The Future of Work

I recently heard Sally Thornton give a presentation on Fluidity in the Future of Work at my monthly Vistage meeting. Sally is the founder of a unique talent acquisition company called Forshay, she gave a TedX talk on this topic in 2015, and she is currently writing a book on the subject. Some of the research for Sally's book comes from Stanford University, where she is a member of the Clayman Institute Advisory Council. Bottom line...this woman has tons of credibility on this topic!

After our discussion with Sally, three themes remained with me the rest of the afternoon.

1. The Human condition causes us to seek out Control and Autonomy, but these must be paired with a sense of Belonging and Purpose for us to truly be satisfied. In other words, quitting your day job to become a hermit consultant who lives off-the-grid will not be the path to enlightenment. We all naturally long to be a part of something greater than ourselves.
2. By the 2020 more than 40% of the US workforce will be Project Based (freelance or contingent workers) according to a study conducted by software company Intuit. This is great news for the Millennials who covet freedom above all else or those already working as consultants. But for those of us still commuting to a office every day and spending hours of "face time" with our team, this change represents more than just a shift in mindset. This evolution is a major disruption to how we have worked our entire lives.
3. Many of us will have to overcome our well-established work bias. "If you're not at the office, you're not working." Or the tried and true, "Never leave the office before your boss." And one of my favorites, "If you're not here on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Monday." Never mind that we’re all checking work emails on our phones and laptops at night and on weekends. The future workplace challenges these outdated viewpoints, and even if we never liked these ideas in the first place, we (Generation X) had to adapt to these standards years ago and we secretly want millennials to do the same. They will not, and they should not.

On a personal level, I believe a large part of my success is attributable to my work ethic. I am not the fastest, smartest, most eloquent, or best looking colleague, but I have always been willing to do more. I rarely turn down a new challenge, project, or responsibility when approached by my employer. So you could say this Future of Work is a direct challenge to my identity. If everyone can't see me working hard at the office and saying "yes" all the time, then who am I? Now is a great time to figure it out and prepare for the second half of my career.

So how can we evolve? One way is to structure work in "results-based roles" versus the old model of assigning tasks and duties. This affords employees the Control and Autonomy we all desire, while still holding everyone accountable to the objectives of the organization. As long as the results are achieved in the defined time frame, why should we care what hours were worked or where the job was performed? I've heard Steven Covey refer to this as “Stewardship Delegation,” which should be the goal of every good manager.

Having addressed the workplace and our attitude toward it, we can now turn to the really important topics: Belonging and Purpose. Are you blindly climbing the ladder at work or picking your own target and pursing it? Let us not make the mistake of equating success with happiness or fulfillment. In some ways, questions like these—What’s important to you? What do you want?—are too big and too vague. To answer these questions, we can begin by asking ourselves a few smaller, more direct questions. To that end, I would like to share a comment from a well-respected leader in the real estate industry who was recently advising our executive team on strategic planning efforts. "Before focusing on the plan," he said, "you have to answer the following questions: 

1. How much do you need to make?
2. How do you want to live?
3. How do you want to work?"

Apply this to the strategic planning of your own career. Instead of chasing a title, salary threshold, or some arbitrary measure of achievement, why not start with what is right for you? Answer these three questions and design a life based on what brings you joy. If you are not currently the architect of your path, then you are allowing someone else to supply the design for you. We all face competing priorities of work, family, leisure, education, and service. But the most valuable commodity we own is time, so here's to hoping the future of work will provide greater control and a deeper sense of purpose for all of us.