We are passionate about the future. The future of work, the Internet of Things, Smart Cities, and disruptive digital technologies. We are heralding a new time, a new revolution...Industry 4.0.
Disruption. The concept is now ironically mainstream. The word in itself is a change catalyst and a concern to the status quo. Does disrupt mean destroy, or create havoc to traditional structures? Is disruption some sort of business riot that tears down thousands of years of business structure and replaces everything with robots? That insinuation may sound laughable; yet, we live in a world where Elon Musk plans to have humans to Mars by 2020. The past is afraid of the future, and the future is here.
Futurists tend to talk of what is currently here as a scourge. This is not a criticism - when one is forward thinking, everything looks archaic. But is it? Not really. There may be silos to change and business practices to improve, yes. We need to be more adaptive, more agile to keep up with disruption, yes. However, there would be nothing to improve upon if the current technologies did not exist. The past, the status quo gives us core values, and core values are timeless. The key is to keep the core values of a business or an industry alive, passed on in another technology, in another state of being and of doing. Accenture Strategy has an excellent term - the Wise Pivot.
We never got rid of the concept of transportation and safety - we just moved from the horse to the driver less car. The stop signs still exist and they should!
Disruption takes wisdom to be effective. The destruction of organizational structures, methodologies and technologies for the sake of newness is not the answer. The adaption of old and new technologies to be effective for the well being, continuity and longevity of society and commerce is true wisdom.
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