A Future Mindset: CIO Academy Asia 2020 ConnectGov Summit: Futurist Gerd Leonhard

Hello, this is Gerd Leonhard and welcome to my podcast. I'm going to peel back the layers and redefine the playbook for digital leadership. My topic today is about the future mindset, how we can navigate this tremendous uncertainty that surrounds us. I mean, the world has changed in a mind boggling pace and it's more uncertain than at any time in recent history. And this will take different skills. It's really quite clear that the world is going upside down where the definition of normal is fading away. We don't really know what normal is anymore, and we're certainly not going to go back to it. I mean, this is a deep cut in history. This is much bigger than the financial crisis or September 11 or Fukushima, or any of the things that we can remember in recent history. This is a definitive cut in how we look at the future, how we look at the present. Of course, how do we get there? And it's basically this perpetual vuca volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. And that is basically not going to end. It's going to actually go forward and encroach in every part of our lives. And now we have to get ready for this and we have to define a strategy for this uncertainty. And usually what happens, out of every chaos and crisis, something emerges that is potentially better than before. So how do we do this? Well, clearly that's going to take a lot of skills at our end to figure out how we can guide with wisdom as we're heading into a future of warp drive changes. Technology is exponential and has changed our entire world. But imagine 10 years from now, quantum computing, the Internet of Things, 10G networks, 9 billion people on the Internet, possibly solving climate change and genetic engineering and new geopolitics, the new role of China, the new role of maybe a new us. Clearly the pandemic Covid is a great accelerator of all the things that were there before, good ones and bad ones. It brings out the best in us and sometimes it brings out the worst in us. And now we have to put this together and say, well, how can we learn something from this going forward into this warp drive future where everything has changed dramatically? Accelerate opportunities. Working from home, staycations, staying at home, vacation at home, of course, online entertainment, shopping, e learning, online learning, telemedicine. Yeah, those are all vastly boosted because of the crisis and they'll stick around. Are we ever going to meet in person again? Of course we are. That's what humans want to do. But ultimately it's going to be a hybrid world and we've Learned so much in this time. Digital transformation has shifted mind bogglingly. Now we have virtual events like the Tour de France where you can get on your peloton and be part of the show. And clearly, I mean the stats are really amazing out here. The last six months have brought more transformation around the world, digital transformation than the previous six years in work and shopping, consumption at home, travel and mobility. Vast changes, vast challenges and huge challenges I think in travel, mobility and, and restaurants and tourism of course, especially in Asia. That's an amazing challenge that we just haven't thought about before. So this is really a very impactful scenario looking at what's happening here in terms of practical change in Asia. It's been almost double the amount of digital acceleration, digitization, even money is going to go digital. As people are saying, we don't want to touch dirty money, so use the QR code instead. Basically it's kind of the end of analog. Too bad, of course humans are analog. So we're always going to want to do things that are not digital. That's not going to go away. I'm not worried about that. I think we need to come together and embrace that in a hybrid kind of fashion. The five bigs that have happened in this crisis as a concept, as a consequence also technology, big tech, big media, big government, big state, big health, and finally, most importantly, I think for our future here, Big green. And this is not a philosophy, this is a very practical path to the future. The end of the fossil fuel economy. I know that's a tough one for many of you in countries where that is an important source of revenue. But you know, spending $3.2 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies probably isn't a good idea for our future. And that is going to end. Imagine if that money could go somewhere else. I mean we're clearly seeing the dol dominance of big tech everywhere. We're seeing the dominance of healthcare and that's actually converging healthcare and technology. Think about opportunity. There's a trillion dollar opportunity for bioengineering, for using data, for smart technology, for relying on science, for example, to fight pandemics. And Big Green clearly is going to be one of the dominating forces with Big Green. I mean everything have to do from science and research to the Internet of things, to connecting everything, environmental monitoring and of course the idea of switching to renewable energy, renewable food sources, solving water. The World Economic Forum says we're roughly looking at potential of 390 million new jobs when we shift funds and investment into what they call nature positive Investing, that's all going to happen. And this is huge in Asia. Obviously a big discussion. We see what used to be unthinkable before. And just like Covid, we have unthinkable things when we think about climate change, like the carbon tax. We have a carbon tax now, but we're going to see carbon taxes for airplanes, same carbon tax. And for the ticket meat consumption, think about pork in China and Brazil. That whole connection, what was unthinkable before is totally doable now. That discussion about how we're going to go in the future and making sacrifices, changing what we do, that's here. Covid has brought that out and now we're ready to say, okay, we could do this. We could have the government tell us what to do. That's going to happen here again. And it is, because that's also an emergency. It's probably less critical in the sense of next week, but nevertheless, COVID 19 is a test run for climate change and we're going to rethink of this world also because the combination of big blue technology and Big Green is clearly the future. That's a business plan. It's not about altruism or philosophy. It's none of those things. We even now have a stock exchange, the LTSE Long Term Stock Exchange in San Francisco. That is going to be the place to list if you're B Corp, or if you're a sustainable oriented company like Patagonia, Unilever and many others around the world. That is a clear trend and that's something we should think about for Asia. Why not put something like this into Singapore? I think this would be a clear good move for everybody in Asia to think about this. We're going into the future of great transformation. The next 10 years will bring more change than the previous 100 years. And 10 years is quite a short time frame. But essentially, as we're looking forward, this reset is giving us an opportunity to reshuffle our interest and our priorities. And this has been kicked off with COVID but it was there before the priorities of flying and cruise ships and Bitcoin and personal gains. And so now we're going to a future that is looking quite different. It's about healthcare, it's about collaboration, it's about remote working, it's about everything about technology, it's about having wisdom in government. Talk about digital leadership, right? I mean, the next 10 years will need serious leadership wisdom because it's all happening at the same time. Technology is mind bogglingly changing our world, driven by all the other Factors and whenever it's time for a crisis, and you may know this from therapy, when you're trying to fix a really important problem, you're ready for a reset. I mean, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste and this is a terrible crisis. Many of us have experienced personal hardship. So we need to take this and say, well, maybe now we can think about resetting and rethinking what we do and how we do it and what we want. It's pivot time. The next couple of years, we're going to see companies and institutions around us pivoting vastly and quickly to catch up with the new situation, because we're also mentally pivoting and saying, it's important that we have human benefits, it's important that we collaborate. To be a leader means to understand the future. So here are four bullets on how you will understand this future. Strong global healthcare focus that is clear that trillions of dollars moving in that direction, Technology, pharma convergence, technology growth like crazy. It's going to keep on going like up and up and up and up. But we're also going to see more regulation, more social contracts, more discussion about the human renaissance, the importance of humans. Look at social media. We don't put the humans back in there, we should just shut it down. I mean, it's like, come on, we need to have real media, not just algorithmic media. We're going to see that clearly. Also, decisive action on climate change. Get ready for this. This is not a bad thing. This is the business plan for humanity. It is also a gigantic opportunity for moving to nature, positive investing, creating many new jobs all over the planet for this. And finally, sustainable capitalism. As Al Gore said I don't know 12 years ago, we're going to move to a stakeholder economy beyond gdp, people, planet, purpose and prosperity. That's the agenda for the future. We're also going to see, of course, along with the warp drive on the good things, the opportunities, the warp drive for the challenges, for example, multilateralism, basically people will try to disconnect each other so they can have better supply chains. And that's going to lead to all the discussion about collaboration. We're going to look at things like equality, the K shaped recovery and isolation, and of course, climate change again. But clearly there's lots of key challenges that we have to collaborate on. And as a leader, I think you have to see both of the things that are really good and powerful and also the things that are challenges technology will not solve. Social, cultural, political issues. We have to solve Those it's called ethics. It's called what humans do. Technology makes it actually worse when we apply it wrong. So talking about money, there is a new concept emerging around the world. It's been there for quite some time, but we're looking at a sort of redefinition of what we want from life and what we want from economics. And talking about Bhutan five years ago, the definition of happiness and the economic logic. Now we're moving into a world that has four people, planet, purpose and prosperity. And that is a theme we see emerge around the world. The Stakeholder economy, Business Roundtable in the us, many countries all over Asia, including Singapore, discussing the purpose of the economy and also creating things around ethics and the discussion about what the system should be doing. And this is something I see clearly emerge. In the next 10 years, we're going to see this kind of idea of the circular economy, how we take and how we give back. That's going to emerge as the key factor, I think, for our Future. Because in 2030, if you're not circular, if you're not sustainable, you won't be there. This is becoming the default and it's thinking larger, much larger than before. Starting next year and beyond the COVID crisis, which is probably going to be 22 or even 23 in some cases, it's going to get a giant boost in this direction. And technology is the key driver. So let's talk about what that means. The game changers and the mega shifts, these 10 things you've seen before, of course they are the driver of all of the rapid progress and they're all coming at the same time. Technology is not just exponential, it's also combinatorial and it's converging industries. So looking at all of these things like data, the cloud, Internet of things, quantum computing, natural language processing, and of course intelligent machines and blockchain and 3D printing. All these things have been there for some time, like virtual reality, but now it's taken off and it's all taken off at the same time. So you ain't seen nothing yet. As the song goes. The next 10 years will bring this all to a place where we can truly say science fiction is becoming science fact. Automation of driving, automation of call centers, and all of the trends that we see around us. And here's. Of course the real challenge is that it creates what I call the mega shifts. That is both a challenge and an opportunity. Chapter three, my book, years ago, well a few years ago, but still very active, is called the Megashifts. You can download that for free on my website. Megashifts Digital also in 12 languages, including Chinese. But the output of all the technology invention is the shifting of habits, changing the way that we work, changing the way that we lead. This is changing our entire social structure and our Social Security structure and our political and policy structure. So cognification of smart machines. Machines can start to learn and to think not like you humans, Right? But yes, it's going to change everything. Disintermediation, virtualization. I mean, basically all these things are coming together and to create a huge pattern of shift and possibilities that you have to understand and that you have to guide, no matter whether you're leading government or whether you're leading business or leading yourself for that matter. Especially if you have kids, make sure they know about these trends and what's happening to zoom in on what is important. One thing about technology is really quite clear. It has been a great benefit in many practical ways. But like anything really big, imagine oil, gas, banking, it does have a negative output, clearly. And that has never been looked at very much. And now we're seeing, okay, what about tax avoidance and surveillance and privacy violation? Social media is the best example here. That clearly needs to change. And so the externalities have become part of the business model. We can't afford to have the most powerful companies in the world, which is technology, data, search engines, social media. Yeah, we can't afford that to be completely unregulated and open. You do pretty much as you please. That's not going to prevail and it doesn't make sense because clearly we need to find a common purpose here. So look for lots of regulation. Regulation is never the perfect solution, but lots of back and forth. The European Commission has been one of the leaders in the world of doing this. And I think this is also happening in Asia, especially in Singapore, the discussion about how we keep technology good on what's called digital ethics. So the bottom line is it's no longer about doing whatever we can in technology because in 10 years we can do anything. You want to upload your thinking or your memory to your computer. It's probably doable in 10 years. Is that a good idea? I don't know. We have to do what is good and worthy and the right thing to do. And who defines that? Well, you'll be defining it. When it's about leadership, what does it mean to do the right thing? And how can we define what we want rather than what we can? This is a big discussion about technology because clearly it can be A gift and it has been a gift. But overdoing it, like social media manipulation, algorithmic knowledge, algorithmic media. Too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing. So have a look at this topic on Twitter and in all my conversations. Just look for digital ethics and GERD and you'll find lots of stuff here. And the same goes for AI. Right now it's really all about IA intelligent assistance. It's just smart everything. And that's going to be everywhere. That's a huge boon for economy, also for the environment. And then as we progressively move into the future where it's going to be more generally intelligent, this is a very big question. Do we need to have a moratorium on a machine that is building a machine that is sort of semi conscious? Parenthesis, a machine with an IQ of a trillion. Well, that probably wouldn't fare very well for us. And Stuart Russell's book is a great read on this. Human compatible AI don't go into the future based on fear. Go into the future based on opportunity. But be curious, ask questions. And we have to be both proactive and preemptive at the same time. I know that's a challenge, especially when you think about the complexity of topics. So Stuart Russell said in his great book and discussion about artificial intelligence, he has a great quote that I lead back to what I learned from the original Blade Runner. You may remember the scene where Tyrell says, well, you know, this is about making our machines more human than human. And that's a completely wrong goal. Obviously what we don't want is exactly this. We want machines to be competent, not conscious. That is the goal of AI in my view, is, yeah, why would you want to make them have agency? We want them to be competent. So very important conversation about what's happening with machines. Give them the groundwork, give them the routines. As a leader, we can outsource lots and lots and lots of this grunt work and this sort of commodity work that we're doing. As Luciano Foierdi says from Oxford, ethics, algorithms outperform humans. When it's not about understanding emotions and intentions, interpretations and deep semantic skills and all that, that is where it's going. So let's wrap up with the future mindset and take some actions on how we do this. The first thing is, this is our daily job. Pay attention, listen, observe, understand. This is not about prediction. It's about intuition, imagination. It's about paying attention to what's happening, about making a connection between all the things. Spend an hour a day on this on what's not already here. Think about the future, read about the future, talk about the future, the things that might be rather than are for at least an hour a day. And drop this idea that technology is all about efficiency. It is not. Efficiency is just the very first step. What technology affords us, the pre Covid thinking of optimization and everything is about efficiency. Well, it's not. It's about creativity. Technology is what is allowing us to rebuild and rethink. This is what it's all about. And as a leader, you have to be a thought leader there as well. It's about agility, resilience, especially now. Next two years will be mostly about agility and creativity and resilience. It's about reinventing how things work. The Oculus Rift here, virtual reality class, amazing stuff. It's called the Infinite Office. That's definitely something we need now. But you do have to think about the consequences. You do have to think about what it means for people and how can we move in the future. That is positive for all of us. And that's not too much of a good thing. Leadership requires foresights. It requires practical wisdom, resilience, tenacity, integrity. That's all character skills that we have to develop. And as we go into the future, it's also quite clear that we have to prepare for three waves. Not just Covid and the recession, but for climate change, which in my view is an opportunity and the change of economic logic to go beyond gdp. Either we go beyond GDP or we just go beyond and go beyond. Somewhere out there and never to be seen again. That's something we have to consider. We have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because these are tough topics. So that is basically some of the missions that are ahead of us. I talked about VUCA earlier just to wrap this up. This is going to be about flipping the VUCA Velocity, Unorthodoxy, collaboration and the good old American word awesomeness. Flipping the vuca. That's what we need to do as we juggle all the balls of the big five from technology in the near future. Finally, I want to say we are all on the Corona coaster, more or less, in many ways. Emotional change, social change, financial change, family issues. So let's stick together and help each other in this discussion. Let's together put pull out the things that we need. Compassion, empathy, solidarity and hope. This is not about technology, obviously. It's about us. The way that we need for the next two years at least to really emphasize helping each other get through the Corona culture.