Who Owns Work, and Its Future?
First essay in the Working Futures series on the present and future of work
Today, at the outset of writing an on-going series of essays on the future of work, called Working Futures, I want to frame the discussion around work in an uncommon way. Specifically, I won’t be advancing an argument about some list of hifalutin principles or aspirational goals, which, if adopted universally would miraculously resolve any and all friction or dissatisfaction at work, make us more productive, and end gender, racial, and age bias across the board.
Neither will I pull out of my hat a tightly-crafted metaphor that miraculously provides deep and useful insight into the knotted difficulties that unite and divide the worker, the workforce, and the company: the organization as a city, for example, or the workforce as an orchestra. Metaphors can sometimes help, but they are slippery and rely on magical thinking, and for once I will try to put conjuring to one side.
Instead, I will take a different tack and consider work and its future as a large-scale social problem, something like poverty, illegal immigration, or global climate change¹. We don’t usually think of it that way, but perhaps we should. And like other problems, it’s reasonable to ask ‘who owns it?’
We have become inured…
