The Parable of The Sea Otter
How to swim together in unprecedented times
A note to all the CEOs out there — it’s time to talk about sea otters.
Sea otters are fascinating; critical animals in the marine ecosystem, they prowl the offshore kelp forests that grow along many coastlines and police the sea urchins and other herbivorous invertebrates such as snails and slugs that devour the kelp. They keep the population of these invaders down and allow the many species of fish and sea life that rely on the kelp for cover and food to thrive.
The kelp itself plays an important role in capturing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the coastal ecosystem. By preserving the kelp, the sea otters in turn preserve the entire chain of species life. Nobody really knows why they do this, but sea otters are what zoologist, Robert T. Paine describes as a keystone species — “a species which has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance.”
The fact is that the societal kelp forest we all find ourselves in right now is being attacked by a spiny urchin with a ferocity and might that none of us could have imagined. COVID-19 threatens to destroy everything that we have built — systems under extreme duress, societies in lockdown, industries spinning, and stock markets plummeting around us. We’re all watching helplessly as businesses wobble and in some cases fall, as we spend all day on video conferences to stay connected with friends, family, and colleagues keeping each other’s spirits high, while strapped into a rollercoaster of emotions that’s impossible to avoid.
As designers it is our job — our professional obligation, if you like — to be optimists. So in the spirit of that, a message of hope: we need to be more like the sea otters. But how?
Everybody needs to jump into the water, now. This is not the time to overthink. Get busy clearing the kelp, and working shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone in doing so. No contribution is too big or too small. It’s James Dyson mobilizing his entire ecosystem to design a ventilator for COVID-19 patients and prioritizing production of 15,000 of them in record time. It’s fashion groups like COS, Zara, and Mango repurposing their manufacturing prowess to make surgical masks. It’s LVMH converting three of its perfume factories into hand sanitizer production facilities in four days. It’s Pinterest rolling out — in less than a week — a new feature, “Today,” to help families cope with increased pressure from home schooling, cooking and staying motivated while in lockdown. It’s my colleagues at IDEO who started making face shields in our prototyping facility for health workers on the frontlines, then launching a GoFundMe page to help them make 1,000 a day. And it’s also the United Nations who has just, for the first time, issued an open brief calling for creative solutions to the crisis. Nothing is too small. Dive in.
Interspecies collaboration is critical. Nobody should hoard, own, or take sole credit for anything right now, everybody needs everybody’s help. It’s time to radically collaborate, regardless of being friends or foes, partners or competitors. The only thing that matters is solving this current crisis. Watching companies come together to collaborate, share IP, and open source, this is not only good for now but will set a new precedent for what it means to work together in the future. The same is true of countries. Seeing the United Arab Emirates send two flights full of medical aid to neighboring Iran is a great example, and China coming forward to take the lead with open source solutions, advice, and donations to countries just starting their COVID-19 cycles is another. Jack Ma’s Alibaba Foundation is donating 500,000 test kits and one million face masks to the US, and emergency gear to other parts of the world. Nothing is yours. It has to all become ours.
Tomorrow’s coastline will look vastly different from today’s. Once we have all done the work to restore the ecosystem, what will emerge in the next months and years will be very different I hope. The companies that are going to survive this are the sea otters — the ones that have helped everyone, not just themselves; that have selflessly used this moment to listen to society and respond accordingly. They have listened to and empowered their employees and coworkers. They have not just protected their stock price and investments, but worked equally hard to protect all of ours. This is the time to reinvent not just what your company makes, but what it stands for and why it matters. To be greater than the sum of your parts and to be part of all of ours. When all of this abates, you need to stand proud, you can, and you will stand proud because you helped. Nothing else will matter.
This is why it is time to talk about sea otters. The role of the sea otter is critical for the health of the ecosystem that it supports. They are critical to building structures for new life to thrive. They are our new systems designers, pioneering alone but encouraging others to follow. As businesses, it is time for us all to become a species which has a disproportionately large effect on our natural environment relative to our abundance. Nothing is too small. Nothing is just for you. Nothing else matters.
I am diving.
