“Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dr. Brand, Interstellar

THEY said he was an idiot. They said his sketches were infantile and that it looked like a child had done them. They were right! He did paint like a child as an adult, but more interestingly he had painted like a master when he was a mere child. Pablo Picasso was a genius. He was born in Malaga in the south of Spain in 1881 and his family moved to Barcelona when he was five, where he stayed for the next 20 years, before he left for France. He said of Barcelona “There is where it all began… where I understood how far I could go.”

This chapter is about learning to survive, and thrive, in a sea of change. By better understanding the great waves of change, we can learn to be masters of disruption, rather than victims. This is true on an individual and organizational level, and we will show how the Chief Wellbeing Officer can ask the right questions to help both the person and company navigate safely and successfully.

The very essence of wellbeing is finding, and acting according to, your authentic self. It is easy to lose sight of our authenticity due to a variety of factors, life experiences, bad habits, poor choices, and the environment in which we spend most of our time. We may even achieve a great deal of success acting inauthentically, though if that success does last, it is unlikely to be fulfilling. Exposing ourselves to outside points of view and influences is healthy, as is learning from others and getting new ideas, but we must always stay true to who we are. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, everybody else is already taken.” This quest for authenticity builds on our discussion in chapter three on defining purpose, values, and vision, and we will enrich that quest through different means in this chapter, including a call to adopt a more childlike mindset.

First, let us turn our attention to understanding those large waves of change.

The curves of change

The S-curve first appeared in 1962 as part of Professor Everett Rogers’ work on the diffusion of innovation.[1] He specifically looked at how and why ideas and products spread through different cultures, giving rise to the well-known bell-curve distribution or life-cycle, with the S-curve being the cumulative plot of the life-cycle as shown below.

By better understanding the great waves of change, we can learn to be masters of disruption, rather than victims.

Figure 7.1. Understanding market diffusion as an S-curve

In 1986, McKinsey & Company director Richard Foster then used the S-curve to describe how the performance of a technology varies over time, or more strictly, how it varies with increased research and development effort or investment.[2] Technological performance increases with effort but eventually hits an upper limit or plateau, where further improvement would either be impossible or prohibitively expensive. To achieve higher performance requires a discontinuous switch to a different technology, in turn following its own S-curve. The new S-curve may start at a performance level below the old one but has potential to overtake its predecessor.

This thinking really caught the mainstream with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen’s book on The Innovator’s Dilemma, in which he stated that all companies, no matter how successful, must at some point leave behind the old way of doing things and make the switch to a new path. Even if that new path is seemingly of no value, in terms of both market and performance, it will have the potential to eventually overtake the existing solution. Technological disruption therefore occurs when an innovation emerges that offers superior performance along a new dimension, even if performance on conventional measures is initially poor. Incumbents will tend to dismiss the new innovation as no importance, yet it may create a new market that eventually supersedes the existing one.

So be wary of those small players who begin by merely taking your scraps but eventually eat your lunch.

This isn’t easy to do. Companies become big and arrogant, and are blind to what will create value in the future. As an example, let’s look at Kodak, the Google of its day. Up until 1990 it was regularly classified as one of the top-five highest-value brands in the world, with $2.5 billion in revenues and 145,000 employees by 1999. It still exists today, but is a mere shadow of its former self, having missed the transition to digital photography. Yet it had all the know-how for survival as one of its engineers, Steven Sasson, actually invented the digital camera. Forty years ago, he went to his boss and presented his invention. It weighed four kilos and the quality of the images was 0.01 megapixels. The image was stored in a cassette. His boss laughed, in fact everybody laughed at him, and he despondently went back to his lab. The rest is history, as digital photography killed film, and then smartphones killed the camera. These steps are no more than a series of disruptions that could have been foreseen. In a similar vein let’s not forget that Microsoft invented the tablet computer and Nokia the tactile screen. So be wary of those small players who begin by merely taking your scraps but eventually eat your lunch.

In recent years, the S-curve has been used as a lens to understand change in different fields in science and business, including personal disruption. It is not a scientific reality, rather a useful framework to surface the right questions.

Our belief therefore, akin to Christensen’s dilemma for companies is that all people, no matter how successful, must at some point leave behind the old way of doing things and make the switch to a new path

A case from Professor MacGregor Disruption is not new. Let’s consider change at the level of a whole industry. Perhaps the world’s oldest is the spice trade or Silk Roads, essentially one and the same thing. For thousands of years there was two-way trade from the Far East and great empires of China to Western Europe, and later to the Americas. Silk and spices like cardamom, cinnamon, and pepper as well as horses and slaves would flow in both directions. Millions of people were employed, from peasant farmers growing the products, local merchants buying and transporting, port authorities, ships, then buyers at the other end, shops, more merchants, and end users. The value chain was immense.

For three thousand years this trade endured, with Venice becoming the capital from about 1100 to 1500. Companies like the Dutch East India Company grew so large and rich that they acted like nations. They had more than a million employees, a fleet of ships more impressive than almost any nation’s armada, powers to invade countries, and even to execute employees when they desired. Then, in the space of a few years all this came to an end. The mighty industry became a mere shadow of what it had once been.

Frederic Tudor became known as the Boston Ice King in around 1850. He disrupted the whole spice trade, not by inventing better ships or better routes, but by developing another method of conserving food. That, after all, was the core purpose of the spice trade. Its purpose was about food preservation. Tudor developed a whole new sector that produced ice in New England: he would establish great ice fields in large lakes that would be cut and harvested into ice blocks. The ice blocks would be stored in large warehouses. Despite the lack of modern refrigeration, the thermodynamic properties of ice meant that only a few millimetres of ice would melt each day. From the warehouses, the ice would then be transported to houses.

Most middle-class families had an ice box and received a delivery twice a week. This was the modern way to preserve food and the spice trade became obsolete. How many of the players in the spice trade made it into the ice trade? How many of those peasant farmers, shippers, and traders managed to adapt to the new reality? Zero! Then John Gorrie invented the artificial ice machine. A bit like the first digital camera, it was big, expensive, and difficult to use. The incumbent, Babson, with his lakes and massive production network could not imagine that it was a threat. He laughed. They all scoffed. He said it was impractical. He was making the classic mistake of every big, comfortable high-end business: arrogance and complacency.

By 1910 everybody had a refrigerator and the ice business was gone. How many people in the ice trade made it into the world of artificial refrigeration? Zero! Even the ships were not equipped to ship fridges, they were set up for ice blocks. Will we enter a post-refrigerator phase? Who knows. Perhaps food that doesn’t need refrigeration. Or maybe Amazon, with its one-hour delivery, its sophisticated network of suppliers and couriers, and drones will render it all obsolete.

Figure 7.2. A 19th-century ice-delivery man

Disrupt yourself

Disruption is the natural order of life – where change, death, and rebirth are ever-present. By better understanding the main rhythms and their transitions, we may take advantage on both a personal and business level.

So what are those main rhythms? First, everything has a beginning, and then it grows. It grows at varying rates until eventually reaching a plateau or maturity, after which it will start to decline and eventually die. The key is to understand the point at which decline begins, understand the signs around you, and instead of being tied to the decline, follow the new growth path. This is the moment of disruption. You have disrupted the natural course of events.

Figure 7.3. The life-cycle of growth

The big challenge, apart from being aware of what is going on around you, is that in order to jump to a new curve you have to pass through a period of chaos. This is a difficult time. Opportunity is high, but so is fear. If the curve represents you, or your career, this is a very tiring time. This difficulty can be attributed to two main factors. First, there is a high degree of ambiguity. This is good in the long-run, since ambiguity and the lack of rushing to definition is what opens up a whole world of new opportunities. Yet ambiguity is not a naturally acceptable concept for us as human beings. Second, as originally detailed by Foster in his technology S-curves, is that the new curve will start at a level of performance lower than the existing path. This can be a difficult reality for us to grasp – that in order to go forward in the long-run, we must first go backwards. The transition may be likened in part to the productive zone of disequilibrium developed as part of the adaptive leadership field. There is enough tension to change for the better, embracing different possibilities, yet ideally not so much tension that fear takes hold to the detriment of positive change.

Leadership is about establishing the context around you and then moving towards actions (making choices). The chaos stage is one where it is essential to hold the pressure of everything that is swirling around you. You must establish all the options, read the signs, see the massive opportunities, but don’t jump too soon, nor prevaricate and wait too long. Jumping too soon or waiting too long may cause you to miss the opportunity of the new path, the new curve, and you will head towards inevitable decline.

In addition to the new curve starting at a lower performance level, the S-curve shape also dictates that progress will be slow initially. It may seem that nothing is happening despite the momentous actions you have taken in order to get there. Be patient and be sure that things will pick up and may move into fast growth that is represented by the steep part of the curve. Hold the course and don’t fall into the temptation of old habits that represent your former self.

Understanding where you are now allows us to move forward. Are you in A, B, C or D for your personal life and career or company product or strategy?

Figure 7.4. The life-cycle of growth, with stages A to D

Start by listening to the conversations around you. For example, if you are using the model to analyze the life-cycle of a company product, the things people are talking about are growth, production and marketing. If in B you will feel a lot of energy and new ideas around you. In C there is a constant battle for resources. The company may be panicking a little and throwing more and more KPIs at the situation. Fear may be tangible. At D there is only talk of cost cutting, and the employees are all hiding and waiting for Friday.

Apply this same logic to your personal life and wellbeing. Be clear on what stage you are in and make choices. If you are at A, the main thing is to stay the course, do more of what you are already doing. If you are at B, be patient and ensure you don’t slip back to C. Growth will come. At C it is about holding down all the pressure, assessing opportunities, and considering where you are going to focus. D may simply involve a hard stop, cutting your losses and moving on, even if this is painful. For example, this may involve divorce or quitting your job.

How can you be sure where you are, or that the new path really is the one to follow? Hindsight is a wonderful thing and there are certainly examples of killing a successful product too soon. We would advise two things: first, listen to your heart. Truly listen. Get away from your daily distractions and reconnect with your authentic self. You will often find the answer there. Second, listen to others. Who do you trust and who could give you a more dispassionate view on the situation?

Jumping too soon or waiting too long may cause you to miss the opportunity of the new path, the new curve, and you will head towards inevitable decline.

TRY THE FOLLOWING EXERCISE TO RECONNECT WITH YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF AS A MEANS OF BETTER RIDING THE WAVES OF DISRUPTION

Our past reveals rich insights for wellbeing to thrive, yet is often hidden and hard to uncover. There may be things you do not want to relive, but by acknowledging them we may move forward as a more resilient being. Association is a powerful means of uncovering the past. The way we sense things and how that makes us feel leaves a very definite mark on our subconscious. Consider the sense of smell, perhaps a grandmother’s recipe that, when sensed again, transports you immediately back to your childhood. It’s like Proust and his madeleine in In Search of Lost Time. He dips his madeleine cake into a cup of tea, he smells something he has not smelled for years and it evokes some­t­hing deep. A stream of consciousness is unleashed. The past had been hidden and forgotten but he manages to rekindle it. He realizes he can learn from it and understand what all those past memories, “lying dormant, poised like souls waiting and hoping for their moment,” say about his true self.

Music is another powerful association. Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast by the BBC since the 1940s and is one of the world’s longest-running radio shows. Each week a guest, called a ‘castaway’, is asked to choose eight recordings (usually, but not always, music), a book and a luxury item they would take if they were to be cast away on a desert island, while discussing their lives and the reasons for their choices. More than 3,000 episodes have been recorded and there is a long, comprehensive archive of interesting podcasts to enjoy. Guests invariably come to the show thinking it will be easy but leave crying, such is the emotion that is unleashed through hidden memories. The music acts like Proust’s madeleine.

So, begin by thinking about your young life as a child. Consider the early years, perhaps blissful and cared for deeply or experiencing hardship and neglect. Whatever it was, try to think of some music – maybe it’s your earliest memories of music, maybe it’s a lullaby your mother sang, or a song your father always played. Try to pinpoint it and savour the flavour of the music as it washes over you. Next, think about your teens. Rebellion perhaps? Peer pressure at school? Consider what music defined you then. Perhaps you remember the first record or disc you bought. Find the music, play it and see how you feel. See if you are transported back to those teen years.

Then into your late teens and twenties. Maybe your first deep relationship. Maybe you made a mix tape for your boyfriend/girlfriend. Maybe there was a break up and you were sad. What music comes to mind? Play it and remember. Continue to do this until you have eight songs. Play the songs and enjoy the unleashing of long-lost memories. Remember your behaviours in times of challenge, success, and failure. Remember how it felt to win or lose or feel excluded from a group, or to be on the wrong end of a break-up. In this way you are putting meat on the skeleton of your life. You are discovering you.

“And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy), immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine… so in that moment all the flowers in our garden … and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from my cup of tea.”

In Search of Lost Time (vol 1), Marcel Proust, 1913

Bring out the child in you and your organization

The Desert Island Discs exercise is a powerful tool that shows the cycles of our lives. It is not uncommon to see things repeat themselves, say, every seven or so years. We may see success and failure through that time – a series of S-curves.

Reinvention is becoming a child again, curious to learn and adopt a beginner’s mindset that is characterized by curiosity, exploration, and discovery. We all know how to make friends without starting with assumptions and judgments. We did that in the school playground. We all know how to openly express ourselves without fear of humiliation. Young children do that all the time. Yet over time our innate, authentic, and unique characteristics are eroded and moulded into a standardisation of what society or our family or company wants us to look like. During this process we lose the invaluable and naive ability to create, innovate, and be our authentic selves. Picasso said: “Every child is an artist… and then they grow up.”

The childlike characteristics so often stolen from us as we grow, mature, and learn to socialize are exactly what so many companies are now asking for in their people: the ability to think out of the box, to think for themselves and innovate. Children are predisposed to authenticity and optimism. These are probably the two most important leadership characteristics that companies are crying out for, yet we humiliate our employees for displaying them.

All kids have incredible talents and then we ruthlessly squander them. As the famous educator and TED speaker Ken Robinson said, “Schools teach us literacy but kill creativity.” He goes on to tell the story of the kindergarten teacher who was observing her classroom of children while they drew pictures. Occasionally, she would walk around the room to see each child’s work. “What are you drawing?” she asked one little girl who was working diligently at her desk. The girl replied, “I’m drawing God.” The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.” The little girl replied, “They will in a minute.”

This is what companies are missing, yet they consistently go out to destroy this childlike free-thinking attitude. It was said recently that “companies are abattoirs of the human soul”. Companies step into our lives, just after we have been through years of training and conditioning by schools, and they keep on transforming us into the best version for them, again eroding our personal characteristics. At the same time they increasingly ask for creativity and passion. Yet wellbeing and the creativity, passion, and performance that comes from it, thrives when we reconnect with our authentic selves. This is what Chief Wellbeing Officer is here for, and there are signs that organizations are beginning to change. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked in 2017 of his admiration for the book MindSet by Stanford professor Carol Dweck:

“I was reading it not in the context of business or work culture, but in the context of my children’s education. The author describes the simple metaphor of kids at school. One of them is a ‘know-it-all’ and other is a ‘learn-it-all’, and the learn-it-all always will do better than the other one, even if the know-it-all kid starts with much more innate capability. Going back to business: if that applies to boys and girls at school, I think it also applies to CEOs, like me, and entire organizations, like Microsoft. We want to be not a know-it-all but learn-it-all organization.”

Such a learn-it-all approach is often held up as good practice in parenting, where the focus should not be on giving the answer to questions that children may have, but taking an approach of “let’s find out together”, in order to awaken interest in the process of discovery. The process and thirst for the answer is actually more important than the answer itself. Such a skill will be even more important for the complex problems of the future where there may not be a single answer. The way of thinking is more important, which can be deployed today to question why things exist in the organization, not simply because that’s “the way it has always been done”.

The energies of the Chief Wellbeing Officer may therefore be directed also to organizational health, ensuring that the company may thrive in the longer-term in spite of disruption and complexity. Responsible stewardship of the company involves navigating the rhythms of change outlined in this chapter. Testament to the great challenges of a disruptive age is the decreasing lifespan of a company: only half of the companies listed in the 1980 Fortune 500 still exist today, with a 15-year-old company now often perceived as old. As leading management academic Gary Hamel said, “Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who’s forging a bullet with your company’s name on it.” Once-mighty brands including Kodak, Blockbuster, Borders, and TWA were felled by such bullets.

In contrast, companies including Apple, IBM, Lego, Disney, and Fuji all survived near-death experiences to successfully reinvent themselves, following different iterations of the S-curve. They adapted and survived by asking the right questions, by being open to change, and by avoiding complacency and taking the right risks.

One of the main things about disruption is that it is difficult to see it coming. Especially if you are doing well in your business, have achieved market dominance, and all your KPIs look good – as they did for Kodak in 1999. It is therefore hard to imagine that you are under imminent threat of disappearance – yet is has now happened to so many companies in recent years.

Figure 7.5. This is what disruption looks like, adapted from Analyzing 1.1 Billion NYC Taxi and Uber Trips, with a Vengeance by Todd W. Schneider (toddwschneider.com)

The Chief Wellbeing Officer listens, asks questions internally and externally, has their eyes open, and might just sense a disruption on the horizon to enable the company to be part of it, rather than a victim. At the very least, organizations need to have the right childlike mindset prevalent within their employees so as to be able to move quickly when the need arises.

Picasso said that his abstraction was “the elimination of the unnecessary”. This is the true concept of complex simplicity: adult complexity with childlike simplicity. Just because the image Picasso created seems simplistic, does not mean it is not fiendishly sophisticated. The thing about abstraction is that it’s ridiculously difficult, since it demands that you have a grasp of the underlying principles of what’s going on. You have to ensure that every single line, every dot on the canvas, that every detail has a purpose. Picasso said that you have to begin with concrete reality and then, through simplicity-seeking abstraction, you remove traces of that reality. Given that you started with something real it shall always be in there. The idea of the object will have left an indelible mark. His visual essay on bull figures is the perfect example. The first few are hooved, horned, fleshy, and bull-like. The last one is just six lines and some shading, but it is just as lifelike. It hasn’t lost any of its its ’bullness’. Steve Jobs said that “simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Figure 7.6. Picasso’s bulls by Ferran Bruguera

Can you simplify? Are you able to focus? This makes you more, not less, because you are not diluting yourself with things that are not important to you and your authentic self. Learning to live has two distinct meanings. First, in a longer life and career we must better navigate the waves of change and so we better learn how life unfolds. Second, on the role of learning in order to live. Learning is a never-ending process. Picasso also said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” It seems he was a learn-it-all, too.