Five Mental Shifts to Thrive in the Future of Work
A hot topic right now is the discussion of which skills are needed to thrive in the future workplace. Big consulting firms publish reports with predictions of what skills will be needed in the future of work. What I personally feel is missing, however, is what mental shifts we need to embrace to excel in an unknown future. You can always learn a skill if you have the curiosity and willingness to learn. You can re-school if you know what to re-school to. But how do you make good decisions for the future? How do you build a good foundation for yourself to navigate the unknown?
That is why I decided to summarize what thought leaders and researchers across the world are saying, into mental shifts to thrive in the future of work.
Here’s five of them.
1. From Risk Management to Antifragility
In today’s society, we have become great at predicting risks. We build houses based on predicted levels of weather fluctuations. We build investment portfolios to distribute risk. And we base our choice of education on a prediction that a certain profession will be needed in the future.
Our ability to calculate risks serves us well — until something unpredictable hits. The financial crisis in 2008 and the pandemic are just two examples of unforeseen events, yet they had massive consequences. The reality is that we cannot predict our future. No risk model can predict the likelihood of such large, but unlikely, events to happen. The entirety of our society is based on the presumption that tomorrow will look approximately like yesterday, yet this might not be true. In a world that is changing with exponential speed, is this really a good model to base entire societies on?
The author Nassim Nicholas Taleb has introduced a concept he calls “Antifragility”, a new philosophy for taking into consideration these unlikely — yet extreme — events in our lives. He refers to these unexpected events as “the Black Swans” that we simply cannot mitigate by building prediction models. So what would be a better approach to life? The answer, he says, is found in nature.
In nature, we thrive in distress. Chaos and external stress factors keep us sharp and adaptive. If we are exposed to distress, we grow stronger. When we go to the gym, we break down our muscles to be rebuilt stronger than they were before. When we are exposed to vaccines, our immune systems are attacked and grow even stronger than they were before.
Think of a parcel that says “Fragile — please do not shake.” What would the opposite of that be? Robust? Not quite — the opposite would go beyond that. The opposite would be “Antifragile — please shake.” The content of the parcel would grow stronger, become even better than before, when shaken.
Predicting risks makes us more vulnerable. What happens when the employer you thought you’d work for forever goes bankrupt? What happens when the skill you learned yesterday is replaced by an algorithm? What happens when the education you received becomes obsolete by the time you graduate?
Learning to thrive in chaos, I believe, is key not only in the future of work but in life in general. We’ve always experienced changes, but the changes are taking place at exponential speed fuelled by technology. Learning to navigate chaos could help you thrive during the next big change.
2. From Specialization to Systems Thinking
Our parents might tell us to “get educated, find a profession, specialize and you’ll make good money.” This may have been true for a long time, but building your income based on the assumption that one particular skill will be needed in the future is a risky decision. The accounting profession is one example of a skill that has experienced stable demand for a long time; however, machines are now getting increasingly better at automating their work. We even see the automation of creative work. For example, with the launch of Open AIs GPT-3 language model, we can now see machines writing quirky poems about Elon Musk’s Twitter behaviour.
If the lifetime specialization model is becoming obsolete, how could you better future-proof your relevance in the marketplace? I personally believe that if you can master the skill of systems thinking you’ve come quite far.
Systems thinking means understanding the ecosystem you are navigating in. Understanding the ripple effects of ripple effects and seeing where the world is going. Being able to visualise how we are all interconnected in today’s complex societies and understand what’s next before it’s already a fact. Our societies are only getting more complex. Navigating this complexity could help you make some wise decisions in life and in business.
3. From Critical Thinking to Overcoming Our Own Biases
I am a big advocate for critical thinking. In our societies today, where anyone can be a journalist on social media, it is more important than ever to remain critical of the sources you are consuming and reflect for yourself. However, I would go one step beyond that and suggest that you not only think critically about external sources but also challenge your own personal beliefs. Research shows us that researchers value peer status more than facts, meaning that their own personal biases influence their research claims. Humanity can and should be smarter than that.
Overcoming your own biases can also make you successful in business. The founder of Polaroid was trying to figure out what traits were in his most creative and successful engineers, to help him know what to look for in interviews. He realised that the most creative engineers are those who 1) had mastered the craft of engineering and 2) were willing to surrender all their preconceptions to look at things with fresh new eyes.
It is hard to challenge yourself. It can be confusing and shake the very foundation you’ve built your life upon. But it can also be very rewarding and boost your creativity.
4. From Management Schools to Self-Awareness
How can it be that so many successful leaders can have such different management styles? And how can it be that two successful companies can have leaders who are complete opposites to one another? Authenticity. Leadership is highly personal and copy-pasting someone else’s management style that does not feel natural to you will set you up for failure. People can tell when you are authentic versus when you are trying to do and say what you think you should say. Applying traditional management techniques may have worked in the traditional workplace; however, millennials demand more purpose, meaning and authenticity from their leaders.
How can you become an authentic leader, in life or in business? It starts with yourself. Figure out your own values. Understand your own behaviour and emotional triggers, so you can act with intention rather than reaction. If you start with self-awareness, you can become more aware of what’s around you and act with intention.
McKinsey predicts that one of the key skills that will be valued in the future of work is communication. How do you become a better communicator? You can learn the art of communication; however, it will be much easier if you understand yourself first so that you can understand people around you. In fact, TedX speaker Stephan Schwartz explains that one of the key steps to creativity is having a technique for looking inside yourself. Self-awareness can in fact be a secret path to creativity.
5. From Effectiveness to Stillness
Our society today is obsessed with effectiveness. I was one of them, too. I was a dopamine junkie trying to tick as many items off my list as possible. It took me a period of stillness to realise that it wasn’t that effective. A longer period of stillness made my mind clearer and more creative than ever.
Aided by technology, our productivity has been boosted to record levels, but we just keep finding new tasks to tick off our lists. Instead of seeing automation as a threat, how about embracing it as an opportunity for everyone to slow down and spend some deep focus time on value creation every day? According to Asana, we spend approximately 60% of our workday on “work about work”: for example, scheduling meetings, answering emails, preparing for meetings, etc. If we remove this work from the equation, what could we achieve with all of this free time to think instead? Who said we need to work 40 hours per week? Imagine the opportunities of automation, freeing up time for us to do what matters more.
Many of the great discoveries throughout history have been discovered during periods of stillness. Einstein himself said that he saw relativity after a period of illness. August Kekulé is said to have discovered the structure of benzene in a dream. Who hasn’t come up with a great idea during vacation or even while taking a shower?
The world doesn’t need more productivity. We are great at it already. What we need is more intention and more time to figure out the right things to do.
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Interested in learning more about the future of work? Want to explore the future of your own industry?
At KRAF-10, we offer courses, workshops and lectures to help our clients future-proof their businesses. Reach out and we’ll tailor our services for your own needs.
