Ten Ways the World Has Been Turned Upside Down: Part 1
by Andrés T. Tapia –
Though the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman argues that the world is flat, I say the world is not flat–it’s upside down. Daily, even hourly, we feel the aftershocks at work. Changes of historic proportions are transforming the economic, political and social landscapes in which we do business. Here are five of the Top Ten transformations:
#1 In many parts of the US, to be a minority is to be a majority. Texas, California, New Mexico, Hawaii and the District of Columbia are all now what census experts call “minority-majority,” a term used to describe an area whose composition is less than 50% Caucasian. In addition, the percentage of non-Hispanic white residents has fallen below 60% in Maryland, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, New York and Mississippi.
#2 To be an economic superpower is to be a declining power. The US is still the world’s only economic superpower–but it is a superpower in decline. In World War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity, Gabor Steingart discusses how the rise of developing countries, especially in Asia, has led to a decline of the US national economy that many blue- and white-collar workers experience as absolute. They possess less money, they are shown less respect in society and their chances for climbing up the social ladder have deteriorated dramatically.
#3 To be a developing country is to be an ascending country. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, the fastest growing economies in the world are located in developing countries–mainly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
#4 To be young is to be experienced. As I discuss in The Inclusion Paradox, for Millennials the upside-down world is right-side-up because it’s what they grew up with. Experience and knowledge are no longer correlated with age; they show up to work iPoded, cell-phoned, globally traveled, socially networked and ready to multi-task–often more technically equipped for today’s workplace than people twice their age.
#5 The US has an African American president. The election of Barack Obama was a defining moment that captured both metaphorically and literally the zeitgeist of the times. That’s why my book, subtitled The Obama Era and the Transformation of Global Diversity, uses Obama’s statements and election as a canvas for exploring our current cultural change.
Later this week I’ll be offering five more ways businesses are finding that the world is upside down. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter, where this countdown first appeared in abbreviated form.
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