COVID has ushered in a discontinuous moment in history
Much as we may view COVID as
a transient phenomenon, I think that it has just brought out the issues and/or
speeded up changes that were happening or had to happen anyway. In that sense,
it a discontinuous moment in human history that we are going through, and all
the assumptions and ideals we might have held or hold will get
challenged. I think it is going to usher in new ideals, new ethics, new
ways of thinking, new ways of organizing, new ways of living, working, and
playing. It is one of those agnostic, ruthless, and unforgiving techno-humanity
moments in a fast globalizing world, and we are in for shocks and changes more
profound than what industrialization brought to agrarian societies.
I for one, do not believe
that “business as usual” or “plans for the future” will serve us or anybody
well, and neither do I believe that the ethics, goals, institutions, and
structures that worked in the past are going to be able to withstand the coming
age, and will all be forced to adapt to new norms. That new norm, I believe,
will be heavily driven by complexity, nonlinear processes, paradoxes, and
network-driven unpredictable dynamic change propelled chaotically by
information and its transfer.
As I think about it, a few
qualities are going to become important: among them personal resilience,
agnosticism, syncretism, adaptability, flexibility, proactiveness, creativity,
and ability to interpret any information to new context and to articulate to
any audience in a way that the message sinks. Fixed positions and top-down
decision-making will suffer, and we are in an age that will herald the death of
borders and fixed hierarchy – better to let go off them than to fight the
tsunami of mega-change!
My friend Mo shared with me yesterday a couple of lines that I apparently wrote in an email in 2013……..(I was flattered that Mo would find my rambling from 10 years ago useful now!)
“In a nonlinear system, one has to understand and accept paradoxes, have the emotional resilience to deal with it, and the creative ability to use it to achieving one’s goal. It is a bit like sailing, where we use the wind to get where we want, even if we have to zig-zag and go in the opposite direction for a while.”
Venkat
