Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled.
The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. Edition 208.
art by tulika ladsariya
This is the last of a six part series of why a “company of one mindset” will be critical for career success.
The first five posts covered:
Observations.
a)We are entering a new phase of work where every job is being re-architected due to a combination of AI, changing demographics, new marketplaces, and new mindsets.
b) Knowledge is increasingly becoming free and so knowledge workers will have to change what they do and how they do it.
c) The challenges that companies face about culture post Covid are not only about the difficulty of managing people in distributed workspaces but also because in an age of “de-bossification” it is a fixed mindset of management versus a fixed location that is being rejected and therefore needs to be re-imagined. Old management styles are fading and new leadership styles are emerging.
d)Almost every middle-level to senior manager recognizes in their mind and heart that this is a time of transition in the workplace and are all looking for new signposts, new on ramps and new off ramps as they re-imagine their careers in a transformative time.
e) The future does not fit in the containers of the past and the concept of a “firm” is being re-invented.
A Mantra: Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled.
In a transformative age it is not companies but people who will transform first.
Waiting for others or delegating one’s future to a firm is very risky.
Every individual regardless of industry, geography, location or company size may want to embrace a mantra of “Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled” to quantum jump into the emerging age by letting go of anything that chains their mind and possibilities.
Imagine starting again.
Let us realize that we are unleashed from any physical location and then one decides how much physical location and personal interaction is needed to excel versus trying to figure out how much freedom one can get from five days a week in the office. The steady state is not April 2019 but April 2020.
Many books have been written about how many jobs are mostly “bullshit” and in most companies a majority of time is spent in process and human soap opera drama vs getting work done.
Much of this is going to be swept away with the efficiencies of AI. The focus will be on outcome, output, competitive advantage and each of us will need to decide what are we really good at, what are we passionate about, and what drives us to constantly learn.
A time to unfurl our real selves versus settling or flying our flags at half mast.
Mediocre or medium is what machines will eat for mulch.
As explained in the Fractionalized Employee the full time or five days a week, the full day 9 to 5 career and having one employer will account for a minority of jobs within three years.
Better get used to thinking of ourselves as modules unbundled from any one particular company or construct but ready to plug and play and manage a portfolio of gigs.
Many of these will be in one company but they will be tasks, gigs, work to be done vs jobs to be filled.
Two Exercises.
Exercise One: If you are a part of senior management in a company or run a team try this exercise.
Imagine if you could launch your firm all over again with no constraints except the law, the rules of science and the need to make money within three years or less.
How would your firm look today?
It is likely one will come up with something far smaller, far more agile, far more plug and play and far more competitive.
Something unleashed, unfurled and unbundled.
Legacy is for yesterday and while roots of a company in the form of values and provenance matter a lot the reality is that much of what constrains us are not roots but anchors. It is time to take flight and keep some roots but also find wings.
The reality is many entrepreneurs and potential competitors are already doing so and visiting your customers with their new models.
Exercise Two: Imagine we have lost our job and we need to resurrect ourselves.
What would one do?
What companies would we join? Skills we would invest in? Roles we would take? Lifestyles and geography that we would re-imagine?
Imagine the future.
Begin by seeing if you can sculpt, hone and architect your current job or company into the imagined company or job.
Every company, leader and talent has the potential to re-invent.
Let us do it before it is done to us.
It’s time to live the imagined life.
Before it is too late.
It is time to get Unleashed. Unfurled. Unbundled.
Rishad Tobaccowala leverages forty years of global experience across dozens of industries to help leaders and companies thrive in transformative times.
The first exercise is what every leader should do. Not do it casually but involving the team such that there’s a collective understanding of the gaps in competencies. Then let each individual do the second exercise independently first and then share their reflections and thoughts with their team. Then do a final exercise to develop a roadmap to the future (which doesn’t reflect the pat) with redefined roles and responsibilities as well as relationships that bring out the best in each individual wherever and however they carry out their work. The new organizational architecture will not resemble the structure and processes fine-tuned in the industrial age. The new architecture is at the nexus of smart humans and powerful machines. Every individual is a value-adding node in the network of competencies orchestrated to offer maximal value. When that happens, every individual gets a fair share of value. Will we see returns to individual competency keep pace with the returns to capital that we have seen over the last few decades?
If the mediocre are beaten by machines, by definition won't 50% of people be unable to work ? I hope universal basic income is sorted by then, the wealth divide could be disastrous otherwise