The Future of Work
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The world is changing, and the nature of work is changing, and in order for us to succeed in this new world order, there are a few things we need to do... Note: This presentation was initially given as an Ignite talk at UP America Summit 2014, then revised for a Breaker Breakaway Workshop in June 2015.
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The Future of Work
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Editor's Notes
- At the beginning of this school year, one of my consulting clients asked me to take on a role in which I had absolutely no experience. “You do know that I don’t know how to do this, right?” I asked them. “Of course,” they replied, “and we think you’ll do a great job.”
- As a result, I became Head of Business Development at Buzzmath, an online math company. I hired our first ever sales representative and reached out to schools and districts to hear their needs and find out if Buzzmath could be the solution they were looking for, having never before worked in sales or business development. The leaders at Buzzmath did not ask me to apply for this position,
- instead the position grew out of an ongoing conversation in which I listened to their pain points and pitched my own job description. And, they hired me, not on the basis of how much experience I had, which was none, but rather on the basis of my reputation for learning and for excellence. Buzzmath is not an exception.
- In fact, over the past two years that I’ve worked as an entrepreneur, every single one of my consulting clients have come through referral. I’ve held positions as diverse as Chief of Staff at an education technology accelerator to Project and Events Manager for a team at the NYC Department of Education.
- Furthermore, many of the roles and responsibilities in these positions shifted dramatically from when I started to when I ended my work with them. To my fellow entrepreneurs, this way of working is not a surprise. We make deals with someone because we trust that person’s intentions and ability to learn. We’re recruited by people in our communities.
- We join and leave multiple projects a year. However, to the rest of the world, we’re a little bit crazy. Early this year, on my weekly Sunday night call with my parents, my Dad asked me, “So what is it that you do again?” I tried to explain -- “I’m a founder.
- I co-founded a company that works with education technology companies to design their product in complete collaboration with educators.” He said, “That’s nice” and then asked, “Have you ever thought about working for ...” My dad, like many others, doesn’t quite understand that life doesn’t have to be
- a single job with managers and health benefits and the illusory guarantee of a bi-weekly paycheck. Because, that single job, that guaranteed paycheck, it is illusory. In the wake of the financial crisis, technological innovation, globalization,
- we can count on very little of the economy to stay constant, both for ourselves as individuals, and for our companies. The US Department of Labor, for example, recently estimated that 65% of the children you teach, will be employed in jobs that don’t yet exist...
- 65% And so, if our job as educators is to prepare students to enter the world, what kind of world are we preparing them for? What do they need in order to be successful?
- My hypothesis is that the world is changing, and the nature of work is changing, and in order for us to succeed in this new world order, there are a few things we need to do: First, we need to know ourselves. We need to live with our own personal purpose and work at the
- nexus of, not only what’s financially sustainable, but also what we love, what we’re good at, and what the world needs, even if this looks very different from anything that’s ever been done before. Second, we don’t find this nexus by sitting in a room alone and thinking our way to it. Instead, we need to go out,
- and try, and fail, and learn, and try, and grow. And companies are also trying and failing and growing. Therefore, the future of work is not position based, because who knows whether a position that seems so necessary will even exist a year from now.
- Instead, it is project-based. Projects represent experiments and new creation. And this is scary, because project-based work is different, it’s fluid, and there’s a high rate of failure. Personally, I quit a job halfway through, was fired from another, did not make enough money my first six months, and suffered through two months of
- depression because I let negative self-talk tear down my self-confidence. However, remember the start of my story, how I earned a contract, not by virtue of a nice résumé or job application, but instead by virtue of the work I’ve done, the reputation I’ve built, and the relationships I forged through listening to company needs?
- The third and final thing I think we need in order to succeed, in this new world order, is to be loyal, not to a single role or a single company, but to our community instead. Our community of people who will pick you up when you fall and cheer you on when you succeed, because, they too, are striving to work at their
- nexus of what they love, what they’re good at, what the world needs, and what’s financially sustainable. And so, my greatest hope, is to work with all of you, to make our schools reflect this future. Let’s make schools a place where individual differences and quirks are celebrated, where the student who loves dancing feels as equally valued as the student who can master every common core math standard.
- Where student passions are encouraged, and their working styles are honored. Let’s have students work on authentic projects that they can fail or succeed at, that they can share with the world.
- And, as educators, let’s encourage collaboration and community. Because our students are heading off into a future where we can’t predict what jobs they'll have or what projects they’ll work on, but we can set them up to have the self-knowledge, project based skills, and community they need, to tackle whatever it is their future holds.
- The future of work. It's people with purpose. Projects, not positions. Communities, not companies. Thank you.