VISION OF DYSTOPIAN FUTURE FOR WORKERS / THE FINANCIAL TIMES ( VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING )

Vision of dystopian future for workers

Review by Philip Delves Broughton

Published: May 18 2011 23:20

The Shift


The Future of Work is Already Here


By Lynda Gratton


HarperCollins, £18.99

The great danger in writing about the future is that you exaggerate the pace of change. Off you go boldly predicting a Jetsons future in which Spacely Space Sprockets and Cogswell’s Cosmic Cogs compete to make personalised jet packs and hologram communicators, and 40 years later, all we have is WiFi, Starbucks and the Chevy Volt. But then, no futurist could make a living saying things will amble along much as they have, constrained by the bottleneck of human habit. Far scarier to say everything is changing at white-knuckle speed.


Lynda Gratton does just this in The Shift. Not only does she describe the future of work, but renders our understanding of it all the more urgent, by declaring it “already here”. A pedant would argue that a future already here becomes the present. But that would be exactly the sort of 20th century pettifogging that will get you left behind.


Gratton, a professor of management practice at London Business School, describes five forces that will shape the future of work: technology; globalisation; demography and longevity; society; and energy resources. No great surprises here.


Technology shrinks the world but consumes all of our time; globalisation means we can work anywhere, but must compete with people from everywhere; there are more of us, and we’re living longer; traditional communities are being yanked apart as people cluster in cities; and there is rising energy demand and fewer traditional resources. What’s the worker to do?


Gratton terrifies us then uplifts us with two visions of how the future of work might look, presenting a compendium of modern management and social science theories along the way. The novelty of Gratton’s book is her synthesis of so many contemporary ideas about the changes to our working lives.


The first vision she calls the “default future” which will occur if we carry on as we are. Technology will enslave us. Just because we can communicate at all hours to people all over the world, we will be expected to. Our personal lives will be hollowed out. We will flit between endless small tasks rather than applying ourselves to larger, more meaningful projects. More of us will be working from home, losing the camaraderie of the office. We will have the world on a screen, but no one to share it with. For those without a good education, there will be no advantage to being born in a wealthy country. The poor in the US and Europe will get poorer as they are forced to compete with the poor of Asia and Africa.


Gratton then pulls out of this nosedive of misery to present what she calls “the bright side of the crafted future”. In this future, we use technology and globalisation to develop new networks of collaborators; we co-operate and pursue balance in our lives; and we create micro-enterprises that can survive by tapping into global markets. She creates fictional characters to illustrate her points. For example, as micro-entrepreneurs, she has a Chinese mother and daughter, Xui Li and Bao Yu. Xui is a dressmaker who distributes hand-embroidered dresses through Li & Fung, a global supply chain manager, and also trades in freshwater pearls on Alibaba, the Chinese online trading platform. Bao also earns her living through Alibaba, selling handmade straw handbags to Americans. They are both self-employed, see plenty of each other and pursue work they enjoy. They also expect to live longer than previous generations.


Gratton urges her readers to open the “aperture of choice that creates the space which will enable you to write a personal career script that can bring you fulfilment and meaning.” This requires the “shift” of her title and consists of three steps. The first is from “shallow generalist to serial master”. There is no longer any value in being a jack of all trades. The new world of work demands highly specialised masters. You need to become one, but then also be capable of “sliding and morphing” as the market’s demands change.


The second shift is from “isolated competitor to innovative connector”. Stop reading Facebook wall posts and really use that social network.


The third shift is from “voracious consumer to impassioned producer”. Quit goggling at the television and shopping at the weekends, and create instead.

Gratton predicts a big role for social entrepreneurs. This seems to give too little credit to large companies and what must be called just “entrepreneurs”, those who build businesses, create jobs and distribute profits without the need to pursue any larger social mission. It would be a grim future if work were dominated by the noisiest, self-proclaimed do-gooders, while the social utility of plain old capitalism went ignored.


Gratton writes that “the challenge is to lead a more purposeful working life, where we can create a stronger sense of who we are and what we care about, and the choices we face and their possible consequences”. She is right, of course, but this has always been the challenge. The ambitions of the future sound a lot like those of the past and will be just as difficult to fulfil.


Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011.