Shift! – 2

From time to time, it is essential to pause and think back with gratitude for life, for where one is and most importantly, for the grace of God that has brought one this far. Even though God is the Grand Orchestrator of all good things, he uses people at different junctures to project your voice if indeed you have one. This column was birthed after a visit to our church in Ibadan by Lanre Oyetade, the then newly-appointed Business Editor of the newspaper. He was visiting as a guest of a member of his team, Olanrewaju Sulaimon, who is a member of the church and who currently occupies the position of Business Editor. After hearing me speak, Lanre prevailed on me to start this column. That was in January 2007. The column debuted on the third Sunday of that month. Lanre and I were to eventually strike up a great relationship that has seen me becoming one of his valued mentors.

This week marks the 15th unbroken year of writing this column. It has outlived all the other columns that started at the same time it did. Sometimes, I am in awe of the grace of God that has made it possible even when I have had to write the column on the road, on a flight or sometimes in an airport waiting to board a flight.

I am grateful to Dr. Segun Olatunji, MD of the newspaper at the time, whose dedication to and passion about rebranding the Tribune titles was palpably infectious. Creating such a platform for excellence, he made my job very easy. He continues to be one of the most ardent readers of the column every week till date. It would be remiss of me not to express gratitude to successive CEOs of the newspaper who have kept the column as well as to the current Business Editor who is my son in the faith but who I fondly refer to as my “oga at the top”. Thank you all for making this expression possible.

When Malcom Gladwell wrote his 2000 classic, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things can make a Big Difference”, he definitely did not have COVID-19 and its attendant global disruptions at the back of his mind. There is nothing that leads to a tipping point as an idea whose time has come. A tipping point is that moment when an idea that was innocuous and sometimes considered ridiculous or not a la mode suddenly catches on and swells in public acceptance as the next big thing that the world cannot do without.

When he resigned from his position as Vice President of Engineering at Cisco Systems to start the company in 2011, Eric Yuan, a Chinese computer engineer who migrated to the USA in the nineties, might not have been optimistic about the future of his venture because of its novelty. It appeared to be a mere contender with Skype and Apple Duo which were the raves of video conferencing at the time. By 2019, due to its user-friendly capabilities, the App had been used to host online meetings participated in by 40 million people globally. The company went public in 2019 with a market value of $16 billion! The shares were sold at a little under $40 per unit. But the tipping point was not until early 2020 when the world was suddenly struck by COVID-19, a virulent pandemic that brought the whole world to its knees, shutting down whole economies and shattering the illusion of the invincible, endless brick-and-mortar office and function. The consequence of the unrelenting virus on the world was, apart from lockdowns that went on indeterminably, the redefinition of the way we relate with one another. Social distancing became norm. Gatherings became endangering. Offices were shut. Humanity needed to redefine its rules of engagement.

Boom! came ZOOM to the rescue. Suddenly, corporations found that they did not need to be on site to function when they could do so virtually. Workplace realities shifted even as minds followed. Distance was no longer a barrier. COVID may have grounded physical contact but it could no longer stop social interactions. As long as ZOOM was accessible, the world was reconnecting. Economies began opening up again even before lockdowns were lifted. Even after lockdowns were relaxed, the world had moved on and would not fully return to status quo ante. So, while the rest of the world was being justifiably paranoid, ZOOM was growing in leaps and bounds! In less than a year after it went public, the company had almost tripled in value and the app had been downloaded by over 50 million people! Eric Yuan’s worth increased by over 120% in that space of time, the pandemic notwithstanding. According to The Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Yuan’s personal fortune grew to $7.86bn, a rise of $4.29bn (121 per cent) since the preceding year when the company went public. His net worth has been on the meteoric rise since, despite and indeed fueled by the pandemic. Talk about an idea whose time has come! It would not be out of place to say that Eric Yuan saw the future and went ahead to create it!

The trend of the unexpected will continue in the coming years. On-demand movies are taking the place of cinema houses. The end of the dominance of fossil fuels will produce new challenges in various dimensions of human existence. Some products that we thought we could not live without are fast becoming obsolete and being overtaken or replaced by others that come to disrupt the landscape and shake the nest of the dinosaurs. Current behemoths will fall and new ones will emerge.

If there is another company that has benefited immensely from the pandemic, it is Amazon, the online selling giant that continues to redefine shopping and customer satisfaction. A few days ago in Houston Texas, I ordered an item on Amazon. Within two hours of the order, because I am an Amazon Prime subscriber, it was delivered to my door. And I was not charged for shipping!

Welcome to the age of disruption. No thanks to COVID, our world has shifted, permanently. Our comfort nests are being shaken. Our long-held paradigms are being challenged. Many of us are still acting grief-stricken like a child whose toys have been confiscated instead of asking how we can go with the flow. The smart ones are interrogating the status quo, adjusting to and in many cases, creating new realities and redefining the landscape for everyone else.

Are you still wondering what your role is in all of these happenings? Change is happening faster than we seem to have the capacity for catching up. Will you hop on the train and master the art of disruption by learning the art of adaptation or by championing a process of disruption that flies in the face of status quo? The alternative is to have the rhythm of your life helplessly disrupted. It is better to be a stakeholder in creating the future you want to live in than to remain a passive onlooker.

You may be indifferent to the times but allow me to warn that the times are not indifferent to you!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

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