The winds of change – now is the change for creative, innovative and inspiring leadership…
As the strong winds of Dudley, Eunice, and Franklin swept across our shores in recent weeks, their gusts were a powerful metaphor for the winds of change sweeping across our lands socially, environmentally, and militarily.
With such disruptive forces at work around us, businesses must have the innovation and agility to continuously adapt for a resilient and sustainable future.
These real-life winds reminded me about another “Big Wind” of change…
At the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, the Iraqi army left Kuwait burning in its wake; having set fire to hundreds of oil wells, towering infernos choked the sky black.
Burning pockmarks scourged the earth and together formed the largest collection of oil fires in history.
President Bush called upon fellow compatriot, Paul Neal “Red” Adair, at that time the world’s lead on the extinguishing and capping of oil fires, and told him to go and put the fires out. Red Adair agreed, warning that such a feat would consume the best part of a year, and set about dousing the fires with millions of gallons of water.
His old approach, this traditional modus operandi, was soon eclipsed by a band of fresh thinking innovators who dealt with this flaming land within days.
The pyromania averse innovators were part of a firefighting squad from Hungary who showed up with a contraption dubbed ‘Big Wind’: based on the design of a Soviet T34 tank (the hero vehicle of the Second World War), the team from MB Drilling fixed two Tumansky R-25 turbojets from a MIG-21 fighter jet to the tank which squirted 220 gallons of water a second at the blazes, snuffing them out.
Their jet-engined machine fundamentally changed the way the industry put out oil fires.
Fast forward to now, and the danger is that, as we combat today’s challenges, such as covid, climate change, and the threat of war, organisations will do what they’ve always done.
But, amidst these powerful winds of change, both in reality and metaphorically, we must think more creatively and innovatively if we are to grow, evolve, and do things better.
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