Navigating the rapids
of change

My motto: Evolution never stops, so neither can we. My goal: to help leaders navigate the rapids of change. And where they are not already embarked, to steer them in the right directions.

Alongside ongoing work with Volans, Countercurrent enables my thinking, writing, speaking and advisory board projects. The aim: to speed and guide the coming paradigm shift—making seemingly impossible progress first possible, then inevitable.

This website offers elements of a manifesto, toolkit and impact report, explaining my ongoing shift in scope and direction—and heralding my future ambitions, including a growing interest in the ‘X-curves’ of system change.

An X-curve maps the points where old, incumbent solutions are overtaken by new, insurgent ones. One example from RethinkX shows the crossover a century ago between horses (old solution) and automobiles (new one, for better or worse). Another, from Reuters, is the recent crossover in Norway between internal combustion (ICE) cars and electric vehicles (EVs).

Our paradigm is shifting

While it may seem that the sustainability agenda is itself doomed to be overtaken during Trump 2.0, I see things differently (see Worldview). What Martin Luther King called the arc of the moral universe is still bending toward a profound paradigm shift in at least some parts of the world within a few short decades.

As I see it, the new paradigm: values earth system science; respects planetary boundaries; embraces new definitions of responsibility and governance; expands the spotlight from companies to markets; extends the impact debate from unintentionally negative to intentionally positive externalities; includes future generations in its calculations; and—crucially—shifts the focus from incremental to system change.

I see the next 10-15 years as likely to be the most exciting, challenging and politically dangerous of my entire working life. The navigational and leadership skills required will be extraordinary, in the full sense of that word.