The value of the hardships of 2020-2021

My parents lived through the Great Depression, and it left a permanent mark on them. Fifty years after the end of the Great Depression, they would still refer to the hardships of 1929 to 1939 multiple times a week.

My wife and I are blessed to have eight grandchildren and they all have now gone through COVID-19, and it will leave a permanent mark on them. I wonder if 50 years from now if they will be referring to the hardships of 2020-2021.

As I ponder this question, I realize the periods of 1929-1939 and 2020-2021 are extremely different. From 1929 to 1939 the world stopped. In fact, if you look at life and business of 1929 you see very little difference between 1929 and 1939. It is as if the world was petrified, and nothing changed for 10 years.

To the contrary, the two years 2020 and 2021 were two years of massive acceleration and learning. The stay-at-home order, the closing of schools and offices, the acceleration of digital shopping and the shortages of everyday products because of broken supply chains were beyond belief. Contrary to the Great Depression of no change, the two years of 2020-2021 were years of accelerated change. So, I believe that 50 years from now, my grandchildren will refer to the hardships of 2020-2021.

Let us assume that some of my grandchildren 50 years from now are involved in business. What do I think they will believe was the most significant aspect of change in 2020-2021? Will it be adaptability, resilience, optionality or something else? I believe it will be something else.

I believe the most significant aspect of change in 2020-2021 will be how we think about the future. Before 2020 we thought about the future as an extension of the past. But, after 2020 we look to the future as different from the past.

Between 2020 and 2021 we had a decade of change between the past and the future. Major disruptions occurred at an ever-increasing pace in every aspect of life and business. We learned that the future was not an extension of the past, but a new paradigm based upon the disruptions of today. A key learning was to think deep, to contemplate the disruptions of the day and to gain insight into the future by really understanding impacts from the disruptions of today.

I believe the greatest impact on the future of 2020-2021 will be the importance of gaining insight about the future by studying disruptions of today. Interestingly, today, we can begin applying insight to gain competitive advantage over our competition. Just as my grandchildren, we have learned the importance of insight and now can apply this lesson to business today.

Jim Tompkins of Tompkins Ventures is an international authority on designing and implementing end-to-end supply chains. He is a serial entrepreneur who has started several businesses; worked with private equity; designed many industrial facilities and automated materials handling systems; implemented many supply chain information technology solutions and worked to enhance the performance of many 3PLs and 3PL clients. He can be reached at [email protected].

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