CHAPTER 2

Context

The Speed of Now

The world is changing all around us at an increasing rate and does not appear to be slowing down. The 2020/21 pandemic has added to the pace and complexity of change. That said, change has been increasing in pace for more than 50 years. Kelley (2016) noted that in the last 50 years the average lifespan of a S&P 500 company has dropped from 61 years to 18 years. It took the automobile 90 years to reach 90 percent of U.S. households but only 20 years for the mobile phone to attain the same level of utilization.

Garelli (2016) noted a study finding from McKinsey:

Garelli goes on to note:

We are in the throes of an unstable environment, which for now appears will remain the status quo for some time to come. Organizations are struggling to increase business agility—their ability to quickly respond to change, adapt products, services, and processes, and potentially reconfigure themselves to meet customer demands (Hugos 2009; Kotter 2014; Friedman 2016).

This environment has been labeled as one characterized by “VUCA” (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity), where the rules and norms of the past no longer create results that organizations and their consumers desire. “VUCA” was used by the U.S. Army War College (Stiehm and Townsend 2002) to describe the post–Cold War global environment and has been applied to organizational survival (Bennett and Lemoine 2014).

Source: SEEDAdvisory (n.d.)

Simon Sinek (2019) describes this environment as an “infinite game” in his book with the same title. He notes that there are no exact or agreed upon rules, and “winning” is too narrow in perspective. In an infinite game, there is no finish line, but there are infinite time horizons. The primary objective is to keep playing. This speaks to the point that change initiatives should not be treated as events but more appropriately seen as a natural and ongoing daily process. It is a fairly human trait to think that if you solve a problem with an action, that that action will have solved the issue in perpetuity. But as every parent knows, just when you have your newborn in a sleep pattern that you think has stuck, you have to change tactics yet again when only part of that sleep training has stuck. As such, an infinite game, at least for a decade or so.

By its nature, most change is complex, iterative, and politicized (Buchanan 2003).

Kotler and Casilone, in Chaotics (2009), argued for the need to manage differently in what Alan Greenspan referred to as the “age of turbulence.” They noted, “Change is the new status quo, leaving managers without firm ground from which to gaze at the onrushing future as markets, technologies, governments, consumers and products undergo constant change with blinding rapidity” (p. 1). Kelley (2016) noted our recent environment was characterized as a “tsunami of change.”

Kelley (2016) also noted:

The Leaderocity^TM (Dool 2021) research project, conducted in 2010 and 2011, explored drivers of the current and foreseen environment including: the emergence of chaotics, systemic impatience, turbulence as the “new normal,” the impact of globalization, and the compression of time and space, workforce trends, the digital workplace, the “just in time” workforce, the need to “superstruct,” and the culture of connectivity.

Drivers for the Speed of Now

The Emergence of Chaotics (Largely Derived From Kotler and Casilone 2009)

Leaders need to create “chaotics management systems” that allow for “triple planning” (short, mid, and long term), as well as early warning systems, active performance metrics, risk analysis, and information filtration systems. Our traditional strategy life cycles are most likely obsolete or at least under attack. The shelf-life of a strategy is certainly shorter for most organizations and leaders must be more vigilant in seizing opportunities or confronting threats. (Kotler and Caslione 2009). Leaders in the 21st century need to lead three dimensionally across multiple time horizons in what Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, has called a “multispeed” world (Blodget 2015). Think back to the last time a single strategy to change and outcome worked. You may need to go as far back as last decade, or certainly before the current environment of constant information and connectivity. In a presocial media world, you had time to think and react. Now, reactions and feedback are immediate and as such, the change initiative you undertake will need to be able to pivot on multiple reaction speeds.

Systemic Impatience

We are in an era of “now.” We are surrounded by “instant” access and response. Examples abound from texting, self-service checkouts, online bill paying, and debit systems. Time is a prized asset and is clearly worth more to an array of both internal and external stakeholders. There is a systemic and societal expectation of “now.”

Organizations and leaders as a result are under intense scrutiny from a variety of stakeholders including customers, suppliers, employees, regulators, community activists, and governance officials. Lombardi (1997) dubbed this “the spotlight era” (p. 1). There seems to be a general impatience in both management and its stakeholders and a constant demand for results.

Agility and flexibility have become critical leader and organizational competencies. To become truly agile, an organization must embrace speed as a reality and infuse their operations with speed and dexterity with a strong dose of constant vigilance to changes in the ecosystem. Companies need to be “aerodynamic” (Poscente 2008). It might sometimes feel as if the overall system of our global economy is in a continuous level of stress to deliver goods and services on time. That’s not far from the truth. Consider the global supply chain issues amid the effects from the pandemic. The system writ large is already pushed to its limits and ripple effects happen more frequently than ever before.

Turbulence as the New Normal

Capgemini (2005) has noted that managers today must lead in an environment of “permanent volatility.” Reilly, Brett, and Stroh (1993) described the environment in which managers must perform as “turbulent,” characterized by changes that are, “nontrivial, rapid and discontinuous” (p. 167). While the word turbulence is most often used to describe moments of unease during a flight, even planes have the option of steering away from turbulent air and finding calmer airstreams. Our business and to a degree social reality no longer seems to have an option to veer toward left or right. It is important to note, however, that our human ability to operate in such economic turbulence may not have fully caught up to this adjusted normal. The subsequent fatigue is quickly becoming a palpable reality.

Time and Space Revised

Time and space seem smaller due to the increased reach and access fueled by technology. A 24×7 orientation has become entrenched as stakeholders reach across times and borders to engage on a social or transaction level. Davis noted that “factors of time, space and mass are destroying traditional business solutions. What worked in the industrial world will not work tomorrow.” Speed and connectivity will be at the center of new business solutions. Davis (2000) refers to this as the “blur” economy—an economy in continual motion. While in the industrial past companies had proving time to test out new products and services, today’s time and space measures—for better and for worse—have created a market that will respond to new offerings at lightning speed. Ideas new today are old and tested by tomorrow, forcing leaders and decision makers to return to the development table on day two.

Interlocking Fragility

Kotler and Caslione (2009) noted that technology and markets are interacting in such a way as to create “interlocking fragility.” The actions of players in the market will affect many others which some call the “butterfly effect”—“The interconnected fragility of corporations, markets, banking systems, and nations means that turbulence in one sector creates shocks or changes in another.”

Demographics Pentathlon: Multiculturalism Becomes the Norm,
The Rise of the “She Economy,” Five Generations at Work,
Nomadic Workers, and the “Just in Time” Workforce

The U.S. workforce is already one of the most diverse in the world and will become even more so in the coming decades. In fact, by 2050, 30 percent of the U.S. workforce will be Latino. By 2025, 40 percent of U.S. workers may come from a minority background (Meister and Willyerd 2010).

Overall, women made up 46.5 percent of the total U.S. labor force in 2008 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS 2018). The BLS forecasts that women will account for over 50 percent of the increase in total labor force growth by 2030.

We now have five generations at work—employees in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties. We may even see seventies if the aging trends continue. By 2025, the number of Americans over 60 will increase by 70 percent (Institute for the Future 2011). The generation entering work in general is smaller than the one retiring due to declining birth rates. The share of prime-age (25–54 years) workers in the total labor force is projected to decline, from 66 percent in 2010 to 62 percent in 2027, then rise slightly for six years before declining to 61 percent in 2050 (NCBI n.d.).

BLS economist Chuck Pierret has been conducting a study to better assess U.S. worker’s job stability over time, interviewing 10,000 individuals, first surveyed in 1979, when group members were between 14 and 22 years old. So far, members of the group have held 10.8 jobs, on average, between ages 18 and 42, using the latest data available (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018).

“Independent” workers, according to a study by MBO Partners (2011), grew from 16 million to 20 million in 2013, and by 2025 could reach as much as 50 percent of the U.S. workforce as we see the rise of the “gig” economy. “Independent” workers are freelancers, consultants, temporary workers, contractors, or project workers who are deployed on a “just in time” basis as needed. Current trends in the United States support this—Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, Upwork, to name a few, are household names that represent some of the biggest companies fueling the “gig economy.” While arguments will abound as to how these workers are to be classified from a benefits and tax perspective, ultimately, the demand for this kind of work that lends flexibility to works is only growing.

Informationalization: The Digital Workplace

Davis (2000) noted that today’s economy centers around information technology and all businesses must “informationalize” above all else. Economic value increases faster through the leverage of information assets and more often today companies are making more returns from information-based operations than traditional operations. Consider mega companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and the breadth of the social media infrastructure around the world. While we might be quick to judge these platforms as only socially driven, it is important not to lose sight of the reality that these companies are conducting business with information and limited to no traditional production of goods and resources. The marketplaces they create certainly facilitate traditional companies; however, they are simultaneously increasing the need for the “informationalization” of companies working with or associated with them. In today’s world, it is almost impossible to find a company that has limited to no information readily available to the lay consumer anywhere across the world.

To “SuperStruct”

“New technologies and social media platforms are driving an unprecedented reorganization of how we produce and create value” (Institute for the Future 2011). To superstruct means to create structures that go beyond the basic forms and processes with which we are familiar. It means we have to be willing to collaborate and perform at extreme scales from the micro to the massive. A new generation of organizational concepts and ways of working are emerging. As the pandemic enters well over a year of pushing worker to work from home, a new dialogue has begun about how companies and adapt to a hybrid workplace, a completely remote workplace and returning in full to the office. Such conversations are likely to open, close, or significantly adapt the way we work well into the near and far future. That very conversation has begun to contribute to a reexamination of how organizational structures take form, both vertically and horizontally, across states and nation states.

B-Team (2015) noted:

One radical way to achieve this is by building a “holacracy.” A holacracy is a distributed authority system that uses a set of rules to knit the empowerment of individual employees into the core of an organization.

Unlike conventional top-down or progressive bottom-up approaches, it integrates the benefits of both. Everyone becomes a leader of themselves and their role. In a holacracy, teams organize themselves by using regular task and governance meetings to identify backlogs and conflicts. Rather than being assigned to projects, employees find which projects need their support, based on their agreed job role, not their job title.

Accelerating Interconnections: The Culture of Connectivity, Everyone Is a Networker

Most workers, especially those under 40, are “hyperconnected”—constantly in touch, speaking to each other on multiple platforms, across long distances, and around the globe. Take just your last 24 hours—are you able to confidently say that you have communicated with peers, colleagues, and family on a single communication platform? Further to this, was it only written text, or were there pictures, videos, and phone calls used to complete your full day of interconnectedness? These multiple communication vehicles, unrestricted times of the day, and different formats is blurring the lines between work and home, and leading to a revision of how workers and companies regard the traditional workday. With technology as ever present as it has become, it begs a discussion on if we are truly meant to collaborate in person, over shared social networks, or some combination thereof. Social media networks and platforms show all signs of becoming the primary way workers communicate, connect, and collaborate. We will also see a rise in the use of “corporate social networks” (Meister and Willyerd, 2010). Over a decade ago, social networking platforms were relegated to precisely its namesake—for social purposes. Today, companies not involved in the high-paced corporate social networking platforms stand to lose out on both customers and B2B opportunities. It is likely not a stretch to say that we are unlikely to be a patron to a business today if it does not have an Instagram presence, or not inclined to follow a leader unless they share their thoughts on Twitter. What was once singularly personal is now critical to business.

People almost everywhere are expecting instant access to information and immediate responses to their messages. Human contact is pervasive and conversations never really end. Attention spans seem to be shortening, while tolerance for interruptions is increasing.

Rohit Talwar from FastFuture (Kelley 2016) added these other drivers:

Y Scouts (2018) added in the notion of “new media ecology” as a driver of change:

Anderson (B-Team 2015) speaks of “radical transparency.” She goes on to say “technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.”

This contributes to the “always on” or “instant” expectation that we see in the workplace today. This feeds the systemic impatience that we have discussed as well. It creates a constant tension that frames change as an ever-present force.

The “speed of now” surrounds leaders today and it does not appear that it will slow down anytime soon. Leaders need to navigate this complex environment, addressing the various stressors and effectively lead change at speed. They cannot use time as an excuse and they have to be able to embed flexibility and adaptability into the fabric of the organizations they lead. While in the past it was acceptable for customers to wait for a response from a business, today, not only is a delay not acceptable, a delay is likely to cause a significant loss in online reviews, social networks where conversations about company reputation is omnipresent, and the reality that a single unhappy customer can turn away several customers within hours of a bad experience.

Leaders today need to avoid what Kelley (2016) calls the “deadly change gaps”:

There is a clear need to balance the demand for speed with intentional, deliberate, and strategic change leadership. Leaders need to reframe change as a natural part of the daily activities of the organization.

Essentially, they need to be able to:

Sinek (2019) argues for what he calls a “just cause.” In what he called the “infinite game” noted earlier, he notes that any leader wishing to lead in this chaotic environment must have a crystal clear “just cause” (change vision). He defines a just cause as a specific vision of a future state that is so appealing that staff are willing to make sacrifices to help advance this vision.

He posits that a “just cause” (change vision) must be:

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock (Sinek 2019), made a similar point—the need to develop a “sense of purpose” to frame organizational processes and to create ownership throughout the organization.

Nelson (2011) also made this point about both connecting to the purpose in times of change as well as providing meaningful opportunities to contribute to change initiatives:

The need for speed is about getting things done fast and well. The best organizations streamline decisions and processes, empower frontline staff, and break down silos and slow-moving hierarchies (McKinsey 2020). In an era where communication is at high speed, companies have to contend with providing staff with a say in decision making or risk losing them altogether to competitors. While the past, communication up and down the chain took time or were easily filtered or gated out, today there are too many vehicles to communicate feedback across an organizational system. If management actively turns a blind eye to this feedback, they may find themselves a subject of conversation in corporate and private social networks.

McKinsey (2020) suggests that to unleash sustainable speed is a process driven by rethinking ways of working, reimagining organizational structures, and reshaping talent. They highlight examples that include speeding up and driving down decision making, flattening the structure, unleashing nimble and empowered teams, embedding learning as a continuous organizational value, and creating more hybrid work constructs.

They also note the critical need to embed execution excellence.