October 18th, 2020 by

Ten lessons for a post-pandemic world: must-read book by Fareed Zakaria

Covid-19 is the great ACCELERATOR

I’ve been reading Fareed’s book and there are some real morsels here, shared below!

“Still others argue that the pandemic will not reshape history so much as accelerate it. This last scenario seems the most likely outcome. Lenin is supposed to have once said, “There are decades when nothing happens, and then there are weeks when decades happen.” The post-pandemic world is going to be, in many aspects, a sped-up version of the world we knew. But when you put life on fast-forward, events no longer proceed naturally, and the consequences can be disruptive, even deadly”

Read my related post on ‘the great transformation’

FROM: Zakaria, Fareed (2020-10-05T23:58:59). Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World Kindle Edition.

Might our era’s pandemic provoke a spirit of societal introspection?

For example, noble landlords in Eastern Europe used the misery and chaos to tighten their hold and impose serfdom for the first time. Beyond these material effects, the plague prompted an intellectual revolution. Many fourteenth-century Europeans asked why God would allow this hell on earth and questioned entrenched hierarchies—which had the ultimate effect of helping Europe break out of its medieval malaise and setting in motion the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. From death and horror came science, modernity, and growth. With Covid-19, thankfully, we do not face the same mass mortality. But an equivalent shock to our complacency?

FROM: Zakaria, Fareed (2020-10-05T23:58:59). Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World Kindle Edition.

Read my latest Forbes piece on ‘what I learned during the crisis’

“By some measures, the economic damage from this pandemic already rivals that of the Great Depression. The political consequences will play out over the coming years in different ways in different countries. The social and psychological consequences—fear, isolation, purposelessness—might endure even longer. Covid-19 is having deep and lasting effects on each of us, repercussions we cannot yet fully grasp”

Watch my Covid19 short film

FROM: Zakaria, Fareed (2020-10-05T23:58:59). Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World Kindle Edition.

Author: Gerd Leonhard

In the words of American poet John Berryman, “the possibility that has been overlooked is the future”. Most of us are far too busy coping with present challenges to explore the future in any depth – and when we do our own cravings and fears often run away with us, resulting in utopias or dystopias that are not very helpful in terms of planning and decisions. Today’s professionals, leaders and their organisations need a dedicated, passionate long-term understanding of the future if they are to successfully navigate the exponential waves of change. For countless individuals and organizations that intelligence is called Gerd Leonhard.

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