K D Adamson challenges our assumptions about geopolitics and society, business, the environment, economics, technology, and ourselves, reframing the future as a value problem that no technology can solve. Sharp, funny and straight-talking on stage, screen, and in print her inspirational performances have been described as a TED talk on steroids, and a Tarantino movie where no one died. A visionary global authority on future sustainable value creation her candid pragmatism and practical commercial acumen guides and influences leaders and organisations across the world. As a ‘hopeful sceptic’ her motto is ‘dubito, ergo sum’ – ‘I doubt, therefore I am.’
Recently, in an exclusive interview with CXO Outlook Magazine, K D shared insights on the role of technology evolving in the next decade, personal source of inspiration, future plans, pearls of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi K D. What drives your passion for challenging the status quo and pushing for sustainable transformation?
The 1960s ad-man Howard Luck Gossage famously said that changing the world was the only fit work for a grown man. I think ‘grown-up’ works better, but the core sentiment remains the same. If you really drill down there are some very big and significant root causes that are producing all sorts of unpleasant symptoms across the world. I guess what drives me is not just the need to address those root causes but the need to remind people that they are capable of doing so.
It concerns me deeply that so many of us have been reduced to disenfranchised consumers of the world around us: that we’ve lost confidence in our agency to conceive of alternative systems and our ability to bring them into being. We need to drive big systemic change which feels increasingly unachievable for too many of us. But what people forget is that ultimately they are the system, and we all make choices each and every day that either support or undermine it. If I can help people to understand what those choices are and how to make them differently then I will have made a meaningful contribution.
How do you see the role of technology evolving in the next decade, and what implications does this have for society?
You have to start with the way that geopolitical shifts are impacting the global technology model, which is predicated on a globalized, unipolar world. Up until now businesses and consumers have been able to be technology-agnostic – it didn’t matter where your tech hardware or software came from as long as it was functional and cost effective. Digitalization has been powered by the idea that the more connected you are, the more data you can access, the more you can optimize and the more cost and friction you can eliminate. But now we’re entering a volatile, multi-polar and highly-contested ‘New Moral Age’, where global trade and technology is being weaponised.
The technology that businesses and individuals use in their daily lives is now a major emerging risk: nation states are waging cyber-wars across the world and companies and people are on the front line. Chat-GPT alone drove a roughly 1300% rise in phishing attacks. What’s really been exposed is our dangerous concentration of dependence on all sorts of invisible technology infrastructure around us – most of which people are unaware of until something like the Crowdstrike outage happens.
So what I call the ‘Age of Optimization’ is over because optimization demands a degree of certainty about the circumstances you’re optimising for, and that certainty is increasingly illusory. By definition optimization means reducing resilience and adaptability, which are now absolute priorities. The implications of this paradigm shift for our individual and nation-state safety and security are enormous and will profoundly affect the way we choose to adopt, regulate and develop technology around the world in the future.
You’ve spoken about the need to move beyond the “techno-optimist narrative.” Can you elaborate on what you mean by this, and how it relates to your work?
A big part of why individuals have lost confidence in their ability to influence the world is this pernicious narrative pushed by what I call ‘Big Future’. They will have you believe that the future will either be saved or destroyed by technology – it’s a bit like when a car salesperson straight away asks you how you’d like to pay: the idea that you might not want to buy the car at all isn’t even entertained. The problem is that, as I’ve just outlined, the future isn’t going to be defined by technology, it’s going to be defined by the profoundly difficult political choices that will be made in response to common global challenges. In this new multi-polar world these responses are likely to diverge significantly, and that will influence how technology develops, not the other way around.
It’s critical that people understand this, because Big Future is relying on us being either too helpless or too lazy to interfere. Because if you believe the future is all about technology and you don’t really understand technology then it’s hard to see what useful part can you play in the future. And if Big Future – who do understand technology – say that they can fix everything if you just leave them alone, then the path of least resistance is to let them get on with it unmolested. But in my experience most people have a nagging suspicion that Big Future is gaslighting them, and one of the great joys of my job is telling people they are absolutely right, and then watching their steely resolve not to be gaslit any longer.
What are some common misconceptions or myths about sustainability and future value creation that you’d like to debunk?
The most vital misconception is that decarbonisation is going to solve our problems. Decarbonisation is just the beginning. I’m fond of saying that the global economic system was a great start-up that is categorically not going to scale, so we need a fundamental recalibration of what we value and how we measure that value. Up until now we’ve just consumed finite resources without any real consideration as to what we do when they become scarce. Today the world’s largest industries burn through around USD7.3 trillion worth of ‘free’ natural capital every year, but once we start forcing businesses and countries to account for that, the impact on the way we live our lives, and the kinds of products and services that are profitable will change significantly.
The World Bank reckons that biodiversity loss could start costing the global economy USD2-3 trillion dollars annually by the end of this decade, which is why large businesses and entities are soon going to have to start reporting their biodiversity-related risks. But whereas every ton of CO2 is identical every square foot of nature is completely unique. That means that these reporting expectations are going to be incompatible with the way business and the global economy works today.
In the future sustainable value is going to be created at the New Value Nexus, where the green, blue and circular economies meet, with ESG and the New Moral Age as accelerators. But getting there will involve a profound reorientation of business, aligning ecosystems and incentivising shared outcomes and value creation. These words are easy to write, but please don’t underestimate the gigantic challenges involved in operationalizing them.
Can you share your thoughts on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in driving sustainable transformation?
I’d like to start by differentiating between the principle of DEI and its often problematic implementation. I think the notion that identifying and solving problems can be optimized by convening a diverse set of information and experience is actually pretty uncontroversial. If it weren’t then ensemble heist movies would not be box office gold, and George Clooney would have a much smaller villa. But what’s really important is cognitive diversity – the presence of different viewpoints that force you to challenge your assumptions, reframe problems or unlock solutions that you wouldn’t ordinarily have considered.
So cognitive diversity can be linked to differences in gender, sexual orientation, race or socio-economic background, but that doesn’t guarantee it. And in corporate settings where we have traditional management by objectives, as opposed to focussing on key results and outcomes, it’s been much easier to have tick-box objectives related to numbers and ratios of different genders, races etc. than actually doing the hard work of engineering cognitively diverse teams and workforces that create demonstrable value by their diversity. So unfortunately the result is that corporations which have historically been infested with singularly unimpressive and unqualified white/indigenous heterosexual men are now populated by a far more inclusive and diverse range of unimpressive and unqualified people.
The real issue we have here is the way corporations and institutions work, and how difficult it is for them to sustainably harness cognitive diversity in pursuit of problem solving and transformation. If you want to argue that they need to get a lot, lot better at that, then you have my sympathy. If however, you want to argue that some human beings are fundamentally more deserving of fairness and dignity than others, you do not.
Is there a particular person you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are?
I’ve been married to my husband Roger for 30 years this summer and I simply would not be doing this if it weren’t for him. He has always been my biggest fan, my most constructive critic and my most trusted friend. I have been exceptionally fortunate to have him in my life, and to have brought up two wonderful daughters together. I suspect the universe sent him to me by way of consolation after saddling me with a couple of truly dreadful parents. If so, it was worth it.
How do you prioritize your own well-being and self-care given the demands of your work?
I’d like to tell you that I am ruthless about taking no meetings before 10am or after 4pm so I can fit in regular tennis lessons, a spot of kickboxing and assembling more interesting textures for my sensory bin; that I manage my stress by regular meditation and deep breathing in a darkened room listening to whale song, and that I always tell my clients that appearances or deadlines have to be flexible in order to accommodate my mental wellbeing. I’d also like to tell you that I travel the world in my own personal zeppelin. Sadly none of that would be true. I wish it was (particularly the zeppelin) and I hugely admire people who manage to prioritise their self-care, but for me it’s a real challenge.
Which is why I’m sitting here writing this at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon to make sure you’ve got it ahead of your deadline and that I have time left on Sunday to do the stuff I need to have ready before I get on the plane to my gig next week.
The reality is that it’s very hard indeed to keep all the balls in the air, and I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I have somehow cracked the code for having it all. Like most other women with husbands, kids, elderly parents-in-law, unco-operative cats etc, the demands are constant. But the upside is that when I’ve had enough of being a futurist, I can go and concentrate on being a Mum for a while, or cook something interesting for Roger, or annoy the cat. The self-care part is definitely a work-in-progress, but I find great satisfaction in doing nice stuff for people I love, and I never miss an opportunity to be by (or in) the ocean.
What’s next for you and your work? Are there any new projects or initiatives that you’re particularly excited about?
Yes. I am in the process of writing a book, so watch this space. I am also keen on investigating the feasibility of the zeppelin…
What advice would you give to individuals looking to make a positive impact in their own industries or communities?
Big Future likes to talk about the ‘technological singularity’ that’s rushing towards us – the point at which superintelligent AI out-evolves us. But what comes next is not a singularity, it is a liminality. A pause or boundary, a threshold of the future where old certainties have been dismantled but what will replace them is still unclear. During liminal periods individuals and organisations have outsized opportunities to create truly meaningful positive change.
The late Czech President Václav Havel once wrote that none of us as an individual can save the world as a whole, but each of us must behave as if it were in our power to do so. We are living in a moment in history when your chances of actually changing the world have never been higher. So my advice to you is to get out there, and grasp the opportunity.