Three ways to prepare for the future of work

We’ve invited Johannes Koponen, an expert in strategic futures studies and development of business models from Demos Helsinki to share a few thoughts on the future of work, and how individuals can adapt to the changing environment.

Following industrialization and the invention of the steam engine, the working life of a significant number of people became alarmingly miserable for a few generations. This development inspired Marx to write the Communist Manifesto. In the end work conditions did get better, probably in part due to maturing technology and in part due to workers’ demands. A much faster technological leap is taking place as we speak, and it’s slightly misleadingly called digitalization or automatization. It has to do with more than just computers and robots becoming part of our work. We must focus on renewing our ways of working and also on a new division of labor.

The future of work will change quickly and suddenly, it’ll require different competencies and a whole new mindset. The following three ways to prepare for the future are based on these findings.

The first way: Belief in the future

Belief in the future, or the ability to see possible other ways of being over a longer period of time. Reactivity and agility can only take us so far in a rapidly changing world. We must also create new, long-term opportunities by utilizing and anticipating development. This is what happens when a teleoperator sells mobile phones for a tie-in deal that’s cheap now but expensive three years down the road, or when a medical student decides to become a biohacker.

The second way: New skills

A new age requires an entirely new set of skills. Perhaps the most important is the ability to interact with machines. Often this simply means the courage to learn machines and test various ways of applying them. Another important skill could be called “entrepreneurial skill,” by which I mean the ability to make use of one’s competence and know-how in different platform economy services, for example. A third is system thinking: understanding a complex system’s active parts and their cooperative actions. A fourth is being able to stir up particular human strengths. These are mobility, feelings, and creativity. In machines, all of these characteristics are still lacking or in experimentation phase at best.

The third way: Curiosity

Curiosity is perhaps the most humane characteristic of all. It’s independent of competence, social class, or experience. The more it’s used, the more it increases.

Digitalization enables us to make the most of curiosity and building on a completely different level than ever before, for four reasons:

1. Never before have we had such access to information. Billions of people can access the internet, read Wikipedia, or learn new skills on YouTube.

2. Never before have we had such tools for working together. Through Facebook, Skype or Slack we can contact a friend or colleague in moments. Googledocs, Etherpad and other wikis enable simultaneous collaboration. Also physical tool like computers and mobile phones make it easier to visualize things and to convey and understand messages.

3. Never before have we had such possibilities to learn through play and games. Trial and error is essential for learning, and through games we can experiment without risk. All kinds of simulations, business games, educational games, and online games enable a whole new world of social and experimental learning.

4. Never before has it been so easy to find others interested in the same things. Curiosity often craves for a community. The web is filled with discussion forums. Reddit alone has 848,084 different communities (of which only a part are active, of course).

Why is curiosity the answer? Curiosity makes it easier to shift from one profession or trade to another because a new line of work is a fantastic way to learn. It helps us turn hobbies into jobs. It supports lifelong learning and the transfer of silent knowledge. And it helps us make our work more enjoyable. Through curiosity, by empathically searching for the reason why we do what we do, work can be made meaningful.