Disruptions

By Eirikur Eiriksson

Published 2020-05-21

The disturbance of the norm, which in the current pandemic, applies to the disarrangement of our lives as the Earth’s population. Disruptions come and go, they have been here before and they, just as the tax return, will be here again, and similar to Douglas Adam’s impression of deadlines, they will make a whooshing sound when it goes by.

Disruptions can and often will change our lives.  The disruptions may originate in a magma chamber thousands of meters below the Earth’s crust, in the deranged mind of a criminal genius (although mainly in James Bond movies), in a mass coronal ejection of the Sun or the evolution of some of the smallest life forms on the Earth, and evidently, things do not have to be large to pack a punch.

They also come at a different speed, as fast as a racing car or as slowly as the growth of the tree in the front yard. But the speed is not a measure of the impact, it can only serve as an indicator of our reactions, the higher the speed, the more mistakes we will make in our reactions but also, higher speed can surface more opportunities. The slow-growing tree in the front yard, can when brought down by a storm, crashing through the roof, bring the opportunity to add another window in the attic.

We all know that disruptions can bring out the unexpected, and sometimes the best in us. Sometimes out of self-preservation, from adaptation, from innovations and the need for new technologies. As an apple falling from the oak or a bolt of lightning down the kite’s wire, disruptions will trigger ideas and open up new doors.

We at High Skills Partners are working on a series of articles focused on the lessons that can be learned from disruptions. The focus is the opportunities, but not the “told you so”, in other words, there is no focus on mistakes, only lessons, opportunities to adopt different perspectives and to widen our views. We will explore different topics and related opportunities, which may not be obvious at first, some of which are frankly equivalent of holding someone at a gunpoint whilst others are a hidden lifeline in these troubled times.

High Skills Partners’ articles are provided for your interest and do not constitute advice, legal or otherwise. We aim to be informative, thought-provoking and to reflect our experience, whilst striving for accuracy and correctness.
© 2020 High Skills Partners Limited