Critical Uncertainties And Future Readiness In The Post-Covid-19 World
Covid-19 pandemic has curved us all into firefighters, moving and muscling ourselves and our organisations from one crisis to another. An entire industry of experts and pundits have sprung, claiming to predict big changes in the way we will live and work in the post covid world and that the business model of every industry will change drastically. Many exaggerate the duration or degree of variation and could be mistaken in taking a temporary change, in the present status, howsoever radical it may look to turn into a long-term transformation. A basic assumption we make is that the future is predictable, a carry forward of our thinking when the world was comparably stable. Have we overstepped on signals? Is this an attempt to narrow down ‘uncertainties’ to ‘certain uncertainties?’
A very recent event, Taliban’s quick accession over Afghanistan took everyone by surprise, including the CIA whose budget runs into billions of dollars. The President of the United States of America relies on CIA to provide accurate actionable prediction about the future. What went wrong in foreseeing the ‘unexpected-unknowns’, triangulating the future and crevasses in planning and foresight by strategists? Were there too many intertwined variables?
The VUCA future is unpredictable (but not unplannable) as in reality, and the senior business leaders must not act on such predictions impulsively but consider a range of options or futures, which present themselves, even the ridiculous ones. During covid lockdown when maids were not permitted to work at homes, many housewives bought labour saving devices like cleaning robots. However, as observed recently, as soon as lockdown was lifted, robots were discarded, shunned into the storage and maids were back in action. This happened repeatedly during various bouts of lockdowns.
Similarly, during covid, telemedicine appointments had gone up. Will it continue similar growth post covid? There are supplementary fluctuations such as Work from Home, eCommerce and even our attire where we have witnessed changes.
We keep hearing that after Covid nothing will be the same. Covid has created a temporary imbalance in our lives and patterns may be seen. Which changes will be temporary and which ones shall fetch more long-term transformation is tough to comment at present? People will not do all their shopping online, take home delivery of restaurant food or work will shift to work from home. Shopping at market, in-restaurant meals and going to office satisfies many of our needs which social distancing cannot fulfil. Basically, humans are a social species, and we want to near our friends, relatives and co-workers. Covid has forced an artificial barrier to human interactions and has created social craving need just like food craving for those deprived. Microsoft has recently reported that ‘Work from Home’ is killing innovation and destroying team spirit. Published in a peer-reviewed journal, the study based on the communications exchanged by around 61,000 Microsoft employees in the U.S., congregated between December 2019 and June 2020. The research concluded that a worker’s capability to “convey and process complex information” tends to be unfavourably impacted in the long run because of digital working. It is a paradox that while WFH improves productivity, it seriously hampers creativity, the A of VUCA. For a company which relies on innovation as a competitive edge, this is dangerous news indeed.
TCS also announced early in September that it may call 70-80% of its over 500,000 work force back to office by the end of the calendar year 2021 or early next year based on how impending third wave of pandemic plays out.
Instead of relying on the prediction of experts, CEOs should jumpstart the exercise by looking at and launching discussion about the four types of futures to obtain a broad understanding of the future.
Possible - “might” happen (future knowledge) : The conversation should flinch with the “possible” future. The aim should be to encourage divergent thinking, to think about “ridiculous” options and wild card or black swan events. What is the best- or worst-case scenarios?
Plausible – “could” happen (current knowledge): The next step is to use convergent thinking approach to narrow down the possibilities to those futures which ‘could” occur. What do we know at present? How does this future align with the vision of the company? If the response is confirmatory, the scenario is “plausible.”
Probable - “likely to” happen (current trends): Now is the time to use analytical skills and systems thinking. Here the organisation should consider causal factors, which events are is most likely? What other events need to happen, too? Do we have the data or can obtain data to support our assumptions? How likely is this future to happen? Now we should have a reasonable understanding of what would cause each scenario and the degree of probability.
Preferable - “want to” happen (value judgements): Can we influence our future? What are the choices about objectives, scope and advantages & disadvantages? Can we narrow the performance gaps and initiate strategic initiatives to match our ambitions and expectations?
Of course, all these futures should be gauged through the lenses of hard or soft trends. Hard trend will happen as these are based on incontrovertible data such as demographics while soft trends may or may not happen as these are based on fads or trends.
These exercises are difficult since we are dealing with ambiguous and imaginative scenarios. However, a series of dialogues would open the minds to many new insights and possibilities and help come out of the deception with future likely to resemble the past or the present. It can even identify a blue ocean strategy with fewer or no competitors. Without active scenario planning, organisations are likely to slip the weak and distant signals which could be crucial inflection points.
Make no mistake, we’ve had a massive shake up not just to the global economy, but to the structure of life. There will be winners and losers. Tough adjustments will need to be made. Some business models will no longer be viable. But this catastrophe has reflected that systemic change is possible. Changes that once seemed impossible due to politics or inertia now look possible in a matter of weeks. That disruption isn’t to be feared. It’s to be embraced.
