The New Operational Environment 2021

This document is designed to introduce you to the New Operational Environment and provide a framework for developing insights about what you can do now to prepare for the decade.

In the 20th century, several important United States civil rights movements achieved impressive victories in remarkably little time. They led to new social norms and legislation that overturned many explicitly discriminatory laws, like policies that prohibited explicit and unambiguous displays of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other types of bigotry.

Pretty much everything about collaboration will change over the next decade, fueled by technological advances, post-pandemic work configurations, growing attention being paid to inclusion and equity, and ongoing pressures for speedy and meaningful innovation.

Granularity of consent asks just how precisely one can unveil or conceal personal fundamentals (whether mind, home, body, or information). It’s a counter to conventional notions of privacy; the historical view of privacy implied that it was all or nothing. Recalling Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead,” personal information was either kept hidden or was revealed to all. Levels of control, if they existed, were blunt instruments prone to breakage; the nosy village gossip is not an unfounded stereotype.

Our understanding of the rules of evidence and what constitutes “truth” has largely been driven by the scientific revolution of the 18th century. Our data, whether used in court, medicine, or scientific research, must be verified, credible, and transparent. But objectivity and reductionism have been shown to be limited and misleading. Moreover, the desire for objectivity has left many types of data unseen or illegible. Domains of power are shaped and generated by the rules, sanctions, and acceptance of certain ways to distinguish true statements from false statements. Regimes of truth are built on and reflect dominant power-knowledges.

Belonging is an individual need that is collectively shared and fulfilled. While we often discuss belonging in terms of feeling, we can best understand three elements of belonging: safety and comfort, emotional connection, and sense-making. We need spaces and places to become and embrace our authentic identities. We need meaningful relationships where we feel seen, heard, and validated by others, and we need avenues to come together for understanding the world.

Humans today have never been so free to define and pursue meaning and purpose in their lives. The past century has seen substantial changes in laws that ensure people are free to pursue the relationships, jobs, family, and religious beliefs they choose. The Internet has expanded access worldwide, allowing many to pursue almost any aspiration they want. Being free to seek meaning doesn't mean you'll find it, though. In fact, surveys indicate people have trouble doing so in places with the fewest formal barriers. Factors too numerous and complex to list are likely to be at play here, but scale is a key challenge we encounter in finding meaning. Scaling anything, almost by definition, means taking it out of its original context. Even though scaling useful things has obvious benefits, sometimes important things are lost when the original context is removed.

Ownership is not a natural phenomenon. Rather, it is a widely accepted social construct. Throughout history, the notion of ownership has changed many times, but almost all nations attach a “bundle of legal rights” to ownership. Ownership rights include the rights to sell, enjoy, exclude, possess, and control property. In a world where physical objects and data are increasingly intertwined, ownership—and the rights it entails—will experience drastic shifts.