The economy is important, YES, but it will not be able to solve all the problems of this crisis, which peaked with the Pandemic, but which had already given several signs that it was forming long before COVID.
Os smartphones for ready use in the hands of 6.000 billion people, brought a level of transparency that exposed the inequality that exists in many countries.
And what happens? The world cannot sustain itself with so much transparency, which is why social conflicts have worsened in recent years. In response to this transparency, strong populist leaders have appeared to offer what the people want. “This will solve the problem for me and that’s it!” This has happened in many countries and it is not that simple or easy to solve.
These are problems in several social and economic sectors: rights, freedom, inequality, privacy and others.
In my opinion, “equal rights for all” should be replaced by “equal opportunities for all.” This utopia is even further from the economic equality that many seek.
Due to the serious problem of unemployment, which will certainly arise in the post-pandemic period, we will be entering a “period of discord”, where we will stop focusing on the virus and start worrying about broader problems. Other crises will come.
The pandemic acted as a major catalyst for factors that were already in action: major technological changes and the correlative concentration of power.
Universal resource allocation will be the next mandatory step for many societies, although it cannot always be implemented due to the lack of these resources. Some disruptive solution will have to be implemented for those who will never have a job again.
And to illustrate, I want to tell a story:
It was the year 1900 when the owners of horse-drawn carriages in London went on a long strike. They were complaining about the use of engines in their carriages, which created unfair competition, they said. The rest of the story is already known.
In short: Resisting change doesn't bring us any progress. We have to adapt.
It is worth remembering Charles Darwin:
“The species that survive are not the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the most intelligent, but rather those that best adapt to change.”
The situation has changed the markets. It is not just sectors that are threatened with extinction. Customer requirements in all markets have changed, even if we do not yet realize it.
It is not enough to buy a video camera for your computer and think that you have entered the new digital world. No device, although necessary, can solve this. Telemedicine will help the health sector, but it is not the entire change that the sector needs. The vision of the world and management (mindset) must be changed.
We have to broaden the field of study and see the philosophical shift to include it in our adaptive system.
Tools make us change, but just changing the tools and devices is not enough to enter the new stage. It requires a paradigm shift in the way you see the world.
If everything has changed, we have to assume that we no longer know exactly what customers want. Of course, there are basic factors that are timeless and do not change, but we do not know how they translate into other types of requirements.
If we don’t change the way we interact with customers, there will be no improvement. We need this two-way communication: talking and listening. The medium doesn’t matter, it can be digital. Entering the Industry 4.0 phase means having direct communication with the customer with greater quality and value for both parties.
Listening, imagining a solution, setting up a market test, collecting the information and repeating the cycle is the way to go. This already existed, but what has changed is the speed of iteration. Instead of once a year, you should do it once a month.
Artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, digital transformation, virtual reality, etc., are technologies. Those who have the right mindset for their use will take advantage of them and apply them fully within a business model. Any of them encapsulated in a business matrix without cultural change will not mean much. Managers will be happy to have made changes. But they are wrong. This is not the way forward.
Real change is creating a culture within the company that adapts to the new reality.
And what is the new reality? Well, everyone has to figure that out, in their industry.
The so-called “life sectors”, food, agriculture, health and education industries will be those that will suffer the least impacts, along with automation and digital industries.
Intermediaries without significant added value will be the most affected.
This crisis has revealed our fragility in a much more complex world, and we have come to believe that black swans do exist. Now we are beginning to believe that the next crisis will come and it is probably related to climate change.
During acute crises, the first goal is to survive. When the crisis is over, the goal is to grow through a maximal strategy. I would like to think with an optimistic view that after a long readjustment, we will move to a much better stage in evolutionary terms.
Therefore, the most appropriate thing now is to strengthen our personal and social security.
Or, as it says Sun Tzu, “Putting ourselves beyond defeat.”
In many countries, the State has withdrawn. The pandemic has led us to believe that the State needs to grow. We do not need a bigger State; what we need is a more efficient State.
Before the pandemic, the world was already undergoing profound changes.
China is expanding, the United States is shrinking and leaving some vacancies free that are often filled by third parties (Russia). Germany easily leads in this Europe, where many doubt the advantages of collaboration. The transition from one model to another creates a distressing power vacuum. Africa and the Silk Road countries will be the favorites for growth. Latin America does not have the power to disturb world peace, so it will remain a supporting actor.
Francis Fukuyama shows us how the progress of nations has its conditions and one of them is predictability, through respect for the laws.
No country, nor human group, progresses if it does not have a well-constituted leadership structure, oriented towards the common good and governed by laws that everyone accepts and respects (VEB).
An exponential problem is not solved by evolutionary solutions alone.
Our mistake today is to think that with the vaccine everything will go back to normal. The river does not flow through the same place twice.
We need to think of a new utopia, which can be achieved, for this globalized world.
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