The Book Of Job
Well - At Least A Newsletter worth!
Sticking to the topic of jobs for the moment.
Of all the articles about the ‘future of jobs’ that I have read this year, this, from Forbes is definitely my favourite. The writer (Cathy Hackl) clearly had fun, but she also gave great thought to job possibilities that make sense in a whole variety of futures. Also interesting to see some detailed thought behind each job - not just a title, but I do hope LinkedIn compensated her for the ‘product placement’.
Photo: Sincerely Media on Unsplash
Downside? She ends her summary with a new ‘CXO’ role - this one being a ‘Chief Empathy Officer’. OK, not as bad as the ‘Chief Behavioral Officer’, suggested by ‘The Marketing Society’ as the new ‘must-have’ role. To be clear, it’s not the ‘empathy’ or ‘behavioural’ in the titles - it’s the ‘Chief’ and the ‘Officer’.
It seems to me that we drop chief ‘xxx’ officers into their positions
to make up for the fact that we ‘don’t really have that’ in the company and/or
for the optics
When do you think we will reach peak ‘Chief Officer’?
And surely the much more interesting question is what about everyone else?
Meanwhile, for now, we are all doing our jobs at home and it has been interesting to hear the different takes on the impact - from both people and corporations. There’s a whole book to be written on this topic, \so I will resist on commentary for now except to link to this article from Jason Fried. (My thanks to Daniel at Make Meaningful Work for sending the link).
Jason draws the analogy of how the original web sites of the 90s did not bring new ideas to the designs, but rather the sites either looked like a ‘printed newsletter’ OR ‘an interactive CD/DVD’ (the two main design approaches we understood at the time).
“This is often what happens when change is abrupt. We bring what we know from one to the other. We apply what we’re familiar with to the unfamiliar. But, in time, we recognize that doesn’t work.”
“The web became great when designers started designing for the web”
~ Jason Fried
The argument of his article is ‘so too’ with remote work. It looks odd and fits badly at the moment because we are trying to retrofit what work was in a workplace to the remote experience. (Zoom happy hours anyone?) It will be interesting to see where remote work gets to in a similar time frame.
Last week’s newsletter included a link to a video about Bullshit jobs. This week, I will end on a similar theme, because if there is one thing good about the changing world of jobs and work it will be the end of Bullshit jobs - and of course ‘The Jobsworths’.
If you don’t know what I mean … allow me to elucidate.
“I was just an ordinary English man,
Till I got me uniform, and hat,
And ever since that hour, I exercise me power,
Preventing you from doing this and that.”
~ Jeremy Taylor
… a song about ‘Jobsworths’. Not to be confused with this Jobsworth, he’s pretty cool and well worth following, if only because he (like myself) often brings music into his writing. I mean that’s not the only reason, there’s also cricket and wonderful wisdom from a man who has truly experienced life. Thankyou ‘JP’ … the other one! Long may it continue.
My thanks and appreciation for your continued support, comments and attention. Please like the post, share through your social channels and forward the email to colleagues, friends and family that want to join us on this journey and do comment or email me your thoughts.
From John Maloney - for some reason his comment never reached here - even tho it seems to be directed here ...
Jobs and the 'chief' moniker are classic anti-patterns. Leadership in institutions and regulations, to name two, suffer what I refer to as ankylosing spondylitis or fused-spine syndrome.
Jobs and Chiefs originated w/Roman Legions as an efficient method to assure manpower and financial requirements, among others, were measured, adjusted, and met. It stuck, and we're stuck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern
Most welcome