Disruptions

This study explores how to lead during times of significant disruption.

The onset of 2020, which once looked so promising, brought the fastest and most significant disruption to civilization since World War II, eight decades earlier.

And almost nobody saw it coming.

“We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you’d need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With sociopolitical or economic phenomena, we don’t have anything like that.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Risk Analyst, Statistician, 1960-)

As the second decade of the twenty-first century drew to a close, the world was filled with optimism. Sure, there were the typical trouble spots…wars in the Middle East, Russian interference, Islamic terrorism and North Korean saber rattling. But other than those perpetual hotspots, things were looking up. Crime, hunger, illiteracy and even poverty rates were falling around the globe. Stock markets were at an all-time high. Technology was leaping forward. Baby Boomers were on the cusp of retirement, with more wealth than any generation in history. New advancements in gene therapy and biotechnology offered hope for the eradication of diseases that have plagued us for millennia.

Then, in less than two months, everything changed. One mindless, microscopic virus brought the modern world to a virtual standstill.

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