Daily Inspiration: “You need to bridge the ‘acceleration gap’ – the disconnect between the velocity of change and your ability to keep up!”

“You need to bridge the ‘acceleration gap’ – the disconnect between the velocity of change and your ability to keep up!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

It’s big, and it’s growing bigger. And as it expands, the significance of your inability to bridge the gap is even bigger than it was before.

Do you have a strategy to keep up?

Pre-pandemic, CEOs and organizations were dealing with a world of business model disruption, the acceleration of technology, the faster evolution of key skills, and other critical issues. That was the focus of many of the keynotes that they brought me in for. Heck, just before the pandemic hit, Pfizer brought me into a senior leadership meeting in Paris for an overview of the impact of fast change, and how to align to it. They certainly get it!

Now, in the harsh light of our emerging post-pandemic world, one thing is clear – the future is even more complex than it was before. And a simple fact has emerged – there is a massive and growing gap between the speed of change and the ability of organizations to keep up. Bridging this gap is critical to future success.

The expansion of the gap exists in pretty stark terms. Medical knowledge is now doubling every 78 days, compared to 8 years pre-pandemic, rendering irrelevant previous healthcare industry strategies. We’ve gone from a world of just-in-time to just-in-case supply chain concepts because of a world of broken globalization. 68% percent of organizations have said that global pandemic has forced them to adapt and change their business models – what was disruptive before is even more so today.

The gap is growing, and the challenge is that society and organizations are not prepared to deal with the massive disconnect this presents – they are structured for slow in an era of fast That’s the ‘ACCELERATION GAP’ – it’s real, and it’s’ growing. And it’s going to hurt you going forward unless you work to minimize it. Because otherwise, leadership strategies that worked yesterday are exposed as being irrelevant tomorrow even while they are actively considered today.

What worked yesterday will not work tomorrow, and you are on a guaranteed path to failure if you don’t align with our new reality- by mastering the disconnect between speed and structure. The pandemic has changed everything, and future-oriented leadership is more important than ever before.

History tells us that every global crisis shifts the axis of the future of our universe and every crisis offers an opportunity to improve.

Bridge the gap!