In 1970, futurist Alvin Toffler coined term “future shock.” It occurs when the future arrives too quickly for people and organizations to adapt to it. Consequently, they get out of sync with the onrushing change in their environments, leading to maladaptive behaviors such as:
• Crisis-Driven Decision-Making – Reactive rather than proactive approaches to industry disruption (e.g., panic layoffs, rushed technology investments).
• Over-Centralization & Micromanagement – Leadership tightens control in response to perceived chaos, stifling innovation.
• Resistance to virtual work — A rigid preference for traditional centralized commuter office-based operations, despite clear benefits of decentralization.
• Internal Conflict & Cultural Breakdown – Generational clashes between leadership and younger, more digitally native employees.
Two related major forces of change are affecting knowledge organizations. Both have been building over the past five decades or so and have reached critical inflection points in the past few years, accelerated by public health measures taken in response to the 2020 pandemic.
The first is advances in information and communications technology (ICT) that has decentralized knowledge work out of commute-in offices in metro areas. Microcomputers and personal communication devices like smartphones allow knowledge work – researching, reviewing, analyzing and communicating information to arrive at decisions on how to use it – to be done most anywhere. Beforehand, that required dedicated office space and meeting rooms — and staff to commute to and from them.
The second is housing costs and transportation systems in metro areas. Housing tends to cost more nearer to their centers, increasing demand for more affordable, lower cost housing more distant from them. That in turn boosts demand on transportation systems that could in earlier decades enable knowledge workers to rapidly commute from homes located far from centralized commuter offices but no longer have adequate capacity to do so.
Knowledge organizations can overcome future shock, build resilience and adjust to change that shows no sign of slowing down. This requires them to assess and examine the evidence supporting how they conceptualize how their work is done, how their value proposition and strategic advantages are created and the best means to sustain them.
It takes courage to challenge long held assumptions and thinking. This isn’t an easy task for many knowledge organizations since for many, their foundations are built on a pre-digital era where ICT played a far less prominent role. But the benefits are many, allowing them reduce internal tensions and move forward more confidently and with greater capacity to adapt to the changing world of knowledge work. Help is available.