Something was bubbling in our economy, our lives, our work, before the COVID pandemic made a global impact. It was already there when businesses shuttered, already challenging our human connections and normalizing social distance. In fact, it enabled much of our response to the viral waves that have inundated us in recent years.
We had already passed through the transformative threshold and wait on the other side, with the door still wide open behind us, in awe of what lay before us. Early on, when we started to say, “when things get back to normal…” and later, “the new normal”, we were already there, without full acceptance of the matter. What had been normal was behind us, on the other side, and we weren’t looking back.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
To understand the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a brief history lesson. The Industrial Revolution was a massive cultural shift, starting in the late 18th century. Enabled by steam-powered machines, human effort moved from agriculture to industry. This marked a major change, not just in how we worked and what could be produced, but where we lived, how we socialized and more. It brought us together into cities and shifted us farther from barter systems and close ties to our families and neighbors. Products could be shipped, and received goods from great distances and we became specialized with dependence on a broader market.
The Second Revolution took it up a notch with electric power, factories and synthetic materials. We automated those factories in the third, digital revolution throughout the late 20th century, as a global economy emerged. In each successive round, we traded the physical and emotional closeness of community for efficiency and scale, and the proximate trust inherent to all preceding human history started to decay.
We’re now squarely in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, distinguished from the prior three by the sheer velocity of change. The scope of this transformation extends to almost every industry, and digitization is having a profound impact on our societal systems, in production, management and governance. Driven by artificial intelligence and hyperscalability, this transformation was largely enabled by saturation of technology, namely mobile devices, and the global access to unprecedented processing power and connectivity.
Culture Lag and the New Normal
Technological advancements are innately disruptive, remaining steps ahead of our needs, creating new opportunities and challenges as they emerge. Most notably, cultural lag, the time it takes for behavior to catch up with revolutionary innovation, often creates conflict, as new social problems arise during major changes. This has been true in each of the industrial revolutions, that have driven significant cultural revolutions including emancipation and women’s rights.
Not surprisingly, as the Fourth Industrial Revolution unfolds, we’re seeing cultural upheaval. Nearly everyone has developed some level of dependency on smart devices and digital connectivity, and our individual lives and the way we interact with each other has changed.
Whether we focus on the Great Resignation and changing demands from the workforce, political polarization, globalized financial markets, or any number of hot topics today, we can see the imprint of digital transformation on our culture. Likewise, it doesn’t matter what side you’re on, the scope and scale of change in our lives due to digital technology is undeniable.
Change Management: The Path Forward
The more we acknowledge the interdependence between technology and the human condition, the more effectively we can foster people to lead and adopt change in our work systems. Even as the pace of change increases, people, and their behaviors are the key to implementing change in our organizations.
Herein lies the magic of change management. Your organization doesn’t function in a vacuum, nor do your people live in one. Even a seemingly straightforward change may elicit resistance, because the humans within them are not simple. Nimblitz can help you recognize, embrace, and weave these pieces together, facilitating individual change management projects and comprehensive culture change efforts fit for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.