The other day I posted the first seven of my "23 Theses" on the Reformation of Work.
Here's the next seven (big caveat: I know these are broad generalizations, and subject to plenty of qualifiers. But that's okay, since I'm not trying to predict an actual future, but rather stimulate conversation and thinking about what the world would be like if these conditions actually become reality):
8. Work will be more collaborative, less individualistic
People will shift their work activities to their core competencies for approximately 80% of their time. Everything else will be handed off to someone with complementary competencies. Individuals themselves will become less ‘vertically integrated’ and grow loosely coupled collaborative networks to meet their needs outside their core competencies. No more "jack of all trades.’" The remaining time will be devoted to learning new skills and competencies.
9. Corporations will morph into confederations with shared liability
Modern corporations are an artificial legal structure created within the past one hundred years to minimize the risk associated with control of large asset bases. As Peter Drucker so aptly notes, they have out lived their usefulness. The assumptions that have underlain their need are not longer valid.
Primary among those assumptions is that large organizations were required to capitalize the investments required in the ownership of the means of production, such as factories. With a shift to more knowledge work this isn’t necessary for a much larger portion of the working population. Confederations of business clusters will instead move to the forefront. They will be held together by strategy, rather than by ownership of assets.
10. Providing work support services will become an entire industry - and the primary source of what is currently your "back office" infrastructure
As the move towards individualism (i.e., free agency) approaches 20% of the workforce, the need for different workforce support structures will emerge as a business opportunity in itself. Companies (we prefer the term agencies) will grow to provide marketing, administrative services, retirement plan memberships, and group health insurance to these “free agent” workers. We believe this opportunity will grow out of existing outsourcing HR operations such as TMP, Spherion, and Exult in the 2005 - 2008 timeframe.
11. The stars will be "producers," not CEO’s
The revelations of corporate greed and failed governance that came to light in 2002 are leading to a decrease in workers’ respect for business leaders. The “cult of the CEO,” which characterized the late 1990’s, will quickly wane. That view will be replaced by a new category that emphasizes a small-unit leader, a person whose major competency is the ability to build teams. These team leaders will be the bridges between ideas and bringing products to market. Senior executives will eschew the traditional trappings of corporate power and will focus on status among their team members as a prime motivator. The era of Jack Welch as cultural icon has passed.
12. Employment law will change to recognize a new category of relationship of people to organization
In the early years of the 21st century two basic forms of worker/company relationship existed in the United States and most other industrialized countries. There was either an employee/employer relationship or a contractor relationship. Both these forms have proved to be inadequate for the new, more agile and fluid kinds of social relationships required by knowledge workers (the so-called creative class). We believe the nascent form of the new relationships will be built on the concept of Limited Liability.
Corporations or Partnerships pioneered in the legal, accounting, and consulting professions. Individual professionals will become in essence a “company of one” and band together for projects, which may operate as short-lived formal organizations for limited periods of time.
13. Health care and pension/retirement income management will become more of the individual's province and responsibility
The impending collapse of the United States health care industry will usher in a new form of support for LLC’s, free agents, and other smaller businesses. People will no longer depend upon their primary employer for this type of social support; they will increasingly engage in management of their own affairs through intermediaries, such as “guilds,” professional associations, and other third-party organizations.
14. Pay for Performance
Several years ago there was a story on National Public Radio (September 5, 2002) about a gentleman who reached 100 and as promised sent his physician on a cruise.
As we move from a commodity production base (in the First World) to a service and knowledge economy, creative people will be compensated for their efforts based on how effectively they help their customers improve their own lives. Doctors will be paid to keep people well; professors’ incomes will be based on the incomes of their former students, accountants on wealth created, executives on a five-plus years return on investor’s money. The question will be “What did I do to make your life easier, longer, more satisfying?”, not “How long did it take me to do it?”
There's eight more Theses to follow. Stay tuned.
Tag: futureofwork
Giovanni Rodriguez
Elizabeth Albrycht
Dave Desforges
Jim McGee
Jim Ware
1. gina on July 31, 2005 11:57 AM writes...
professors’ incomes will be based on the incomes of their former students
Wow...how will the art professor make a living?
Permalink to Comment2. Jim Ware on July 31, 2005 1:15 PM writes...
Great question Gina!
My guess: that particular Thesis will never be 100% true (or apply to all professors all the time), but the profs who teach the really great/successful artists will make a bundle!
Think about this: what if students paid for their education by borrowing money against a percentage of their future incomes? Actually, of course, many do already, it's just that repayment is a fixed amount rather than a percentage of earnings.
Suppose an art professor sees a promising student, and instead of charging him/her $xxxx for tuition, the prof agrees to take some portion of the tuition payment as a pledge against the student's future income. That's the idea - and I actually don't think it's all that new.
I actually heard a story a few years ago about a very promising young musician in London who financed her graduate school education by selling "shares" in herself - essentially a promise to pay the investors a portion of her future income.
And I'm no expert on this kind of compensation, but I'll bet you that Tiger Woods' golf teacher gets some kind of percent, or at least a bonus, when Tiger wins a major.
Permalink to Comment3. Elizabeth Albrycht on August 1, 2005 9:41 AM writes...
Jim, there is something I find a little disturbing about Thesis 8. It sounds like you are saying we are going to become more narrowly specialized than ever before. I am not sure that is a step forward. But, maybe I am thinking about "core competency" in the wrong way. Rather than core comp = a label (I am a customer service rep, I am a marketing person) perhaps it is core comp = strength (I see patterns, I successfully lead small groups, I am persuasive, etc.) How do you define core competency here?
Permalink to Comment4. Jim Ware on August 1, 2005 5:57 PM writes...
Elizabeth, I think you have cracked the code here. We really did mean "strength" in Thesis 8, not narrow functional specialization.
Just think about it: aren't you more likely to be successful - and to have more fun - if you are able to spend 80%-plus of your time doing what you're good at, and enjoy doing, than if you get caught up in what for you is trivia, or necessary but unpleasant stuff that someone else could be doing for you, and at lower cost?
That's really all we're talking about here. In a way, its the rebirth of specialization, but at the small-group level.
As an obvious example, why should a company like Amazon.com, whose strength is marketing and database creation/management, spend any of its management time worrying about distribution and logistics, when UPS is already world-class at that?
What this is really about is a call for even more outsourcing - let the specialists do what they do best, while you specialize in what you do best.
I don't think of this is overly narrow specialization, but rather as a recognition that world - and the knowledge we need to be successful - has in fact become far more complex and dynamic than any of us can keep track of. We need to specialize, partly to be successful, but also to remain sane! That's beauty of collaboration - it let's me leverage the highly specialized skills of other folks whose competence I could never hope to duplicate.
There's only so many hours in the day (24, last time I checked). I'd rather spend my working hours doing what I enjoy - and where I contribute real value - than trying to be a one-man band.
I hope that helps.
Permalink to Comment5. Tom Jackson on August 1, 2005 6:06 PM writes...
Re Future Work
Jim
This is by way of your request for conversation. I am familiar with the trends you are mapping out and have myself written about many of these in the past. In reading them the other day and today, I am struck by the naïve almost romantic quality of the discussion (not meant pejoratively) that makes it easy to overlook the true condition and perils in the downward slide of the quality of working life happening in America.
Overarching everything we say about internal and external work relationships, collaboration, interdependency, mobility, social bonds and the like; is the dark cloud of corporate capitalist, free market realities and globalization that are strengthening like a storm cloud.
Conventional corporations are not evolutionary. They are fixed in the capitalist free market model. Their sole aim is to make money for the owners. They have no incentive to build new conveniences or styles or to help make life easier or better or more rewarding or safer outside of what is necessary to maximize profits for the owners. Admittedly new fashions or values come and go; for a brief few decades corporations were seen as community partners; worker participation was sought, gainsharing worked to increase productivity and profits and was dropped when it didn’t.
I believe that any theses about the future of work need to show who pushes what behavior and how they sell it. Or, and this is a big or, to show how the shift from employer centered work to employee centered work can happen.
I believe the transformation can happen, and that what you have laid out (mostly features of technology not economics) will be included in the new paradigm. At the level of individual non conformity it can happen for workers now
In examining each of your assertions I would ask you to (mentally - no answer required-) append one of two stem questions: either
1. This is consistent with a capitalist model in that it…. or
2. This will come from a changed work structure that replaces the capitalist elements of… with…
Rhetorical questions/comments for example;
1. In a independent knowledge-driven economy, capital and governance will be provided by…
2. People will form and reform into small productive work units under the leadership/sponsorship of new …
3. The richness and variety of work available will be offered to people by …
4. Guilds will be powerful competitors in fields like…., and capitalization will be provided by…
5. Nc
6. Time pressures at global firms will decrease and quality of life increase because owners will realize that
7. ?
8. An individual’s core competencies will be utilized by a system that knows how to..
etc.
I pose these questions to be provocative in a subject to which I have some commitment to understand.
Tom Jackson
Permalink to Comment6. Katherine on August 4, 2005 11:07 AM writes...
I think the first step toward employee-centered work is for the employees themselves to decide it is desirable. I've been self-employed for four years. Though there have been struggles, the big surprise has been that it's been easier than I thought it would be. My clients love the idea that they only have to pay for as much or as little of my expertise as they actually need.
Permalink to Comment7. John on August 9, 2005 11:09 AM writes...
Have you given thought to how future workers will be prepared -- "educated" if you will -- to inhabit these new structures?
I have hired a number of recent college graduates (business and engineering) and have a child in college myself and they seem resigned to joining a workplace not all that different than the one I have experienced these past 25 years. I am not sure if their expectations of work are being managed downward by their coursework in college (and this particularly applies to business students) or if they have watched their own parents adapt to the worst features of the modern corporation and assume it will always be this way. In either case, they seem quite content with the status quo -- lots of hierarchy, lots of process, lots of command and control, and a new organization chart every six months or so just to keep things interesting. Who is going to tell them that it doesn't have to be this way and, going forward, prepare them for wholly different challenges than the ones faced by businesses even as recently as five years ago?
My worry as an employer is that the allure of the traditional corporation has suffered such damage over the past few years that it may have permanently scared off precisely the profile of future workers who could slip more easily into the kind of organizations and work units you describe. I speak with a fair number of college students about employment opportunities with my company and I have to say that the ones who really interest me wouldn't be caught dead working in their "father's cubicle."
Permalink to Comment8. Jim Ware on August 9, 2005 11:44 AM writes...
John:
The short answer to your question (have I thought about the educational implications of this ReFormation?) is "yes."
I frankly worry an awful lot about the way we are educating (or, not educating) our young folks. I picked up years ago on Alvin Toffler's comments that our school system is designed to "train" factory workers - starting with the bell that means you have to be at your assigned seat. But of course it doesn't stop there; our systems are geared to create future workers who don't question authority, who focus on getting the "right" answer to questions posed by the authority figure (teacher in school, management later on).
It's a serious problem. And if you've read Tom Friedman's book The World is Flat you know he too is deeply concerned that the United States is flat-out losing the battle for the future. Our workforce is fast becoming very noncompetitive (there's a review of Friedman's book on our Future of Work website -click here to read it).
We most definitely need to teach kids (or, better, help them learn) how to be creative, self-starting, and ultimately adaptable. Because in spite of the still-dominant authoritarian structure in most large organizations today, I truly believe the future lies with those individuals (and organizations) who "get" the new economy where value will flow to new ideas and fast-response teams - and those teams will be composed of a whole different kind of individual.
One final suggestion: check out Dan Pink's new book A Whole New Mind, and his blog for some more perspectives on what it will take to be successful in the culture and society of the future.
Thanks so much for raising this really important issue!
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