Earlier this year I hosted a breakfast seminar with Dr Nick Fleming, Managing Director of Innergise, which prompted considerable discussion across my network. The notion of a converging polycrisis struck a chord then and it clearly remains front of mind for leaders navigating profound shifts in the current global environment.
This week I welcomed a select group of CEOs to a TRANSEARCH boardroom Lunch and Learn, where we took a deeper dive into the ‘polycrisis’ affecting Australia’s prosperity cycle, which is being stress tested by multiple local and international factors.
Our lunch conversation was frank, practical and grounded in lived experience. Executives spoke openly about their decision making, their organisational settings and the real pressures that come with managing in a period of heightened volatility. What became evident is that leaders cannot rely on the conditions of the past decade to carry them forward.
Instead, organisations must strengthen foresight, improve institutional maturity and develop the capacity to adapt more quickly than the environment around them. This is not simply a matter of reacting to disruption. It is about treating disruption as an early signal to rethink how organisations work, lead and create value. As engineers understand well, system dynamics follow patterns, and if we recognise the phase we are in, we can act with greater purpose and precision.
The discussion reinforced that capital is increasingly mobile. Nations and organisations alike are now competing for investment, talent and advantage at a faster rate than ever. Technology sits at the centre of this shift. It will enable prosperity but will also redefine how wealth and power are distributed. Institutional redesign and genuine systems leadership are becoming prerequisites, not aspirations.
We explored the reality that many of today’s risks are more predictable than they appear, once viewed through the lens of cycles and interdependencies. The coincidence of multiple cycles entering an unravelling phase elevates the likelihood of cascading events. Yet within this lies opportunity. What comes next will depend on the ideas available at the time, our speed of learning and the mindset with which leaders approach transformation.
Throughout the conversation, one theme stood out. Productivity and collaboration will determine who advances and who is left exposed. Our country’s persistent productivity challenges are well known, and they remain a millstone. Addressing them will require more deliberate calibration of strategy and risk, better recognition of systemic threats and opportunities, and a willingness to design long-term, future facing organisational architectures.
Key insights and takeaways
- Australia’s prosperity cycle is shifting, and disruption is now a strategic constant that requires stronger foresight and institutional maturity
- Technology presents significant upside, although it will reshape how wealth, power and competitiveness are distributed across nations and industries
- Risk is increasingly systemic, with a higher likelihood of intersecting and cascading events requiring a redesign of strategy and risk practices
- Productivity and collaboration are essential to reduce the cost and risk of transformation, and to accelerate organisational learning
- The organisations that prosper will be those that adapt faster than their environment and build systems capable of navigating long term cycles
Nick challenged us to reflect on the mindsets that may be constraining progress. Leaders must be prepared to question their institutional habits, confront biases that inhibit investment in insight and capability, and take the first achievable step toward reshaping their organisations for a more demanding future.
These are difficult conversations yet increasingly unavoidable. They are also the conversations that give organisations a strategic advantage.
If you would like to explore what these themes mean for your organisation, or if you are interested in joining future TRANSEARCH events, please feel welcome to contact me directly. The more we engage with these questions now, the better prepared we will be to secure Australia’s future prosperity.
With over 21 years of experience in executive search, Bill Haggerty specialises in recruiting Senior Executives across the Manufacturing, Engineering, Transport and Infrastructure sectors. Typical roles include CEOs, CFOs, Logistic & Supply Chain Directors, Project Directors and General Managers. He is an active member of Engineers Australia and is committed to promoting the engineering profession and gender diversity within engineering. Bill is a Fellow of Engineers Australia with Chartered and EngExec status and a Graduate of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Civil Engineering and Management. He has a very broad commercial background with extensive management, business development and project management experience gained in Australia, the Middle East and Asia.
