Peter Fisk

Thanks to a small bit of contagious RNA we are all now unwilling participants in a seismic experiment that is shaking the foundations of society, technology, economics, healthcare and more.

Is it a message from the future? Microsoft’s Satya Nadella describes it as a shift “from hierarchies to wirearchies”. Danone’s Emmanuel Faber says “now is the moment to be bold for our consumers and our future.”

• Watch the keynote highlights: “What Happens Next?” by Peter Fisk
• Download the keynote presentation: “What Happens Next?” by Peter Fisk

What next for retail?

In many ways, the global pandemic has simply accelerated many shifts that were already emerging – shifting economic power, changing consumer priorities, digitalisation of our lives, new distribution models, rising social and environmental issues, and much more.

What’s changed?

• The 5 global megatrends, what’s changed, what’s still relevant, long-term?
• Local and social, sustainability and health, convenience and trust
• The post-Covid consumer trends, the new priorities, short-term? (including new McKinsey report):

How could we innovate?

• Aerofarms to Bytedance, Impossible to Danone, Glossier to Mikkeler
• What can we learn from other markets, other sectors, other companies?
• Going beyond digital, to reimagined experiences and liquid business models

What’s next for food retailers?

• How did Covid change food retail, and how did the best food retailers innovate?
• Eataly to DNA Sushi, Instacart to Magalu, Meituan Dingping to Pinduoduo
• The leadership challenge, to survive and thrive in a post-Covid world.

For leaders, this is a time to refocus on priorities, and reimagine the future. While the essential principles of marketing have not changed, some of the ways in which we achieve most impact, and deliver business success, are changing.

How can retail brands do more for people, be more of their lives? What drives trust and influence? How can we connect with consumers, and help them connect together? What are the new opportunities to innovate, beyond products and point of sale? Who are the most important influencers to different audiences, younger and older? How can new business models change the way markets work?

Inspiration to do better, and different, comes from everywhere – consider the rapidly changing world of beauty and fashion, from personalisation to upcycling – learn from the disruptive impact of technologies in media and entertainment –  and changing priorities in lifestyles and entertainment.

Specifically consider how the pandemic is shaping business around the world:

• Inspired by purpose and new priorities … Airbnb have adapted, but now plan fundamental change; Starbucks has become outspoken on social issues, and are also planning a fundamental shift from sit-down to pick-up experiences.
• Creating more positive impact … Nestle has refocused around healthy living, redefining every brand with a insight-driven manifesto; Adidas has shifted to a circular design model, with a mission to create change in society.
• Engaging people in new ways … Fortnite is now the world played game, with physical and virtual experiences, built around interactive sponsors and spectator experiences; similarly Peleton have built community through home workouts.
• Disrupting sectors … Netflix has continued to transform the home entertainment space with big data, unique content and business model; Impossible is transforming food by imitating real meat and fish with just as good experiences, better for you.
• Reimagining future experiences … Pinduoduo brings fun, gamification and community to the purchase experiences; while Singularity Sushi harnesses genetic profiling to customise your food and drink.

What can we learn from Emily Weiss’ community-based approach to brand building at Glossier, from Patrick Brown’s positioning of Impossible Foods as “alternative meat”, from Katrina Lake’s use of AI and personalisation in fashion with Stitch Fix, from Ilkka Paananen’s gaming revolution with Supercell?

Look at a category like beer, for example, with disruption and innovation are everywhere. Consider the skyrocketing growth of non-alcolohic beer maker Athletic Brewing Co, and the recent marketing-fuelled popularity of hard seltzers like White Claw, the bar to hotel brand experience of Brewdog or the unique business model of Mikkeller, created by the “ gypsy brewer” Mikkel Bjergso, and the sustainability initiatives of Corona.

As business leaders, our challenge is to take these inspiration and apply the best ones in fresh, creative and commercial ways to our business and markets, to reimagine the future, and start delivering it today.

Times of change, are typically times of most innovation, as consumers reconsider priorities, new possibilities emerge, and businesses fight to survive but also to thrive. Now is the time for you to step up. With creativity, collaboration and courage.

Going beyond retail, what’s the future of food?

The future of food is about authenticity, wellness and relevance – traceability of supply chains, natural and organic ingredients, convenient and well designed packaging, and fantastic, inspiring taste

The UN estimates that by 2050 global food production will have to increase by close to 70% if we want to feed the world. This poses a real conundrum: How do we feed all those people healthy diets, in ways that don’t harm the planet?

In some cases, innovators in this space are doing what was once science fiction. The outcome of these new technologies has profound implications for the human diet, the changing climate, and the global economy.

 

Here are some most recent examples:

Splash out on dinner at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant, and you might find an iPod accompanies your seafood risotto. Sounds of the sea enhance the perceived freshness and flavours, and can also affect our sense of sweetness and saltiness.

Caterpillars, already popular in Africa, contain 28mg of protein per 100g, more than minced beef, and add 35mg of iron too. If you’re in search of a calcium boost, try grasshoppers.

Rising food prices, the growing population and environmental concerns make food one of the big debates for governments, and interest areas for investors. Meat production takes up huge amounts of land, consume water, diverts crops from humans, and adds to carbon emissions.

Insects, perhaps rebranding as micro-protein, could become a staple of our diets – low cost, requiring little space or water. With 1500 edible species, we could soon be tucking into nutrititous crickets and grasshoppers, ground into burgers. Wasps are a delicacy in Japan.

If you still want meat, your next steak could be sourced from a test-tube. Strips of muscle tissue using stem cells taken from cows, a little like calamari to look at, are grown in a lab, and then shaped to expectation, similar to existing meat substitutes such as Quorn. Of course you could just become vegetarian, and still get a balanced diet.

Another source of improved eating, is sensory-engineering. Scientists have shown that look and smell affect how we taste. Condiment Junkie, a sonic-branding company is exploring how certain frequencies can compensate for sugar in foods, thereby improving health, as well as enhancing the whole cooking and eating experience.

However the most significant source of future food is likely to come from algae. 145 species of green, red, and brown seaweed is already eaten in huge quantities across Asia, often as a delicacy. Ground into other foods, its strong flavour can dramatically reduce the amount of salt used, for example in bread or prepared meals. Algae farming, for food as well as energy, could become the world’s largest crop industry by 2030.

However it is not just the food content that could radically change. It is also about embracing technology to deliver more personalised service and added value experiences. A great example comes from Singularity Sushi, which uses DNA analysis to ultra-personalise food, and 3D printing to produce objects of incredible beauty.

Here are 20 case studies of companies who are shaking up the world of food and drink in profound and enlightened ways, riding the consumer trends, embracing digital technologies, with incredible new experiences and profitable new business models:

Image: Unsplash

Week 1: The Customer Agenda

Explore more about business models here.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and here in Dubai, I will be taking inspiration from the World Expo 2020, and also from companies all around the world who are shaking up markets, embracing radical new ideas, and changing the game.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Alibaba, Zespri to Zidisha – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Dubai to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

• Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
• Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
• Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
• Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
• Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
• Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
• Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

• Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
• Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
• Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
• Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
• Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
• Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
• Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your growth mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

 

Download a summary of  “Leading with an Exponential Mindset”.  

Disruption and systemic change are defining a new normal. To stay ahead of the competition, top executives must transform their mindsets in order to lead their companies successfully towards recovery and exponential growth.

Join leading thinker and IE Business School Professor of Strategy and Leadership, Peter Fisk, as he discusses how to lead successfully in uncertain and exponential times.

In this webinar, you will explore opportunities for recovery and growth, while considering a variety of compelling questions, such as:

• 57% of companies were born during an economic downturn. How will you seize this moment?
• What does “exponential” mean in technology, in business, and as a mindset?
• How can you combine business recovery with future growth?

More about the “exponential growth” program with Peter Fisk

How can we develop an exponential mindset? Having the agility to improve the present and explore the future.

Achieving exponential growth requires a disruptive mindset. To drive lasting change, you will need to design a whole new roadmap across your entire organisational value chain, including people, technology and business models.

This is a pioneering program for senior executives from all areas of business who are eager to develop a strategic framework that incorporates an effective combination of linear and exponential growth business models.

Reimagining the future:

Monday seminar: “Changing the Game” …  changing markets, changing business … how to change how you compete and win

Monday seminar: “Leading the future” … with more purpose, courage and growth mindset

• Finding purpose beyond profits: Reframing your business around “why” not what, and its implications for business and brands, learning from Apple and Danone, Patagonia and Unilever.
• Embracing new priorities: Purpose drives new priorities and measures of success, delivering value for all stakeholders, innovating to do this better.
• Leading with a growth mindset: Inspired by the new leadership heroes. Learning from Anne Wojicki to Emily Weiss, Mikael Bjergso to Satya Nadella
• The New Leadership DNA: 7 strategic shifts towards a better future for business, and 12 attributes of future-minded leaders, with the courage to create a better future
• Resources: 7 Leadership Inspirations
• Resources: 7 Business Shifts

Tues-Thurs project:”Turning Purpose into Profits”

As a preview of the forthcoming RISE program from IE Business School, Peter Fisk, a professor of leadership and strategy, and academic director, will explore the future of work with Sophie Le Rey. Below is an extract from Peter Fisk’s new book “Business Recoded” which will be published laster this year.

Work smarter

Consider the changing nature of work and organisations: 

• Organisations in which employees perceive meaning at work are 21% more profitable. However only 13% of employees worldwide feel engaged.
• The ideal team size is between 4 and 9, with an optimal 4.6 people. Such teams bring diversity but can also make fast decisions and get things done.
• Around 30% of useful collaborations typically come from only 4% of employees. Women are 66% more likely to initiate collaboration.
• Companies where women are at least 15% of senior managers have more than 50% higher profitability than with less than 10%.
• Companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity were 35% more likely to have financial returns above national industry medians.
• Migrants make up just 3.4% of the world’s population, but they contribute nearly 10% of global GDP.51% of CEOs of billion-dollar “unicorns” are migrants.
• 75% of millennials want to work from home or from another location where they feel more productive.
• Of the children entering primary school today, 65% will end up working in job categories that do not yet exist.

Do more human, inspiring work

When it comes to grocery stores, there’s nothing quite like Trader Joe’s, which has amassed a cult following across America. Every time I walk into the store, my eyes light up with the colourful interiors, handwritten notices, quirky stories behind the foods, genuine interest of the staff, most dressed in outlandish styles, and their eagerness to help. I always emerge with a smile.

Joe Coulombe was the original Trader Joe, and having started out as Pronto Market convenience stores in 1958, created his own stores. Joe did things differently, and his stores reflected his love of Hawaiian beach culture with walls decked with cedar planks and staff dressed in cool Hawaiian shirts. Most importantly, he started putting innovative, hard-to-find, great-tasting foods in the “Trader Joe’s” name.

Value mattered to Joe. And the premium, exotic specialities he brought together were complimented by his low-priced own-label ranges which combined quality and quirkiness. In 1979 Joe sold his brand to Theo Albrecht, better known for his low priced Aldi food stores in Europe. Aldi and Joe both believed in keeping things simple. No discounts, points cards, or members clubs. With a limited range the stores drive a better supply deal in return for bigger volumes, and can be more responsive to market trends.

Storytelling is everywhere at Trader Joe’s, from the hand-written signage and rustic displays, to the free coffee and sampling, the radio ads and chatty check-out dudes. Whilst most competitors focus on automation and speed, this store is real and human, worth coming just to chill out. Even if you never get to visit a store, sign up to the Fearless Flyer online. With off-beat stories and cartoon humour, unusual recipes and showcased products, it’s an intriguing read.

Rise of the superhumans

The world often seems to be working against humanity. We build walls across the borders of America, fence people in who seek to migrate in search of a better life to Europe, apply deep surveillance policies in China, prefer to be an isolated island than a connected continent in UK, automate our factories and workplaces for speed and efficiency, prefer to date online rather than in reality, and to chat with social media friends rather than local communities.

At work, we are told that machines, from AI to robotics, will affect at least 30% of the current activities of at least 70% of job roles. It is the most repetitive tasks that are likely to be automated, robots on production lines, chatbots instead of call centres. Knowledge-based jobs from accountants to lawyers, air traffic controllers to investment bankers are likely to be some of the most disrupted.

When Elon Musk declared that “in the future robots will be able to do everything better than us, I mean all of us”, few experts disagreed.  However, more recently he has shared a more thoughtful view, saying that “automation is not the future, human augmentation is.”

Augmented humanity be a key driver of the future work, enhancing what we can do:

• Assisted humanity: The interface between people and machines is evolving rapidly from keyboard to voice, to eyes and brains. Digital assistants like Alexa and Siri are already common on our phones and in our homes, and will increasingly navigate us through unattended store. Everyone at work will have their own assistant.
• Intelligent humanity: As interfaces change, machines learn more about our thought processes and behaviours, using algorithms to predict what we need and to enhance our knowledge. They will help us to solve complex problems, consider more options and risks, and to make smarter decisions.
• Connected humanity: Collaborative working becomes easier and continuous whether we are together or apart, distributed working at home or around the world is no impediment to working together, as knowledge flows seamlessly, and individual tasks are joined up intelligently.

Virtual reality tools like Google Glass augment how we work, for example engineers being able to read instruction guides through the lens of their eyewear whilst simultaneously working on machines, or surgeons being able to operate whilst also getting realtime diagnostic data on the patient’s organs and vital statistics.

At the same time this augmentation can be physical too. In Odense, at the SDU’s Athletics Exploratorium, I came across engineers simulating the use of exoskeletons to help dockyard workers carry loads which would have previously required cranes, craftsmen to have tools connected to their bodies.

Technology won’t replace us, but it could make us “superhuman”.

So what is the future of work?

By 2025 the majority of workers will be freelance individuals working around the world, independent of distance or background. They will apply their human, emotional, and creative skills to solve ever-more complex problems. They have the hunger to keep learning throughout their lives, the agility to keep adapting and updating their skills, and the open-mindedness to see things differently.

Modern and high-tech working environments are enhanced by a community feeling with shared facilities and resources. Many of the workers are not even employed by the companies, instead they are happier to remain freelance “gig-workers” working on projects that require specialist inputs. New ideas, new skills, new innovations and new opportunities swirl around in the creative atmosphere, and new partnerships often emerge out of the fusion. This is the new world of work. No jobs for life. Few permanent roles. Fluid job descriptions. Multiple jobs at the same time. And companies working together.

Some of the jobs of the future will be highly technical, whilst others will be much more human. In exploring the jobs of the future, Ben Pring from Cognizant explores 4Es to consider the skills required:

• Eternal skills: Some human skills have existed since our very beginning. No matter how brilliant our technologies become, these human skills, along with many others, will be of value through eternity.
• Enduring skills: The ability to sell has always been important. Other such enduring abilities – being empathetic, trusting, helping, imagining, creating, striving – will always be needed. Such skills will be central to jobs of the future.
• Emerging skills: New skills for the future relate to the complexity, density and speed of work. The skill to use a 315mb Excel spreadsheet, or to navigate a drone virtual cockpit. These will enhance our ability to utilise new machines.
• Eroding skills: Many skills that used to be special are now normal, to manage a social media platform, to product a fantastic presentation, whilst others are redundant like photocopying or replaced like data entry.

However the World Economic Forum suggests that more jobs will be created than lost, 133 million created and 75 million lost over the 5 years to 2025, as we see a huge evolution in the workplace of what people do, as well as how they do it. Top emerging jobs will include:

• Data analysts and scientists
• AI and machine learning specialists
• Software and application developers
• Sales and marketing professionals
• Digital transformations specialists

Beyond technology, data and AI, many new roles will also emerge in the broader aspects of engineering and sustainable development. The growth in elderly will drive a boom in care work, and many more creative roles will emerge through relentless innovation and more human pursuits, like sport and entertainment.

Completely new jobs in specific industries will emerge such as

• Flying car developers
• Virtual identity defenders
• Tidewater architects
• Smart home designers
• Joy adjutants

Analysis by BCG in 2020 shoes that 95% of most at risk workers could find good quality, higher paid jobs, if they are prepared to make the transition. This shift also offers the opportunity to close the wage gap, with 74% of women and 53% of men likely to find higher paid roles.  It suggests that around 70% of those affected will need to make a significant shift in job, requiring a huge skills revolution.

At the same time, it is not just about refitting people for new jobs. The “dandelion principle”, embraced by organisations like SAP, starts by hiring great people with a diversity of backgrounds and skills to create a richer talent base. It then seeks to build jobs around people, rather than people around jobs, in a more symbiotic way.

More human, more creative, more female

As machines take on our more physical skills, the opportunity is for people to be liberated from the drudgery of repetitive tasks to add more human, creative and emotional value. Imagination will drive progress, whilst machines sustain efficiency.

Human skills matter not only within the workplace, but also in engaging with consumers. In a world of automated interfaces, brands will differentiate  on their ability to be more intuitive, empathic and caring. The roles of people, assistants in stores, nurses in hospitals, teachers in classrooms, will be to add-value with premium levels of service.

Creative skills are not only in demand in the areas of communication, marketing and innovation, but also in rethinking how organisations can better work, how business models can be transformed, and machines themselves deployed in better ways.

Typically these “softer” skills are what we could call more “female” attributes. Of course, that is to stereotype genders, but it certainly requires more empathy than apathy, intuition than evidence, influence than instruction, care than control. At the same time it requires men to adopt these behaviours too, and in general to embrace inequalities and diversity.

BCG’s 2020 research suggests that analytical and critical thinking skills will be crucial to the future of the work, alongside more emotional intelligence and social influence. Learning and creative capabilities will be the most significant growth areas for development in the coming years. They identified these priorities:

• Analytical thinking and innovation
• Active learning and learning strategies
• Creativity, originality and initiative
• Technology design and programming
• Critical thinking and analysis
• Complex problem-solving
• Leadership and social influence
• Emotional intelligence
• Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation
• Systems analysis and evaluation.

Meta skills, rather than technical or specialist skills which we may have trained for or focused on in the past, will become more significant. These are the more enduring skills which  allow us to evolve and adapt to relentless change. Sensemaking, learning to learn, coping with uncertainty and change.

Sometimes this will require us to unlearn first, to let go of old assumptions and prejudices, and open our minds to new possibilities and perspectives.

In “The 100 Year Life” Lynda Gratton recognises that as life expectancy moves beyond 100, most of us will work for longer, and transition more often, with around seven different phases in our career journeys – not just new jobs, but entirely new vocations.

© Peter Fisk 2020

Image: Unsplash

We live in a world of incredible change, more complex and uncertain than ever before. We also live in a world of great opportunity, with so many ways in which we can achieve success.

Markets are incredibly dynamic, customers aspirations change quickly and new competitors emerge constantly. Business need to be constantly adaptive. Shocks, like the recent pandemic just add to the turbulence.

This challenges many of the old ways of doing business, where we planned for a steady state world, where the future was largely a continuation of the past, where we had deep analytics to provide accuracy and certainty.

On one hand, we need to make bigger choices than ever before – where to focus, how to compete, what matters most – but at the same time, we have to be ready to adapt rapidly to change, and take new directions.

This is one of a series of “Next Normal Labs” for organisations to reenergise their leaders and teams.

Thanks to a small bit of contagious RNA we are all now unwilling participants in a seismic experiment that is shaking the foundations of society, technology, economics, healthcare and more. Dan Pink wonders if it’s a message from the future. Klaus Schwab calls it the bonfire of blinkered capitalism. Satya Nadella describes it as a shift “from hierarchies to wirearchies”.

As we move from survival to adjustment, from chaos to catalyst, the next normal (or abnormal) is being shaped right now. The next generation of businesses are being forged. The leaders of the future are stepping up. Great leaders are made in a crisis, and innovation thrives in tough times. How will you seize this moment to do more, to be more, to create a better future?

The leaders of tomorrow are being created right now. 57% of organisations were born in a downturn.

It’s a watershed moment. As the virus followed the flows of money, goods and people around the world, the networks that facilitate our modern lifestyles facilitated the pandemic. 183 countries have reported Covid-19 cases, 3 billion people across the world have been under some form of lockdown, with a $2.7 trillion projected economic loss (according to Bloomberg).

Right now, we are seeing a huge unmasking of our current systems – the fragility of business and society, the consequences of urbanisation and globalisation, our dependence on technology and healthcare. Activities in which consumers are likely to change behaviour most are in travel, shopping, and socialising. And to some extent in work, education and health.

We are faced with a choice to re-build the world as it was, or to realise the possibilities before us. To build stronger economies and more inclusive societies, to harness the power of our resilience and ingenuity to shape a better world of our choosing. We each have a role and a stake in solving humanity’s most pressing challenges, and also seizing its opportunities.

I believe we will see a rising social conscience in business, more future-proofed portfolio- based strategies, an acceleration to digital, a humanising of technology, a shift to dematerialisation, more agile ecosystems of global and local supply and demand, a more flexible workstyle, fast projects replacing traditional jobs, a more liquid learning style … and better leaders who look forwards not back.

Megatrends are accelerating … the shift in power from west to east (Asia continues to grow), the dependent needs of ageing generations (care, infrastructure), the huge concentration of people in megacities (healthcare), the fragility of our environment and natural resources (less is more), and the rise of intelligent, connected technologies (AI).

Driving human and tech ingenuity … pandemic has seen rapid adoption of new technologies, and the “digital me” (belonging and connected) – in distributed working (remote and hybrid), intelligent healthcare (online and data-driven), digital retail (cashless and automated), personal mobility (electric and local) education (hybrid and collaborative).

Creating a better future business… now is the time for leaders to step up, to find a better future, not just recover the old world – more enlightened (purpose beyond profit, human before technology), more agile (networks not hierarchies, fast and liquid), more resilient (innovation not efficiency, future-proofed portfolio).

It’s hard to imagine that there will be a new normal and what it might look like. But since “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” as the Stanford economist Paul Romer once noted, it is worth discussing what we can already learn from the crisis at this point, in order to reshape our economies and societies, redesign our organizations, and improve the way we work, live, and love. The pandemic has exposed what Otto Scharmer calls the three big disconnects: disconnect from our planet, disconnect from the other, and disconnect from ourselves. We can use this crisis as an opportunity to overcome these divides.

• The House of Beautiful Business: What will (need to) change after the crisis?

Next year’s World Economic Forum 2021 in Davos will adopt the theme of “The Great Reset” as the global business elite elbows its way into the Covid-19 debate. WEF will hold an online youth conference alongside its annual meeting at the Swiss resort next January, which will go ahead as planned despite the coronavirus pandemic. The virtual event is a first for the forum and will draw on thousands of young people in more than 400 cities to interact with Davos regulars such as Saudi oil sheikhs, international bankers and messianic tech tycoons as they grapple with the world’s problems.

More from peterfisk@peterfisk.com

“Build Back Better” is a new online program for business leaders, developed in partnership with GERBUS Academy.

It is your opportunity to step back and reimagine your business, how it can most effectively recover in the short-term, in a way that also creates a better business for the long-term.

The pandemic and subsequent recession are moments of dramatic change in every market, for customers and business. It is challenging, but also a time of opportunity. In fact, 57% of the Fortune 500 companies were created during downturns, when attitudes and priorities shift.

The post-pandemic world is a unique chance to rebuild your business in a better way, one which is more sustainable, more agile and resilient, more future-proofed.

How will you “build back better” after Covid-19?

Over three intensive, practical yet stretching, half-day online sessions, Peter Fisk will guide you through a process for accelerating your business recovery as we move from crisis to downturn, and also shaping your business for a better future.

The program is accessed through GERBUS Academy and will have a global context, but at the same time, practically applied to the specific context of your own business.

The program is build on practical insights from around the world – how companies from Airbnb to Zespri and coming to terms with the consequences of chaos and uncertainty, change and transformation. For some it is a complete pivot in terms of products and services, for others it is a rush to become a truly digital business.

However at the same time, to seize the opportunity of this moment, not just to rebuild the way we were, to to build back better – for a better future – in a more agile and resilient, customer-driven and future-proofed way – but also to address some of the most pressing challenges – how to align business and society, technology and humanity, profits and a higher purpose.

Here is some more background, ideas on which the program will practically build:

• The Great Reset: Seize the moment to create a better future
• The Big Pivots: How companies are adapting to a new future
• Danone and B4IG: Emmanuel Faber leads business for inclusive growth
• Purpose Works: Why purpose-driven companies do better
• Good Business: Great examples of innovations for a better world
• Future Recoded: Reimagining your market, driven by the mega trends
• Business Recoded: Why do we need to recode?
• Leadership Recoded: The 7 business shifts

The leaders of tomorrow are being created right now. 57% of organisations were born in a downturn.

Crisis is the catalyst for change, it transforms markets, and accelerates innovation. It challenges leaders to reimagine, refocus and reinvent themselves and their organisations. Whilst some are paralysed by uncertainty and change, others see new possibilities to create a better future. Time to embrace the change, to move forwards to create a better future.

It’s time to “RE/CODE”

The leaders of tomorrow are being created right now. 57% of organisations were born in a downturn.

Crisis is the catalyst for change, it transforms markets, and accelerates innovation. It challenges leaders to reimagine, refocus and reinvent themselves and their organisations. Whilst some are paralysed by uncertainty and change, others see new possibilities to create a better future. Time to embrace the change, to move forwards to create a better future.

About the Recovery Summit

From June 15th-19th 2020, more than 60 of the world’s leading authorities will share their latest thinking on the global economy, leadership, managing change, innovation, disruption and resilience over five days.  Listen to inspiring messages on hope and overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Watch presentations and interviews covering the latest thinking on the future of business and the strategies needed to survive and thrive in the new normal.

Joining Peter will be great names including

• Jacques Attali, economist and presidential advisor
• Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian-French politician, and anti-corruption activist
• Sebastian Coe, double Olympic champion, president of World Athletics
• Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of Siemens and Maersk
• Alex Osterwalder, founder of Strategyzer, author of The Invincible Company
• Rita McGrath, professor Columbia University, author Seeing Around Corners
• and over 60 more

About Peter’s session “RECODE”