On Plastic Straws & People

I want you to imagine yourself after having a meal at a quick-serve restaurant.? Perhaps you were there for a fast business meeting, or a quick meal before/after your kiddo’s soccer game, or perhaps you had the luxury of some friend-time amidst a busy schedule.? You scoop up your things, including the remains of your meal, and head for the exit.? On the way there, you see the recycle bin.? Depending on the restaurant, you may be faced with a very simple binary choice (waste or recycle) or 3-4 other options politely asking you to sort your waste to support a more sustainable planet.? I don’t know about you, but I’ve looked at the bins and the waste I’m carrying and have had to do a bit of thinking about what goes where! ?I like to think I have thoughtfully managed these situations, erring on the side of the ‘spirit’ of the guidelines to ensure that I do my part.? Not all items are equally recyclable and some are of uncertain origin, and there are some things that are just inherently not recyclable.

But most of us think about it, try to make a conscientious decision, and feel like we have done some small thing to make the world a better place.

In fact, I think we collectively take more time making that decision than we do as we contemplate what is fundamentally the most renewable resource on the face of the planet: People.

At the same time that we are engaging in a serious and meaningful discussion around how we preserve our planet and take a more sustainable approach to our consumption, at the very same time that my phone is pinging me the latest headlines about the hottest days on record, water shortages, and violent weather, it is completely silent on the biggest issue of our time: the potential of wasting whole populations of viable talent as we hurtle into an uncertain future that is being shaped, reshaped, and stretched by the application of technologies designed to make us more productive, efficient and profitable.

Our minds can scarcely take in the exciting possibilities afforded by just the technologies we have in our sight today (AI, AR, VR, and more), much less the ones that are just around the corner (quantum computing!).? and certainly we should be excited.? The possibilities feel endless and not just a little scary (with the thrill of a great roller coaster ride).? We needed this great leap to reimagine our products and services, to deliver a better customer experience, and to produce better outcomes in a more just and equitable way – the laudable goals of every responsible ESG plan.? I’m a huge proponent of technology adoption to break through the productivity barrier, to modernize, to drive competitiveness, and to preserve precious human capital to focus it on the most differentiating and consequential activities inside of an organization.

So what scares me?? This is not an article about the dangers of applying technology and destroying jobs.? In fact, most organizations believe that technology will be a net job creator as they enter into new vistas of possibility.? The problem is that most are not spending enough time at the recycle bin.? What scares me is that, in general, I believe our society spends more time debating the merit of plastic vs. paper straws than they do thinking about and proactively trying to prevent creating unacceptable amounts of human capital waste due to technology uptake.

Why is this so?

I think the same logic applies here as to the debates on environment: we have had an abundance mindset when we are clearly in an environment of scarcity.? Even for those of us who have adjusted to the understanding that talent is not, in fact, abundant, we still lean on the same pillars of abundance thinking we have in the past.? There have not been great revolutions in talent acquisition strategy – instead, we are just moving the same talent around using the same levers we have in the past with some variations: pay more, differentiated rewards, gig work, changes in background and education requirements, etc.? Yet, the numbers tell us that even if we took all the unemployed off the rosters and moved them into employment, we would still have excess demand.? Certainly the twin hammers of inflation and technology will help smooth some of this excess, but it still doesn’t bring us past the main and structural challenge: we are not creating enough talent.? We are running out of a crucial resource.? And here’s the twist – even if we could optimize the resources to the openings through technology, we would still be short because that shift greatly changes the contours of the work to be done, who can do it, and how it will be accomplished.? It would be better to say that, on top of a current headcount issue, we face a multiplier impact as jobs and skills change in surprising ways.

What’s the risk?? As mentioned, most organizations believe that technology will multiply jobs…but the secret is that these new jobs are not the jobs of the past.? In fact, we stand at a precipice…a convergence of forces that will change the world of work on an order of magnitude greater than that of the Industrial Revolution.? It will revolutionize:

• How we work
• The work to be done
• Who will do it

This is what it feels like to be living in the history they will write about 20-50 years from now.? It is NOT unfolding slowly.? It IS removing rungs of the ladder for workers.? It is creating a crisis of waste and squandered opportunity which scarcely anyone cares to measure.? As we debate the ethics of AI, for example, are we debating the ethics of leaving people behind?? Do we understand that this is as near an existential question as the one posed by my phone bleating climate change warnings?

So, what is to be done?

I’ll save my perspective on educators and government for a future article and focus my comments here on employers:

1. First and foremost, make a commitment to a zero-waste model around talent.? This is analogous to my moment at the recycle bins – set your intention that talent is scarce and needs to be repurposed…never discarded.?
2. Secondly, take a due diligence approach to understanding the impact of technological adoption on your workforce – plot how roles and skills change on your roadmap.
3. Know which roles will matter most and over what period of time.
4. Give individuals inside your organization a roadmap from current to next role both from a retain AND attraction perspective.? Specificity is key here – it is every role inside of your organization…not just some.
5. Assess who can take the journey and how long it will take.
6. Line up investments and measures on this as you would any capital investment – with ROI.
7. Get tools and systems in place that allow you to capture skills and projects so the entire organization can see how you are performing to a scorecard that will be transparent (no surprises!).
8. For those individuals who can’t/won’t make the leap, work with other organizations in community to create a talent pool that is shared.

The goal is a closed system/closed loop on talent at the organizational and community level.

Is this costly to do?? Yes, absolutely.? And given that people are the number one costs inside of most organizations, it’s important that you consider how to manage that investment wisely with the assumption that it is scarce – not abundant.

Of course, the tail could swing around and catch us with AI truly becoming a net displacer of jobs vs. a net multiplier because we did not take a human-based approach to begin with.? The socioeconomic consequences of that are almost too much to contemplate.? At the very least we would have removed the right and dignity of human beings to work and contribute to their communities in a meaningful way.? That is not a price that any of us should be willing to pay.

What are we waiting for?? Human beings are the #1 most renewable resource we have globally.? Our approach within organizations and within governments ought to be ensuring that we have a zero-waste policy that extends from all the conventional pipelines to those that are outside of our comfort zones (formerly incarcerated, those with different abilities, refugees, etc.).? Not doing something means that tech marches on but only with a view toward a relentless search for productivity and profit gain at a staggering cost to humanity at large.

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