Hello fellow leaders, teachers and travellers of change. I’m Kirstin Schneider. I’m delighted to be sharing my experiences, reflections and observations of the fourth industrial revolution with you in this blog.
From big transformations to minor changes, one thing has stood out to me over the last few years: how little we understand the context of what we’re working within today. I think the reason for this is twofold: (1) we haven’t been invited (or prompted) to be be curious enough about it, and (2) much of this context without precedent. This blog is designed to be both invitation and context forming.
I have almost 25 years’ experience working with small and big businesses as a leader, advisor, strategist and effector of systemic change. My areas of focus include business model transformation, capability creation, cultural nudging, people strategies and strategic organisational alignment. I am fortunate to be able to see the questions that organisational leaders are asking themselves, and the ones they’re not. This blog is about both.
Some people call the set of shifts taking place today the “fourth industrial revolution”. If you’re not familiar with this term, my aim is to start to create a map from which you can decide for yourself what it means to you. You can also read more about how others describe the fourth industrial revolution and its various elements here.
The powerful forces working in interoperable ways to bring about the fourth industrial revolution include among other things: unimaginable waves of data; a increasing pace of technology development; intricate connectedness giving rise to the Internet of Things; the changing deployment of financial capital into businesses rich in intangible assets. Other forms of capital are caught up in this societal shift too.
You can see evidence of the fourth industrial revolution in small things: the fact that work is changing, for example. What people and organisations produce is changing. Most leaders recognise that services and experiences are just as, if not more important, than what we used to call products. Where and when we work is changing: we demand flexibility because, at least for the global elite, flexibility in many forms is now more possible than ever in our connected world. Even what we call ‘work’ is different. We have come to use crude terms like ‘knowledge workers’ to signal that what people know often matters more than manual labour. The term ‘knowledge workers’ doesn’t come close to describing what’s happening, in my view. But most of us know we need more education and more continuous education than we did in the past to do the work that’s on offer in our local ‘hood. Even truck driving might be desk job in a future of autonomous vehicles.
For organisations, being competitive or staying relevant now requires serious diversity of thought, relentless innovation, boundary-bridging teams and systemic, agile collaboration, even if many of our organisations still haven’t adjusted to this reality. Sure, like you I hear that these are the espoused values of many organisations today. But how many have remade themselves from top to bottom in full recognition of what it takes to bring this to life? Very few, I’d argue. Most businesses are still trying to find their customer and that customer’s ‘job to be done’. They do little more than shuffle deck chairs in an effort to “reorganise’ themselves around the shifting world of work. I’d argue that the vast majority of current organisational practice and management thinking is damaging rather than helpful to the organisation, as well as to the people who make up and rely on that organisation’s ecosystem.
The implications of this set of changes reach right across the global socio-economic seas, flooding former islands of biology, identity and belief and disregarding things we used to call shorelines. What’s changing is everything, and we’re barely keeping up.
As the lines blur between biology and technology, between organisations and ecosystems, between who we thought we were and what we are becoming, we need fearless navigators and courageous travellers to help us stay curious about the fourth industrial revolution and what this tide is washing in to our shores – not just at the micro level, but also the macro shifts that are pushing against privacy, politics, ethics and the fabric of our community.
What’s happening around us is not all that it seems. Already there are shipwrecks and casualties due to the fact that our second and third industrial vessels are ill-equipped for this new world. Do you not wonder whether employee engagement is one of these shipwrecks, challenged as this is in organisations around the world? And what’s happened to psychological safety in most large corporations? Could it be that management systems are failing us at a fundamental level through their second and third industrial approaches to how things work? There are many more such storms and high seas to sail through, which this blog aims to navigate.
As someone who works closely with organisations both large and small, leading strategy, transformation and change, my work takes me to the frontier of the fourth industrial revolution. You might be working there too. Like you, I see all kinds of change: some engineered by design, yet much that is simply the unforeseen consequence of dynamic fourth industrial reframing. I’m constantly searching for what works better and makes more sense in this fourth industrial context, which is quite unlike anything we’ve seen before.
So what should you expect of this blog? I have adopted the mantle of (self-described) organisational anthropologist in order to share my experiences and (with their permission) those of others who are operating at the frontier. You’ll find stories from my work in the field, long-form observations and reflections, brief tips designed to help you experiment in your own sandpit, reviews of books and podcasts and much more from the edges of our new world.
I hope you enjoy these posts. Can’t wait to meet you on the trail and exchange a fireside yarn or two.
Warm regards,
Kirstin Schneider
kirstin@fourthindustrial.net