Review: McKinsey's "No Ordinary Disruption"

During the Industrial Revolution, one new force changed everything. Today our world is undergoing an even more dramatic transition due to four fundamental disruptive forces—any of which would rank among the greatest changes the global economy has ever seen. These forces are upending what we long thought were reliable trends: the global capitals of consumer and business growth will be emerging market cities most of us never heard of; the era of cheap capital is ending; training for new job skills can't keep up with technology's elimination of old jobs; and the U.S. recently surpassed Russia as the world's largest supplier of oil and natural gas. In No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends, Richard Dobbs, James Manyika and Jonathan Woetzel the directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, the think tank of McKinsey & Company, dive deeply behind current headlines to analyze emerging trends caused by four disruptive forces transforming the global economy: 1) Economic power is shifting to emerging markets; 2) The furious pace of technology adoption has shortened companies lifecycles; 3) Aging demographics could lead to the first global population plateau; and, 4) Instead of a series of lines connecting major hubs in Europe and North America, the global trading system has expanded into a complex, intricate and expanding web. The implications of these four data points are brought to life by dozens of data points and engaging stories of how forward-looking entities are adapting to take advantage of them. The authors urge business leaders to reset their intuition and make decisions based not on yesterday's assumptions, but instead on today's new normal.