Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, over the
Speaker 1: last seventeen months is we've endured the pandemic. We've seen
Speaker 1: some businesses absolutely thrive, while others not so much. Our
Speaker 1: next guest argues that those that have thrived were in
Speaker 1: fact prepared for an unexpected event like a pandemic, or
Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't even a pandemic that they were prepared for,
Speaker 1: but something else unexpected and they were able to pivot
Speaker 1: and take advantage of the change. Joining us now is
Speaker 1: Jonathan Brill, former global futurist at Hewlett Packard. He's also
Speaker 1: the author of Rogue Waves future Proof Your Business to
Speaker 1: Survive and Profit from Radical Change. He joins us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Boston. Jonathan, the book is out today. Congratulations.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you joining us on Bloomberg Business Week Radio.
Speaker 1: First of all, what is a rogue wave? Kim? Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. So you've probably heard of black swan event.
Speaker 1: These are completely unpredictable things that come out of aware
Speaker 1: and often CEOs used this as an excuse, But the
Speaker 1: reality is that most radical disruptions are more knowable than
Speaker 1: you might imagine. What I call roade waves. They're unmanageable,
Speaker 1: hundred foot waves of change. They are caused by the
Speaker 1: collision of individually manageable constructions. I mean, when you think
Speaker 1: about something like COVID, the fall of couple the floods
Speaker 1: in Germany or China over the last couple of months,
Speaker 1: they're important, but what really amplified them was waves of social, economic,
Speaker 1: and technological change. And that's actually what the disruption is. Right.
Speaker 1: We opened up after after the last round of COVID,
Speaker 1: We just turned the advertising and we're now seeing a
Speaker 1: bit of a resurgence as a result of that. It's
Speaker 1: all of the things around the pandemic that are causing
Speaker 1: the impact, not just the pandemic itself. And the same
Speaker 1: is true of opportunities. Over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: we've seen this explosion of m R and A vaccines,
Speaker 1: for instance. The fall of cobble is going to create opportunities,
Speaker 1: maybe not for the United States, but for China, for
Speaker 1: which is searching for rarer resources which are common in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: And the flooding in Asia, and the miscalculation of the
Speaker 1: likelihood of these hundred year thousand year floods is going
Speaker 1: to create great rebuilding opportunities for some construction companies. And
Speaker 1: so for the lesson here is that a lot of times,
Speaker 1: when you have volatility, when you have disruption, it's a
Speaker 1: threat for some people, but it's an opportunity for the
Speaker 1: ones that are prepared. So the question isn't how do
Speaker 1: I respond to how do I understand and predict every
Speaker 1: road wave? It's how do I respond when these things
Speaker 1: hit my business? When they when they hit my finances,
Speaker 1: my operations, they change my external environment, or maybe they
Speaker 1: impact my strategy. But a lot of times, Jonathan Company,
Speaker 1: as a leader, if you don't know what at rogue
Speaker 1: wave will be, there's only so much you can do
Speaker 1: to prepare for it. Right. Let's take COVID for example.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're Jeff Bezos who was running Amazon until
Speaker 1: last month. He didn't know that he had to get
Speaker 1: so much ppe to provide to frontline workers, or know
Speaker 1: that there would be a very rapid expansion and growth
Speaker 1: of of Amazon Grocery Deliver your Whole Foods grocery delivery
Speaker 1: for example. Um Or did he write well what he knew,
Speaker 1: I've spent some time with leaders at Amazon. What they
Speaker 1: knew was they had a really good systems model of
Speaker 1: their organization and they knew exactly how hard they could
Speaker 1: push or pull the levers. And so the issue wasn't
Speaker 1: that they were ready for a pandemic. They didn't pull
Speaker 1: out their COVID playbook. They were really ready for everything.
Speaker 1: Most companies really look internally at the things they can control,
Speaker 1: whether it's their finances or their offer rations. But the
Speaker 1: reality is most of the things that cause sustained impact
Speaker 1: on business value are external and strategic. So the question
Speaker 1: is how would you respond when any of the major
Speaker 1: UH risk levels are are hit or when they're hit
Speaker 1: in different combinations. And one of the things that the
Speaker 1: Amazon is particularly good at and that I'm an advocate of,
Speaker 1: is gaming out what are those possibilities, pressure testing your organization,
Speaker 1: asking what would happen to something unimaginable hit us. Because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Amazon had a really
Speaker 1: good here, and it was because they weren't ready. It
Speaker 1: wasn't because they were ready for COVID. It was because
Speaker 1: they were ready for anything. Yeah, And that's the key
Speaker 1: here is being ready for the unexpected, and certainly I
Speaker 1: do wonder to what extent companies, after learning from the
Speaker 1: last seventeen months, are going to have strategies in place
Speaker 1: that will help them prepare for whatever that next black
Speaker 1: swan or rogue wave or unexpected event will be. Hey,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Brill, stick with us, because we're gonna come back
Speaker 1: to you in just a few minutes. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: some news. Jonathan Brill is former global futurist at Hewlett Packard,
Speaker 1: also the author of Rogue Waves future Proof Your Business
Speaker 1: to Survive and Profit from Radical Change. The book is
Speaker 1: out now. It came out today. Jonathan Brill joining us
Speaker 1: live from Boston. We're gonna have much more with him
Speaker 1: in just a few minutes. I want to get right
Speaker 1: back to Jonathan Brill, former global futurist at Hewlett Packard,
Speaker 1: also the author of Rogue Waves future Proof Your Business
Speaker 1: to Survive and Profit From Radical Change. He joins us
Speaker 1: on the phone from Boston. Rogue Waves is out today,
Speaker 1: and Jonathan joins us once again. Now, Jonathan, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about this the framework that you developed in
Speaker 1: this book, the Resilient Growth Strategy UM you call it
Speaker 1: the A. B. C's of Resilient Growth. Take us through it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So when we think about companies that are consistently profitable
Speaker 1: through radical changes, like COVID, what we see is that
Speaker 1: they have consistent characteristics way called the ABC's of resilient
Speaker 1: growth awareness. If your people don't know why they need
Speaker 1: to change, obviously they're not getting do that. So you
Speaker 1: need to focus on improving awareness of the operating environment
Speaker 1: through the organization. You need to focus on behavior. It
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter if your people know that as tsunami
Speaker 1: is coming, if they don't have the skills to respond.
Speaker 1: And so the question really is do your managers at
Speaker 1: all levels have the ability to make sense of increased
Speaker 1: resilience to and exploit radical change? And then to see
Speaker 1: in the A b C's is about creating a culture.
Speaker 1: Do you have the processes and incentives to encourage employees
Speaker 1: to make decisions that balance both in your term performance
Speaker 1: and long term growth that they if they don't. If
Speaker 1: you don't, obviously they won't. And so when you wrap
Speaker 1: that up, you get a recipe for a more resilient organization.
Speaker 1: We were talking earlier about a company like Amazon, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know this is true for them, but it's also
Speaker 1: true for a farmer that they work with in Ohio. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I wanted to talk about, because not everybody
Speaker 1: is in charge of making decisions at a company like Amazon,
Speaker 1: or in charge of a team even and has to
Speaker 1: repair a team for a rogue wave. What are some
Speaker 1: lessons that that people can take away from this? Who
Speaker 1: are managers, who are employees who are looking to become managers?
Speaker 1: What are their takeaways? Yeah? Absolutely, I think that first
Speaker 1: of all, you're you're right, not everybody can be in
Speaker 1: charge of everything, but you can have provide clarity, clarity
Speaker 1: around what it called risk bands. So this is a
Speaker 1: simple thing. When you ask somebody to do something, tell
Speaker 1: them how much risk you want them to take, but
Speaker 1: also tell them how little that you'll accept. If you
Speaker 1: don't give that a bump at the bottom, you know,
Speaker 1: inevitably people will take the least risky path forward as
Speaker 1: opposed to perhaps the best path forward, or that the
Speaker 1: one that you and accept. What about when it comes
Speaker 1: to people who are looking just for their own leadership
Speaker 1: lessons here and how to lead through turbulent times? That's
Speaker 1: a great question. So one of the things we talked
Speaker 1: about in the book, and there are hundreds of ideas
Speaker 1: like this is a communication method for leading under uncertainty
Speaker 1: when you're not the boss, how do you talk to
Speaker 1: people in a way that you'll be hurt? First you you,
Speaker 1: it's what I call the lead method, And first you say,
Speaker 1: here's the logic of what I'm suggesting. The second is
Speaker 1: about empathy, saying, hey, you know, I understand you may
Speaker 1: have a different perspective, you might have different goals. I
Speaker 1: understand where you're coming from. Let me just double check
Speaker 1: on that. The third is authority, Right, even if I'm
Speaker 1: not the boss, why do I have some experience in
Speaker 1: this situation? And why might I be the person to
Speaker 1: listen to? The fourth, the d M lead is about
Speaker 1: the deadline. Right, how long do we have to make
Speaker 1: a decision. We can decide who's going to do what
Speaker 1: for however long, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: by Tuesday, we actually need to close out on this
Speaker 1: because if not, there will be an issue moving forward.
Speaker 1: So if you just take those four pieces of information, logic, empathy, authority,
Speaker 1: and deadline, you inoculate against most of the things, most
Speaker 1: of the political issues this more senior managers might use
Speaker 1: against you or that might cause you to not be
Speaker 1: heard some more junior employee when you're looking at when
Speaker 1: you see kind of that iceberg on the horizon. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of the iceberg on the horizon, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are thinking about, Okay, well, the pandemic. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is something that we need to be prepared for,
Speaker 1: the next pandemic perhaps or the continued evolution of this
Speaker 1: current pandemic. Um, how do we get what are the
Speaker 1: other types of shocks that companies need to be prepared for?
Speaker 1: What are those what are those unknowns? That's a great question,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the in the book, we
Speaker 1: talk about ten major disruptions that are happening over the
Speaker 1: next decade. When it was at HP, we spent several
Speaker 1: million dollars researching the range of possible issues. Every year.
Speaker 1: Was one of those pandemic from down One of them
Speaker 1: was was actually a pandemic. It's some of the sec
Speaker 1: risk violins. So we've announced uh some some businesses that
Speaker 1: are coming out of that research in our micro fluid
Speaker 1: ex business UH and and we've been really looking at
Speaker 1: work from home technologies and how we could uh shift
Speaker 1: the nature of the business. Uh. Not necessarily for COVID,
Speaker 1: but as if something like this happens relatively quickly. The
Speaker 1: result of that is if you take a look at
Speaker 1: Xerox over the last year, and their EPs versus hps
Speaker 1: H piece has been relatively stable versus Zerox is being
Speaker 1: down I think last year something like six nine by gap.
Speaker 1: So the result is, you know, if you take a
Speaker 1: look at those two companies that should be pure companies
Speaker 1: have radically different results because one of them took a
Speaker 1: resilient growth strategy, thought really hard about road waves, and
Speaker 1: one of them, I believe at least optimized for the
Speaker 1: near term. What was the moment over the last eighteen
Speaker 1: months when you realize you needed to write a book
Speaker 1: about this. Ah, that's a great question. I'm passionate about
Speaker 1: what's possible. Uh, kind of breakthrough questions. And I had
Speaker 1: a moment, uh, you know last year. Uh, I guess
Speaker 1: eighteen months ago about this time where I realized I
Speaker 1: knew these things, they had had unique knowledge, and we
Speaker 1: had to we had to get ahead of the future
Speaker 1: as a society, as as companies and leaders. Do you
Speaker 1: think that the way we think about collaboration changes the
Speaker 1: way that that managers are are planning for these events?
Speaker 1: And I asked because everybody is talking about to what
Speaker 1: extent we're going to be returning to work in the
Speaker 1: quote unquote new normal physically, and I just wonder how
Speaker 1: that that change is planning for these types of whether
Speaker 1: or not you have a distributed workforce around the country
Speaker 1: versus everybody in one building in a city. So I
Speaker 1: think what you're asking and let's just let's just take
Speaker 1: a slightly different metaphor. Is the difference between like in
Speaker 1: the military, the infantry and the special forces. You know,
Speaker 1: you manage them differently. You tend to give orders a
Speaker 1: little bit differently. And what we're moving from is that
Speaker 1: lockstep where where the infantry always has communication from the top,
Speaker 1: to a world in which we need to be coordinated
Speaker 1: both uh, you know, we need to be both coordinated
Speaker 1: and autonomous. And that looks a lot more like special forces.
Speaker 1: I used to have special Forces operator who was my
Speaker 1: head of strategy, and he gave me some really good
Speaker 1: advice once, mainly because I was terrible at giving orders
Speaker 1: and you know, that's what the army is good at.
Speaker 1: And he said, Okay, here's the deal. You keep coming, uh,
Speaker 1: you keep coming to me, giving me half information and
Speaker 1: running for three weeks right right, Like, what I want
Speaker 1: you to do is really simple. Tell me what's the context,
Speaker 1: what situation? What do we not know? Uh? And then uh,
Speaker 1: you know what what do I need to do if
Speaker 1: you don't come back? The context is always so important.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Bill, former global futurist at Hewlett Packard, also the
Speaker 1: author of road Waves Future Proof of Your Business To
Speaker 1: Survive and Profit from Radical Change. The book is out today.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for Bloomberg Business Week. Join
Speaker 1: us tomorrow, same time, same place, don't miss Sound On
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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Up next, Joe is going to speak
Speaker 1: to Massachusetts Representative Seth Molton, a veteran of the Afghanistan war,
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