The Second Curve: Thoughts on Reinventing Society, by Charles Handy
CHARLES Handy has been an oil executive, an economist, a professor at the London Business School, the Warden of St George’s House, and chairperson of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce.
He is a social philosopher who has provocative views on the world of work, and every book he writes is a treasure trove of insights.
I think we all agree that society is not working as it should, and that living is getting harder for most people. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, and wealth is not trickling down as we were told it would. More concerning is that many of the advances we see favour the few and not the many.
The world is changing rapidly and it is our personal lives that are going to change the most. Consider that “anything that is based on information, be it books, music or entertainment, will effectively be free, but a world of free goods offers few paying jobs”, as Handy notes.
He suggests that we need “Second-Curve” thinking in most parts of our lives.
An “S” curve first drops somewhat, then rises, only to drop again. The “second curve” is a new “S” that starts a new wave of events, is a challenge for orthodoxy, a call to “dream a little, think unreasonably and dare the impossible”, so that the future can be better for all of us.
This Second Curve is an opportunity to correct the failures of the first curve, and to learn from that experience so that we create a better future. As a philosopher, Handy identifies and clarifies the problems and suggest possibilities, rather than posits solutions.
Technology has always been a force for change. When Gutenberg discovered how to make and use movable type in a printing press he was able to produce 3 600 pages a day, instead of just a few that were copied by hand. The consequences of Gutenberg’s invention undermined the authority of the Catholic Church, began the Protestant Reformation, advanced science, and created new social classes and professions.
The changes were neither intended nor foreseen. Neither are the changes caused by more recent technological advances.
The computer has relieved many people of routine tasks and “taken the guts out of many organisations”, Handy observes.
Oxford University researchers estimate that 47% our jobs will be replaced by computers within the next two decades, and the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that about 250 million jobs will disappear in the next decade.
250 million jobs set to disappear
“What will replace those 250 million jobs?” Handy asks. Defunct Kodak used to employ 145 000 people, whereas Facebook only employs 6 000, and their $1bn purchase of Instagram comes with only 13 employees. WhatsApp, purchased by Facebook for $19bn, adds only 55 employees.
In response, we might have to become a do-it-yourself economy. We will not have to leave home to go to university, and we can use our homes for income generation. Airbnb allows people to rent their spare rooms safely, resulting in a business valued in 2014 at $10bn, bigger than the Hyatt or the InterContinental hotel groups. At that time, homeowners were earning an average of $7 530 a year renting their unused space.
eBay creates hundreds of thousands of virtual traders, who can now buy and sell using this site. Similarly, people can now sell a seat in their car, a meal in their home, or a parking space outside their house. You can now offer a huge array of other services in this new “sharing economy”.
This DIY economy also comes in less obvious forms. Airlines encourage passengers to print their own boarding pass, using their own ink and paper.
The Airedale General Hospital serves 200 000 people, many living in remote areas. This is achieved by providing instant, all-hours medical help via webcams and iPads, installed in the homes of those with heart or breathing problems. Patients self-monitor without leaving the house.
There will still be shops and other outlets in our shopping malls, Handy surmises, but mainly because web sellers realise that a physical outlet is a valuable add-on to their websites. People will still like to try on clothing or see appliances operate before buying.
Cars will still be manufactured, oil wells drilled, crops grown and harvested and medicines produced, Handy reminds us, but the IT component will make the difference. These activities will only require brains and fingers, not the muscle power of the past.
The Second Curve will bring its own new learning processes. We will have to learn to live with the consequences.
For example, “It has always struck me as odd to watch all those streams of people pouring out of railway stations in order to sit in their box-like cubicles communicating with similar folk in other boxes by email, telephone or messaging.” All this could have been accomplished equally well from home, and by people who work as independents rather than employees of a large organisation.
The 16 stand-alone essays that make up this book cover a wide range of important issues. For illustration, I share this one.
For some the pursuit of more money is a particularly dangerous snare, and one which has no end. There will always be someone more prosperous than ourselves.
“In our personal lives,” Handy responds, “my wife and I set our own targets for the money that we need to earn each year and the time that we need to allocate to it. We have found that the lower we set the targets the more free we are… to use the time we have released. Since the targets are made by us, for us, there is no envy of those who earn more or achieve more.”
The Second Curve has already started in so many areas of our lives. Where it will lead us to, is both worrying and challenging? Doing nothing is not an option.
Readability: Light --+-- Serious
Insights: High +---- Low
Practical: High ----+ Low
* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.