Disappearing jobs

Storks

Many folk legends say that storks are bringers of babies to families but how on earth did this silly story originate?

One theory is that many more babies are conceived in the Northern summertime, who are then born at the start of spring (9 months later) which is when storks would reappear with their young.

Now, my wife and I don’t offer too many sugar-coated childish stories to our son so, since he was very young, we’ve answered honestly his many questions about the origins of life. Of course, he started with “How does the baby get out of the mother?” and he very rapidly followed this with, “So, how did it get in?”

Now he’s 12, his questions are more existential and this came from him recently: “Dad, can you think of a better time or place for me to be born into?”

I couldn’t (although I would love to know your thoughts on this — add your comments below). However, it reminded me of a similar existential question a client asked her leadership team: “What kind of world would we want if we didn’t know which circumstances we’d be born into?”

That stimulus question led us into a vigorous strategic debate about which of?our?societal benefits disadvantage others (e.g., the ‘fast fashion’ supply chain) and therefore what we could realistically change for everyone’s benefit, especially those born into very different circumstances to ours.

Question: What kind of world would you want if you didn’t know which circumstances you’d be born into?

Standardisation that leads to customisation

My grandfather was a Hungarian village shoemaker, born in 1905. Across his entire lifetime, he made each pair of shoes entirely from scratch, all by hand. (During WW2, he made boots for both German and Russian soldiers, that he designed to fall apart within weeks — but that’s another story).

Sitting at his workbench alone, nothing he did was standardised, whereas today almost everything is. The AAA battery that powers my toothbrush is made to a global standard, so is the shipping container that brought the toothbrush (and the battery) to Australia, and the SKU and barcode on the packaging.

With standardisation come two clear benefits - the toothbrush maker (which is?Quip, by the way - the best toothbrush I’ve ever used) can get product to market, globally, at speed and scale my grandfather couldn’t even comprehend.

But, there’s a third, paradoxical, advantage to standardisation: I, the customer, can make many more choices than if the product was less standardised.

Quip lets me choose when to get my refill brush-heads, what colour they should be, how fast I want them to arrive, and what other accessories accompany them each month or two. Similarly, my family has owned a succession of Minis for about 20 years. They were one of the earliest car brands to offer mass customisation: you used an online configurator (a revelation back in 2004) to select seat fabrics, wheels, stripes and much more. They uploaded my preferences to their factory in Oxford and the car appeared at our dealership 3 months later. It seemed like a miracle but, a scant 20 years later, this approach to customisation through standardisation barely raises an eyebrow.

Question: What can you standardise more in your business that adds to the choices your customers can make?

Disappearing jobs

A local government director asked me, “Andrew, what’s your prediction about how many drivers we’ll employ in 10 years time, compared to today?” I said, “I predict almost none”.

How do I know?

Well, I don’t, but I’m a close follower of the?World Economic Forum’s prognostications. If you haven’t gotten acquainted with their concept of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, you should, as it compellingly shows us why telemarketers, freight agents, auditors, financial analysts and pretty much everyone who works in insurance, tax, payroll and procurement will be out of a job by the late 2020s. (The WEF is 98% certain of this).

At the other end of the scale, they’re equally certain that workers in data analysis, robotics, mental health, emergency management, and clinical healthcare (and, I’m delighted to say, strategic advisors) are safe from technological displacement.

Question: “In your organisation, do you know which are the jobs at risk? What are you doing to prepare yourselves for this shift?”

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Have a great weekend - and week ahead - and I'll see you next Friday,

Andrew