Interview with a Futurist:
Rohit Talwar on The Future of Work
Renowned Futurist and Author, Rohit Talwar, is speaking at OMN London’s Future of Work series of events on the 11th June.
Who are you and what do you do?
I am a global futurist and CEO of Fast Future Research, advising clients around the world on how to anticipate and create the forces, trends, ideas and developments shaping the future. I undertake research studies, consultancy projects and speak in various capacities on the key issues of this topic.
We launched Fast Future Publishing in February 2015 to bring an exponential thinking approach to publishing. Our first book The Future of Business is published in less than five months — 4–5 times faster than a traditional publisher could do it.
Your new book, The Future of Business, has assembled the ideas of sixty contributors from around the world about how businesses will evolve in the Future of Work. What are the top three trends you see as key forces in driving business change?
First trend: The clash of physical and digital mindsets.
The pace of digital penetration into every aspect of our world is leading to an inevitable clash between two worlds. On the one hand we have the planet populated and largely still run by those “born physical”. They see the world as a very tangible entity with physical outputs — whether they build houses, produce cars, or provide financial services. In this world, despite digital advances, “analog” mindsets dominate aspirations and decision making. Hence, growth opportunities and business problems are tackled in a relatively linear manner — with technology as an enabler.
This physical world is on a headlong collision course with the inhabitants of “planet digital”. The latter is populated with individuals and firms who are born digital. Instead of houses, cars, and savings products, all they see is data. They believe every challenge and problem can be addressed by finding the right software algorithm and deploying the appropriate mix of technologies. Crucially, they bring exponential thinking to business strategy. They want to break with linear approaches that typically limit them to 5–50 percent improvements on key measures of organizational performance. Instead, they are looking for ways to triple the number of houses built per week, reduce the time to develop a new car by 20–100 times or more, and quadruple the number of customers per employee.
Second trend: Game changing business ideas.
Sector after sector is being disrupted by unruly new entrants like Uber and AirBnB — bringing radical new thinking to overthrow the old order. The challenge for those not raised with a digital mindset is to learn how to evolve and compete in the new environment. Can we get there by simply deploying more technology or do we need radical reframing of our way of seeing the landscape — do we need to develop a digital and exponential mindset? Some believe this evolution of their DNA can be achieved within the existing “rules of the game” — innovating within the standard industry practices, established ways of thinking and unspoken assumptions that shape the strategies of most players in the sector.
Others are trying to reinvent themselves by pursuing game changing approaches. In many sectors, the biggest disruption comes from new entrants who ignore the old rules and seek to change the game itself. For example, when Skype entered the telephony market it changed the game by taking the industry’s core product — the humble phone call — and making it available for free. Skype has captured around 40 percent of international telephone traffic with a fraction of the total workforce of most telecommunications operators. Those adopting this path have to embrace a fundamentally different mindset and culture — rather than simply making the investment in more technology.
Third trend: Converging Science and Technology Developments.
Our thinking about the future of society, government, and business is completely intertwined with the path of technological progress. Convergence between disciplines such nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communications technology (ICT), and the cognitive sciences is opening up a world of possibilities — many of which are emerging at roughly the same time.
From 3D and 4D printing, AI and robotics to hyperconnectivity, the internet of everything and blockchain technology — the way we do business is being transformed. At the personal level, our experience will be shaped by healthcare transformation, augmentation of human mental and physical capabilities, immersive experiences and the uploading of our brains to the internet. These rapid and groundbreaking advances are creating the potential for humanity to evolve in almost unimaginable ways. Collectively, these developments underpin and drive the need for new thinking and create new possibilities for the new world of work and the future of business.
AI has been all over the internet, popular books, TV and films recently — from Elon Musk’s quote this year about smart robots treating humans as ‘pet Labradors’, to the awesome sci-fi film Ex-Machina released a couple months ago.
What’s your take on AI? Is it something to fear or something to make our work lives significantly better?
It is too early to say exactly how it might play out. AI in its basic form is all around us — in satnavs, smartphones, autopilots and credit scoring systems.
There’s also been a massive increase in investment in AI — inspired by major breakthroughs in machine learning and artificial neural networks. In the next 10–20 years we will see mind blowing AI developments which display levels of intelligence that match or exceed some aspects of human capability.
We don’t yet know what happens if we get to a level of Super-Intelligence where AI systems can out-learn, out-think and out-reason humans. The risk of it going wrong is what’s got people like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking worrying about the potential existential threat to society.
I think we’ll see exciting, amazing and scary developments happen faster than we can imagine and they will outstrip our ability to monitor and control the developers. You have to undergo stringent tests before you release a new car model or drug — there are no such requirements today for software development. We may well see a growing clamour for some sort of digital ethics treaty to limit what these AI systems should be allowed to do. It’s going to be a wild ride.
How can employees best prepare themselves for the Future of Work?
The future of work will evolve rapidly. Some suggest that 50% or more of the jobs people do today could simply disappear to be replaced by automation in the next 10–20 years.
At the same time new sectors such as human enhancement, driverless cars and synthetic biology are emerging — we just don’t know many jobs they’ll create. People will also routinely live to 100 or more, so in a typical working lifespan you might have 20 jobs across 5–10 different careers. The nature of work will also change with automation, humans will do less of the routine and focus more on project work.
We’ll have less full-time roles and I expect more people to have a portfolio of income streams from jobs where they provide services to different customers. You might drive for Uber, let out your bedroom through AirBnB, rent the unused time on your computer to companies doing massively distributed processing and use your garage as “last mile storage” for distribution companies.
To keep up with the pace of change and the speeding up of society, many will opt for mind and body enhancement using chemical, electronic, genetic and physical augmentation approaches.
We’ll also need to equip ourselves with the skills required to navigate an uncertain future. This means “learning how to learn” using rapid learning approaches and simulation based training. Core skills will include problem solving, scenario planning, design thinking, systems understanding and collaboration.
How can business leaders take best advantage of the changes in how employees will work in the Future?
Employers will face interesting choices as they prepare for the next future. Some may decide it’s all too complicated, go for the “business light” option and focus on a few core activities and outsource the rest to specialists. Others may effectively become “adoption agencies” — using their corporate venturing arms to buy into businesses that could transform them from within or create new market opportunities faster than the current culture will allow.
We will need a very flexible organisation design that allows us to pull together teams quickly that are a mix of employees, external partners, contractors, specialist software tools, suppliers and customers. These ‘work swarms’ will be how most change happens in many firms.
Others will take on the challenge of continuously reinventing themselves to stay relevant. This means embracing a digital mindset — adopting exponential rather than linear thinking and seeking 100%+ improvements across the organisation. To ensure the business does not get complacent and stays alert and innovative we will need to hire mavericks, encourage experimentation and have a reward structure that positively encourages people to learn and look for new ideas.
Twitter: @FastFuture
Hear Rohit and a number of contributors to his book speak at OMN London’s Future of Work All-Stars Edition on the 11th June aboard HMS President in London.
