Transformative Capabilities
Relatively easy to say
Slightly harder to spell
Incredibly difficult to do
This is a chapter from our book Futurework
– A Guidebook for The Future of Work
From a caterpillar to a butterfly.
A truly remarkable transformation.
Except for the fact that this is not the full story.
An incomplete picture.
A more accurate description would be from a caterpillar to a cocooned digestion of itself that releases enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues to become a butterfly.
Admittedly it is nowhere near as inspiring to describe all the difficult and risky work involved in transformations. What seems like a miraculous transformation is in fact a complex multi-faceted evolution.
In business this is often referred to as an overnight success, ten years in the making. To the wider world, successful entrepreneurs and their fast-growing businesses can seem to appear out of nowhere. Creating the impression that almost overnight they struck upon a secret formula for success.
The reality is far more arduous. An organisation’s seemingly rapid success appears out of nowhere because we were looking elsewhere, as the transformation was slowly unfolding – with our attention distracted by headlines and stories about other events. Oblivious to the hours, days and years of hard work going on behind-the-scenes as they gradually scale, figuring out how to transform through trial, error and failure.
From TikTok to Nvidia, businesses and platforms that appeared to go from nowhere to global success in a matter of months have in fact evolved and scaled over many challenging years, with multiple setbacks, iterations and rejections along the way.
As difficult as the idea may be to stomach, the caterpillar’s literal self-digestion has a figurative business transformation parallel. With brave leaders and organisations embarking on a process of market cannibalisation – such as Netflix’s deliberate erosion of their mail-order DVD revenues to build their online streaming audience.
Seems obvious to us with the comfortable benefit of hindsight. Not to those looking forward into uncomfortable transformations.
Disrupt Disruption
We live in a time of fast-moving and unpredictable change.
Sometimes.
As a futurist I have been as guilty as anyone for talking about how fast-moving and unpredictable the modern business environment can be. The age of disruption. The trend is so well established it even has its own acronym, VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
I am not denying that those factors exist. Or claiming that the future is entirely predictable.
If it was, life would be incredibly dull.
There would be no point in ever making any decisions, as everything would already be a predictable foregone conclusion.
At the same time if the world was completely unpredictable, we simply could not operate. From eating to sustain ourselves, to operating a business to make a profit, the laws of cause and effect enable us to make our own way in the world.
The richness of life and business comes from this balance we live in – between the states of unpredictable and predictable. Which is where opportunity and risk lie.
The role of a futurist is to highlight early signals of future shifts, in amongst the noise and complexity of the modern operating environment. To better enable leaders and their teams to create the future, rather than be disrupted by it.
If we consider the mechanics of how disruption occurs in the natural environment, it gives us clues as to how to create or avoid disruption in the work environment. Think of a still surface of water suddenly being disrupted – whether it is by a pebble skimming the surface or a fish leaping from below. If we just look at the surface, the sudden disruption will seem to appear out of nowhere.
If instead we constantly scan the wider environment and look deeper below the surface, we can spot signs of movement far earlier than others. Well before the surface disruption arrives at the point of visible impact, we can trace a trajectory of movement signalling possible future disruption. Which highlights why disruption and transformation are all about probabilities and new possibilities, not predictions and certainties.
For example as the fish heads towards the surface, many other factors might cause it to change direction. Or if you have ever skipped a pebble across water, you know that it is virtually impossible to predict how many skips it will make.
Transformations do not require dealing in absolutes and certainties. Instead they are about being comfortable with ambiguity and the unknown. Spotting changes in movement ahead of your competition and others, giving you more time to react – whether you choose to brace for impact,
change course
or accelerate ahead.
Quickly Transform Gradually
It is due to these underlying market dynamics that what seems like fast-moving overnight change is typically playing out far more slowly over the course of a decade. While well-established business owners and leaders become entrenched in their habits of the past, a new generation of businesses and their customers shift from startup to mainstream. From business as unusual to business as usual.
Many organisations are still busy adapting to current trends, as they mobilise their customer interactions and digitise their business operations. Guided by modern business strategies such as ‘Digital Transformation’ and ‘Mobile First.’
These are not future trends.
They are past shifts continuing their natural course.
Meanwhile, organisations large and small risk failing to spot the signals all around them of the next likely disruptions ahead. For instance – a future where it is not simply about mobile technology but wearable technology. If your organisation has invested in reworking customer interfaces to go from large computer screens to small mobile screens, you may well know what a significant undertaking that is. A digital transformation that could have potentially been made easier by recognising the trend earlier – impacting decisions from the structure of content databases to the architecture of technology stacks.
This interface trend continues to evolve. All around us smartwatches have gradually shifted from novelty to commonplace. With mobile apps now decades old, we are approaching new inflection points such as the adoption of wearable devices with their radically different interface requirements. Looking ahead, while smartglasses have yet to reach the mainstream as everyday consumer devices they have gained significant momentum across industries such as manufacturing, combined with the evolution of immersive digital environments such as the metaverse.
In parallel with these gradual evolutions there is also a more immediate shift to no visible interface at all – whether it is waving your arm to pay, looking at a screen to unlock, or interacting with your AI assistant by voice. More than half of all online searches are now on mobile, with more than 20 percent of those by voice. How does that reflect your own search habits?
In other words are you living in the past, present or future?
When the world transforms, so can we.
Summary
Seemingly overnight successes are often ten years in the making.
Transformations can be complex and difficult with multiple setbacks.
VUCA is a well-established acronym meaning volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
The natural environment reveals how disruption can begin gradually.
Digital interfaces are transforming from screens to bodies to invisibility.