Take a gander @ 2020

Morris Misel

Business Futurist | Foresight Strategist

If you’ve read this far, something probably connected.

Maybe it put words to something you’d been sensing but couldn’t quite land. Maybe it made something complicated feel clearer. Maybe it unsettled a position you thought you’d settled.

Good. That’s where this work lives.

Not forecasting. Not scenarios at 2050. Not more noise. What’s already moving. The shifts most organisations can’t yet see, name, or understand the full weight of. What it means. What to do about it while it’s still a possibility, not a problem. Short term and long.

Morris Misel has been doing this for 30 years across 160 industries, with boards, executive teams, and leadership groups in Australia and internationally. More than 2,800 engagements. Over a million people a year through conferences, boardrooms, and media.

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Choose Forward.

What does 2020 reveal about how organisations need to prepare for uncertainty?

2020 exposed the gap between what leaders thought they were prepared for and what actually arrived. The lesson isn’t about prediction. It’s about building capability to sense, respond, and adapt. Organisations that shifted from annual planning to scenario-building survived better. This readiness for multiple futures matters now.

How should leadership change in response to what 2020 taught us about disruption?

Leaders learned that command-and-control fails when the ground moves. Organisations that thrived gave teams clarity on direction but autonomy on execution. They prioritised scanning for signals, moved fast on decisions that could be reversed, and built psychological safety to speak difficult truths. This is the real leadership shift.

What’s the common mistake organisations make when reflecting on 2020?

Many treat 2020 as a temporary crisis to recover from, then try to get back to ‘normal.’ The actual insight is that the operating environment has permanently shifted. Digital acceleration, remote work, supply chain fragility, and trust erosion aren’t reverting. Organisations that act on that belief are already ahead.

How does 2020 connect to broader shifts in how organisations operate?

2020 compressed 10 years of technological and cultural change into months. Remote work normalisation, e-commerce acceleration, automation urgency, and questions of purpose all arrived at once. This wasn’t new; it was latent. 2020 just made the arrival impossible to ignore. Acceleration of existing trajectories is the real story.

What should leaders be watching for in the years ahead after 2020?

Watch how organisations manage the gap between permanent change and people seeking stability. Trust erosion after uncertainty runs deep. Skills gaps from accelerated automation. Supply chain rethinking. And the tension between people demanding meaning from work and efficiency demands rising. These ripple effects will unfold for years.

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