Disruption Amplified: Reset. Rewire. Reimagine Everything.

By Abdullah Verachia

The world has entered a period of accelerated change. This has everything to do with the disruptive events of 2020, the cognitive rewiring which each of us is going through, and the profound macro shifts reshaping the world as we know it.
We are living through an unprecedented period of rapid and pervasive transition. Every aspect of our reality is shifting, from how we work and play, to how we educate our children and care for the health and wellbeing of our families, ourselves and our neighbours.
How does this affect the future of strong, dominant sectors such as tourism and travel, consumer, retail, property, education, health, automotive and financial services, among others?
Can we rewire these and other sectors for a new reality?
Do we even have the wherewithal to reimagine the future?
How do we start the process of pressing the reset button?
Can we reimagine the world we live in and take proactive steps to play a part in it?
Do we have the tools to shift our business strategies?
Are we primed to take advantage of the opportunities on offer?
Can we sidestep our fear of the unknown and open our minds to exciting new possibilities?
Transport yourself into the future with global future strategist, speaker and disruptor Abdullah Verachia as he leads you through the fundamental shifts taking place at every level and how these will reshape the world as we know it. Envisage a new reality, new cross-border opportunities and new avenues for personal and business growth.
Unlock key insights revealed in Disruption Amplified that will inspire your own rethinking during this remarkable and transformative time, and step boldly into a new tomorrow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracey McDonald Publishers
• Release date: Sep 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781776260829

Book preview

To my beloved family, colleagues and friends.

FOREWORD

Abdullah Verachia has written a punchy and timely commentary on issues that are of strategic importance in our time and has provided many good ideas about how to deal with them.

He has used his extensive experience as a consultant and academic, as well as his significant international exposure and local business experience, to bring together a thoughtful and incisive account of our times.

We can all see that COVID-19 has shaken and stirred our systems, institutions, infrastructure and deeply challenged leadership in every sector of society. This is certainly true of managers, entrepreneurs, government officials, political leaders – but also for society as a whole.

There is much to do to fathom out the full nature and implications of these changes. No doubt many aspects of life will return to a semblance of their past. However, there are also many aspects, as is indicated in this book, that will not. Our wisdom is to discern the difference between the two and to think through carefully what initiatives and creative steps need to be taken to change the world for the better.

We live in an exciting digital age and a disturbing level of inequality in the world. These gaps must be closed in any era that would like to call itself civilised and humane.

In South Africa, in particular, the virus and its impact has shown us the deep structural challenges that we face. Our State is hard pressed to deal with them and the economy is severely challenged by them.

Many would argue that a great deal of these issues were visible, but not dealt with, prior to COVID-19. Others would say we are not being very effective in dealing with them.

Individuals who are leaders make choices in a time of uncertainty. The book provides ample ideas, best practices and frameworks for thinking about your role as a leader. I have often argued that all leaders who consider themselves strategic, ie impactful, would need both a map and a mirror. Both are critically important at this juncture. The map is for the deep self-reflection of understanding your motives and mission, your skills as a leader and manager, and also your drive and energy and commitment to taking on the many challenges, as well as the many opportunities that inevitably arise.

The map is to figure your longer term direction of travel and to ensure that you are able to configure around you a set of relationships, flows of information and action that will improve your own and others’ leadership and decision making.

We cannot be stuck in an environment where our memories are stronger than our vision; but our vision better be rooted in the discernible realities that now confront us.

The business community in South Africa has a great deal to contribute as it takes a proactive role in managing internally, managing markets and its broader environment – and most of all, adopting the philosophy that South Africa belongs to all who live in it; and that as businesses we need to play a more strategic and constructive role in our political economy and society. After all, any economic system has to have a societal license to operate and that is no less so in South Africa.

I encourage you to take on board many of the ideas in this book and think deeply about what difference you might make to deal with this changed and intensely complex and fast changing time.

PROFESSOR NICK BINEDELL

Founding Dean

Gordon Institute of Business Science

INTRODUCTION

I spent a month touring around the US in December 2019. I was accompanied on this epic trip by my wife and three kids. We started off with a week in Boston, where I spent some time at Harvard Business School, and then we headed to New York to indulge in a magical winterland experience for our children who were, at that time, three, five and seven years old.

The stores were bustling and, having elected to rent an apartment, we lived like locals, using the subways, shopping and eating out in neighbourhood haunts, creating wonderful memories as we went ice-skating in Central Park or visiting the enchanting candy emporium Dylan’s Candy Bar at 1011 3rd Avenue. We then enjoyed a seven-day visit to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, before driving ourselves across to Miami.

That was how my 2019 came to an end. I honestly thought it had set the tone for a busy year of travel and amazing global experiences. I had loads of travel scheduled in for the year: seven international business trips on the cards and my diary was bursting.

Then came 2020.

I’ll never forget receiving an email from Professor Louise Whittaker, Executive Director: Academic Programmes at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), where I am a faculty member. Louise said that GIBS, as a business school, might have to transition into an online cycle. That was early on in the year and despite being aware of the virus impacting China and parts of Europe, I remember thinking that this was highly unlikely. Two-and-a-half weeks later it became a reality.

Emotionally and physically this rapid shift has impacted us all.

This was a telling moment and, looking back in years to come, I believe we will regard the COVID-19 crisis as a period of tremendous change. There are few defining moments that are as pervasive as this shift has been. I can count on my hand events which might have had the same impact in my own life, the release of Nelson Mandela is one. The first democratic elections in South Africa, is another. On a global level, the fall of the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11 was a momentous event. Big moments like these are few and far between, but they pack a punch and their repercussions are widespread. We continue to feel the ripples of a new democratic South Africa, or the 9/11 attacks to this day. Similarly, we will feel the effects of SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19 disease, for decades to come.

The first four to five weeks of enforced isolation that we all experienced was a mixture of shock and awe. During this time I had a number of conversations with clients, business leaders and colleagues and many felt strongly that we’d have to navigate these restrictions for a few weeks, but then everything would go back to normal. It soon became apparent that this was not the case.

Maybe it’s time to imagine a very different world.

I have written this book at incredible speed, with the objective of providing a view on The Now and The Next. As I engaged many companies in the last four months, in helping them build adaptive strategies, I have realised that most companies were focused on ‘the now’ and not adapting to ‘the next’.

I am aware that we are in a period of mass uncertainty. This book, written in the peak of this uncertainty, is thus a view that I am taking on the macro environment as well as different sectors. I am aware that not everything I postulate might pan out, which is why I present scenarios for each chapter. My view has always been that it is important that we take a view and proactively adapt rather than reactively respond. A critical component of this is the intellectual humility that we won’t always get it right, but that we are equipped to sensing these anomalies earlier and adapting.

I therefore wanted to start this book with a framework, which can be applied to different sectors and geographies in periods of mass disruption. It serves as a spine throughout this book and I would encourage you to apply this framework, using some of the views I have taken, to your context.

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Reimagine everything

Right now, as you read this book, everyone around the world – in one way or another – is dealing with the shock and uncertainty of living through an unprecedented period of rapid and pervasive transition. Whether we like it or not, we have been pushed en masse into a discontinuous, disruptive digital world on the back of fast-paced shifts impacting almost every facet of society. I think it is safe to say that humanity will – as a result of current drivers – change more in the next five years than it has for many years before that.

As Ronak Gopaldas and Bronwyn Williams put it: ‘We find ourselves on the horns of a climate emergency; contending with a wave of unprecedented global antiracism protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd; while simultaneously battling the economic fallout from a global healthcare emergency. The intersectionality of these multiple crises – alongside the escalation in the strategic rivalry between China and the US, and the even larger global struggle between democratic and authoritarian ideals – have created a dangerous cocktail of factors which make the conditions ripe for a political moment.’¹

We stand, contend Gopaldas and Williams, on the shifting tectonic plates of a global political realignment and ‘in the midst of an era-defining inflection point’. I would argue, one with even more far-reaching implications than we could ever have imagined.

Even if the healthcare crisis that precipitated the restrictions on human movement and interaction ends today, with the snap of a finger, 2020 has already proved an interesting global experiment that has forced us to look at our world, at our impact as human beings and at our habits and industries. We have been confronted by the need to examine our personal and collective decision from another perspective and given an invaluable opportunity to reflect on what works and what does not.

As we open our minds to the possibility of a world that looks much different to the reality we’ve become accustomed to, many of us are asking what we might expect from a post-COVID-19 environment. It’s overwhelming at times to try and piece together a mental mind map of what we might be dealing with in the future. How will travel and tourism play out in this new reality? What about dating? Supply chains will undoubtedly be affected, but how? The automotive industry is likely to take a knock, as will property and retail, but e-commerce is in for a new lease of life and our uptake of technology is likely to boom. But what are the implications of these rapid shifts to our personal freedoms or investment approaches, how we educate our children and which careers we should prize in the future?

As a global strategist, speaker and academic I am often asked to bring all the strands together – from dry reports and statistics, to conversations with people on the ground – to build a picture of where we are going. From there I work with governments, companies and individuals to help them navigate this unknown territory. It is, as you can imagine, not an exact science, but applying academic principles and rigour with the unique tools and access at the disposal of a strategist, it is possible to spot the trends as they emerge and build some all-important linkages.

Of course, it is impossible to fully understand the tectonic forces at play unless we really stop and examine big-picture issues like globalisation, interdependency and interconnectivity. Only then can we begin to look beyond the forces being brought to bear by this global crisis and learn to see this as a safe space which gives us the latitude to move and share and shift. Make no mistake, we have to use this crisis as a chance to change and examine how we do business, how we live our lives, how we shop, entertain ourselves, raise our children and think about the world. This is an incredible time to rethink how we operate as a species and how we rewire our society, but to do that starts by dismantling the aspects of our social architecture which are just not serving humanity as a whole.

As renowned Dutch trend forecaster, Li Edelkoort, told the Design Indaba Festival in February 2020: ‘I think we should be very grateful for the virus because it might be the reason we survive as a species … We need to find new values – values of simple experience, of friendship. It might just turn the world around for the better².’

The message is clear: Unless we completely overhaul our thinking in terms of business purpose, globalisation, supply chain management, how we educate future generations, the use of technology and the way we work, we will have wasted the opportunity to rewire our world into a more empathetic, inclusive, fairer, smarter and sustainable creation. It is time to disrupt the existing architecture that props up our world and rebuild new foundations.

For over a decade we’ve been talking extensively about disruption, about the profound impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) on economies and careers, but it’s been just that: talk.

Yes, there have been pockets of action evident in high-innovation sectors such as the automotive industry (Volkswagen’s Internet of Things strategy stands out) and retail (with Starbucks’ use of data analytics being deserving of a nod), and in pods of creativity like Silicon Valley in the US, China’s Zhengzhou tech hub, the UK’s regional creative hubs and any number of innovation environments from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Barcelona, Spain and Nairobi, Kenya³. But despite these pockets of excellence, widespread disruption has been in short supply.

We are, as a species, too comfortable with the status quo to open ourselves up to meaningful change. But then came a global event which shook our foundations to the core. The COVID-19 pandemic slammed on the brakes. And now, as we cautiously reopen our world, we have not only the opportunity, but the responsibility to do things differently. This is not a nice-to-have moment, it’s a case of survival.

Things will be different in the new context. It’s how we respond that will determine our future. If, as individuals, businesses, societies and governments, we adopt a short-term reactive stance then we will have failed to put all the tools at our disposal around strategy, scenario planning and long-term thinking. Our collective goal at this seminal moment in human history must be to recommit to a better long-term future for all. This will mean seismic shifts on a personal and collective level, but the opportunities that will be shaken free are exciting, game-changing possibilities.

Is there a middle ground?

Over the past few months I have presented my thoughts to a variety of audiences around the world, worked with companies to completely change their strategic outlook and helped individuals navigate this strange new reality.

One recurring theme that has emerged from these discussions is the longing by many to simply return to ‘normal’. The term ‘the new normal’ is being well used at the moment but as my GIBS colleague Professor Adrian Saville said during a discussion the two of us enjoyed on LinkedIn⁴, we are not dealing with a ‘new normal’, we are just dealing with a ‘new’. For many, the sweeping changes we see are simply too much to contemplate. While I stand by the view that we will see notable changes across the industries I highlight in these pages, and indeed many more, there is a middle ground which we also need to consider. Therefore, in each section pertaining to a specific industry or sector I will also touch on the middle-ground possibilities and outline some of the responses which companies and individuals could make in these sectors, to help adapt in a proactive manner to the potential shifts.

As many of my clients, friends and colleagues contend, human beings are a resilient bunch and we have short memories. History would accord with this view. The argument is that we will end up travelling again, we will frequent restaurants and bars and return to face-to-face education and office work.

The question we need to be asking ourselves is not if we can return to ‘normal’, but whether we should. And the big question on my mind is whether the world we came from was ever, really, normal.

We are fundamentally missing a pivotal moment in human history if we seek to exit this crisis in exactly the same state we were previously. Governments, societies, businesses and individuals have been gifted a chance to use this reset to reimagine the structural challenges we have in the world. A failure to so do would be a golden opportunity missed and will, I believe, seriously stunt our development for decades to come.

We can, and should, use this moment in time to ask ourselves serious questions about:

•How to apply innovative and effective ways of addressing massive, and growing, global inequality?

•How can we use this reset to collectively address poverty?

•How can we use this reset to provide access to accessible education?

•How can we use this reset to look at clever ways in which to tackle pressing environmental issues?

•How our future governments should look, what powers we are prepared to abdicate to them and what civil liberties should be beyond the touch of any external power?

•How can we create more inclusive societies?

I believe how we reset ourselves and our societies start with understanding the primary shifts taking place. To do this we need to reimagine all the comfortable elements of our world that are currently being disrupted and, step by step, tackle the smart moves we can make today to build a better architecture for tomorrow.

MACRO SHIFTS

The massive shifts we are currently seeing in our external environment are presenting humanity with an entirely new canvas to paint on. All the layers upon layers of old oil paint