Is This The New Normal?

Since last writing here, I've spent time in Paris and London, co-hosted an Inner Circle in London on the topic of Innovation, co-hosted an evening event in London at the Georg Jensen store on Bond Street to celebrate Maria Pinelli's move from New York to London where she is heading Global Strategy for Ernst & Young, attended TEDx Women at two different locations here in New York last week,and  I am now preparing for an Inner Circle at the New York Stock Exchange on December 19 here in New York.  The topic is "How Leading Businesses are Navigating the Slowdown, the Double Dip, and the New Normal." 

I borrowed this Inner Circle topic from Laurie Coots, who used it to introduce a live portion of the TEDx Women event that she hosted at TBWA's offices here in New York.  I was taken by the unanimity of response to that title among the attendees.  Yes, there is no turning back to the way we used to do business.  Whatever it was that made us successful will probably not work in the same way now.  This turbulent, unpredictable, frightening, and globally unsettling time is the new normal and we'd better get used to that, rather than wax nostalgic about how it used to be.  And we can't afford to waste time waiting for things to return to "the way they were."  Ain't gonna happen.

The conversations in Paris, London and New York are pretty much the same: the world is in a new time and there don't seem to be easily applicable ground rules for how to navigate our way through them.  That's true of countries, of companies, of communities and, certainly, of individuals.

What's clear to me is that more than ever we need to collaborate with others.  And we need to talk.  Seriously converse with others in order to get as many smart people as we can to help us move past simple survival to a place where we can thrive. 

In our Inner Circle conversation and elsewhere as well, there was a divergence of opinion as to whether we should be optimistic about the future or concerned that things are tough and don't look like they'll get better soon.  For my part, I'm betting on the positive folks. They could be wrong, but at least we'll be smiling our way to the future rather than wringing our hands.  We've got to navigate the slowdown, the double dip and the new normal and I'd prefer to think that this is time to consider the glass half full.