This column is part of Globe Careers' Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about leadership and management. Follow us at @Globe_Careers. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab.
If Google gets its way, that old saying about death and taxes being the only certain things in life could become obsolete, or at least the part about death.
Over the past couple of years, the Silicon Valley technology giant has poured hundreds of millions of dollars through one of its subsidiaries into research devoted to combatting "age-related diseases," and by extension one of their most serious symptoms – dying.
The ambitious initiative prompted Time magazine to do a cover story that asks, "Can Google Solve Death?" The magazine also provided a telling answer of its own: "That would be crazy – if it weren't Google."
Time's acknowledgment that Google, of all companies, might just have the brain power, resources and connections to take on one of mankind's greatest preoccupations underscores a key part of the transformation in leadership thinking we highlighted in our recently published book, Leadership 2030: The Six Megatrends You Need to Understand to Lead Your Company in the Future.
Bringing together numerous rapidly advancing scientific disciplines – through technological convergence – allows us to harness their combined power and create remarkable innovations the world has never seen before, and transform our lives for the better.
But for all its promise, this technological progress also presents enormous challenges – both practical and ethical – and will force leaders in business and government to radically change the way they do things.
As technological convergence progresses, it has the potential to create new industries, transform existing sectors and threaten the very existence of some business models.
If you have any doubts about this, just ask Kodak. The New York-based company whose name became synonymous with film photography as a pioneer in the field effectively missed the boat on digital cameras even though it is credited with inventing the technology. Kodak's inability to foresee the digital market and navigate a transition nearly put it out of business. Fortunately Kodak was able to restructure its operations and come through bankruptcy protection in a healthy position, but it emerged as a much different version of itself.
Business leaders around the globe can learn from Kodak's experience.
Our own success can be blinding. Leaders have to be willing to challenge the subconscious of their organizations to make sure they are seeing clearly and anticipating changes in the marketplace so that they can adapt and evolve.
Staying ahead of the innovation curve will require organizations to rev up their research engines. Research and development (R&D) operations may need to be diversified and teams will need to develop the necessary skills to meet the challenges of vanguard research projects. And leaders must play a key role in establishing the right climate where innovation can flourish, creating the spare capacity to allow people to pursue passions, experiment, and even fail, all the while buffering the team from the relentless demands to meet quarterly results.
Innovating, developing and commercializing applications from a future of scientific fields will demand new levels of collaboration, both within and among organizations. The era of technological convergence will require that divisions and companies, and even entire disciplines, work together in new ways. The complexity of technological convergence will also make knowledge exchange between companies – even between competitors – vital.
Experts from different disciplines must be willing to co-operate and compromise. At the same time, business leaders may find themselves being called on to manage vast knowledge pools and co-ordinate the skills of these experts to maximum advantage. Generalist managers may be needed to facilitate R&D teams, acting as "translators" between the various specialists.
As Google has done in its quest to conquer aging, several other tech giants over the past few years have created a rash of innovation centres bringing together developers, partners and even competitors to push the boundaries of new technologies and co-develop products.
This type of "big collaboration" requires more than good organization. The various specialists need to decide how to maximize their expertise to achieve the desired end as effectively and efficiently as possible. They also need to find a common language to pool and understand each other's know-how.
The need for more intensive collaboration isn't lost on senior business leaders. Our research suggests that the world's top 20 most effectively led companies are more likely to take remedial action if senior managers aren't collaborating, even if the individuals concerned are generating strong business results. These companies are also better prepared for the challenges presented by big collaboration because they're quicker to reorganize how their people work together when the need arises.
In addition to organizational changes, the greatest challenges posed by technological convergence will be rooted in ethics.
Consider the questions that stem from the quest to stop the clock on aging. Or how about a tangible issue that is already here: the ability for anyone with a 3-D printer to manufacture a firearm if they want one.
How far should the bounds of human capability be pushed? Which innovations made possible by technological convergence should be pursued and which ones left on the shelf? What are the downsides to deciding against a potential advance?
These are the kinds of dilemmas for leaders and societies to wrestle over. But companies need to understand that products that overstep the boundaries of acceptable progress won't be tolerated.
Business leaders will need to grasp the bigger picture and think on a far more whole-systems level. They'll need to be able to create a space where their teams and organizations can not only look at "what's possible," but also discuss harder questions like, "Even if we can, should we?" The power of technological convergence means that leaders not only have to create environments where innovation can flourish, but also recognize that their decisions affect more than just their own organization's bottom line – increasingly, they also have an impact on the bottom line of society and the planet.
Rick Lash is the national director of the leadership and talent practice for Hay Group (@HayGroup) in Canada and co-leader of the annual Hay Group Best Companies for Leadership study. Leadership 2030: The Six Megatrends You Need to Understand to Lead Your Company in the Future is written by Hay Group consultants Georg Vielmetter and Yvonne Sell, and published by Amacon Books.