The price we pay for efficiency.

"Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up? Nobody looks at chimneys, or trees against the sky, or the tops of buildings. Everybody looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by, and most people wouldn't notice."

Julie Andrews Evans

This morning on Radio 4, an executive from the hospitality industry insisted that the Government offer certainty about coming out of lockdown. This was someone who, I suspect, spends a lot of time looking at their shoes.

We are constantly surrounded by uncertainty, although it seems we have more than average now or at least it feels like it. Perhaps it's because we have created business models and business mindsets that rely on certainty in the pursuit of efficiency. We have come to rely on predictable supply chains, interest rates, availability of cheap labour, even continued Government subsidy to extract value from what hasn't happened yet. We look for returns today on promises of returns in the future.

What is increasingly cl…