Change

In the coming new normal, it is a very good bet that the typical form of organizations will change.

young technology companies, have recognized that the fundamental design of the modern organizations is unsuited to today's need for speed and agility. These companies are starting to experiment with new organizational structures and new operating systems.

The science of the brain's hardwiring gives us many insights on how to avoid this problem and seize the opportunities that more change brings us.

The mismatch between the reality of more change as the new normal and our inclination as human beings and organizations to look for stability has tremendous implications—perhaps most fundamentally that we need to further develop and use the emerging science of change or we risk peril.

What we can predict, based especially on the evidence of the last few hundred years, is that we will continue to see more unanticipated events that include threats (and sometimes huge threats) and opportunities (and sometimes huge opportunities).

The uncertainty index that we presented in the introduction of this book clearly shows a sharp upward trend well before COVID-19 ever infected a single human being.

It is driven most of all by evolving (and sometimes now exploding) technologies and geographic integration.

The lesson from the current pandemic, and the high levels of uncertainty we are all feeling as individuals and organizations, is that increased rapid and complex change is becoming the new normal.

Mandela took hundreds of actions, some large like the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” some seemingly small or marginal, like developing a friendship with the white captain of the country's rugby team, and some on the surface simply odd, like his lunches with the widows of former apartheid leaders. But inherent in so much of what he did was c