Stephen Hawking was believed to have said that “intelligence is the ability to adapt to change”. False attribution or not, in a world where the rate of technological change continues to accelerate, and the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 further stymies our ability to make decisions about the near future, adaptability is an intelligent policy. 

The Age of Hyper-Specialization

However, over the long course of humanity’s evolution, we have progressively become more specialized. From hunter-gatherers that were responsible with finding, catching and preparing food, fashioning spears, making clothing out of animal skins, and cultivating light and heat, we’ve increasingly done away with these tasks.

Today, UBEREats sends us food with the click of a button.

We literally turn light on and off with the flick of a switch (or a voice command).

We’ve taken clothing and turned it into an industry worth US$1.5 trillion. 

We’ve automated much of what human beings did just one hundred years ago, particularly out on the fields. 

In fact, much of what we did just five years ago is being automated, in white collar professions as specialized as accounting, law and engineering.

This leaves us free to apply our cognition on getting really good at just one thing. But it also comes at the expense of adapting, should said one thing become redundant.

Like assembly lines that optimize the efficiency of manufacturing, they also render the manufacturer efficient at producing the wrong thing in times of change, or, grossly inefficient at building the right thing.

And the switching costs involved in reconfiguring an assembly line, or reconfiguring our own skill-sets, can be significant and debilitating in the short term. 

COVID-19 Downturns

This year has seen live entertainment take a huge hit.

The live comedy industry has taken a massive hit, as have standup comedians, who in many cases have seen their income nosedive by 80-90%. Almost half of the comedy clubs in the UK face permanent closure. ‍

Live Nation - the world’s largest events and venue operator, posted devastating second-quarter results with revenue dropping by 98% from the same period last year.

Global cinema revenue was tipped to drop by 66% in 2020, while the global film industry faces a US$5 billion loss. 

And many theme parks are recording losses, thanks to the fixed costs and variable costs exceeding severely deflated revenue, due to both closures and social distancing measures at parks. 

In such environments, adaptability is key. 

And when it comes to adaptability it’s not specialists but generalists who win.

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