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With a team of 200 people from 40 international companies, Lynda Gratton looked at five factors that will influence the future in profound ways.
These are technology, globalisation, demography, sociology and energy. They have had a profound effect on our work lives over the last 20 years, and we can safely assume that they will be no less game-changing in the next 15.
From the data Professor Gratton amassed she developed a set of scenarios, possible stories of how the future may unfold. The "Default" set of scenarios is most likely to unfold if we, as individuals, do not take deliberate action.
The more positive "Chosen" scenarios are likely to unfold if we choose to act rather than simply react. Each of these scenarios she portrays as a day in the life of the person working in 2025.
One default scenario is encapsulated in the working life of Jill, who lives in London. She wakes up to electronic messages, participates in multi-continental virtual meetings and packs her day full of activity with spare moments filled with responses to incoming messages.
It is a tightly packed, fragmented day. Jill will never become an expert in anything because expertise demands reflection and observation, and she has no time for either.
Rohan is a neurosurgeon living in Mumbai. From his apartment he participates in surgery on a patient in China and communicates with his Cantonese-speaking team in Hindi via high-speed translation. This is followed by a similar intervention in Chile and later one in London.
By the end of the day he has not left his apartment or interacted in person with another human being. Gratton calls this scenario "Isolation".
Briana is a 28-year-old high-school dropout from Ohio, who spends most of the day playing computer games. She works four hours a day, five days a week flipping hamburgers and has to compete against well-educated, highly motivated people her age from India and China.
She's part of the new breed of excluded people. In 2025 exclusion will not be a function of geography, but rather of a lack of talent and motivation.
If we choose to shift the way we operate, the scenarios for the world of work can be significantly different.
In an extremely fast-changing world we need to become what Gratton calls "serial masters" rather than the shallow generalists for whom there will be ever diminishing opportunities. The second shift is from being "isolated competitors to innovative connectors".
Companies and people are currently in competition with each other for advancement and reward. The future, Gratton explains, will have to be built on the collaboration and cooperation of people at every level.
Third shift is from the mindset that I work to be paid, which I use to consume, which makes me happy - to the mindset of an impassioned producer, rather than a voracious consumer.
Those who make the shift will be able to enjoy the Crafted Scenarios. Here we see people co-create important solutions to difficult problems, and making life choices to be socially engaged with their own families, with the wider society and the environment.
Here we see multitudes of serial masters, micro-entrepreneurs all flourishing.
The Shift is a very thought-provoking and incisive book on the future of work.
Readability: Light --+-- Serious
Insights: High -+--- Low
Practicality: High ---+- Low
* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy.
