Words of the next decade

The business agenda over the last decade has included words such as ‘globalisation’, ‘social media’ and ‘transformation’. If you owned shares in those words, you’d probably have made a very good return.

But if you had to choose one word which dominated the thought processes of business people over the last ten years, it would probably be ‘authenticity’. Businesses were desperate not to be thought of as fake.  They realised that trust was a vital asset. They feared that customers, overwhelmed by choice, would reject anything that they thought was false or hollow. And thus they spent fortunes on re-branding to make themselves more authentic. Sometimes this was done well; other times it was merely a re-positioning exercise. Oh the irony.

What word or idea will dominate the next ten years? I have a couple of candidates, plus a dark horse.

The first is engagement. Businesses have increasingly realised that it’s not enough to attract, retain and motivate employees.  The best employees have an emotional attachment to their organisation and an enthusiasm for their job; employers would love to bottle this.  The challenge is that creating the circumstances for more engagement often needs senior people to change and give up control.

The second is well-being. Economic growth seems to help standard of living but not quality of life. Beyond a basic inflection point, greater GDP doesn’t foster much happiness; it creates nearly as many worries as it solves.  So the lack of well-being is a problem (affecting consumers and employees).  Businesses will look for new ways to cater for that problem.

The dark horse, which I would love to see more of, is candour.  Individuals, teams and organisations need much more in the way of open, honest and direct conversation.  The fear of speaking frankly cripples many relationships.  People are scared of pointing out basic truths.  Some businesses still shoot the messenger or punish whistleblowers.  However, those organisations which make it comfortable to voice uncomfortable truths will learn much faster, and thus have a competitive edge.

What about you? What’s your prediction for the word of the next decade?