Some thoughts on the fourth industrial revolution, leadership, management & skills …..

I recently had the privilege of delivering a graduation (commencement ) speech for a Sydney based University and had the opportunity to share with them a range of thoughts on the social, economic and technological trends at play.
An extract of part of the speech is below:
“The world is on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution which will bring change at a speed, scale and force unlike anything we have seen before.
The interplay between rapidly emerging technologies such as ubiquitous internet, artificial intelligence, genetics, automation, changing social and community expectations and shifts in our economy are disrupting and redefining every industry, organisation and our society at large.
At the same time, the interconnectedness of the global community through the world wide web, travel, energy pipelines, financial systems, geopolitics and our environment are highlighting that a number of the major challenges and problems we face today are by their very essence global in nature.
To respond to this accelerating change the core foundations of our society are being challenged.
For the last few decades in the western world the prevailing approach to leadership has focussed on meeting the needs of oneself or an organisation or in economic terms — maximising utility or self-interest, optimising capital and maximising shareholder returns.
However, as we increasingly recognise the interconnectedness of our society and the inability to “control” the pace, scope & nature of change we are beginning to shift to more altrocentric styles of leadership focussed on “purpose”, leading and enabling through others and solving problems at a system and community level.
At the same time, management is in the process of being reframed from the more traditional approaches centred around analysis, process and measurement such as KPI’s that have dominated our thinking for the last few decades to new entrepreneurial forms of management that can accommodate higher levels of uncertainty.
New strategic management framework’s are emerging including Eric Ries — The Lean Start-Up, Prof. Rita Gunther McGrath and Prof. Ian McMillan’s — Discovery Driven Growth and Alexander Osterwalder’s — Business Model Canvas.
Finally, from a skills and personal perspective this new environment requires the capacity to embrace ambiguity, solve complex problems, adopt system based thinking, work and collaborate in teams and most importantly develop and foster empathy to build communities.
Whether it is the need to bring together a cognitively diverse team from a broad range of disciplines such as business, STEM but also the humanities, arts and philosophy to solve a business problem or whether it is the need to see the world from a particular customer & cultural perspective to embark on strategies to enter new markets or whether it is the need to engage broadly across the community to bring together system thinking and solve multi-dimensional social problems such as chronic disease, empathy, humility, a growth mindset and a capacity to bring together a divergent range of perspectives is central to this emerging narrative.
In this future, you are likely to hold numerous jobs and develop multiple skills over your working life.
Today technology is already increasingly being used to automate processes across the legal, financé, media, education, accounting and medical professions and the future of work is increasingly likely to be a combination of people & machines.
This disruption and many others yet to emerge will have profound implications for jobs and our society at large.
Yet machines, algorithms and technology cannot do everything ……
Whilst the first industrial revolution saw the emergence of rail roads & steam engines, the second industrial revolution brought new forms of production through manufacturing assembly lines, the third industrial revolution brought computers and the internet, unfortunately these advancements don’t instruct us on the type of society we want to shape and ultimately what it is to be human?
These accelerating advancements will mean that your career will be less shaped by what you studied but by your mindset and attitude.
In closing, I would like to ask you a series of questions about your future careers:
Can you “learn how to learn” ?
Will you embrace failure?
Are you curious and willing to bring together insights from a broad array of perspectives into your experience such as philosophy, art, humanities and also STEM?
Are you driven by maximising wealth or well-being?
Are you willing to challenge what you really know?
Can you build and foster relationships and networks?
Are the machine’s right?
The opportunities for all of you today are limitless.
I wish you all the best on your adventure ahead………..”
