Navigating Career Bending Times.
Created by the author using Midjourney
These are career bending times.
A fusion of forces are reshaping the contours of our careers.
Whether we are early or in the middle or more senior in tenure.
Whether we work for a small, medium, or a large firm.
Whether we are self-employed, a free-lancer or a “full-time” employee.
Regardless of our industry, our country, or our expertise.
The Forces.
There are six forces each of which alone might have changed the contours of our career but now they are all occurring at the same time, are intertwined with each other, and are becoming increasingly powerful:
1. Demographic and Societal Change: Four generations at work. Major mindset differences between youngest and oldest generations. Aging and declining populations everywhere but Africa. Today the largest increases in working populations are over 60 years old. And 62% of Gen-Z have a side- gig, side-hustle or passion project while working full-time! In most countries there is a severe push back against immigration which is impacting the economics of different industries in different ways.
2. Technology: While AI is the significant driver of technology today it is not the only one. Blockchains are creating new financial instruments and trust marks.Biotech breakthroughs are coming fast and furious. Robotics manifests AI in physical ways. All of these are roiling every industry from manufacturing to services.
3. Multi-polar globalization: Globalization but with different centers of power versus a US dominated world order is underway. While the US and China are the dominant economies by far ( their combined GDP of 50 trillion accounts for 40 percent of the total GDP of the world) we are seeing the shape shifting of different alliances with Europe, Japan, and India among others combining in different ways. There is no steady state.
4. The Unbundling of Work: Work is being uncoupled from jobs and from the office. Jobs are a phase that work is going through. Companies and careers will soon be optimized around getting work done versus the filling of jobs. This will have huge societal impact but is inevitable. In addition the office will be a museum. A monument to the past, a place where the history and culture of an organization is shared and a proof of solidity and continuity projected. But real work is being done everywhere.
5. Work/Life Reset: One long term impact of the 2020 to 2022 post Covid trauma was as someone wrote: “And isn’t this the whole point, post-Covid: to actually live your life?” Many people who believed work was life now believe work is an important and key part but just one part of a well-lived life. Companies who believe Covid changed our mindsets on where we work still do not understand that what it did was make us ask why we work and who we work for?
6. The melting, decaying, and liquefying of industry shapes and boundaries: With Apple offering 3.5percent interest on a FDIC insured savings account up to 250,000 dollars that you can fund with one click and loaning you funds from their balance sheet with their Buy Now and Pay Later program ( now through Klarna) they are for all purposes a bank. The New York Times is a global multi-media life-style business with a third of their revenue coming from non news products. Volkswagen recently announced lay-offs of 50,000 workers as new technologies ( electric and self-driving) and new competition (Chinese in particular) is decimating the proud German auto industry. The categories we work in are shapes shifting.
Each of these forces are intertwined with each other. Modern technology and marketplaces allow for side-gigs and side-hustles and unbundled work. AI powers Biotech and re-configures jobs. New trade barriers move jobs and manufacturing to different countries as does the rise and fall of population.
Created by the author using Midjourney
The Career Implications.
While the future is often hard to predict one can be quite sure that in the next few years the current waves of change will grow into a tsunami, and everybody will be impacted in some way or the other.
1. We are now going to have 50-year careers: Extended life spans, limited government pensions, incentives for elder people to stay in the workforce, machine enabled work will have us working for multiple decades versus a 30-year career. Ageism will soon be seen as a prejudice against our future selfs.
2. Life-Long Training and Education: Even three decades into a career well into the 50’s one may need to go back to school, re-skill and re-tool. And the days of saying “We will be retired before all these new things happen” will not be realistic. Investing in continuous learning will be key to stay relevant. Most companies who are cutting people thinking that AI will replace them should actually invest in retraining their people since AI will be like electricity a commodity that every one has versus a competitive advantage. In fact for every dollar spent in AI companies will need to spend the same to upgrade their talent.
3. We will increasingly be working like gig workers and there will be many other changes to the design of organizations: A job will not be a title, a position and a static role but a constantly changing number of tasks, outcomes and deliverables In a globalized and connected marketplace of unbundled and distributed work we will all become gig workers even if we spend long time in a firm since all firms will become increasingly agile and connected, looking to put the best people on the most appropriate tasks very much like the way Hollywood or TV production works.
4. We will be work in tandem with machines: Almost every job will leverage AI or will be infused with some other technology. The productivity increases of modern technology will mean anyone trying to avoid it will be intriguing to talk about but unlikely to be able to compete.
5. We will work in smaller and delayered companies with many of us operating as “Companies of One”: a) AI software, b) Platforms that enable access to marketplaces and talent ( Shopify, Fiver) , c) a need for shapeshifting agility as categories re-invent themselves ( Finance, Auto, Healthcare, Education at a minimum which account for half of US GDP), d) a demand for flexible cost structures in a high velocity world, e) a work-force where free-lance workers are greater than full-time workers (2027 in the US) and f) scar-tissue of over hiring (see tech and media companies today) will significantly reduce the size of most companies, eliminate multiple layers and focus on experts and deliverables versus generalists and process. We are likely to see an eco-system of some very large companies in every industry (the whales) and millions of smaller firms ( plankton). AI has turbocharged the number of new businesses started in the US to almost 6 million!
6. Leaders and Coaches and Learners versus Bosses and Manager and Know it Alls: In this new world people will likely value, ask for and measure three things:
a) what does an individual help make, build, ship, change or impact?
b) what value do we add to the machine or how do we collaborate with other people or plug into a role on a project so that 1+ 1=3 ?
c) what creativity, vision, empathy, or imagination do we bring to inspire and grow people and business ?
The key will be how one can lead, train, and grow talent to unleash their potential.
The big corner offices, the gauntlet of handlers, receptionists, and other awe-inspiring fear mongering scaffolding of the pre-2020’s will all be seen as the crutches of the insecure and the fearful causing most talent to rapidly re-route around such blockages and blockheads.
People’s “zone of influence” and “zone of impact” will be far more important than our “zone of control” or “size of kingdom”.
Created by the author using Midjourney
Re-inventing and Staying Relevant.
A complete re-imagining and re-thinking is underway which is why all of us feel some combination of fear, challenge, excitement, and even horror!
The drumbeats of a changing reality are beating in the marrow of our blood even if we do not wish to listen to their forceful thump-thump…
We will all need to bend ourselves into new forms, skills, and shapes.
A few keys to remaining relevant will be:
a. Plan for the long term: Plot careers over phases recognizing different eras as well as our own differences as we age with a look both ahead and behind. Read Career Lessons Revisited a distillation of usable and actionable learnings on re-inventing over time.
b. Build expertise. Hone a craft. Be known.Learn and earn a niche or niches. Have a voice and learn to tell a story. Read Career Turbocharging for an exercise if you are looking for a job, thinking of switching jobs or re-inventing yourself and a job.
c. Do not outsource your career growth to anyone else:Be responsible and control the upgrading of your mental and skill operating system to keep on learning.Here is one way: Learning to learn.
And here is one page with thoughts on a dozen topics to thrive in the future you may wish to bookmark. Look at Section 1, 2 and 10 in particular.
It will be a career bending time.
Which is far better than a career ending time!
One Single Thing.
To imagine where the world of AI, surveillance and data driven marketing is taking us read this incredible story. It will blow you away and you will never think of your marketing job, your data job or AI the same.
The entire story has been made available for free by the author Suzanne Wang here:
https://suzannewang.com/mall-of-america
It is amazing.