Sublime

It is up to us.

Clearly, the challenges are as daunting as the opportunities are compelling.

Of the many diverse and fascinating challenges we face today, the most intense and important is how to understand and shape the new technology revolution, which entails nothing less than a transformation of humankind.

My sense is that successful organizations will increasingly shift from hierarchical structures to more networked and collaborative models.

Is this the beginning of a new and flexible work revolution that will empower any individual who has an internet connection and that will eliminate the shortage of skills? Or will it trigger the onset of an inexorable race to the bottom in a world of unregulated virtual sweatshops?

Instead, take dramatic technological change as an invitation to reflect about who we are and how we see the world.

Today we find ourselves at the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution, looking forward and, more important, possessing the ability to influence its path.

As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “The future enters into us…in order to transform itself in us long before it happens.”73