Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. CI Business Brief Book Review Column

 Looking ahead with cautious optimism to holiday reading, Niall Ferguson’s new book Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe certainly deserves a space in the suitcase, despite its dark cloud of a title.  Darting across human history and experience, Ferguson explores natural and man made catastrophes, unpacking the factors that led to their deadly impact.  Written in late 2020 Doom provides a valuable addition to our thinking around disasters and crises, considering how policies, politics, management and human behaviour all play defining roles in how events unfold.  In Ferguson’s own words, “all disasters are at some level man-made political disasters, even if they originate with new pathogens”.

 

Networks and systems are recurring themes throughout Ferguson’s previous books and it is a subject he returns to in Doom, demonstrating how pandemics are likely to become more frequent as urbanization , agriculture and globalization all increase.   Ferguson also considers how throughout history medicine has more often than not being playing catch-up with disease, often falling back on non-pharmaceutical interventions such as the Habsburg’s plague ‘sanitary cordon’ with the Ottoman Empire, described in 1835 by English traveler Alexander Kinglake;

 

“If you dare to break the law of the quarantine, you will be tried with military haste; the court will scream out your sentence to you from a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest..will console you at dueling distance, and after that you will find yourself carefully shot…”

 

Variations on this approach were the primary ways of slowing the spread of infection until the Asian flu epidemic of 1957, which the USA combatted not through quarantines and closures, but through the speedy vaccination response lead by Maurice Hilleman.  Ferguson suggest that this was enabled in large part by the Cold War culture of the time, allowing Hilleman to bypass ‘the bureaucratic red tape’, leading to mass vaccinations starting in the US just three months after the first cases were reported.

 

Throughout Doom Ferguson returns to the roles played by leaders and governments in preparing for and responding to disasters.  Ferguson posits that leaders should be seen as ‘hubs’ in large complex networks, rather than all-seeing masters perched atop hierarchies;  

 

“If they are well connected to the political class, the bureaucracy, the media and the wider public…they can be effective leaders.  To be isolated within the structure of power is to be doomed to impotence, no matter how grand one’s title.”  

 

By this logic, whilst leaders are important they are just part of a complex system of economic, social and political relationships.  But if the buck doesn’t stop at the top where does responsibility actually lie? 

Ferguson suggests we look for ‘active’ and ‘latent’ errors when analysing the anatomy of a disaster.  Active errors are generally at the ‘sharp end’ with frontline staff and are skills, rules and knowledge based.  Latent errors reside at the ‘blunt end’ (most often with middle management) and are caused by the reallocation of resources, the change in scope of a position or adjustment of staff on particular tasks.  The sinking of the Titanic is held up as a disaster that combined both active and latent errors, while the Challenger space shuttle explosion was caused primarily by latent errors behind the scenes.

 

Doom’s final chapters look at the likely outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Ferguson strays into more political waters here and some may contest the predictions he sets out for the future, particularly around the possible economic impact and developing Cold War II with China.  Ferguson’s broader conclusion that ‘our plague is likely to have the biggest disruptive impacts on places where progress has already ceased and stagnation set in’ rings true, though.  

 

Whilst perhaps not initially the most enticing sun-bed companion, Doom is a remarkably engaging and entertaining read.  Drawing on an eclectic range of examples and sources, from Peter Cook to Pol Pot, Ferguson places our current situation within a clear historical context and sets out the challenges we must address if we are to avoid a future mimicking Dad’s Army’s Private Frazer.  A timely study that will help ensure we (aren’t) all doomed.

Doughnut Economics: CI Business Brief Book Review Column

Originally published in 2017, Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics has gained fresh relevance as we seek new ways to address challenges in a world unimaginable five short years ago.  This interesting, engaging and thought-provoking book appeals for us to adopt a broader way of thinking, both within economics and throughout our lives as a whole.  As the book’s subtitle, Seven Ways to Think Like a 21^st-Century Economist suggests, Doughnut Economics doesn’t assume an in-depth prior knowledge of economic theory.  Rather it sets out to make clear the all-encompassing influence of economics on our lives.  In Raworth’s words, ‘economics is the mother tongue of public policy, the language of public life and the mindset that shapes society’.

Raworth is a firm believer in the power of pictures to convey a message and Doughnut Economics is replete with diagrams and images that help unpack some of the more complex concepts.  Central to this is Raworth’s own creation, The Doughnut, establishing a social foundation of well-being that no one should fall below and an ecological ceiling of planetary pressure we should not go beyond; ‘a world in which every person can lead their life with dignity, opportunity and community – and where we can all do so within the means of our life-giving planet’.

 

In many ways the Doughnut model echoes Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, identifying a set of basic requirements for individuals to have the opportunity of engaged and meaningful lives.  However, while Maslow’s hierarchy had a clear upward progression, Raworth sets out a circular system where the varying factors interact with each other to influence the overall outcome.  A second key difference is the ecological parameters with which Raworth borders the Doughnut with, linked to the nine control factors set out by Earth-system scientists Johan Rockstrom and Will Steffen in 2015.  No longer can we single-mindedly pursue the self-actualisation proposed by Maslow without reference to the environment that supports us.

 

Having established the Doughnut model Raworth moves on to consider seven key economic and social concepts that she believes need to be addressed if a fairer and more sustainable economic model is to evolve.  This is primarily a question of reframing and expanding current thinking to include considerations beyond the drive for economic growth that has dominated neo-liberal thinking for the past fifty years.  Raworth argues that we need to move beyond the definition of man as ‘Home Economicus’, driven by rational self-interest, quoting Adam Smith himself to point out that people flourish when we display ‘our humanity, justice, generosity and public spirit’.

 

Raworth calls for us to become agnostic about growth, putting forward a conundrum that is at the heart of this book, no country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy: no country has ever ended ecological degradation without one.  This is acerbated by the fact that we may be nearing the end of exponential economic growth.  Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, stated in 2016 that many Western economies appear to be trapped in a “low-growth, low inflation, low interest rate equilibrium.”  The key questions now are how our societies will manage the distribution of limited assets if growth really is plateauing and whether that plateau will be within an environmental window that the Earth can sustain. 

 

The answers Raworth offers don’t make comfortable reading and are certain to provoke debate. Shortened working weeks, planned economies and guaranteed universal incomes hark back to a level of state involvement in the markets not seen since the 1970s.  But, as Raworth points out, economics ‘is not a matter of discovering laws: it is essentially a question of design’.  Whether there is sufficient political will to embrace wide-ranging change is an open question.  As Raworth concedes, Upton Sinclair had a point when he commented that ‘it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it’.  

 

Doughnut Economics offers an invaluable insight into the cultural and historical basis of many of the economic assumptions that underpin our society and sets out pressing questions to address.  As Raworth points out, ‘now is a great moment for unlearning and relearning the fundamentals of economics.’  

Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity. CI Business Brief Book Review Column

There is a palpable sense of anticipation building as pandemic restrictions ease, vaccination passports are discussed and travel-traffic light systems prepared.  Like an impatient toddler unwillingly strapped into a car seat on a long tedious journey, the temptation to whine ‘are we are there yet’ is a hard one to dismiss.  A sense of pent up energy suffuses Scott Galloway’s Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity.  Written in September 2020 Post Corona is well-positioned to draw lessons from the pandemic to-date and to offer observations as to what may come next.   

At the heart of Post Corona is Galloway’s assertion that the virus has acted as a super-charged accelerant across all social, political and economic trends, fast-forwarding them ahead by at least ten years.  As Galloway pithily puts it ‘even if your firm isn’t there yet, consumer behaviour and the market now rests on the 2030 point on the trend line – positive or negative’.  The U.S. ecommerce penetration figures presented by Galloway drive this point home.  Having grown 1% per annum since 2000 ecommerce penetration jumped from 16% to 27% during the first eight weeks of the pandemic, a decade’s growth in two months.  It’s possible that this trend will reverse, but the advantage clearly lies with those companies who have strong and engaging online presences.

 

As a tech’ entrepreneur and Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Galloway presents an informed account as to how the Big Four (Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google) stand to solidify their market dominance in the post-Covid world.  For those looking to emulate their success Galloway offers the T Algorithm, breaking down the key traits he feels most companies capable of a trillion-dollar valuation have.  Some, such as ‘appealing to human instinct’ or ‘balancing growth and margins’ are already familiar.  Others, like ‘vertical integration’ and ‘Benjamin Button products’ (products that get more, rather than less, valuable to users over time) are predominately online features that look set to become common place in the post-Covid world.

 

Galloway also offers useful techniques for identifying sectors that are ripe for disruption.  His Disreputability Index, ‘a dramatic increase in price with no accompanying increase in value or innovation’ should be kept in the back pocket of every investor or start-up founder.  Two sectors in particular, education and health, are identified as being ripe for disruption.  While there is undoubtably still a need for in-person discussion and collaboration the rapid channel shift enforced by lockdown has demonstrated the potential for the digital delivery of tuition, particularly in higher education.  Galloway foresees a world where universities act as online platforms for top international lecturers, dramatically increasing the scalability of and access to first rate education.  

 

Similarly, radical plans are envisioned for health.  Imagine a world where your health care (and health insurance) requirements are managed via Amazon Prime, with the site using its immense data resources to connect customers to the most appropriate physicians, with prescriptions delivered to the door.  Perhaps most challenging is Galloway’s prediction that medics will deliver their services though a medical version of Amazon’s Marketplace, with a percentage of their revenues being paid to ‘Prime Health’.  

 

The world mapped out in Post Corona is one that risks total dominance by the Big Four.  Galloway concludes his book by considering how monopolies can be effectively challenged in a marketplace that rewards vertical integration and how governments can better support the creation of a new ‘commonwealth’ for their communities.  Central to this is Galloway’s argument that consumers are inherently fast thinkers, with little appetite for contemplating the long-term implications of their actions.  We need governments to do the ‘slow thinking’ and counterbalance the coercive law of competitive capitalism. 

 

Post Corona is an energetic and engaging first draft of what may come next.  Closer in tone to a long blog post than an academic business book its mix of insightful observations and provocative ideas are helpful in preparing the ground as we hopefully near the end of the critical phase of the pandemic and move into the post pandemic world.

 

 

Working During a Pandemic: CI Business Brief Book Review Column

 “There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.”

 

I’ve kept in a corner of my office the white board we were using to plan library services in the days running up to Jersey’s first lockdown on the 23 March.  The mess of scribbled notes charts what was a chaotic and unsettling time for everyone, as national and local developments relentlessly tugged away long held assumptions.  The quote at the head of this column has been variously attributed to Saint Peter, Karl Marx and Lenin, all of whom were reinventing (for better or worse) the world in which they lived.  In our own way we are all now working in uncharted territory.  The definitive guide to managing and leading during a 21^st century pandemic has yet to be published.  Instead events have prompted us to read more widely and deeply than ever as we seek to find answers to immediate problems and carve out a sense of what the ‘new normal’ could be.  

 

We have all had to rapidly adjust to a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, as described by Rob Elkington et al, in their book VUCA, Visionary Leadership in a Turbulent World. 

The pandemic has provoked an encompassing and rolling change management process since early March 2020.  Comfort zones have been completely swept away, with operating rules often changing by the day as we adapt to new public health guidelines and changing customer demand.  It should perhaps be unsurprising that books like John Kay and Mervyn King’s Radical Uncertainty have been a constant fixture in the bestseller lists. 

 

One change that may well have wide-ranging consequences that out last the pandemic is the number of people who are now working from home.  This sudden change to working arrangement gave rise to a number of challenges that are addressed by Penny Pullan in her 2016 book, Virtual Leadership: Practical Strategies for Getting the Best Out of Virtual Work and Virtual Teams.  Pullan sets out practical approaches to leadership, motivation, virtual meetings and team building.  While technology has outpaced some of the tools Pullan recommends, the basic principles and practices are as relevant as ever as we work to keep teams ‘together’ and focused.

 

Grace Paul’s The Ultimate Guide to Working From Home offers a compact primer for those who may still be getting to grips with home working.  With chapters titled ‘What to do when you’re having a bad day’ and ‘How to stay sane’ alongside ‘What technology will you need’ this is a readily accessible book that can be dipped into for advice.  Paul includes a short chapter on working from home with children, a subject expanded on in The Book You Read to Teach Your Children: 8 Ways to Keep Learning at Home Fun by Katie Tollitt.  Practical and judgement free this indispensable book offers helpful insight into the learning process and useful tips for engaging activities for young people

 

With the rapid rollout of vaccination programmes and the publishing of ‘reconnection roadmaps’ there is a sense in the air that the pandemic is coming to an end.  The question now is very much ‘what comes next’?  In many ways the economy and the way we work has changed irrevocably over the past year.  While it could be suggested that previous pandemics such as the Spanish and Asian Flu pandemics had little long-term impact on our societies, we are in a very different place socially and technologically now than we were in the 1920s or ‘60s.  The conversation of how we build-back a more cohesive society that can better accommodate new developments, like the move to home working, alongside the pre-existing challenges of automisation, AI and climate change, is already happening in books such as Post Corona:  From Crisis to Opportunity by Scott Galloway and Post-Pandemic: 12 Lessons in Crisis Management by Jonathan McMahon.  The reading list for 2021 is incomprehensibly different to that which we expected in 2020; a year spent at home as decades went spinning past. 

 

Women Leaders. CI Business Brief Book Review Column

The inauguration of Joe Biden will be memorable for numerous reasons. The National Guard troops sleeping in the corridors of the Capitol building.  The Field of Flags mournfully taking the place of the crowd that in pre-Covid times would have filled the National Mall.  The embittered, forthright speech given by the outgoing 45^th president to a sparse crowd at Andrews airbase.  Less dramatic but potentially most important were the shades of purple worn by many of the women standing on the inaugural platform.  Seen by some as a nod towards a desired consensus between the blue of the Democrats and the red of the Republicans, purple was also a colour adopted by the Suffragettes at the turn of the last century.  The swearing in of Kamala Harris as the first female, and the first black and Asian American, vice-president bought the 125-year struggle for ‘deeds not words’ closer.

There is still far to go before we reach true equality of representation, though.  Most of the people on the inaugural platform were men.  How do we get more women on the platform?  With that question in mind I asked Jersey’s Women in Tech network which books had influenced their work and careers.  One title received overwhelming recommendations, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg.  Expanding the observations put forward by the Facebook COO in her seminal 2010 Ted Talk Lean In explores the factors that keep women from progressing to the tops of companies.  Sandberg urges women to examine how work is balanced in their homes, to avoid psychologically ‘leaving’ the workplace before starting families and to ensure they always ‘sit at the table’.  Dawn Foster’s Lean Out provides an interesting riposte to Sandberg’s arguments, suggesting that they encourage women to adapt to suit the prevailing patriarchal corporate power structures.  Whilst they come from different perspectives both books ask important questions of modern workplaces.

One core issue that seems undeniable, though, is the question of confidence.  A number of research reports over the past ten years have suggested that women are far less likely to apply for a job if they don’t feel they meet the job specification compared to men.  In terms of organisational performance this may not be a bad thing and potentially explains why the Peter Principle is named after a man.  But, as Sandberg suggests, a deficit of confidence is keeping some women from asserting the place they merit at the top table.  Katty Kay and Claire Shipman explore this in more detail in The Confidence Code, while The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane uses stories, science and practical tools to unpack how charisma and confidence work.  

Aside from understanding corporate power structures and the psychology influences the ways in which we work, it is also often helpful to look to those who have blazed a trail before us.  Michelle Mone’s My Fight to the Top, Deborah Meaden’s Common Sense Rules and Jo Malone’s My Story all offer useful insights from UK entrepreneurs who have led their companies to great success.  Business As Unusual by The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick gives an engaging account of the creation and rise of an early social enterprise, while Emily Chang’s interviews with Silicon Valley insiders in Brotopia gives a more contemporary look at the challenges faced by women working in America’s tech’ industry.  

One final memory will stay with me from inauguration day; Amanda Gorman, the Youth Poet Laureate, reading her poem The Hill We Climb.  Delivered with quiet poise and confidence, Gorman’s words echoed those delivered by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s in his famous ‘all we need fear is fear itself’ speech given 87 years ago.  Gorman’s poem delivered the hope, honesty and vision we should expect from all our leaders and gave a hint that we may be moving towards a more purple future;

“For there is always light,

If only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.”