Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives

A year ago, the United Nations Development Program, in their ‘Human Development Report’ described the state of play as being one of a ‘nagging sense that whatever control we have over our lives is slipping away, that the norms and institutions that we used to rely on for stability and prosperity are not up to the task of today’s uncertainty complex.’

It went on to say that ‘for many, getting from point A to point B in their lives and in their communities feels unclear, unsure, hard – harder still when persistent inequalities, polarisation, and demagoguery make it difficult to agree on what point B even is and to get moving.’ The tagline of this astute commentary? ‘Uncertain times, unsettled lives.’

A year on, I suspect that sense has only deepened.

This past year has seen more national elections (65) than has ever occurred in human history with half of the entire global population going to the polls. This fact alone meant that, when it comes to the geopolitical landscape, how we started the year, was never going to be how we ended the year.

Adaptability has replaced efficiency as the most essential of all business attributes.

The pandemic, which still looms large in our rearview mirror, forced on us a short-sighted focus, one imbued with a sharp sense of urgency on ‘sense-making’ – What has just happened? What is it that we need to do now?

This sense-making will rumble on into the foreseeable future as we continue, with the vantage of hindsight, to make sense of the time from which we are emerging.

For example, we are yet to appreciate the full extent of the mark it has left on a generation whose critical development period intersected with the peak of the pandemic. During COVID-19, more than one billion students lost an estimated six to twelve months of learning. In previous pandemics, such as the 1918 flu-pandemic, disrupted schooling for young people between ages 14 and 17 directly correlated to lower wages throughout their lives.

A World Economic Forum report has described the 2020 pandemic as an ‘economic wrecking ball, with intergenerational consequences.’ It will also be looked back on as the time that our understanding of how ‘work works’ was irrevocably changed.

We now find ourselves in territory signposted everywhere we dare to look, with signage that urges us to ‘rethink’ and ‘reimagine’ pretty much everything – ourselves, our work, our world.

Some have acted on this unwanted invitation given to us by the pandemic but sadly, many have not. Many leaders have turned back to what they knew prior to the pandemic and, in my experience, there hasn’t been as significant a shift in how we ought to think about uncertainty, the future, and the tools that will be needed within our businesses to ensure that we are ‘future-fit’. I have seen those tasked with executive education revert to the ‘old’ and whilst there are cosmetic changes to the approach and content, in reality, we are relying on the same old playbook.

I have recommended the following books before, but let me put them back on your radar as they remain highly relevant and should prove helpful in building the adaptive capacity that 2025 will demand of us all.

• Adam Grant’s excellent book, Think Again. Being a good thinker does not necessarily translate into being a good rethinker. Adam shows us why rethinking is essential to our future and how to build the capacity to rethink.

• Kathryn Schulz’s thought-provoking classic, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. Kathryn argues that being able to admit being wrong in the present tense (“I am wrong” as opposed to, “I was wrong”) is the single greatest moral, intellectual and creative leap that one can make. Being able to acknowledge being wrong is the precursor to learning and change, both of which shape who we are and how we see the world. In Being Wrong, Schulz makes a compelling case not only as to why this is so important but also shows us how we can achieve it.

• Imaginable by Jane McGonigal. Imaginable is a highly readable instructional manual as to how we can best prepare ourselves today for the uncertain and unknown day after tomorrow. It is full of practical and engaging exercises that one can do to become future-fit. Jane is the Director of Games Research and Development at the Institute for the Future. In 2008 she was the lead designer for a six-week future-forecasting simulation called Superstruct. The simulation was set ten years into the future (2019) and mapped the full range of the economic, political, social, and emotional impact of living through a global outbreak of a fictional virus called ReDS, short for respiratory distress syndrome.

• This one is close to home as one of the authors, Tamryn Batcheller-Adams is part of our TomorrowToday Global team and together with my friends Prof Jules Goddard and David Lewis of London Business School, produced a masterful book titled, Mavericks: How Bold Leadership Changes the World. Their message is grounded in global research and offers both hope and a model as to how large organisations can realise and unleash the type of mindset and behaviour (that of the maverick) that is essential for 21st Century success.

• As a futurist, I am attentive to history for obvious reasons. It was Churchill who once said, “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see”. A worthwhile read, especially if you are American, is Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s The Untold History of the United States. The authors draw on the latest research and recently declassified records to meticulously document the American empire, showing how it has determined the course of world events for the interests of the few across the twentieth century and beyond. It doesn’t make for comfortable reading for those of a certain persuasion (those that hold to a predominantly Western/American centric worldview). In fact if you like reading American history then another ‘essential’ read is, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown. It's an account of American history as seen by Native Americans. Most USA history is written from ‘East to West’; this book writes that history from ‘West to East’.

So there! Now you have an early Holiday Season reading list... one that could transform your 2025! Happy holidays and wisdom, grace and strength for the year to come.