Rational thinking is expensive. It costs organizations millions of dollars and precious competitive advantage every year. As we begin what promises to be the most technologically advanced decade in history, we can’t afford to settle for more rational thought and action. 2020 is the year we need to begin embracing irrationality more than ever. How? By identifying the old, outdated constants holding us back, daring to imagine a world devoid of them, and making the incremental decisions necessary to inch our way toward radical progress and unprecedented innovation.
Here are three paradigm-shifting ways we can toss out constants and replace them with irrational alternatives.
1. Collaboration is the new competition: Corporations, especially Big Tech, are not known for playing nicely together. They cling to the constant of competition. But that is starting to shift, beginning with smart home products. Competing product entries from Apple, Google, and Amazon frustrate consumers when their products don’t sync smoothly. So to keep customers happy, these tech giants are beginning to understand that they’ll all be more powerful if they cooperate as much as they compete.
What might the next generation of voice-activated products from a cooperative marketplace look like? A common language and multiple, specialized voice assistants are likely. You might have one for managing your finances, one for restocking household products—but you’d still want them to communicate with each other. You might even want a senior voice assistant that manages all the others. Eventually, one particular company may own the connection layer, but most consumers are likely to enlist multiple voice-activated assistants working on their behalf, so interoperability is crucial. Other industries, like ride sharing and hospitality companies, are also starting to see the upside of collaboration—just look at the partnership between Delta and Lyft. Customers look for practical, seamless solutions, rather than brand exclusivity, making partnership a cornerstone of every company’s success. It may seem irrational, but it’s no longer a zero-sum game, and the companies that play together will win together.
2. Subscriptions will fuel your life: Most of us subscribe to entertainment or music content services, but we believe buying and owning one-off items is an essential constant in our lives. The next wave of irrational innovation will usher in a larger, more significant set of subscription offerings to fuel your life and revamp the ownership model. The sharing economy has been on the rise for years, and this new robust subscription model will go beyond Spotify or Netflix to include your car, your home, and your clothing.
Companies like Fair are disrupting the old model of buying or leasing vehicles: Instead of a big, long-term financial commitment, consumers can shop for a new car via an app on their phones, pay an initial start fee and a low monthly subscription payment, with the ability to walk away at any time, penalty-free. Big brands like BMW, Cadillac, and Volvo are creating similar programs. Real estate sharing is also on the rise, as companies like HomeExchange allow you to swap homes without exchanging any money, exponentially expanding the geographic reach of where you call home. And it’s not hard to imagine the mobile living pod industry (led by companies like Coodo) expanding to entire designated pod lots with exchangeable units in cities across the globe. A closet full of clothes you don’t wear is on its way out, as brands like Vince, Ann Taylor, and Urban Outfitters offer subscription services that allow you to rent a box of items and swap in new pieces (either monthly or when you’re ready) for around the cost of purchasing a single item—often with the option of buying the pieces you love at a discounted price.
Bottomline: Minimalism is in and Millennials will be the first to tell you that ownership is overrated, so look for subscriptions to play a much bigger role in your life in the coming decade.
3. Prediction replaces real time: 2020 marks the beginning of the predictive economy. Why? Because real-time responses (the dominant constant in recent years) are too slow and too late. If a customer approaches you and you don’t already understand what they’re seeking, you’re in trouble. Data abounds, and the new expectation is that companies are using that data to predict behavior and demands and to create optimal customer experiences in advance.
This is particularly important for service-based industries. Let’s say you’re a plumber. As of today, most plumbers don’t operate proactively: a toilet breaks, you call them to fix it. A predictive approach, by contrast, involves installing low-cost sensors. For a low monthly fee, the plumber can monitor the data and either anticipate trouble before it happens or guarantee they’ll arrive quickly (with no action required by the customer) when something goes wrong. Whether it’s a sensor for your laundry or your car, the predictive possibilities are endless, and both consumers and companies feel like champs.
Collaboration, subscriptions, and the predictive economy aren’t the only irrational ideas at your disposal, but they’re an important start. I challenge each of you to evaluate the constants keeping your life and business stuck in neutral and to identify opportunities for harnessing the power of irrational thinking in this exciting new decade.