Technology has been advancing at such a rapid pace, as shown by the often-shared tidbit that it only took 66 years from the Wright Brothers’ first flight for humanity to land on the Moon. Furthermore, today’s smartphones are thousands of times more powerful than the computers used to guide the Apollo 11 Moon mission. Such a rapid pace of technological transformation often leaves organizations, which are led by and composed of humans, behind, creating a need for them to catch up to the new reality created by technology.
Nigel J Smart, PhD, founder and president of Smart Pharma Consulting and lean manufacturing expert, says that technological, economic, and social shifts have resulted in the old, stale, and traditional organizational structures becoming mostly ineffective. A serial entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, Smart is a native of the UK but has been based in the US for more than 30 years, giving him a unique perspective on how trends and developments originating in the US spread to the UK and other European countries.
“There’s a saying in the US that ‘as California goes, so goes the nation’, and I’ve seen that it used to take about three years for something to be adopted by the rest of the US, and around five years to cross the Atlantic and reach the UK and Europe,” Smart says. “But, today, due to the internet and other technologies, this process has become much faster. The amount of computational power needed to train large AI models doubles every 100 days or so. With this rapid exponential growth, this means that the linear problem solving we are used to is not going to last much longer.”
Smart adds that, while AI’s capabilities are indeed impressive, with its ability to process much more data than humanly possible, it is not able to fully replace humans’ role in organizations. Humans’ empathy and adaptability set them apart from AI, and this is where organizations need to lean in to create more effective business and operational models. Adaptability is one of the most important qualities individuals and organizations must have in today’s highly competitive, technology-dominated world, as shown by many formerly giant companies being left behind if they fail to adapt and innovate to the changing market landscape.
“A few years ago, I met my friend’s father, who was already 100 years old but still spry and sharp,” Smart says. “I told him it must be amazing to have witnessed so many world-changing historical events, such as the First and Second World Wars, as well as the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the advent of cars, planes, TV, and the internet. I asked him what his secret was, and he looked at me and said: ‘It’s quite simple, Nigel. What you have to do is adapt and embrace everything that comes along. It’s coming and there’s no point in fighting it because it’ll just roll over you like a steamship.'”
This encounter had a major impact on Smart and was pivotal to his ethos of driving adaptability and resiliency for organizations. His consulting and coaching services focus on cultivating a growth mindset and conscious thinking. He applies the VUCA methodology, which stands for Volatile, Uncertainty, Complex, and Ambiguous. The methodology is meant to deal with today’s world, which is massively accelerating in an exponential fashion.
“We are looking at how to go from regular performance to high performance, and how to achieve change on the order of magnitude instead of percentage change,” Smart says. “Growing productivity by 10% or 15% is no longer enough. Venture capital investors are looking at multiples in growth each year, and this is supercharged by AI. If we stay with the antiquated and traditional ways of doing things, then we’ll never get there. Change is not comfortable for most people, and many resist it. I always think back to my friend’s father, whose advice is to embrace change. It’s so powerful for me, and it aligns with the message that I am giving to my consulting clients, helping them adapt to a world that’s changing much faster than most of us can comprehend.”
