so what if what if everything you
believed to be real and true wasn’t
would you would you want to know that
would you want to confront that kind of
monster so when I was eight years old my
parents taught me then no monsters on my
bed so of course and no monsters except
the one night when I went to bed and I
heard scratching quite heavy scratching
so I look under my bed and I was faced
with the monster that moment of panic
and fear there was no ways I could see
my brother with his stupid ridiculous
monkey whatever after on but that kind
of woke me up to something and they woke
me up to the research and the work I do
today which is what happens when we’re
faced with those monsters what happens
when the world and everything you
thought was real and true is questioned
is no longer the way you think it is how
do you respond how do I respond to those
monsters well I responded by just
running and screaming going crazy but
what happens when we do there what
happens when we don’t face those
monsters what happens is they get bigger
in my imagination what happens is they
start to rule over and influence the
decisions and the judgments we awake but
when we actually embrace the monster it
turns out that by embracing it it helps
us to get through a lot of superstitious
beliefs that can hold us back and it
allows us to really free ourselves to
see reality for the way it is as tough
as that might be and we’re able to
actually tune into things and hear
things much better so what if what if
you were able to see the future you’re
able to tune into things just before
they happened you could sense and hear
the visit tsunami coming whatever it is
maybe it’s a new business maybe its
fifth ousand zuv tsunami is hitting us
right now so you’re able to do that now
the problem is like this how do you wake
the rest of us up how do you say guys
there’s a tsunami coming wake up do you
think we’d wake up do you think we’d
hear it
so let me just bring this home and just
show you some of the tsunamis that we’re
facing some of the difficulties and
challenges that we’re facing so I talked
about three inevitable forces what are
these three inevitable forces they are
inescapable you can’t hide from it
they’re going to happen so the first one
is in human history we’ve never seen
changes like this happen over such a
short amount of time technology has
enabled things to really hit us what
economists now call radical changes it
just happen really fast but they don’t
just happen really fast they hit an
entire global economy so it’s like a
twitter feed it can literally shake up
an entire economy and rock it right you
can have shares literally busted
overnight because of a twitter feed but
the third aspect which i think is the
toughest one which is the 1i have to
deal with all the time is as human
beings we very slow to change so we hold
on to our beliefs and our sump shins or
what we think is real and true and yet
technology is racing ahead and it’s
challenging a lot of our fundamental
assumptions about what we believe is
right what believe is wrong our social
boundaries are moral boundaries so let
me just bring this home right I’ve got
an 11 year old daughter and she goes
into a bedroom closes a door and here’s
the problem that monster there was under
my bed it just jumped on her bed and
it’s sitting there with her and she’s
got a cell phone and on that cell phone
she can be in any chat room I don’t know
what she’s doing so as a parent I’m I
mean how do I react how to respond to
that kind of panic so what I would have
done is I would have freaked out and
taken a phone away close the internet
but she can go next door or she can go
to her friend she can go back to school
so what we did is we embraced that
monster and we realized that years
before this was inevitable technology is
a part of our life and we weren’t going
to hide away from it so I had to educate
myself had educate my daughter on what
these new boundaries are what’s
appropriate was not appropriate what’s
private what’s intimate what do you
share now there’s no ways I’ve worked it
out yet we still work
but we talked about this monster
directly and we continuously got a
battle with it and the monster in fact
has actually showed us some incredible
opportunities connected us to people
that we never even thought existed
really cool people but there are other
monsters like the job market so in the
job market a lot of people are worried
about artificial intelligence they’re
worried about machines because if you go
one of these jobs right machines can
probably do it faster and probably
better than us in the next couple of
years so let’s just say you’re a doctor
so what do you do what’s your response
as a doctor my response would be
artificial intelligence what machine can
actually make better diagnosis of
patients than I can in the next couple
of years probably could but here’s the
thing what’s my response do I go you
know this is never going to happen or
you get rid of it or do I say wait a
second as a doctor I could do so much
more it’s not here to replace me or make
me redundant it’s here to make me save
more lives this monster in fact enables
me to do so much more a classic one is
dr Lascars so our response to drivers
causes like this a driver’s car drives
it has an accident and the entire system
gets upgraded human beings when we have
an accident and we make a mistake guess
what we don’t really upgrade that
quickly we care and making the same
mistakes we can texting we carry on
drinking and driving there are 1.2
million deaths on the road because of
our reckless driving now what if i told
you that ninety percent of those deaths
could be taken off the road with
driverless cars response should be
pretty would be that get those cars in
the road but here’s the thing one
driver’s car hits into an innocent
family and we see this car as this
faceless thing we see it on a meteor
front page saying driverless car kills a
family our response is get them off the
roads so how did we respond to that
monster education in South Africa that
says very hot topic right now and I’m
definitely not coming to solve the
education crisis
but as a parent I’ve got to work out
what the best opportunities are for my
kids so why would I want to educate them
so they can get out there and actually
make a living that they can you know
really adapt to the world but here’s the
thing you know there’s something that
the LinkedIn and PwC they did a study on
something called the talent mismatch
telling mismatches basically as a kid
was a youth in the labor force you don’t
have the skills the market needs now
what’s the problem the markets moving on
so fast you just got your degree the
markets going yeah but there was three
years ago we’ve moved on that’s skill
that degree it doesn’t help us right now
there’s new opportunities if that is
costing the global industry a hundred
and fifty billion u.s. dollars a year in
terms of lost opportunity so what some
forward-thinking education institutions
are doing is they’re actually taking
these skills and embedding it into their
curriculum they’re saying yes you need
technical skills but above that you need
these skills why because in the world
that’s rapidly changing that’s really
uncertain you got to know that when
monsters come at you you’re going to
know how to adapt you gotta nada flip
back in your feet you gotta have these
skills to handle the changes that come
at you the question is do I education
institutions have these are they
starting to educate our kids with this
and the people who are educating our
kids do they have these skills and do
you have these skills but if we just
stop for a second and ask the question
where do we turn there’s so much change
going on and so much uncertainty often
people come to me and say I kev or just
just tell me what I should do so I often
ask myself the same question where
should we go who are the experts so ten
years ago this is what I would have said
to you you know the expert is here’s a
guy or a woman 20 30 years experience in
your industry they’ll give you a ten
year plan that you can go to bed at
night and not worry about any of those
monsters because then don’t worry it’s
it’s sorted they’ll give you the
answers and don’t worry they’re not
going to give you more questions trust
me that might have worked 10 years ago
but in this economy we’re transient and
things are just never staying the same
and they’re changing so fast that
doesn’t cut the grade anymore so there’s
a different type of expert out there and
I call these experts radical outsiders
what makes them so radical is that they
come from the outside and when they come
from the outside their radicalness is
that when they see a problem they don’t
say is this possible they just say let
me do this let me make it radically
reinvent and reshape entire industries
and they’re outsiders obviously because
they’re just not on our radar they just
are periphery is like this and they come
from here and the long mask when he came
into the con distri even though he is
one of ours and he went to Silicon
Valley his skill set he didn’t have 30
years experience in making cars but it
was because he didn’t have that past
that he is able to really reshape and
rethink the entire industry he wasn’t
bound to they beliefs therefore he is
able to say well that might have worked
back in your day let me show you how
things work another good example is
General Electric one of my friends
Steven agoria when he came to them
General Electric one hundred twenty
four-year-old industry they’re kinda
like a behemoth they just kind of move
really slowly like a lot of big
organizations today as well they
couldn’t respond to the changes so
they’re quite a smart organization and
they realized if we’re going to respond
to this world it’s rapidly changing we
need something different Steven came in
from the outside and he showed them how
to become a Lean Startup organization
how they become agile how to have these
skills so i want to show you and
introduce you to a friend of mine her
name’s Loretta because often when we
hear about these big stories of radical
outsiders we think that it’s for the
celebrities maybe we don’t have access
to it but the truth is there’s radical
outsiders that are sitting in this
audience today Loretta is one of those
from South Africa but when the rudder
started off she had a face some really
big monsters between the ages of 5 and 9
she was molested by her family members
and at age of 13 she is gang raped age
of 15 she’s orphaned Loretta didn’t see
that as an obstacle she didn’t become a
victim she didn’t run away from the
monsters she took that monster and she
used these skills to literally reshape
the country we in Loretta today the pain
that she had she uses that pain to look
at opportunities and say not is this
possible there’s a crack in our society
I used don’t have direction what she’s
doing is she’s giving them a voice she’s
working with a Nelson Mandela Foundation
she’s working with javed she’s doing
stuff around what she calls the Civic
Academy giving our youth of voice in the
market so if you’re a Loretta aren’t
there step up because we need you but
here’s the thing now continent here
today the African continent I see
ourselves is the radical outsiders we’re
those ones who just don’t quite seem to
fit into the western mold and we’ve got
the most amazing most abundant
opportunities waiting right underneath
us when mackynzie did some studies on
this they said in the latest report of
how growth in Africa is worth five point
six trillion u.s. dollars over the next
ten years we have the biggest global
workforce bigger than China and India
next ten years but here’s the monster in
the room the monsters like this with all
the great growth we don’t have the
infrastructure to accommodate for that
growth so now there’s a lot of our
cities are getting built up at their
gridlocked you can’t even move around
them the youth are running into these
new cities for opportunities they don’t
have the skills the small to medium
businesses they don’t have the skill
they are ill-prepared for these amazing
opportunities so what do we do I mean
imagine that you’ve got the biggest
global workforce in the world and they
don’t have jobs I mean that’s the
immigration crisis the refugee crisis
ain’t seen nothing yet
so how do we deal with this how do we
unlock our own opportunity because it
looks like we lucked out of it so here’s
what I’d like to suggest an offer as a
way of how we can get back in this game
how we can unlock our no opportunity and
here it is just choose reality because
you know what it’s every believe it’s
going to win and secondly if you’re
struggling with reality if you locked up
and whatever you locked up into then go
find some of our homegrown radical
outsiders because you’re not they’re
going to do they’re going to challenge
your assumptions they’re going to
challenge your beliefs they’re going to
challenge all the little business models
if you think work and are real and
they’re going to flip it on its head and
they’re going to show you how to do
things because I call them the make
education and just make things happen in
incredible ways and that’s what they’re
going to do they’re going to show you
how to achieve the impossible but lastly
ask great questions because it’s the
radical outsiders out there who will are
start asking us great questions let’s
ask simple questions like how do we
disrupt ourselves how do you disrupt our
career how do you disrupt our
organizations disrupt it not to break it
down but likely rutter did disrupt
because we can make it a better system
because you know mozna systems today
they’ve broken anyways so let’s not
break there it’s work out ways of how to
fix it because it’s inevitable whatever
opportunities are there today they’re
bigger ones tomorrow so let’s not avoid
these monsters let’s not run away from
them let’s see them as the opportunity
to embrace reality and hear things
better but just remember when you’re
looking in unfamiliar places just start
[Applause] you