The future of work is here. What can you do about it?
We use amazing technologies to connect, build remote teams, be location independent, tele-commute and work from the beach in Thailand or Bali. The millennial generation is taking over, shaping the work culture and the office of the future, changing jobs more often than gadgets .
The coworking concept is rapidly expanding everywhere in the world. Hierarchies are getting flatter and authority now needs to be earned, not taken for granted.
Many people each of us know will lose their jobs to automation, robots, artificial intelligence over the next few decades.
Work will never be the same.
Inspired by a comment on my previous article, I figured we’d discuss next what it is we can do about it.
It turns out we have three main options, like with everything else that’s changing, really:
1. Reject or fight it
This will be just about as efficient as the postmen going on strike against Gmail.
Metaphors aside, there are multiple organizations that can and will survive for a few more years without any significant change, for various reasons. Just like how, for e.g., traditional phone services will hold their own for a little more before succumbing to the likes of Skype, Whatsapp, Google Hangouts, etc. Powerful monopolies, the amount of time needed to affect real change in some industries, baby boomers and gen Z still a big part of the workforce, are all contributing to this.
But generally, those who won’t try to at least acknowledge the changes currently underway, and tweak accordingly, will be made irrelevant in the foreseeable future.
So, if this option is the one you’re going for, cash in while it lasts.
2. Embrace it
Take the time to understand what’s happening. Attend events, read, network, listen. Be open. Times of change are extremely rich in opportunities for those who don’t hold on to the past.
Build your business to take advantage of it
If you run a business, below are some things you can do. If you don’t, scroll down to the next point.
- Automate/ outsource all or most left side of the brain/algorithmic work. If a task implies following a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion, it’ll be among the first to be automated.
- Focus on right side of the brain/ heuristic kind of work — interesting, challenging, creative; the kind of task that requires someone to find a solution/path themselves. McKinsey estimates that about 70 percent of the job growth in the US comes from heuristic work — these are the jobs of the future.
- Put meaning and purpose at the core of your business and the jobs you offer. Millennials care more about purpose than they do about paychecks. Communicate clearly the “why”, and the “how” and “what” will come naturally.
- Master technology. Find, test and integrate in your business the best and most suitable tools of the myriad available now; e.g. you won’t win by making your employees type faster on a typewriter, you’ll win by using intuitive technology that turns voice into ready proofread docs. Andrea, the CEO of Mailbird is a great example of how you can both use — AND produce (in her case) state-of-the-art tools designed to run your (remote) team.
- Put people first. Money is not an entrepreneur’s scarcest resource. In the era of venture capital, grants, accelerators, angel investors, financial capital is relatively abundant* and cheap. Talent is the scarcest resource. Let’s highlight: financial capital is abundant but carefully managed; human capital is scarce but not carefully managed. People bring you all the other sources of added value that really matter nowadays: knowledge, inspiration, energy, innovation, technologies.
- Lead like you’ve earned it. Stay humble, stay hungry and always hustle. And hire the people who are and do some of the things I describe just below.
- Acquire what the Finnish call ‘sisu’ - the psychological strength that allows a person to overcome extraordinary challenges. Connoting a willingness to act even when the reward seems out of reach, it’s the determination and bravery that, as an entrepreneur, you no doubt need — and probably exercise already.
Build your career to take advantage of it
- Figure out how to learn fast and become a learning worker rather than a knowledge worker — knowledge “expires”/ becomes obsolete so fast these days; life-long learning is the future.
- Cultivate skills that will be relevant in the future. Don’t invest too much in left side of the brain/algorithmic type of skills. If a task implies following a set of established instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion, it’ll be among the first to be automated. Become good at the right side of the brain/ heuristic kind of work — interesting, challenging, creative; the kind of task that requires you to find a solution/path yourself. You can take a look at some of the skills predicted to be highly valued in 2020 here — and how fast they are changing.
- As Clare preaches in this extremely insightful article, don’t go into a dying industry. It doesn’t matter how clever you are, going into a dying industry is really hard. Unless you’re at the disruptive element of it. If your job is going to be taken by robots, make sure you’re the person learning to code the robots, rather than the person whose job those bots will be pinching.
3. Create the next version of it
The slate is clean here and the world is your oyster. If you’re a visionary giving it some thought, I want to hear from you, stalk your social media and pick your brain.
So, what will you do about it?
