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How leaders and organisations respond, and the steps they take, will shape how they survive and more importantly emerge from the Covid-19 crisis to thrive into the future.

We are all too aware of the unprecedented impact that Covid-19 is having on our personal and professional lives. In a crisis even the most capable leaders can momentarily feel overwhelmed. There is comfort to be drawn in that it usually feels worse in the moment of experience than it does in hindsight. But it can also feel like a missed opportunity to have done something different. Crisis brings opportunity to flourish under fire.

• What if the challenges of crisis you face unleash the reservoirs of resources within you?
• What if the challenges of crisis are real opportunities to change and grow?

As organisations get to grips with their immediate business continuity planning, now is an opportunity for savvy leaders to reflect on the implications of the longer-term impacts that the Covid-19 crisis will have for our organisations. How leaders and organisations respond and the steps they take will shape how they survive and emerge from the crisis and then thrive into the future. Asking, what is happening now? What are my planning scenarios in the short term? How will both impact my strategy beyond survival? As we observe organisations and leadership responses to crisis, we see four types of organisational responses that often mirror human responses to trauma.

At a time of deep crisis, the idea of flourishing may seem unimaginable. But working with teams and organisations to create a new culture (The Flourishers) of people that can flourish under fire is essential to survive today and thrive tomorrow in the post- Covid-19 environment. Experiences tell us that not only is it possible to flourish under fire, but in our increasingly VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, it is essential that we develop the capability to do so.

Through Relational Coaching we often use the concept of stress-related growth (SRG) to enable clients to become the considered and conscious leaders that they need to be in order to lead their organisation through crisis. We have successfully used SRG to design and develop large-scale psychological transformation interventions for organisations seeking to survive and thrive in a world where old assumptions and frameworks are failing and becoming obsolete.

In this global pandemic, the immediate priority of leadership is to save lives. The second priority is to save the organisation and the livelihoods therein. There is also a third priority should you choose to acknowledge it – shape the post-crisis future. The starting point for this third and often overlooked priority is in the midst of crisis. Leaders who work at being present, even during the immediacy of crisis, not only personally flourish under fire but also lead colleagues and their organisations to thrive through and beyond crisis.

WORK ON BEING PRESENT … SHAPE THE POST-CRISIS FUTURE

This article was authored by Futurus101, a collaboration between Futurus, an Organisation Change Management and People Advisory practice and OneZero1, a Strategy and Transformation Advisory practice. We have come together to bring fresh thinking to leaders in a time of crisis. We are supporting our clients and enabling them to flourish under fire.

Talk to us, if you want to find out more

Is the field of genetics the next innovators sandpit ?

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, predicted in the mid 60’s that computer chip performance would double every c18 months (otherwise known as Moore’s Law) and we’ve seen that track through to the modern day, and witnessed the social, economic and global benefits that have resulted in what we’re now calling the digital age, and the innovators playground

However some are now saying, with associated proof, that this rate of growth is slowing down and they cite an end to this natural phenomena, which of course is driving a whole new array of chip and nanotechnology innovation ventures in return … So let’s see where that takes us, but perhaps more importantly and very interestingly let’s try and understand how this law of compound accelerating returns could and is already tracking into other, parallel areas such as AI, renewable energy and manufacturing (including robotics and 3D printing)

And perhaps the most exciting area that most thought leaders are projecting this law of accelerating returns will map to is the field of genetics and the study of what makes us humans work (and not !)

As a proxy, lets take for instance the astonishing growth of the remote genetic testing offered by 23andMe in the US (see the article below that spurred me write about this). Today for roughly $200 you can benefit from fully remote home genetic testing (either through a physical kit and now also available through mobile applications) – the same service cost c$1,000 in 2010 and and a staggering $1bn+ in just 2003. But the wow punch is not the 1:1 benefit, but it’s the fact that 23andMe has now partially sequenced some 1.2 million genomes already and is making c80% of the results (post consent) available for clinical trials

So fast forward – imagine if testing services such as 23andMe (Apple and Fitbit are also looking to get in on the action) were to offer the collection of and access to quantum’s of genetic data across regions and demographic ranges. How much could the cost per test be driven down ? At the same time what paradigm benefits could be gleaned from the analysis of millions of classified, democratised test result ?

Is there a Moore’s Law for genetic testing and clinical development – most probably, so watch this space for it to be coined 

… and while it’s not all plain sailing with accuracy from remote testing a challenge, ethics a big concern and of course the complex weaving together of an entire ecosystem to support valuable and valid outcomes at individual, commercial and clinical levels the most significant challenge, but dare I say the most significant innovators opportunity

Investors, innovators, interested citizens in the world of tomorrow, patients, parents or business owners – go figure

If you haven’t heard of Elon Musk and his vision for Tesla to regenerate the transport economy – well you should !

In 2006 he published an ambitious ‘Masterplan’ to revolutionise personal transport through affordably priced, electronically propelled family cars that would help to expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy

His 4 step plan was to (according to the 2006 mission https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me)

1. Use his private fortune to build an affordable electronic car
2. Use that money to build an even more affordable electronic carc
3. While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options
4. Don’t tell anyone

To the last point, and to his and Tesla’s credit, they have stayed true to the objective and today we see Tesla taking the motor world by storm, with the Model 3 seeing unprecedented pre-sales demand and an anticipated 500,000 cars delivered by 2018, and performance levels with manufacturing efficiency untold

So with exceptional vision translated to execution, it’s not surprising that neigh on the 10 year anniversary we see Musk’s Masterplan part deux (https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux) where he outlines the next frontier as:

1. Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage
2. Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments
3. Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning
4. Enable your car to make money for you when you aren’t using it

Coupling the technology advances on the last (and forthcoming) decade, Tesla are potentially positioned to ‘drive’ (excuse the pun) a reimagined, remodelled and reengineered transport economy

My prediction – watch this space as revolution unfolds

What’s all the fuss about …

Over 1.2 million people are killed on the roads every year across the globe (40% are drink related), annually we waste light years, yes I said light years driving and mostly alone, never mind unconsciously chew up vast quantities of the earths natural resources (oil, the ozone, land etc) as we go about the business of life getting ourselves and our products from A to B

With the dawn of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and supercomputing, it’s no wonder that great minds spanning the digital giants (Google, Apple etc), car manufacturers (Mercedes, Audi etc), transport companies (you can bet Uber are in the game) and car/sensortech startup’s (too many to name, but Mobileye from Israel is a dominant player) are working furiously to develop the hardware and physical products, push the AI boundaries and are testing driverless cars on the road everyday in a frantic effort to seismically change transport as we know it today

And all to good cause given my opening comments but the broader impacts of this dawning technology (and I’m getting more and more assured it’s coming, and soon) are slowing being revealed and rationalised. If you have a few minutes, watch the YouTube clip below, issued in May 2014, which brings a very human and emotional context for how the driving experience could be revolutionised

And after you do, just stretch your mind for a few minutes on the broader reaching effects that a driverless world might have, which would include (but not exhaustive):

• car and energy industries (driverless cars are most likely to be electric)
• insurance – the bet and early indications is that this is a safer way to get around … it would need to be to be mass adopted and accepted (you’ll notice the soft and cuddly feature set of the google car)
• parking (why would you leave a driverless car in a car park when it could be transporting something else for you)
• drive-time entertainment and media consumption – in a driverless world, driving will become productive work, social or leisure time
• lending and ownership – why would you own a car when you might ‘uberlike’ just rent a driverless companion and transport becomes a service
• And why would this stop at people transport, what about freight

So I’m of the mindset that driverless world will surely be a very different one, but to give balance there is still a lot to be figured out, mainly focused around regulation, hacking, ethics (who’s responsible for the speeding ticket, or more dauntingly the accidents (manufacturer or owner)) and infrastructure

Hence there’s a lot of fuss to come …

I had the recent very good fortune to attend a few days in Silicon Valley at the invitation from those nice and very clever folks in Google, to meet and hear from some of the great technology innovative minds around

Aside from being stimulated and invigorated about the possibilities available from the continued exponential development of software, hardware and data (AI and the likes), one of the sessions that stood out was a briefing on the dawn of satellite imagery coming mainstream to drive large scale commercial benefits (e.g. measuring global/regional fuel reserves or forestation)

When I posed the question to the presenter “when will the satellite evolution bring social and human benefits such as disaster alert e.g. tsunami alert or forest fire warnings’ – it’s in no way disrespectful that same presenter (he was excellent BTW) to say that such use cases hadn’t really been explored, which is no doubt due to the fact that there is little commercial benefit in such pursuits right now, at least not until this exciting but of course tremendously expensive technology truly goes mainstream and we see Moore’s Law take effect where costs and expanse can be consumed by a broader base of needs

Of course this is the way of the world, where breakthrough developments often have to go through commercial funding and teething before being served up to social and human pursuits (take the jet engines true birth during WWII). It struck me more than just a little that at the back of our professional minds and in our commercial quests, we should always have one eye on the broader benefits for society, humanity and our collective betterment

Of course I remain Darwinian about our intrinsic and intuitive ability as humans to deliver a better world, and in case you’re looking for comfort, here’s an interesting article to support my notion (http://singularityhub.com/2016/06/27/why-the-world-is-better-than-you-think-in-10-powerful-charts/?utm_source=Singularity+University+Main+List&utm_campaign=95d5f928cf-Exponential_Thinkers&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9c706260a1-95d5f928cf-57986905)

All that said, I also draw comfort from more down to earth examples of businesses thriving off social pursuits, no more so than the really fantastic services that Fiona McKeon and BizWorld Ireland BizWorld carry out with 5th and 6th year students in primary schools across Ireland. I said that I had the good fortune to visit some fantastic brains in ‘The Valley’ a few weeks back – well I also had the chance to visit some equally fantastic brains from the 6th class in my own kids National School (St. Laurence’s NS, Greystones) around the same time and witnessed as the ‘Dragon’, the students presenting their business ideas, branding, funding, mock up and even wireframes (if you don’t believe me, see the snap I’ve attached) and trading shares for funding with ideas ranging from social, fitness and nutritional care, to multi-device charging stations (the phoaster) to environmentally protective bin locks

I was literally breath-taken by some of the ideas, business development skills and confident presentations from the groups that I fear I perhaps gave a little more mock cash for a little less shareholding than I would in a commercial setting … but it was the encouragement, opportunity and learning not the deal that was important right !

So thank you the fantastically bright and imaginative 6th year students from down my local school, the positive encouragement of their teacher Sinead Ui Bhroin, BizWorld, their sponsor and my own employer Bank of Ireland BOI for making and taking the time and opportunity to zoom in on ground roots, bottom up innovation and helping me keep my feet on the ground