Daily Inspiration: “We will see more change in the next 5 years than we have seen in the last 50!”

“We will see more change in the next 5 years than we have seen in the last 50!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Flashback!

Just 3 years ago, I was with a major medical device company – they held a global leadership meeting in Orlando. The CEO brought his team together – researchers, sales, marketing, product development, executives – in order to have a two-day robust discussion around how they could accelerate their innovation efforts. They found me, had a chat, and realized that my message of accelerating change and the need for collaborative change fit the bill perfectly.

The result was a keynote that took a look not only at the issue of a faster future but the concept of ‘fast teams.’ I edited together a little synopsis here. The goal of the CEO was to ensure that everyone understood that everything was on the table in terms of disruption as a tsunami of technology, accelerating science, disruptive business models, rapid consumer behavioral change, the faster evolution of new medical knowledge came to dominate the future of their industry.

These issues of exponential change are common to every single industry out there, whether it’s automotive, agriculture, financial, or manufacturing, and if you don’t pick up the pace, your inability to catch up becomes a withering point of a future failure.

I also hammered home the critical requirement to accelerate internal collaboration – the ability to form ‘fast teams.’ Organizations have talked about this requirement as the ‘golden ticket’ for innovation for many years – but in the fact of continual new realities, it’s no longer an option – it’s critical to survival.

Does a statement that 5 years is now the new 50 years hold water? Definitely – and Covid has accelerated this reality even further. Prior to the event, I put together a short pre-event video, with the assistance of my overseas producer, that highlighted the nature of the exponential change that surrounds this organization in the world of healthcare and medical science. I’ll often include a video like this that helps my insight to go ‘beyond the keynote.’

Faster! That’s your mantra! Here’s a 30-second clip to get you in the right frame of mind!