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With the recent #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday, the shift from in-person shopping to online shopping for consumers increased drastically. According to a Business Wire article, in-person shopping at stores on Black Friday in the U.S. alone was down by 52.1% compared to 2019, as many brick-and-mortar businesses even closed for the holiday to promote social distancing and safety during the pandemic. U.S. Cyber Monday sales, however, reached $10.8 billion, according to a PracticalEcommerce article, showcasing the transition to online shopping.
This shift presents new difficulties for companies—brick-and-mortar and online retailers alike. Brick-and-mortar stores must now have more of an online and social media presence to adapt while online retailers have been challenged with adjusting to a sharp increase in online orders, enforcing social distancing in shipment warehouses, and an increase in demand on delivery providers and in shipping costs. Companies that are unable or unwilling to adjust quickly to these new market demands may see the pandemic take a significantly greater toll on their business.
Understanding the importance of this topic to economics, retail, consumer demand, and creative business solutions as business adapt to the pandemic, Prof. Kristin Joyce Tardif, from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, USA, explores how to develop a heightened creativity and help weak economic areas by using technology, the arts, and our unique cultures to ignite economic development in her chapter “The Turbulence of Our Times”, sourced from Developing Creative Economy Through Disruptive Leadership: Emerging Research and Opportunities (IGI Global).
Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change -Rosemary Clark
As turbulence becomes the new normal, organizations will find it necessary to build their organizations’ agility and absorption. Agility being a company’s ability to consistently identify and capture business opportunities at a faster pace than that of their competitors. This agility allows them to relocate resources, including cash and talent, from less promising initiatives into more creative initiatives. Absorption is a complement to agility. Absorption is the ability to build resources, both in talent, cash flow and products/services. Together agility and adsorption allow an organization to adopt and move quickly in turbulent times, and to withstand the punishment of tough times, even if size could hinder their dexterity (Whalen, 2016).
With change being a constant, and with turbulence possibly being the new norm, disruptive creative leadership or self-disruptive leaders will be needed to ignite the creative economy; which will lead to the development of new technologies that enable the building of a sustainable community, quality of life, and a healthy socio-economic society. The case studies at the end of this chapter and through the book highlight self-disruptive leaders who are developing organizations that are disruptive and through heightened creativity, they are igniting economic development that is not only sustainable but is attracting many young professionals from across the U.S. and globally. This, a new model of business through disruptive leadership and the creative economy, is our future.
The future could be determined by seeing the wicked opportunities in turbulence instead of the wicked problems. When addressing those wicked problems, an organization’s agility and absorption may determine their ability to sustain (Whalen, 2016).
Collective societies are on one hand intimately connected to one another via the internet and social media. However, rapidly changing events, and the flood of incorrect information competing with accurate information, significantly influences local communities as well as the global society. Governance will be more difficult in a turbulent changing world. New structures and systems may have to be implemented for success. The management guru Peter Drucker surmised, “Turbulent times can be analyzed, predicted and managed” (Drucker, 1980, pp 45-60), however, leaders who seek stability, will be surprised to learn that stability is not achievable.
In this new modern turbulent world, previous concepts of stability are antiquated. In addition, current management and leadership skills are inadequate. The new unstable, shifting finish line means that leaders will have to change or be outpaced (Volkers & Skeet, 2016). In addition, with the advent of the third stage of singularity adds a new dimension to turbulence associated with the coming Fifth and Sixth Industrial Revolutions, turbulence is the new norm, thus, bringing about the need for leaders to expand from transformational and authenticity to being “Self-Disruptive Leaders”. The future could influence a new enlightenment, focusing on the need for the personal mastery of lifelong learners, who live continually in the fundamental state of leadership as self-disruptive leaders. Such mastery enables leaders to become higher functioning leaders, where divergent decisions can recognize wicked opportunities in the mist of wicked problems.
The New Era of Turbulence
The cause of this turbulence goes beyond singularity and the new industrial revolutions, to new problems that have changed our social norms such as social media. The young are being diagnosed with ADHD and communication disorders. Children with a diagnosis of ADHD are more likely to feel rejected and neglected by other children (Grygield, et al, 2014). This new surge in ADHD is being blamed on screen time and is creating a young society that cannot survive a world that can be full ambiguity. Strong social skills build strong societies. In addition, social media bullying is leading to teen suicide (Grygiel, et al, 2014).
We have become a global society addicted to social media, often checking our phones several times a day. Many only correspond by social media or texting. Mindfulness and listening are becoming non-existent (Treasure, 2017). In his research, Treasure sees listening as a lost art, which not only affects are ability to communicate, but the ability to speak so that others will want to listen. Not only does this influence our ability to handle situations, this impacts our ability to make decisions and develop a heightened creativity needed in a turbulent world (Treasure, 2017). We end up with social media halting one’s ability to listen, communicate, and are isolating people who cannot thrive in a turbulent world, and cannot solve their own problems. A society very much unprepared for the workforce and complex problems ahead of them. Disruptive leaders radically change traditional ways of doing business, but do so with a commitment to really listen. By listening, they know what to challenge and change.
In a world of turbulence, business cannot afford not to hear accurately and listen intently to what others are saying, what the market is saying, and what is happening in the world. Treasure calls this the “The Golden Rules of Sound”, (Treasure, 2011, pp. 112-116). Surviving turbulence is to take responsibility for sound by developing deep knowledge on intensive research, and heightened creativity. Drinking deep of knowledge is how to develop the self-disruptive leader within you. These ambitious leaders push the boundaries. In a world of turbulence where boundaries and past norms mean extinction, these self-disruptive leaders are in small supply. Most disruptive leaders have no problem thinking outside the box, and many actively push the boundaries. Great leaders know when change is needed, they are open-minded, and replace ego with confidence (Furth, 2018).
Ray Williams, in his article “Anti-Intellectualism and the “Dumbing Down” of America found a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. A dismissal of fact, science, art and the humanities; which has been replaced with entertainment, self-righteousness, and ideology. The trend is to ignore facts and be deliberately gullible (Williams, 2014). This transcends political parties and the modern media, where journalism is now opinion shows, not based on facts but someone’s ideology and opinion. This blind ambition coupled with ego is the result of the unrelenting drive to get what they want, even if it sacrifices their own ethical conduct (Furth, 2018); the results are the lowest ratings the media has ever suffered, and the loss of respect from the American people.
However, the result of this unethical behavior and goal of high profits has created the need to be constantly entertained, and a fascination with celebrities. This need to be constantly entertained has eliminated our mindfulness and created the rise of the “Idiot American” (Williams, 2014). Our new social norms may be eliminating our ability to innovate and be creative at a time it is needed most to thrive in a new and turbulent world. In addition, Mark Bauerlein, in his book, “The Dumbest Generation” reveals how an entire new generation is being dumbed down by their aversion to reading anything of substance and their addiction to digital media and social media. He warns that this will affect the democracy and culture of America (Bauerlein, 2009). According to the recent report by the National Endowment of the Arts most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums or vote (2019). In a turbulent world where changes are happening constantly, we are challenged as never before. Our young need to develop skills that come from literature, art and history. Civics is no longer taught in our schools, and our young do not understand how our own government works. Most are concerned with having the latest fashion or gadget.
This not only effects the new workforce, and overall society, but individual growth. The Japanese are stressing Kakeibo, which is a manual way of tracking one’s finances. Kakeibi revolves around four key questions:
- How much money do you have available?
- How much do you want to save?
- How much money are you spending?
- How can you improve?
The concept is credited to Hani Makoto, the first female journalist in Japan, who published one of the first magazines targeted at the homemaker audience in Japan. The total concept is based on mindfulness, and by tracking your money manually, you are more likely to achieve them. You are more focused! In addition, you are building your individual absorption, which will increase your agility. This helps the individual thrive in the age of turbulence (Freeman, 2020). When one has the freedom that absorption and agility gives, they are on the path to heightened creativity and disruption.
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Understanding the need for research around this topic, this research is featured in the publication Developing Creative Economy Through Disruptive Leadership: Emerging Research and Opportunities (IGI Global). This title is a collection of innovative research that explores strategies for reinventing and rebuilding creative economies. While highlighting topics such as entrepreneurism, social media, and branding, the research within this book is based on the interviews and analysis of fifteen state agencies that are a mixture of rural, semi-urban, and urban, and are all quite different in culture and diversity. This publication is ideally designed for community leaders, government officials, policymakers, entrepreneurs, educators, researchers, academicians, and students.
It is currently available in print and electronic format (ISBN: 9781799834168, EISBN: 9781799834182) through IGI Global’s Online Bookstore at a 20% discount. Additionally, to ensure that the research community can easily and affordably access this content, this publication and all IGI Global titles are available on the individual article and chapter level (pay-per-view) for US$ 37.50 through IGI Global's InfoSci-Ondemand. Recommend this publication and view all of the chapters featured in this title on the book webpage here. Additionally, this research and IGI Global’s full list of related titles is featured in the InfoSci-Books database. Request a free trial or recommend the InfoSci-Books database to your library to have access to this critical research.
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