Hyper connectedness, what is going to define success and leadership in this era?

Human life has evolved and moved from

Hunter Gatherer - That required higher instant effort for hunting game to gathering food, or low sustained effort. The predictability of outcome was not always certain. There was shorter transaction time between capture and production. All this happened before 13000 BCE. Nomads, that’s what we were.

Becoming agrarian required higher times between sowing and reaping, moderate but sustained effort however the predictability of outcome improved. The transaction times between sowing and reaping increased. Patience became a virtue.

During the industrial era the wait time between production and consumption shrunk, so did the effort required to accomplish outcome. Leading to mass unemployment and extreme differentiation. However it lead to increased measurement and predictability. Frederick Winslow Taylor was first management consultant looking at efficiency improvement. Predictability and measurement became the norm .

Information and Hyper connectedness in the post industrial area is now a norm uncertainty has become unacceptable, wait becomes unacceptable . Instant gratification became the norm.

What it means for now and future With the dawn of this new era everything is done for you the instant before we need it. We like to have a cup of coffee served at the press of a button. We want to download software and expect it to work instantly. We want to order food and eat within the half hour. We drive through and expect the food in less than a minute. The expectation is that things are done for us. We also expect the thinking to be done by machines for us ( Google and Amazon devices at home) and machines are happily and successfully assisting us.

Human consciousness has evolved to the present state only in the last few thousand years, perhaps thinking machines may evolve to the same level much faster. . Do you think this will make humans irrelevant ? What it means for the future?

We now expect Maximum Progressive Achievement (small efforts to give magnified output) from Minimum Productive Effort ( a threshold when crosses manifests as visible achievement).

In this new era due to maximum progressive achievement from small effort

* Intangibles continue to create wealth.

* Change are the new norm

* Predictability has become a necessity.

* Leverage now comes from creativity

* We will continue to desire Instant gratification

Due to the threshold caused by minimum productive effort

* Control will shift to handful few as they can exponentiate faster than others and their minimum will stay low. Approximately 2.5 Trillion of global wealth is concentrated in only 15 families

* Higher capital requirement to cross the threshold and create a monopoly. Shunned by many people in the VC business if you closely look at Uber, it is merely trying to become a multi domain monopoly and it is among many unicorns and dragons(a company that returns an entire fund way bigger and better than a unicorn).

There are still individuals and organisations where you will find this antiquated measurement paradigm is still in play. You will note that

* The worth is measured by span of control of physical things, people managed, land, machines or ownership of animals.

* Concentrated effort: due to specialisation there is a tendency to stay focused on narrow area of expertise. We have become appreciative of single dimension skill set whilst multi skilling is the new norm.

As a business leader what should your focus shift on

* Vision for future and skills that deals with the new age.

* Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship prioritising ideas with the view to foster and grow.

* Constant and never ending improvement for assets and intellectual property that you control or manage. Speed of execution is also considered as a source of competitive advantage.

* Lifelong learning and teaching, In the market for ideas cross pollination and lifelong learning is vital. John Goodenough was awarded the prize for chemistry this year to invent the lithium-ion batteries . This in turn had fueled the portable electronics revolution. Though he was forced to retire at the age of 65 by Oxford university is now 97 when he wins the prize.

* Increased motivation as business failure will also increase due to the threshold of minimum productive effort. Hence taking risk with ability to go from failure to failure without loss of motivation will also be a determinant of success. ( Founders of Angry Birds* went through their own set of challenges over an extended period before becoming a big success)

* Sharing ideas as they exponentially grow. Matt Ridley in his TED talks suggests that in the history, human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas.

*Gilbert, David. “Rovio’s ‘Overnight’ Success with Angry Birds Came after 51 Failed Attempts.” Ibtimes.co.uk. IBTimes Co., 1 July 2014.

Would you like to have a conversation, please reach out to me via email sbabbar@sameerbabbar.com

(c) Sameer Babbar