Green Rush

The the economy is dead - long live the eco-nomy.

I have been writing for years about the great transition, how society is shifting to a new level, moving from the industrial era to the next one - whatever it is.

Well it is seriously starting to take shape and the shoots that we are seeing are definitely green.  The new era will be the “digital/green era”.

On the 15th of October I am going to be taking about this subject at the “Leading the Sustainability Journey” event in London.  Historically the “Green” movement has been rather opposed to the idea of leadership. Green has been constitutionally anti hierarchical.

To some extent this has created a shortage of leadership, which has slowed the movements progress.  However, all of that is changing now with a new non-hierarchical approach to leadership emerging.

The new idea of leadership is that it can be distributed, emergent, dynamic and ubiquitous.  Meaning that everyone can lead, in the moment, where their skills, ability, location or experience makes them the right leader.  The new concept of leadership will see it flowing from person to person, in a team, community, or society, depending not on title or appointment, but on relevance.

Integral to this shifting concept of individual leadership is a shifting concept of market leadership and relevance.  What is disappearing is the idea of monolithic market leaders, incumbent for a generation.  What is replacing them are more dynamic micro markets, where market leaders are defined by their relevance in the moment and players will have to innovate ceaselessly to maintain relevance.

Google looks like a monolithic market leader of old, but the span of leadership these days is measured in years, not decades.  Google celebrated it’s 11th birthday last week, and they will have to remain hyper innovative and go green to remain relevant. The competition is just a click away.

Look at the car industry.  Only a few years ago analysts were predicting consolidation to five car makers in Europe.  However the coming electric car boom, with it’s massively lower tooling costs, is enabling automotive, start ups, to a level not seen for 100 years.

Tesla, Better Place, Fisker, Think City, Lightning GT, REVA, RiverSimple, Zenn, Aptera, Tango, Zapp, Bee Automotive, are a few of the new generation of car makers, set to change not just the nature of cars, but the nature of car makers.

Of course these green shoots, of the new distributed generation, are not just in the car industry. The combined dynamics of the internet and the sustainability imperative are shifting power from centralised and large, to distributed and small.  Energy, entertainment, media and automotive are a few examples of old monolithic industries in the process of dis-integration towards a more sustainable model.

Success in the next generation of business will belong to the agile, the innovative and the green.  It will belong to those prepared to lead, to step up, to challenge the orthodoxy and create a sustainable society along the way.

To contribute to this process, this week I am launching a new series of podcast conversations available from my website and to download to your ipod.  I am fortunate to regularly meet inspiring business people. Many times I have come away from a particularly inspiring conversation thinking “that should have been recorded”.  Well now I am going to, and will podcast the results for you to hear.