Ten Survival Skills for a World in Flux review – a dose of practical optimism
Ten Survival Skills for a World in Flux by Tom Fletcher (HarperCollins), £20.
Tom Fletcher thinks it’s all in the name. Here is a name forecast. There will be light naming — experts — in Chapter One, How to Take Back Control — Philip Tetlock, author of Superforecasting; Noah Raford, Dubai’s futurist-in-chief; Nick Gowing, journalist.
Rising name pressure — chums — expected later in Chapter Two, How to Be Curious – Melanie Perkins, Australian billionaire; Roly Keating, British Library; Omar Ghobash, polymath; Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the internet; Baroness Valerie Amos, politician.
A tsunami of really, really, impressive names — Name-Force 10 — expected in the opening two pages of Chapter Four, How to Find Your Voice — Bill Clinton; George W. Bush; Mikhail Gorbachev; Barack Obama; Carla Bruni; David Beckham; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; the Dalai Lama; Ahmed Badr, poet/refugee. Phew!
An occasional outbreak of names is expected later, throughout the book. Take cover!
Welcome to Ambassador Tom Fletcher’s Rolodex. Sorry, book. About how we need to shape up to survive in a world-changing more rapidly than at any time since man blinked onto the planet a mere 100,000 years ago.
Fletcher knows people. Policy advisor in No 10 to three Prime Ministers; Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron. Two parties, neither featuring the Rose Garden or a birthday cake.
As a convention-breaking Ambassador in Lebanon, he famously published a traditional, out of fashion “End of Term” report on the state of the country when he stepped down. Author – The Naked Diplomat. And now visiting professor at New York University and Principal of Hertford College, Oxford.
What’s astonishing is that Fletcher isn’t just quoting these people. He knows them. Well, maybe not Nicholas Tesla. He has met Greta Thunberg and survived.
As the book moves on and fresh names dwindle to an occasional drizzle, it is impossible to resist the notion that this narrative journey of shoulder-rubbing is aimed at reassuring the reader the author’s credentials are perhaps bolstered by some of their glitz rubbing off.
If so, Fletcher underestimates himself. He needs no glitz from others. This book is founded upon his open, curious, forever ranging mind. And it is written by an optimistic man whose raison d’être is to shape a better world for today and leave it pointing in the right direction for our successors.
If your preference is high pitched trolling, and the comforting reinforcement of dyed in the wool prejudices, this book is not for you.
It is a personal book. No great institutional “them” will save the day. It’s all down to “you” and “us”.
By Chapter Two, How to Be Curious, the reader will realise the Ten Survival Skills schtick was a cunning lure. Chapter Two alone sets out nine. Trawl the other chapters, and the score is 39!
Picture this. Publisher; “Look, Tom, it’s great, but who’s going to buy a book with 39 survival skills?” Author; “Buchan did it with “Steps”. OK, what plays?” Publisher; “Ooooh, well 10’s a nice round number. Sort of comforting”. Author; “OK. So long as I don’t have to ditch the other 29.” Publisher; “Fair do’s. Just sneak them in at the end of the chapters.”
And the snuck in the end of chapter aide memories really work. If nothing else, this book can be kept close to hand and easily referred to when reinforcement is needed, perhaps skill 9 in Chapter Two, Say “I don’t Know”. One of the hardest to practice.
The book is divided into two parts; Ten Survival Skills and Begin it Now. But, the Prologue, Zeinab’s Moonshot; and Introduction, Kindling the Flame are substantive chapters in their own right.
Zeinab was a 12-year-old refugee Fletcher encountered in a tent in Lebanon. Driven from Syria by Assad and barrel bombs her moonshot was to find a safer planet for her brother, Ahmed.
This is a typical example of real-life experiences that have shaped Fletcher’s thinking. As he left, having guiltily mumbled diplomat’s platitudes, Zeinab grabbed his sleeve and asked, “But what do I really need to learn?”
It is that haunting inquiry that has driven Fletcher to write this book. Its core is education and the potential for adaptation to new technology in a connected world.
The Introduction – Kindling the Flame – encapsulates the opportunities for disseminating knowledge in this rapidly evolving information age and points out that post-Covid, we should reflect upon what changed for the better during lockdown. New ways of working. New ways of thinking.
For a career diplomat and man forged in establishment posts, Fletcher reaches a refreshing conclusion. “So, without waiting for governments, we’ll need to find new ways to work and learn”. “Them” is no substitute for “us”. I recalled JFK, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Some of the 10 “How to” chapters in Part One are surprising. How to be a Good Ancestor reminds us that as we learn from our predecessors our successors will learn from us. And form opinions. Will we be seen as the architects of their Armageddon?
Part Two is a call to arms, Begin it Now. To a Mr B Johnson, temporarily of 10 Downing Street, London: Read the section on why it’s important to say “sorry”. You might just get out of your self-imposed, unwinnable, horn lock with Keir Starmer.
The challenge of new technology is confronted, and a stark warning bell rung about the potential it brings for political control and sublimation of personality. A surprising omission was a discussion about the work on artificial intelligence being carried out by DeepMind in London.
I would have valued the author’s opinion about the balance between the risks and opportunities the rapid advance of AI already presents.
Fletcher’s writing style is clear and unaffected; Ten Survival Skills is readable, thought-provoking and of enduring value. I hope, somehow, somewhere, Zeinab reads this book. After all, it is her moonshot as much as Tom Fletcher’s.