This is Part 1 of the article Future Work by Abe WalkingBear Sanchez
Who’s responsible for our future society? How can business managers shape the future?
Ron Fleisher of Tampa FL is a smart man. One of his favorite “quotes” is a window on how we should view the world and our place in that world.
“It is not important that I remain consistent with what I may have said or done in the past; what is important is that I remain faithful to the truth as it reveals itself to me.” M.K. Gandhi
Gandhi, another smart man, understood that our words and actions, collectively and as individuals, are based on what we know. If our knowledge base changes, so must we.
To better understand where we are going we must first draw a line from where we have been to where we are at. Only by referencing the past and the present can we hope to understand the course of the future.
The Past
There was a time, not so very long ago, when priests and kings dictated human activity. Institutions, then and now, are driven by a need to maintain things as they are. The continuation of the status quo is often justified as the preservation of proven traditions. Try to change things and they’d come for you and for your family, and maybe your entire village.
Fear of retribution is counterproductive to the full utilization of human synergy.
In the more recent “old days”, the 1960s, business organizations had many more levels of managers and supervisors, than they do today. It sometimes seemed as if there were more chiefs than Indians. Office spaces were larger in the 60s because room was needed for filing cabinets, but people were smaller. The goal of smart businesses in the 60s was the same as smart businesses today; to meet or exceed the customers’ expectations. Customer expectations were different/lower in the 60s; but then we were just starting to have our lunch eaten by the Japanese quality movement.
Life time employment and powerful unions walked upon the land in the 60s. High tech consisted of large fax machines that looked and sounded like small clothes dryers; a noisy drum that went around and around. In the 60s, person to person interaction limited the amount of work that got done. Meetings on memos and memos on meetings.
The Present
Today technology has reduced the number of filing cabinets and managers/supervisors to a point that if they were small furry animals they’d be on an endangered list. The levels of people involved in business have shrunk sometimes to the point where it’s hard to find a real person with which to interact. Today quality in products and services is a given if you wish to attract customers. Quality in the way that a company does business, its processes, is critical to customer retention. Low communications and data transmission costs coupled with the use of English worldwide has led to jobs being off shored and outsourced. Better and cheaper technology allows fewer people to do more work than ever before. More work being done cheaper by fewer people, sound great, …unless it’s your job that a machine has eliminated, or that is being done by someone else, somewhere else and for less pay and bennies. Today new
technology is old by the time we learn to use it. Not to worry, it’s all part of a greater scheme.
The Future
Gone is the day of the hunter/gatherer, of the family farm, and of the American factory worker. Fading away is the day of the information middleman, of information workers. In his 1999 book, The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination will Transform Your Business, Rolf Jensen starts the introduction by stating “The sun is setting on the Information Society – even before we have fully adjusted to it’s demands.”
Well it’s here, the future, and like an intrusive relative it always seems to show up at dinnertime and unexpected. Change is the constant and it comes faster and faster. To remain cost competitive while providing for the ever increasing demand for customer customization; ever more technology and off shore workers will be employed by business.
Continued tomorrow in Part 2 of the article Future Work by Abe WalkingBear Sanchez
Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles and worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries.
