Rebecca D. Costa

Over 90 percent of the world’s data has been produced within the last 24 months. Not only are we generating much more data than we can use, important decisions being made, based on information that is changing as fast as fast as a person can Tweet. As quantum computing, 5G and lightning-fast technologies proliferate, there’s no slowing down the deluge.

Is there a limit to how much information, complexity and change humans can manage? A point at which complexity impedes progress and individuals and organizations become gridlocked?

According to Rebecca Costa, there is. Throughout human history when the complexity of data and processes exceed the cognitive capabilities we have thus far evolved, 3 telltale signs begin to appear: 1) there is mass confusion between empirical facts and unproven beliefs (because facts are difficult to access or comprehend), 2) the confusion between unproven beliefs, opinion, dogma and empirical facts infects leadership, producing gridlock (a dangerous inability to resolve urgent problems), 3) over time an organization or society falls victim to irrational policy based on unproven beliefs which causes it to become vulnerable to a fast-moving, triggering event. The final result is collapse. Costa demonstrates how these 3 precursors to unilateral failure not only apply to all great civilizations, but also to once indominable industries, institutions and organizations.

HOWEVER - according to Costa, there is an antidote to growing complexity. We are making a transition from the Information Age - when faster data production and accessibility was the objective - to the Technolithic Era - when new technologies are paving the way for “computer-assisted decision making” in all areas of business, governance and daily life. She shows how AI, Quantum computing, machine-to-machine communications and learning, predictive analytics, 5G, bioengineering, nano and other technologies hold the key to triumphing in today’s complex, “high failure-rate environment,” and offers practical measures leaders can take to avoid the dangerous effects of information overload and gridlock.