OPINION: What will the future require of us?

It is somewhat reassuring to learn that Nancy Giordano has 43 000 unopened e-mails on her computer.

As a global “brand futurist”, she is in demand to lead transformation strategies at major corporations and present her framework for visionary leadership at conferences and events. She is also a mother of three and a part-time lecturer at Singularity University in Silicon Valley.

If someone operating at the cutting edge of technology has such a cluttered inbox, the rest of us can be forgiven for not keeping up. However, she reassures us, she is on top of the important correspondence.

Speaking at VeeamON, a conference hosted by data backup and management company Veeam in Miami, Florida, she makes the case for “audacious leadering” as the key to being on top of the rapid technological change that the coming years will bring.

The main challenge, she says, is that we have three lenses into the future: through our work lives, our personal lives and as members of society. In each of these, the questions arise: what problem are we trying to solve; what is our role; how can we compete?

“This leads us to a permanent state of ambiguity,” she says. “So many things are happening at once in the world of business and technology, we’re not sure if we’re making the right decisions any more. How do we know when is the right time to act? How do we operate in a time of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity?”

Picture: iStock

The reality for business, she says, is that we live in an “F-I-O world”. That stands for “Figure-It-Out”.

“Nobody knows how to do it: you’ve got to figure it out. Part of it is an agile mindset. It’s not about spending a ton of money on research and development and hoping to get it right, but starting with the most basic components and making sure you get them right.

“The iPhone didn’t start the way it is now; they caught up. So, in human resources, for instance, it can be getting the hiring oronboarding process right, and building from there. On an individual level, it is teaching people that they have agency, they are able to create something and it can start small.”

Giordano appears, at first, to be a strange fit for a Veeam event focused on cloud storage. But her message resonates powerfully.

Anthony Spiteri, a global technologist working in the product strategy group at Veeam, tells us in an interview that the trend in information technology (IT) is to make it more efficient and have tools to make the jobs of IT practitioners easier, but functional, and to do more with less.

“Look at how software has evolved in the last five to 10 years: it’s all about simplifying systems,” he says. “Ten years ago, you had a lot more bells and whistles and a lot more people needed to know how to make it work. Today, it is all in a black box and people expect to plug it in and work. Younger people want more of that black box plug-and-play experience.”

How does one combine the black box idea with an F-I-O world? Giordano says that one way large businesses are addressing the challenge is with “the idea of uncommon partnerships”.

Picture: iStock

“You have disparate companies coming together, like Pizza Hut and Toyota co-developing the e-Palette self-driving delivery vans,” she says. “Competitors on the retail stage become collaborators on the high tech stage. Executives are asking, with whom can we collaborate?”

The answer can appear unthinkable at first. In Houston 11 years ago, for example, petroleum engineers and cardiologists got together on the basis that they were both looking for better ways to pump fluid. That one was dealing with oil and the other with blood did not prevent them from seeing the massive potential of cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The result was Pumps & Pipes, an association of medical, energy, aerospace, academic and community professionals and leaders. It has moved far beyond oil and blood and now emphasises inclusivity across nations and disciplines, with the guiding principle to problem-solving being “exploring your neighbour’s tool kit”.

Says Giordano: “This is where the value of diverse thinking comes into the picture. California was the first state to require women on corporate boards, not because it is politically correct, but because corporations with women on the board are on average 15% more profitable. It’s about having different backgrounds, thinking and education.

“This will be most crucial in artificial intelligence. Right now, it is dominated by a homogeneous group of people. The biggest thing to watch out for in AI is bias, how it was trained and what we ask it to do. Not because they are bad, but because they have a different perspective.

“It’s part of the development of our AQ, our adaptability quotient. The great news is you can continuously develop it. Curiosity, agile thinking, diverse teams, collaboration, are all part of it. You have to ask: what does the future need and expect of you? What are you in a unique position to contribute to the future?”

Picture: iStock

For executives, says Giordano, the answer lies in what she calls “leadering”. The difference between this and leadership is that the new concept is about being passionate.

“If we focus less on how to make humans more effective than how to make machines more effective it will be to our detriment. But this isn’t really about machines at all – it is about community. The single most important social technology is the importance of being human.”

A futurist’s tool kit

Nancy Giordano offers a four-part tool kit for developing our AQ, or adaptability quotient, and coping with the rapid pace of change:

• Wonder vs resist: Keep an open mind, both when the path is uncharted and when confronted with new ideas.

• Navigate vs replicate: Learn to excel in a permanent state of ambiguity. The beginning and end is no longer clear, so our thinking, processes and roles will have to adapt continually.

• LeaderING vs leaderSHIP: Use the human cloud, embrace community, and place an emphasis on caring more.

• Be audacious vs incremental: The kind of 15% increase in productivity sought by many companies when undertaking transformation projects is not enough. We have to be audacious and stop thinking merely incrementally

Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee

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