The Future of Work is Very Human

Tim Leberecht
The Future of Work is Very Human
The European House-Ambrosetti | Milan, May 3, 2017
@timleberecht

Table of Contents
Prologue
Part One: “The key drivers shaping the future of work”
Part Two: “How to prepare for the human future of work”

A new romantic era?
- Emotions over reason
-Ambiguity
-Volatility
Meaning-seeking and making
- Artisanship
- “Sacred spaces”
- Empathy
- Focus on individualism
- Gaming/VR
- Escapism

“I don’t want to save the world.
I just want to think of the
future and not be sad.”
Elon Musk

Part One
The key drivers shaping
the future of work

future of
society
future of self
blockchain
VR/AR
co-working
telecommuting
network intelligence
big data
purpose authenticity
health and wellbeing
fluid identities
aging
ed tech
privacy
platform economy
gig economy
AI/machine learning
algorithms quantification
co-living
future
of
organizations

Technology
Socio-political trends
Environment

Knowledge workers spend about 70% of
their waking hours at work.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Half of world’s wealth is now in the hands
of 1% of population.
Credit Suisse Report, 2015

Google is worth $370 billion but has only
about 55,000 employees—less than a
tenth the size of AT&T’s workforce in its
heyday [in the 1960s].
Brookings

In 1990, the three biggest companies in
Detroit had a market cap of $36bn,
revenues of $250bn and 1.2 million
employees. In 2014, the three biggest
companies in Silicon Valley had a
considerably higher market cap ($1.09tn)
generated roughly the same revenues
($247bn), but with about 10 times fewer
employees (137,000).

More people are pursuing higher
education, but the real wages of recent
college graduates have fallen since 2000.
The Atlantic

Across advanced economies, market
incomes stagnated or fell for about two-
thirds of households in 2005-2014, a
period marked by deep recession and
slow recovery after the 2008 financial
crisis.
McKinsey

In the US and the EU, there are
285 million adults who are not in the labor
force—and at least 100 million of them
would like to work more. Some 30 to
45 percent of the working-age population
around the world is underutilized—that is,
unemployed, inactive, or underemployed.
McKinsey

Almost 75 million youth are officially
unemployed. Women represent one of the
largest pools of untapped labor: globally,
655 million fewer women are
economically active than men.
McKinsey

Out of a man’s average 8-hour workday,
2 hours are unpaid; 4.5 are for a woman.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

“There are a lot of people out
there getting paid to do
absolutely nothing.
There are also a lot of people
out there getting paid nothing
to do everything.”
Scott Santens

More than four billion people, or over half
of the world’s population is still offline.
About 75% of this offline population is
concentrated in 20 countries including
Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan,
and Tanzania, and is disproportionately
rural, low income, elderly, illiterate, and
female.
McKinsey

Migrants made an absolute contribution to
global output of roughly $6.7 trillion, or
9.4% of global GDP in 2015. However,
migrant workers, on average, earn wages
that are 20 to 30% lower than those of
comparable native-born workers.
OCED

Richer, college-educated people are
working more than they did 30 years ago,
particularly when you count time working
and answering e-mail at home.
The Atlantic

Apart from a short burst between 1996
and 2004, the digital technology
revolution actually hasn’t boosted
overall productivity.
OECD

The total cost of presenteeism to US
employers falls anywhere between $150
billion to $250 billion each year, and those
costs are on the rise as presenteeism
becomes more frequent in tight
economic times.
Scott Santens

40% of employers say lack of skills is the
main reason for entry-level job vacancies.
60% say that new graduates were not
adequately prepared for the world of
work.
McKinsey

37% of employees worldwide say their
current job does not fully utilize their skills
or provide enough challenge.
LinkedIn survey

70% of management teams believe their
employees are inspired by their
company’s mission. However, only 27%
of employees agree.
Boston Research / The Economist

Only 30% of employees worldwide
are fully engaged at work.
Gallup

Work is viewed as least desirable activity.
Only being sick in bed ranks lower.
London School of Economics

22% of workers from European Union
countries suffer from stress at work.
Fourth European Working Conditions Survey

Mental ill health accounts for almost 20%
of the burden of disease in the WHO
European Region, and mental health
problems affect one in four people at
some time in life. Six out of the 20
countries with the highest suicide rates in
the world are in the European Region.
WHO

“Instead of committing
suicide, we go to work.”
Thomas Bernhard

Artificial intelligence and automation are
expected to replace up to 50% of all jobs
by 2025.
Oxford study

Driverless cars are forecast to make up
75% of all traffic by 2040.
New York Times

Robotics is expected to rise from a $15
billion sector now to $67 billion by 2025.
Brookings

4 types of robots
Industrial robots Professional service robots Consumer robots Virtual assistants

Gartner‘s Emerging Technology Hype-Cycle

60% of all jobs have at least 30% of
activities “that are technically
automatable.” On a global scale, the
adaptation of automation technologies
could affect 50% of the world economy, or
1.2 billion employees and $14.6 trillion in
wages.
McKinsey

Process work, customer work, and vast
swathes of middle management will
simply disappear: 50% of occupations
today will no longer exist in 2025.
CBRE

2/3 of workers in developing countries
will be replaced by robots in the next
twenty years.
UN

“Automation begets the erosion
of skills or the lack of skills in
the first place, and this then
begets more automation.”
William Langewiesche

41% of respondents have fully
implemented or made significant
progress in adopting AI
technologies in the workforce,
yet only 15% of global executives
say they are prepared to manage
a workforce “with people, robots,
and AI working side by side.”
Deloitte’s 2017 Human Capital Trends Report

Man
vs.
machine
Consciousness
vs.
intelligence

Environment
Climate change
Resource scarcity

Socio-political trends
Under/un-employment/gig economy
Skills/job mismatch
Mental health
Millennials (majority of workforce by 2020) / purpose
Gen Z / Fluid identities
Diversity
Urbanization
Overaged societies
Ethnic, religious, and political conflicts
Migration

Technology
Digitilization (digital platforms, collaboration tools,
quantification, big data)
Internet of Things
Telepresence (telecommuting)
VR/AR immersive experiences
Urban mobility
AI and robotics

There will be 13 million wearable devices
in the workplaces by 2019.
ABI Research

Subjectivity
Suffering
Mystery
Emotion
Transcendence
Ephemerality
Inconsistency
SerendipityAmbiguity
Unpredictability

Subjectivity
Suffering
Mystery
Emotion
Transcendence
Ephemerality
Inconsistency
SerendipityAmbiguity
Unpredictability
Focus Features

What
makes
us
special?
What
makes
us
human?
Romance

"Die Welt muss romantisiert werden.
So findet man den ursprünglichen Sinn wieder.“
Novalis

Summary Part One
Key drivers: technology, socio-political, and environment
AI/automation will change everything
Utopian/dystopian scenarios
Redefine work and what we consider valuable
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Age of disenchantment
…and a new romantic era!

Part Two
How to prepare for the
human future of work
…tomorrow

Human work will be 2.33 times more
worth than any other economic factor
over the next five years.
Korn Ferry

Play the Game, Beautifully
Waste Time
Know Nothing, Tell No One
Suffer (a Little)
4 Rules of Enchantment

Credit: Makemoneyinlife.com Die Welt

Credit: Makemoneyinlife.com Die WeltMIT

The Google Ventures design sprint

Work in the liquid economy
Freelancing and contingent work
“Soft skills”
End of experts
Constant re-learning
AI/VR/tele commuting
Self-organized purpose communities

The end of “professions”?
Instead: Portfolio career
Skill-based micropreneurs
“Don’t become a physician. Become good at empathy.”
Internal freelancers? Micro-jobs
Example: Cisco

The end of “companies”?
Why do companies exist?
Low transaction costs / AI will be lower
Effective mechanism for cooperation
Talent platforms and telework
Access to markets and resources
Consistency
Provider of identity and meaning -> often failing at it; tribes?
Provider of structure -> vs. autonomy, flexibility

Storm / Fotolia.com / Umweltbundesamt

Storm / Fotolia.com / Umweltbundesamt
“What remains scarce is profoundness.”
Scott Galloway

2. Waste Time
Eric Pickersgill

133
“The opposite of loneliness is
not togetherness, it's intimacy.”
Richard Bach

“The constant challenge of
modern relationships: how
to prove more interesting than
the other’s smartphone.”
Alain de Botton

“The illiterate of the 21st century
will not be those who cannot read
and write, but those who cannot
learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Alvin Toffler

To thrive with AI,
become better at conversations!

“What’s the nature of leadership but seeing
things that others aren’t seeing yet? What’s
leadership but using language that cuts to the
bone to articulate this unseen vision? What’s
leadership but having the courage to say what
feels unsayable whether because it’s not
popular or too frightening? That’s poetry.”
David Whyte

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Don’t just be happy. Bring your
full self to work, including
negative emotions.
Work is emotional labor.
It should break your heart.
-> Pre-mortem

Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, Airbnb

“89% of companies believes that customer experience will be their
primary basis for competition by 2016, versus 36% four years ago.”
— Gartner
“81% of executives surveyed place the personalized customer
experience in their top three priorities for their organization, with 39%
reporting it as her top priority.”
— Accenture
“90% of executives surveyed agreed that customer experience and
engagement are objectives of their corporation's digital strategy.”
— MIT Sloan / Deloitte
“6X more likely to buy with a positive emotional experience, 12x more
likely to recommend the company, and 5x more likely to forgive a
mistake.”
— Temkin Group
Source: KPCB, Design in Tech Report 2016
Customer
experience
matters.
Design
Matters.

DIRECT COMPETITORS
EXPERIENTIAL COMPETITORS
The new competitive landscape
…and more
Framework by Fjord

“Transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere,
for everyone. In pursuit of that mission over the past four
years, Uber has transformed the fabric of 170 cities around
the world – creating the safest way to get around cities,
generating over 20,000 jobs a month, lowering DUI
incidents, accidents and fatalities, and improving local
economies.”

“At Daimler we are committed to excellence. To facilitate, enable,
and sustain this commitment, we want to create and live a culture of
excellence. This culture is characterized by values the Board of
Management discussed and agreed upon: Passion, Respect, Integrity,
and Discipline.”
– Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG/Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars

The market is cooling off.
According to CrunchBase data, the average funding for a seed-stage company in the US rose in
the first half of 2016, from $947,000 in the first six months of 2015 to $1.14 million in 2016.
However, total seed funding is down by around $400 to $500 million. The total number of seed
rounds is also down, by just over 200.
-> Seed investors are becoming more selective.

Beautiful Business
Dream big
Do good
Feel good
Feel more

“People will forget what
you said, people will forget
what you did, but people
will never forget how you
made them feel.”
Maya Angelou

Emotion is the number-one
factor in determining loyalty—
far more important than the ease
or effectiveness of interactions
with a company.
Forrester

Ephemerality over permanence
Uniqueness over scale
Ambiguity over clarity
Serendipity over predictability
Thickness over efficiency
Inconsistency over reliability
Emotion over reason
Danger over data
Fluid identities over single narrative
Individual over collective
Meaning over explanation
Subjectivity over objective truth
Un-Quantified Self over Quantified Self

Smart Romantic
Reacting Wandering
Connection Reconnection
Dashboard Principles
Monitoring Letting go
Variety Serendipity
Big Data Big Intuition
Real-time Pre-emptive
Behavioral targeting Distributed presence
Conversation (Occasional) silence
Transparency Mystery
Calculated risk Vulnerability
Reliability Ritual
Liking Passion
User-friendliness Frustration
Excellence Significance

The post-human human organization
Minimum Viable Humanism
Romantic experiences (mystery, intimacy, meaning)
Machine Learning PLUS Sentimental Education
Beautiful Work
Beautiful Organizations

Character
Ethos
Integrity
Acumen
Judgment
Intuition
Spirit
Imagination
Hope
Heart
Passion
Compassion
What machines can’t do

INTIMACY
AUTHENTICITY
DELIGHT
INTEGRITY
PURPOSE
DIVERSITY SUSTAINABILITY
INTUITION
IMAGINATION
CULTURE ACTION SOUL
What makes a business beautiful?

SOCIETY
From
automation
to
Basic Income
SELF
From
optimization
to
Romance
ORGANIZATION
From
efficiency
to
Beauty
Liberation!

Universal Basic Income
Redistributes productivity gains
Basic needs covered; reduces anxiety
Only mothers of young babies and teenagers still in education
worked less in pilot tests
Additional, taxable income possible
Minimizes risk of mass-unemployment
Formally values formerly unpaid work

The future of work is very human indeed.
The 9-to-5 office worker will be considered a historical aberration.
We will need to learn how to engage with AI and integrate it into our organizations and work
cultures in a meaningful way.
We need a new “sentimental education” (incl. empathy, ethics, philosophy, time literacy, emotional
intelligence, etc.) to prepare us for the remaining human work that will reward inherently human
skills.
We need to devise effective strategies to combat the epidemic spread of loneliness and address
mental health issues stemming from losing work as the center of our lives and identities.
Work structures will become super-flexible and atomized.
Work will become multi-dimensional, allowing multiple identities; commuting between virtual and
real world, various workplaces, teams, and projects (and institutional loyalties).
Tomorrow’s leaders need to be inspirational conductors, curators, and experience designers
rather than traditional managers.

The future of work is very human indeed.
Work will be un-employment.
Work will be basic income.
Work will be romantic.
Work will be like football.
Work will be theater.

EDUCATION/LEARNING
- STE(A)M
- Job-applicable
- From profession to skills / (micro-jobs)
- Entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship
- Design Thinking
- Art Thinking
- Learning on the job
- Reskilling
- Externships
- Role swaps
- Coffee trials
- Returnships
- Counseling
- Coaching
- Sentimental education
- EI
- AEI
- Experiential learning
ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS
- Networked organization
- Exponential organization
- Beautiful organization
- Purpose-driven business
- Super-flexible organization
- Holacracy / role-based
- Virtual organizations
- Tribes / “gangs”
- Clubs
- Collectives
- Red Teams
- Secret societies/leagues
- Swarming
- Pop-up communities
- Micro-jobs
- Gig economy
- Digital platforms
- “Shared autonomy”
- Co-working/co-living/co-housing
LEADERSHIP
- Conversational leadership
- Inspiration
- Visioning
- Improvisation
- Empathy
- Sentimental education
- Humility
- Intuition
- Poetry
NEW HUMANISM
- Humanities
- Empathy
- Imagination
- Inspiration
- “Beautiful work”
- Culture of failure
- Culture of compassion
- Rituals of separation
- EI
The Radically Human Work Framework

Immersive experiences
Platform revolution
AI
Gartner

“To begin, begin.”
William Wordsworth

Summary
Humanize your purpose, culture, and leadership style
Apply the 4 rules of enchantment
Become AI’s best friend
Explore super-flexible organizational designs
Keep an open mind

@timleberecht
tim@thebusinessromantic.com
www.timleberecht.com
Thank you!

The Future of Work is Very Human

The Future of Work is Very Human

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