How to future proof your career: building your personal and organizational future ready mindset

If you wear a white coat to work every day, you are suffering from ChatGPT AInxiety and are worried about your job, the future of sick care work, and what will rise from the ashes of the COVID pandemic.

Knowledge worker white collar jobs are disappearing and might never return.

The surge in artificial intelligence applications and their implications for the workforce is expected to be a hot topic of discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week. Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued a warning that nearly 40% of jobs globally could be affected by developments in artificial intelligence, for better or for worse. A new IMF analysis shows the effects are likely to be particularly acute in advanced economies, where about 60% of positions could see an impact, compared with about a quarter in low-income countries.

Jobs are being destroyed but it is likely that more jobs will be created in the 5th industrial revolution.

When Emrullah Karaca began working at a factory in Gifhorn, Germany, where the auto parts supplier Continental builds components for hydraulic brakes, he was looking for a temporary job after finishing high school.

But after spending more than two decades building a career at the factory, Mr. Karaca, a 49-year-old father of three, learned that Continental planned to close the plant by 2027. Facing a daunting job hunt, he will head back to school to earn his trade certificate, courtesy of his employer.

It’s a necessary step if he wants to find a job in Germany, where despite a desperate lack of skilled workers, degrees and certification still count more than on-the-job experience. “I never needed it until now, because I was always here,” Mr. Karaca said.

How should you future proof your career? Start by associating and building your future ready mindset:

1. Learn to practice with digital technologies and data science, including artificial intelligence
2. Create your own new job description
3. Acquire medical practice entrepreneurship knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies
4. In this article, the authors offer five strategies to future-proof your career in the age of intelligent machines: 1) Avoid predictability. It’s important to remember that AI isn’t generating new insights; it’s a prediction engine that merely guesses the most likely next word. 2) Hone the skills that machines strive to emulate. 3) Double down on “the real world.” 4) Develop your personal brand. 5) Develop recognized expertise in your field. Even if AI performs “first draft” functions, it still must be double-checked by a trusted and reliable source. If that’s you, you’ll continue to be sought out because you have the authority to vet AI’s responses
5. Stop being a knowledge technician
6. Supplement your clinical career with a non-clinical career side gig
7. Redesign your workflow and job role
8. Find and eliminate the work bottlenecks
9. Ladder your career portfolio
10. Rewire, don't retire
11. Plan to do your job with fewer people helping you
12. Create alternative passive revenue streams
13. Become a new triple threat: physician=technologist-entrepreneur
14. Be a good rebel not a bad rebel
15. Be a medical technoskeptic
16. Don't go soft on the soft skills
17. Build your future ready mindset. We don’t have to be afraid of what the future holds. Rather than bracing for what happens next, Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt argues that you can be?making?what happens next. You can respond to unexpected challenges—big and small—by turning them into opportunities with six principles for developing a “future-ready mindstate”:
18. ?Optimism
19. Openness
20. Curiosity
21. ??Experimentation
22. ?????Empathy
23. ????Dimension X—the unique lens through which each of us sees the world.?
24. Change your innovator's DNA expression
25. Learn to see around corners

In this article, the authors synthesize lessons from our experience and from new research on the organizational practices of 30 top companies to highlight how businesses can best organize for the future.

Even if you do all of these things, there is no guarantee you won't get fired.

How generative AI changes productivity. Beware of the GIGO moral hazard.

Kevin Roose suggests nine rules for success in an increasingly automated world by, “strengthening your uniquely human skills, so you’re better equipped to do the things machines can’t do” (p. xxvii).

Key quote:?“This is the truth about the AI revolution. There is no looming machine takeover, no army of malevolent robots plotting to rise up and enslave us. It’s just people, deciding what kind of society we want” (p. xxvi).

Key Concepts:

Birth of a Suboptimist.?It is prudent to be alert to the problems that can be caused by technology, but, ultimately, people are the ones with the power to determine tech’s role. If humans use tech well, it can be a boon to humanity.

The Myth of the Robot-Proof Job.?Machines often surprise us in the types of jobs they can replace, though initially, they seem to be doing nothing more than making life more convenient.

The Algorithmic Manager.?As machines increasingly “step in” as middle managers, using algorithmic measures for performance, pricing, etc., some workers will have to decide if they want to manipulate the algorithm or submit to its evaluation.

Beware of Boring Bots.?The types of machines that end up causing problems for people are not the terrifying types of humanoid and monstrous bots you see in movies, but ones the author calls “boring bots”: “bureaucratic bots” (anonymous algorithms used by the government, banks, and healthcare and criminal court systems) and “back-office bots” (software programs that replace human workers).

Be Surprising, Social, and Scarce.?Maximize your uniquely human skills, “centering [your] humanity in your work” (p. 78).

Demote Your Devices.??Be honest with yourself and take steps if your phone has gone from assistant to a “demanding, hard-driving nightmare of a boss” (p. 100).

Leave Handprints.?In an age of automation, refuse “to compete on the machines’ terms,” and become a craftsman who can evaluate, correct, oversee, and improve upon what machines do (p. 121).

Don’t Be an Endpoint.?Avoid being in a job where you are essentially working?for?a machine. And if you lead a company, be sure you are using machines as assistants to humans rather than using humans as assistants to machines.

Treat AI Like a Chimp Army.?Be careful what you put an algorithm in charge of. Use machines for basic skills involving low-risk tasks and include lots of supervision. Without human oversight, dangerous mistakes can be made by machines.

Build Big Nets and Small Webs. Corporations and the government can create large-scale programs to “soften the blow” of employment changes. And humans in communities need to be intentional about connecting in person, even if it is to sample or interact with new technology together.

Learn Machine-Age Humanities.?Intentionally fostering certain social skills and practices can help humans navigate the new age and maintain an edge over machines.

Arm the Rebels.?We have a moral duty to speak up for people – for the value of the human in the age of the machine, even if we are the ones responsible for bringing in the machines.

Here is what you need to do to win the 4th industrial revolution. Just ask your kids and adapt to the changed world.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack and Editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship