Malcolm Dunn:
Okay. It’s Malcolm Dunn here. The Dean of LeadWell Global, together with our head of Wealth Suren Pather. As you would have seen in the last thought leadership piece we sent out really, it is a good time to do some cognitive thinking, which is taking the time to think things through from a broader perspective. As Einstein famously said, problems are seldom solved with the mindsets that created them. So how do we adopt a different mindset? From our perspective, there’s only very few organizations who will be able to do this and we’d really like to support you and be able to think differently because we think it’s going to be a point of competitive advantage moving forward from this covid crisis. First step is to do some scenario planning as we’ve discussed. Here’s a cake we baked earlier and looking at some of the different scenarios and Suren and I worked this up in terms of the scenarios and thank you for those who’ve sent in the surveys that we did on the uncertainty and impact.
Please do send them in. Very useful for us because we see it’s quite different for different industry sectors in different geographies in terms of what the critical uncertainties are for their part of the world or for their organization. So Suren what we did here is, this was kind of just a trial that we put together, but we thought the critical uncertainties as you recall were time, so we weren’t sure, is this something that would be three months, or is it going to be 18 months. So still, even at this point in time, it’s not normal. And it’s also a global phenomenon. Even though Australia might be getting its act together or New Zealand might, we’re still all part of a global world from a trade perspective. So really trying to look at that time dimension from multiple views. So not only the health part of it, but the economic health component of it as well.
Suren Pather:
Absolutely. Look, I think, we started first with, wondering and really worrying about the health of everyone to make sure that we don’t lose lives. But now as time goes by, the economic issues become quite pertinent. And we need to look through all the different scenarios with economic issues.
Malcolm Dunn:
So what that does is we took that as a critical and certainly, so that’s on this horizontal axis here. So we’ve got time and then we said less than three months. These are the immediate things that we’re going to have to pay attention to, but what’s in the next three to 18 months? And what’s that world going to look like? So this really is that outside in quantum perspective of the world. Holistic. From this we’ll start to say, well, what are the potential plausible scenarios that could occur? And then for you to figure out, gee, if that was going to happen, what would we do?
So you’ve got a bit of a plan of action across all of them. So that first dimension was time. But the next one we did really Suren was, are we going to see national kind of, state-based responses or are we going to see an internationalism approach to coming up with solutions? So that was a dimension. I think short term we’ve seen a pretty national or even less than national kind of, approach to trying to create, confinement and isolation.
Suren Pather:
Yeah, look, I mean I think there’s been, quite a dramatic change, we were moving towards, inta-dependence and relying upon each other. But the very thing that we’re moving towards in fact created some of the issues because for example, a lot of the Wuhan workers, went back to Italy, to work in the factories and that actually created the problem.
So, is the world now changing towards now more nationalistic outlook and protection as opposed to , inta-dependence that we used to have.
Malcolm Dunn:
So part of the scenario planning process then is looking at those critical uncertainties and there could be different things on these axes and that’s what we’ll get from you from the survey responses. So please do send them in, but for the purposes of this action activity, yeah, we’ve taken, is it national kind of local or is it international or what mixture of those could occur. And then from the timeframe one there, as we do with scenario planning, we then look at, okay, in each quadrant what would that will look like? And remember when we sent you the survey, we looked at the PESTLE analysis of political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental point of view. And which were the things that are impacted?
That’s what we’d probably do for here. But we’ve really focused on a couple of things really from the sociopolitical perspective, the economic perspective and the health side of things. How would that look different in those different worlds there? Suren and I went through this kind of process and what you want to do, you want to use imagination and energy as well as cognition for it. So you’ve got to use all our senses of what’s occurring. So a key thing is to have the right audience with you as part of this process. And world renowned David Snowden, just listening to one of his, webinars, he said you need the 15% in the room who think differently. Otherwise, we come up with linear deductive solutions to problems. And we know we’ve got a discontinuous set of issues here that are complex. We need a different mindset. So getting the right group is really important.
Suren Pather:
I think we should point out a number of the leading corporates are thinking this way. Looking at certain scenarios ahead of time and working out, what could happen. Some of the big corporates that you’ve already been coaching have got a lot out of it and it’s good to share this with the audience.
Malcolm Dunn:
And, certainly over the years there’s been different inflection points. The energy industry faced, the oil crisis, the renewable energy was the whole policy crisis of where are we going, are we going to subsidize it, in the telco sector, the deregulation of it, of wholesale versus retail. There’s a whole bunch of things that have been worked through the banking sector.
Suren Pather:
I think as you pointed out before, Malcolm, different industries will be affected very differently. We’re seeing some short term impacts on the tourism industry and the travel industry. Yet, on the other hand, we’ve seen in the retail space in groceries and things like that, huge change. So we’ve got to I guess, look at all aspects of things and to see, in all cases they’ll always be winners and losers.
Malcolm Dunn:
So just for a bit of fun, Suren and I put a couple of names to these worlds, which is part of the process. So if we look at a world up in this top left hand quadrant, so this is within the next three months from an international perspective, we call that who cares? The reason we called it that is because there will be some information sharing, but the primary focus is what’s happening in our country. Yes, there’s kind of a merit order of how bad things are going on at the moment.
Everybody’s publishing that and saying well thank goodness we’re not Italy or Spain or France or New York. However, what we’re really worried about is can we, it’s a pandemic. Can we get into the containment stage and how bad is impact? So we’re really looking in the short term. At a national approach and even low levels of granularity. What that means is in a whole set of things we do from a health perspective, from an economic stimulus perspective, from a social one to be able to be successful. We call that particular area there. Crisis world or Groundhog day. So the Groundhog day is if we stayed just focused on the immediate problems, we will continue to have the immediate problem. So how do we start to say, let’s be able to shift from what it is we need to do in the longer term. And is that going to be a national basis or is it going to be an international basis? I’ll talk a little bit on what I call the nationalism solution was for the next 3-18 months and then invite Suren to talk about what would it take to actually get an international solution so we can give back to a new world order instead of a country order. From a national perspective. And we think this is probably a likely next step we’d move to. It’d be a pity that we can’t have an international solution, but that would need a different mindset and Suren will talk about that beyond the world health organization. Beyond United Nations. We need somebody who’s going to help pull that together, the G20.
But in this world, the likely scenario for nationalism that what we’re going to do is to say, look after our own and make sure from a health perspective we continue to have the containment. We have a rapid response. But from an economic perspective, we think that’s going to be the truly wicked problem because we’ve already got a large disparity between government workers whose jobs were secure. Those in particular industries who’ve continued to operate. The construction industry compared to the professional services who’ve just been decimated. The hospitality industry, but it’s been totally decimated. So the complexity here is that there’s a multidimensional problem to be resolved almost like a Rubik’s cube. How do we have a segmented stimulus that works for the right people, but takes account for the other ones that are already doing okay. Typical things that they’ve done, infrastructure projects and we hear that’s back on the cards now. School halls, pink bats. The construction companies have got more work than they could deal with at the moment. So it’s how do we get the right type of work for them that can go down to the subcontractors because that is the ones that need to keep busy. So some real challenges and how to do that. But we know that if we start to say, the emotional driver there is around self determination, self-sufficiency, can we do it? Are we’re going to start making our own automobiles again. What is it would be your regard to the strategic that we need and can we even do? And who is our trusted partners now? Are those guys across the ditch in New Zealand partners or not, jokingly, but on a broader scale. Is the U S Australian access going to work anymore because of its geographic separation.
So some bunch of things to work there, which will have financial implications, currency implications. However, it is a very isolationist perspective, we call it fortress nation and probably unlikely to be sustainable. But once you get there, it took years and decades to get free trade going and the trust game, but the trust is broken. So how could we fast track to get up the top there? What would that even look like? And we’ve called that China world because they are the dominant, person who’s brought up a lot of the shares and positions. Also crypto world as well in terms of there’s going to be a digital interface around the world at the respective Suren, some thoughts?
Suren Pather:
Firstly from a domestic perspective, I think there’s a difference between what socialist governments will do and capitalist governments will do. We’ve seen, a quick move in the Western world with large amount of government support, central banks are basically printing money and making money, easy quantitative easing number four. And what that will do though is how the distribution goes and usually the distribution goes from central banks to, trading banks and then banks distributed to the appropriate people. However, that’s the big question mark I guess know we discussed. Where, if funds are going to corporates, the bigger corporates they can afford to repay, how do these corporates distribute it? To the top level management? Has it created more disparity between, higher level management compared to the normal workers? And then how does the spending actually work? At least people with a lower income to average incomes tend to spend the money creating a multiplier effect and therefore a more vibrant economy. Whereas those at the top end, the executives that may have a bit more buffer tend to put it back into assets, invest in the stock market or investing in the property markets and will that create a bigger disparity, with the Western world? A bigger difference between the haves and have nots. And that’s one of the concerns that governments have got to try and deal with.
On the one hand, to keeping power, we talked about the socio political impacts. Populism has become the big thing to do things for the mass of people and therefore retain government and retain popularity. But will it create, a bigger divergence.
Malcolm Dunn:
So that’s where we see some of the concepts of the universal salaries and actually make sure everybody’s got 40 or 60% . Still a lot of capitalism to coexist with it, but a socialist safety net as well. Suren, this was the one that was probably the hardest for us as well because really would China, they’ve positioned themselves to come out of this really well, but could there be on behalf of the borrower nations? Thanks but we’re not going to pay you back.
Suren Pather:
One of the issues as you know with each country now moving towards protecting themselves is their debt servicing repayments. A lot of the islands that have been supported by a country like China, have these debt servicing payments. And as you see recently the IMF that has received a huge call for assistance of smaller nations are now putting conditions upon their loans. Because the last thing we want to do is the American government supporting the IMF that supports these countries, it’s simply go to service the debts of China. And there’s going to be conditions imposed upon how the money is used. And that’s going to be quite interesting how things develop, and who influences who. So there’s a lot of possibilities that come out of that. And then the other issue is with all major countries printing money so rapidly, who’s currency will be affected the most? Will the U S with its amount of quantitative easing devalue its currency? Will people lose faith in the us dollar? Will they turn to SDRs, from the world bank, and therefore will the reserve currency change, which is a big question. There’s also another part to it, which is why we call it crypto world. People may lose faith in central banks in terms of how money is created and will they move to an alternative currency like cryptocurrency. So all of those scenarios will have different implications.
Malcolm Dunn:
And then the whole digital interconnection that we’ve got in the world, that we’ve been shifted into, and will that continue? So I guess what we’ve seen in this whole process, Suren is, it helps us embrace a whole bunch of alternative plausible futures around some dimensions from the PESTLE ones. So this is just kind of an initial, fun one. But if we did this seriously, we’d spend a bit more time to kind of plot i out. But the important thing to do, so the call to action really then is for you in your own entity as an organization, as a company, as an agency of government, is to say what are those? But what would we do? So the, what is it as we would see something emerging, gee, are we starting to see this happen? What’s our response? And having planned that, then it reduces our anxiety levels. So we move out of reactivity to reflect a response. Okay, we thought that might occur. Let’s start to be able to do this.
Suren Pather:
And the great thing with your surveys, Malcolm, is that you’re gathering industry data. That industry data is very valuable because it, as we said before, different companies and different industries will be affected differently. So by having the industry data we can use it for specific companies that need assistance as to how you deal with your competitors, how you deal with that industry and can make a big difference, by looking at the different scenarios in your particular industry.
Malcolm Dunn:
So I think this is a good example of quantum thinking. So the broader outside in in perspective. But we’ve also got the thing that we try and do, which is around quantum mindfulness is how do we drop into a space where we can really be able to say we can process this, we can think about it through some stillness. We can start to reflect on it. Cause at the moment if we stuck in crisis mode, we just continuing to firefight all the time and that becomes a habit of busy-ness rather than doing the right thing. So that shift to be able to have that perspective is what we would call quantum mindfulness. But the next part of that is we believe that if we want to architect this, we’re going to need a different type of leader who’s got a global perspective, who’s got , an understanding of the interdependencies, who’s willing to collaborate, where it’s leadership, not just alpha leaders, alpha dogs. So how is it we get that? So we start to get sustainable solutions. If not, we’ll go back to the fortresses and the King. So what does that look like? So the other part that we would do beyond the quantum thinking, which is understanding it, the quantum mindfulness, which is the ability to take it into the marketplace, but also what is the kind of different leadership that we need to have collectively to be able to get this outcome we’re looking for.
Suren Pather:
I think if you look at the great leaders of the past, the reason that they’ve left such great legacies is because they have thought about, beyond themselves, beyond their nations on a much greater scale. The bigger the thinking, the greater the legacy has been left behind. So that’s what I guess we ideally want to achieve is to have these quantum thinkers that can think on a large scale, take into account all these factors, right? Looking at all the scenarios and then making the best decisions.
Malcolm Dunn:
So I guess to the people out there who find this interesting, we would really love to meet you. So it’s probably only 15, 20% of all the organizations are going to be able to embrace this and adapt. But we really appeal to you because you’re going to be the pacesetters to be able to shape a different future for yourselves.
Malcolm Dunn:
What we will do is Suren and I and some of our other faculty would give you a half hour dialogue, a discussion around it to understand your situation. Great if you have also done the surveys and you spread it in your organization. So we’ve got some quantitative data compared to the others in your industry and global. You have to bring in some delicious different DNA into the process. And then take you through something like this for yourselves so that you don’t get blindsided. So you’ve future-proofed yourself. There is not a strategic plan for this. It’s a process, a strategic process, execution, change management is what it’s about. But it’s about being adaptive and being flexible. And how do you do that? If you’ve already made up your mind, then you’re looking for the evidence for that. But how is it that we able to work with something that’s going to be emergent?
Suren Pather:
I think it’s also worth sharing some of our great team members from all over the world and the diversity of knowledge in house. That’s important to take an international perspective, a different perspective of different thinking. You may want to share some of those key team members.
Malcolm Dunn:
Yes. And thank you for that Suren. So if we look at this, you know what we’re doing in our Australasia part of the world is, a little bit, Gee, we’ve been protected, thank goodness for that. But from the economic part of it, there’s still a significant fallout, but we know in a globally connected world, the North America, Europe, Southeast Asia is all going to be critical. And we’ve got some great people in all those locations who are working with us and have the same mindset around, we need to have coherent international solutions. Not to say we’ve got to get straight there, understand we’re in a crisis. We need to fix that. No good blue sky in a crisis, but we need to know that where we’re heading because otherwise we could be painting ourselves into that proverbial corner and actually reducing the opportunity to do a rampant nationalism. We know is going to create an emotional barrier to wanting to share wealth. Knowledge, might be a stage for some organizations, but what would be great is to start to say, what are the things we could consciously architect to be able to have a better global future without having to have an attack of the aliens that brings us all together. What are the things that we do? So what’s the next generation from a economic collaboration, from a health collaboration moving forward and what’s the right forum for it? But what’s the right mindset of the people that come to the forum?
Suren Pather:
And I think critically, you mentioned about the future. I mean the future is with the next generation of children. The last thing we want to do is have all this monetary printing and debt fall upon the next generation. All we’d be doing is passing the buck and imposing the burden upon the next generation. How do we resolve it now? So there’s a better balance, and look after everyone longterm.
Malcolm Dunn:
Yes, and Suren hearing some of your ideas on that, which we’ll be able to share in the actual thing, some of the solutions, the concept of a reset and what does that look like that’s fair to both parties. But if we have this multi trillion dollar debt as our legacy, then it’s going to be a real challenge cause it is a decade one.
So if you’d like to, engage with Suren and myself or if you;re in a few in different parts of the world, Gerry Bodeker in Southeast Asia, Renee Moorefield in the US or some of our people in Europe, please do contact us and we’ll arrange that initial free half hour consult we call it. But it’s really getting to know you, understand what you would like to achieve, understand whether we can support you in that, and then we’ll take it forward from there. So thank you very much for this. Thank you, Suren.
