As Jonas Ridderstrale said in our Keynote at the October’s FuturePrint Virtual Summit, “We all went to bed in 2020 and woke up in 2030”! Quite apart from the health threat and the general simmering anxiety all of us have become accustomed to, 2020 has been labelled by McKinsey as the ‘Great Acceleration’. And this speed of change is social, economic, political and technological.


In the first half of 2020 C-19 had thrown us all into disarray and a sense that we are out of control. Across the world, staple goods were in short supply. It was panic stations for many.

But as the year moves towards its end, and the sun begins to rise on 2021, with the start of mass vaccinations, there are signs of normalisation. While we are not in any way happy about the situation we find ourselves in, I think we should take some comfort that we have at least moved beyond shock to acceptance, and this is an altogether more resourceful place to be.

Despite the obvious downsides, there are some silver linings. In some cases, the barriers to pre-covid change have been dismantled. What might have previously been considered by many to be a long way off has become viable now. For example, the shift to e-commerce although already an accepted shift that was steadily growing, has turned into a tidal wave. The same can be said of virtual meetings, virtual events, well virtual everything frankly.


So as the stock markets rally to the news of vaccines, another silver lining is that 2020 has also been a year of innovation. 52% of respondents to our COVID-19 and the Future of Print Survey in partnership with Ricoh reported they are innovating more now than they did pre COVID.


Why? Because necessity is the mother of all invention. And businesses in many sectors this year have been exposed to events beyond their control due to a transcontinental manufacturing model that has been exposed as clunky and ineffective. So there has been an increased interest in empowering production with technology that adds agility and flexibility and that can morph and shift in line with consumer demand, and to be able to do so locally. Demand for digital manufacturing is therefore also growing.


Another source of optimism, despite uncertainty, has to be the fact that where there is change, there is always an opportunity, particularly for those who may have a product or a way of thinking that helps to solve a problem that is relevant now. But to achieve this, and to seize the opportunity, we need to be adaptable. As Dr Max McKeown says in his book Adaptability: ‘The failure of a system is a failure to adapt’. The ‘system’ has been distressed like never before in 2020, and when things have stress placed upon them things must change. As my personal trainer, Andy says ‘stresses make adaptions.’ This is also true of Schumpeter’s creative destruction - the reality that to bring something new to life, something else must end in the process.

Adaptability is crucial to the future success of the human race. This human ability has enabled our populations to thrive some might say at the expense of the natural world. It is this ability to survive in the harshest of environments that result in successful evolution. As Darwin said, ‘It is not the strongest of the species, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.’


So how does this play out with small businesses? One would think that the smaller the business the more able they are to adapt?


This isn’t necessarily the case. Across the world, small print businesses have gone into furlough. Not possessing the leverage or cash reserves of larger businesses and perhaps not being equipped with an adaptive mindset has led to a kind of hibernation. Many businesses have effectively ceased trading as a preference to not being able to make money in the normal way they have grown accustomed to.

Human response to threat is flight or fight. A key part of the brain, the Amygdala, emits hormones which provokes either a fight or flight response. One broad response during 2020 has been to wait for the storm to pass, the other is to simply carry on anyway while adapting and solving new problems. The issue with ‘battening down the hatches’ and opting for ‘safe’ is in fact a more dangerous path to take because while it may provide temporary respite, overall, it is slowing down a business that may never then be able to catch up with the world when it inevitably returns to more stable trading. The huge risk is that the world will have moved on without us.


It is not a pleasant emotion to experience fear. But fear is a reaction, and courage is a decision. Moving forward may seem unsettling, but it is better as it places you into the driving seat. Standing still really means that you have become a victim of circumstance, and victims are powerless. 


However, courage alone is not enough, we can, after all, be courageous idiots and this is just as dangerous! So we must commit to becoming adaptable.

To be adaptable, we must also be open to ‘unlearning’ things. Humans can become easily seduced by the tyranny of expertise, by confirmation bias and the warm feelings of peer validation. But this which was once ‘best practise’ tends to imprison us into a narrow field of expertise confined by a very limited set of rules. This may be extremely effective while the system values this particular paradigm, but when rapid change occurs this expertise can often get in the way. Predicting the future is very difficult, so to some extent, we should not do it, instead, we need to adopt a strategy for a shorter more focused time frame, with a more flexible approach, while being willing to go against the received wisdom because what we think is right today, may not be so right tomorrow.


Adaptive Leadership

For any organisation to be an effective adapter, then adaptive leadership is important. The leadership must set the tone, they must make people feel as safe as possible in order to get the best adaptive results.

Ronald Heifetz is credited with having laid out the principles of adaptive leadership. The concept is simple but to embrace and to instil it requires courage. Peter Docker explained this very well in a discussion I had with him and in a podcast, he featured in and subsequently a presentation he gave.

“President Kennedy’s speech to Congress in 1961 where he stated that we will aim to place a man on the moon before this decade is out and return him safely to Earth is a great example of this in action.”


Why is this an example of adaptive leadership? 

Kennedy’s confident proclamation is 'declared thinking', and he also placed a deadline on it which for project managers out there is very important.  It was confident also because Kennedy had no personal idea of how this would be achieved other than he had the vision and the commitment, both hugely useful attributes for successful leadership. He then placed the necessary funds at NASA’s disposal and created a culture whereby this ambitious goal could be achieved. NASA then went about the process, succeeding, failing, adapting on its path towards the objective. And in 1969 they achieved their goal with mans ‘Giant Leap’.

A leader shapes the tone and rules of a culture and this is also critical. A willingness to move outside of our comfort zone, risk failure, but move on regardless is a clear characteristic of a successful adaptive organisation - and one that does not persecute failure!

The Stockdale Paradox

Grit is another fundamental characteristic. Not giving in. And surprisingly, ebullient optimism isn’t necessarily the most effective trait to have in these turbulent times. The Stockdale Paradox is based upon the experience of Admiral Stockdale who was an American prisoner of war who was shot down during the Vietnam war. He survived 8 years of incarceration and torture, with no end date in sight. When asked by Jim Collins who were the people who did not make it, he said that answer was easy, it was the optimists. The ones who believed they we are going to get out at Christmas, and when this didn’t happen, it hit them badly. They died in despair. So while being hopeful is important, also having feet firmly grounded in reality and dealing with what is in front of us is important too. Stockdale survived by focusing on the short term, having belief while dealing with the brutal facts.

As he says himself, “You must never confuse the faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Lastly, be individual, try not to conform to group thinking. As Naval Ravikant says, “Individuals will seek the truth where a group of people will seek consensus. The last place you will find the truth is in large groups.”

2020 has been a tough year, difficult for most of us to navigate, but now there are at least clearer signs of confidence, of effective vaccines and more compassionate world leadership. I will not be alone in wanting to see the back of 2020, and I hope for an altogether more positive, healthy and wealthy 2021 for us all in the print sector.

It is clear that for 2021, we must be adaptable. We must be able to change direction quickly and deliver solutions to problems that are relevant now and into the future. Communication is a critical factor within all of this. 

We look forward to seeing you virtually or in real life in 2021! But in the meantime, stay safe, enjoy a well-earned break and have a positive, healthy and adaptable 2021.

“The purpose of pain is not to make us suffer, it is to move us into action” Tony Robbins

To discover more about working with us, or being part of FuturePrint in 2021, contact me here.