I would suggest that two supplementary questions need also to be addressed: ‘What has not changed?’ and more pertinently, ‘what will not change over the next 5 to 10 years’.

I make this suggestion for essentially two reasons.

One, it is important to remind oneself that amid the clutter and noise of change, policy and strategy are the result of human effort and that this effort is ultimately bounded by the limiting attributes of human nature. Adam Smith wrote more than 200 years back in The Wealth of Nations that individuals are driven by self-interest. He added that if this drive was unencumbered by external constraints like government regulation then the collective impact of such individual pursuit would lead to a strong and stable economy and contribute positively to the public interest. The latter conclusion was an unalloyed endorsement of capitalism and it has been the subject of fierce debate ever since. The former comment, however, is generally unchallenged. And justifiably so. For it is this attribute of human nature that provides the root explanation for the perennial contradictions between intent and practice.

John Perry Barlow, an internet activist, made a bombastic declaration in 1996. He announced the independence of cyberspace with the words ‘Governments of the industrial world, you weary giants of flesh and steel. I come from cyberspace, the new home of mind. Cyberspace does not live within your borders. Our world is different. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force and station of birth’.

In reality, of course, there is no such world today. Movement is confined by physical boundaries. Privilege and prejudice run through our lives and ultimately all of us build our identity not through the impersonal lenses of Google and Yahoo but the more tangibly emotive links of race, language and nationality. And we do this because it is through these tangible ties that we feel we can best fulfill our self-interest.

My second reason has a more granular foundation. I am of the view that the answer to a question like ‘what will not change’ will provide decision-makers in government and business a more solid foundation on which to manage risk and create value. Jeff Bezoz, the founder of Amazon.com, said in an interview to the Harvard Business Review that a strategy based on the ‘transitory’, that is, things that are continually changing like technology or customers — will have to be continually adapted and altered whereas strategy based on the ‘stable’ will lead to an assured and regular dividend payout. He said that in his business, the customers would always (or at least for the next decade or so) be looking for lower prices, quicker delivery and a wider selection of books. Therefore, the effort invested on cutting costs and creating an efficient supply chain would be more certain of generating value than the effort on identifying and anticipating the next paradigm.

In my business, I could state with certainty that a decade from now, India’s commercial energy consumption basket will be dominated by fossil fuels; that the alternatives of solar, wind, bio, nuclear and hydro will contribute only a small share to this basket; that gasoline will be the dominant transportation fuel; that the domestic consumption of oil will exceed domestic supply; that in consequence our import burden will be huge; that the bulk of our imports will come from the Middle East; that the industry will be dominated by the Indian companies with foreign companies playing a peripheral role (albeit with some establishing strong niche positions in specialities like lubricants and bitumen) and that technology will be the key factor for competitive differentiation.

I would, therefore, suggest that effort must be concentrated on mitigating the consequence of remaining a hydrocarbon dependent economy. The government is, of course, aware of this issue. But that said, I do worry that the growing imperative to contain greenhouse gas emissions and to develop renewable energy may distract people from this fundamental reality. And that we may not spend the time and resources required to securing supplies, managing demand and building partnerships. The fact is that the durability of our economic success over the next 10 years will depend on the success of these latter measures and not on the progress made in the development of cleaner alternatives.

My fundamental point is that while change is inescapable and welcome, we must not ignore the French saying that ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same’. We have all been buffeted by the nature and rapidity of change. But that has not altered our behavioural instincts and therefore the basic drivers of the environment around us. The challenge for leadership whether they be in government or business, is to remain aligned with what is stable — ‘manage the unchanging’ — at the same time that they contemplate the horizon beyond.

The writer is chairman, Shell Group in India