
On 6th May 2010 within 5 minutes the Dow Jones dropped, losing $1 trillion due to highly complex machine algorithm trading. Before any human experts could respond the machine self-corrected this “flash crash” within 3 minutes. The machine was paying attention to millions of variables, that 7 years post this event, our smartest analysts still cannot fully comprehend what actually happened that day.
We have entered an era whereby power has shifted into the hands of those who are mastering the networked economy. As we share more data, we create systems that are faster, better, more adaptive, yet also expose us to more risk. Cybercrime is costing our global economy over $450 billion and is expected to rise to over $2 trillion within 2 years.
Google has helped pioneer our networked economy. By 2015 Google’s AI engine, TensorFlow, was way ahead of its competitors by almost a decade. It went against conventional economics by giving away access for free. This counterintuitive strategy works in the networked economy because it attracts more customers, which means more data and with more data TensorFlow have been able predict what their customers want, which in turn has attracted more customers.
Mastery
In South Africa we discovered gold mines which created incredible economic success. Power was in the hands of a few. Today, mastery of the networked economy is enabling startups to quickly rival the biggest organizations in the globe.
Our global economy is both connected and fragmented, whereby entire economies can be exposed or derailed within nano-seconds. We need bold entrepreneurs that focus their attention on mastering our networked economy – building trusted, stable and sustainable networks that can solve our planet’s toughest problems.
I’d suggest the following:
- Set time aside to build your most valuable resource
- Immediately begin developing a new skillset that will enable you to thrive within the networked economy (online courses: Coursera, Udemy, Udacity)
- Use fear to drive personal and collective change – watch Tim Ferris 2017 Ted Talk titled “Why you should define your fears instead of your goals”
John Dalber-Acton in 19th century said “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Joshua Cooper Ramo’s tagline is more fitting for our networked economy “Absolute access corrupts absolutely”. Let’s unlock networks and gain access to a brighter future.