The Future Of Work?
Being Human!
I attended one of those ‘Future Of Work’ conferences a couple of weeks ago. The discussion centered on managing the gig economy, parity and fairness for gig workers, legislation, minimum wage, controlling the tech and, and, and … and I was reminded of the lost motorist who stopped to ask directions to a nearby city. The reply …
“Well now - if I was going there, I wouldn’t be starting here.”
… neatly sums up the mainstream Future of Work narrative. We continue to seek to resolve the issues of The Future Of Work with linear thinking. Answering ‘what next’ questions. It's wrong thinking, because ‘what’s next’ on this trajectory doesn’t follow the pattern and because of that, we continue to hurtle towards a different set of problems that few seem to be examining.
Business models treat people as task-specific cogs in a machine, on both sides of the business equation ..
delivering things at a lower cost than the business will sell them for
buying things at a higher price than the business produces them for
If all businesses operate with maximum efficiency, there will not be enough people with sufficient income to buy the stuff that the businesses sell.
Most of the narrative about the future of work continues to assume people will continue to ‘do’, not ‘be’ and very little thinking about The Future of Work seems to be answering the question with a unique perspective.
Solutions are needed. And they are there. For just one example, Vint Cerf and David Nordfor’s book, ‘The People Centered Economy’. For another - keep following this newsletter, there’s a lot more to come.
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