Futurist, conference speaker, author and consultant who gives business leaders a glimpse into the future - and what you need to do to take advantage of it
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Articles by Gihan Perera
Opinion | Racial Justice Programs Under Fire: Foundations Are Running Scared When They Should Double Down
An alarming number of foundations are falling into a dangerous right-wing trap and ensnaring racial justice movements and nonprofits in the process. 2024 Trends Opinion Opinion Leading Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer against affirmative action in college admissions, conservative extremists have embarked on a campaign that characterizes anything directly supporting Black or brown people as anti-white and potentially illegal.
Becoming value-centric: Four skills CFOs need to evolve
skip to content "A crisis doesn’t create leaders, it amplifies them." The role of the chief financial officer (CFO) is undergoing a significant transformation. These changes have largely been driven by the increasing complexity of business, the need for companies to be more agile and responsive, and the recognition that financial metrics alone are not enough to drive long-term business success.
Your AI-Powered Team: Empowering And Trusting Them To Leverage AI
There’s a lot of talk, hype, and noise about the impact of AI on work and the workforce: Will it create jobs? Will it replace jobs? Is it going to destroy the fabric of society?
AI will soon permeate every part of the supply chain. Here’s why
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Are You A Future-Ready Leader?
You are here: Home / Expert Talk / Expert Talk Categories / Leadership / Styles & Qualities Of Leaders Many leaders are currently grappling with change, uncertainty, and disruption. Some are just battening down the hatches and hoping all that change stops soon. But that’s wishful thinking! If anything, we’ll seen even more change in the future, and you need new skills to survive and thrive in your leadership journey. Some people say we need to be ‘future proof’, but that’s not right.
How Will You Leverage Something New?
Assess its impact You can’t always predict external forces. But you can train yourself to be more aware of them, so at least they are at the back of your mind. To develop this mindset, whenever you see or hear about anything new (for example, some new technology or a novel solution to a problem), consider its impact at four levels: Replace Ask whether this could completely replace something you do in your organisation - in other words, it makes that function obsolete.
Watch out, startups are coming to disrupt business as usual
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Analysis: Watch out, startups are coming to disrupt business as usual
nect people. One senior leader even told me, “They are all things my Gen Z kids can’t live without!” These are all true, but there’s one other common factor: They were all founded during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In the US, it’s often called The Great Recession. It takes courage to start any company at any time – especially one that will disrupt an entire industry. But sometimes disruption and innovation are easier in a crisis.
Wise Leadership In The Age Of AI
Automation and AI are rapidly spreading through every industry and every workplace. They accelerated during COVID-19, because the need for limiting physical contact forced organisations to find more digital solutions (According to McKinsey, 67% of companies sped up their use of automation and AI due to COVID-19). This trend will continue to grow and expand, even after the pandemic. Of course, this doesn’t mean everything will be automated (and not everything should).
Is cryptocurrency the way of the future or a flash in the pan?
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Cryptocurrency: The good, the bad, the ugly
, Tesla and CarBuyers.com.au – seriously considering how to integrate and leverage cryptocurrencies in their operations. Cryptocurrencies have evolved beyond their origin as a payment system for a niche group of people who didn’t trust the global banking system. But make no mistake – they are still volatile, complex and not to be taken lightly.
We’re Hardwired To Avoid Uncertainty
How well do you deal with uncertainty? Probably not as well as you’d like - and that’s a problem, because the uncertainty we’re currently facing will continue for some time to come. Unfortunately, we’re hardwired to prefer certainty, and there’s research to prove it. In 2016, a team of researchers ran an experiment to find the relationship between stress and uncertainty.
Better Than Referrals - Share the Customer Experience - IIDM Global
A crisis like a global pandemic makes everybody re-assess and re-evaluate what’s important to them. And that includes your customers. So don’t assume you know what they want - make sure you continue to keep in touch with them. This is not just for loyalty purposes. It can also be a valuable source of new customers - if you do it right. In the highly competitive world of financial advice, financial planning businesses must work harder than ever before to attract new clients.
Why Leading a WFH Team is Hard, Part One: Some People Are Struggling!
There are many advantages to a non-office workplace, and there’s already a lot of evidence that some people who have been forced to work from home enjoy it. But that’s not true for everybody. And if you’re a leading a team that’s doing “WFH” (working from home) for the first time, it’s not easy because some of your team members are struggling – especially now. Some people don’t like change at the best of times, and even actively resist it.
Disruption in the A&D industry – how disruptable is your business? - Australian Design Review
Article by Gihan Perera Disruption is the game changer. A competitive market has always forced businesses to constantly keep improving, so they can be better today than they were yesterday, and be better than their nearest competitors. That’s good but, even before the added challenges created by the advent of COVID-19, it is simply not enough anymore. Disruption seems to come from out of the blue, and catches everybody in the industry by surprise.
Inside Small Business
Disrupt yourself … or you will be disrupted. Disruption rarely happens overnight. Uber didn’t disrupt the taxi industry by swooping in with magical new technology. The technology was readily available, but the taxi industry chose to ignore it. The same applies to banks being disrupted by fintech, traditional real estate agents being disrupted by online portals, and Kodak being disrupted by digital cameras, smartphones and Instagram (iIn fact, Kodak invented the first digital camera).
The goal-setting advice even the experts get wrong
Have you ever heard the goal-setting advice to vividly imagine achieving the goal? In your imagination, you create a bright, glorious picture of crossing the finish line, celebrating the successful product launch with your team, seeing your desired weight on the bathroom scales, or whatever. If you can add sounds and emotion to your picture, so much better.
CEOWORLD magazine
What do these three things have in common? Amazon Prime – Amazon’s $120/year membership service, with an estimated 100 million members Gmail – Google’s free e-mail platform, with more than 1.5 billion active users McCafe – McDonalds’ highly successful café offering The answer: All three ideas came from employees, not from management. In a fast-changing world, innovation is everybody’s business.
The #1 Thing that Gets in the Way of Flexible Work
For the last 200 years, the office has been the workplace of choice for many employees. Everybody in a team came to the same office at the same time to work the same hours every day. It was not just easier; it was essential for getting work done. The office was where the files were stored, the secretarial staff was available, the meetings were held, and so on. Technology has obviously removed many of those restrictions, and employees everywhere want to choose when, where, and how they work.
How big and small business alike use data for good — and for evil - SmartCompany
At Shiru Cafe, a coffee shop near Brown University in the USA, if you’re not a university employee or student, you’re out of luck. Only staff and students can be customers. What’s more, the students can get their coffee free. The catch is that to get their free hit of caffeine, students complete an online form, supplying their personal data, including name, phone numbers, e-mail, date of birth, study course, and professional interests.
10 ways to future proof your real estate business
Australia is perfectly positioned for growth in this “Asian Century”, and Australian real estate will be highly sought and increasingly valuable. But will the real estate industry be as valuable and desirable? Yes, but only if it continues to keep pace with changes in technology, demographics and customer expectations. Here are the top 10 things you can do now to future-proof your business for 2020 and beyond. 1.
Wise Leadership in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Are robots coming for your job? Yes and no. According to a Dell Technologies survey, 82% of leaders expect their employees and machines to work as “integrated teams”. And many employees look forward to artificial intelligence (AI) that can help them do their job better. But not everybody has such a rosy outlook. In Australia, the report “Australia’s Future Workforce” predicts about 40% of jobs could be lost to robotics, automation and artificial intelligence in the next 10-15 years.
10 ways to future proof your business
Australia is perfectly positioned for growth in this “Asian Century”, and Australian real estate will be highly sought and increasingly valuable. But will the real estate industry be as valuable and desirable? Yes, but only if it continues to keep pace with changes in technology, demographics and customer expectations. Here are the top 10 things you can do now to future-proof your business for 2020 and beyond. 1.
Low rumblings of change
The top five signs disruption is just around the corner. Disruption rarely happens overnight. Uber didn’t disrupt the taxi industry by swooping in with magical new technology. The technology was readily available, but the taxi industry chose to ignore it. The same applies to banks being disrupted by fintech, traditional real estate agents being disrupted by online portals, and Kodak being disrupted by digital cameras (in fact, Kodak invented the first digital camera).
Technology - Coming, Ready or Not!
Ed: As one generation makes way for another in its influence and decision making, technology will be the future doctor’s greatest ally, says Gihan Perera. Four hundred years ago in China, people would pay their local doctor an ongoing fee to keep them healthy. When they became ill, the doctor was still required to treat them, but they wouldn’t be paid until the patient became well.
Disruption by Design: Leading the change in a fast-changing world
Reviewed by Rama Gaind. By Gihan Perera, First Step Publishing, $33.00. The question here is will you be swept aside with the rest of your industry or will you be leading the change? Saying ‘the way we’ve always done things’ just doesn’t cut it any more as companies struggle to get in front of sweeping changes before they become another fatality. It is up to you to create the future. Futurist, speaker and author, Perera describes the key steps in designing your own path to a certain future.
Your customers are changing, but are you staying the same?
In the early days of e-commerce and online shopping, businesses were asking the question: How can we make our website customer experience as good as the ‘real world’ experience? Now it’s exactly the other way around. In the world of smartphones, social media, free shipping, online reviews, and a global marketplace, businesses are now facing the opposite challenge: How can you make your in-person experience as good as the online experience? The fact is, your customers have changed.
The top 5 signs disruption is just around the corner
Disruption rarely happens overnight. Uber didn’t disrupt the taxi industry by swooping in with magical new technology. The technology was readily available, but the taxi industry chose to ignore it. The same applies to banks being disrupted by fintech, traditional real estate agents being disrupted by online portals, and Kodak being disrupted by digital cameras (in fact, Kodak invented the first digital camera).
Let's talk: Disruption
What’s the next big game changer in tech? There is ongoing major disruption in all industries at the moment due to tech. Whether you are embracing the changes within your organisation or not, it is undeniably happening. Lots of new business opportunities come from technological advancements and can completely change consumer culture. Think of contactless cards, as a very simple example, which are now used in over 90% of purchases according to research by Westpac Banking Corporation.
Disrupt Less, Innovate More
A lot of leaders talk about their business or industry being disrupted, and they want to know how to deal with all the 'disruption'. This is the wrong way to look at it. Two decades ago, Harvard scholar Clayton ('Clay') Christensen wrote the book 'The Innovator’s Dilemma', in which he coined the term 'disruptive innovation'. Over time, many people have abbreviated this to just 'disruption', but that’s dangerous! Clay's original idea was about innovation, not disruption.
The Three Elements Of Successful Innovation
One of the most commonly-quoted stories around disruption is about Kodak, which was the market leader in film photography, but failed because it couldn't adapt to digital photography. There are many variations of this story, giving various reasons for Kodak's demise: It had too much invested in film, it had grown so big it had stopped innovating, the organisational structure couldn't cope with a digital world, and so on.
Hopeful moment for our politics
Last month, Jean Monestime, the first Haitian American to serve on the Miami-Dade County Commission, was elected its chair. The installment ceremony was witnessed by every power player in the county, grassroots activists and numerous dignitaries, including the ambassador from Haiti. It was a rare display of poise and grace on the dais.
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