6 Drivers of Change Impacting Work

I came across information about the six drivers of change while searching on the subject of the future of work. These drivers of change are forcing changes in student education towards the new skills they’ll need when they go to work in 2020. They’re also creating change in how many of us work today.

Here are the six drivers of change from an infographic on the Top 10 Online Colleges website.

1 – Extreme Longevity – people are living longer (thanks in large part to the medical field, I’m sure). By 2025, the number of people over the age of 60 will increase by 70%.

2 – The Rise of Smart Machines and Systems – while technology can augment and improve our lives, it is killing repetitive jobs. Think assembly-line work now being performed largely by robots.

3 – Computational World – the world has become a programmable system. Big data gives us the ability to see things on a scale heretofore impossible, thanks to sensors embedded in just about everything.

4 – New Media Ecology – Forget text. Visual communication is the new language. Thanks to constantly changing tools such as smart phone apps like Snap Chat, which make it possible for us to document every minute of our lives and share immediately online.

5 – Super-structured Organizations – social tools are driving new forms of production and value creation. Think virtual meetings and globally distributed workers working from home or office yet collaborating jointly on projects. There’s no need to have the team located in the same office.

6 – Globally connected world – The US and Europe no longer dominate job creation, innovation and political power. Diversity and adaptability is at the center of operations. With technology, creation and innovation can happen anywhere by anyone.

How do these drivers of change impact those of us in the strategy field? What implications are there about how we communicate and work together?

We’re seeing these drivers of change in our business.

Much of our work is virtual with clients located outside our geographic area. We conduct trainings online via live webinars. We teach classes online using learning management systems that support video, chat, discussion forums, website creation, and documents in PowerPoint, Prezy, PDF, JPEG, PNG, OpenOffice or YouTube videos.

We have client meetings over the internet using GoToMeeting or Join.Me. We work on projects with teams located across the US and across the globe. We may use webcams during meetings …. or not. We stay current on changes in technology and trends because it impacts how we do business.

We have even conducted strategic planning sessions virtually using GoToMeeting.

Gone are the days of in person facilitation where we paper the walls with flip charts and transcribe the information into a multi-page text document. Now the meetings are online and recorded while we take notes from the structured conversations. The notes become part of the living plan document. The recording makes it possible to revisit and review prior meetings for better clarity.

With our Haines Centre partners we’ve participated and hosted Systems Thinking Conversations using both GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar. Despite having 20+ people live in the meetings, we’ve managed to create interaction and “conversation” virtually, gaining input, insights, and sharing tools …. the purpose of those conversations. Without the online technology, these conversations wouldn’t be possible.

How are you seeing these drivers of change in your business?