My coaching client (let’s call her Alice) is soon to be turning 60 and has reached a life cross-roads. For 30 years she has built her business from very humble beginnings to a highly respectable medium sized enterprise and has been offered an acquisition deal by a larger, similarly respectable, but culturally different organisation. Whilst she is encouraged by the financial security this opportunity offers, she is also feeling conflicted.
“I’m not sure I could work for anyone after being in charge for so long, and I’m not ready to retire. What would I do? I like my work; I like my team and the culture we’ve built. If I take the offer and leave, I can’t continue doing what I do now because of a non-compete clause. I’d have to think of some other way to do what I love”.
“So, then, why not turn it down? Why not carry on for another 10 years and wait for the next offer to come along?” I ask.
“Because I’m afraid that if I wait too long, I’ll be made redundant by AI!”.
We both had a laugh, but in that moment, Alice touched on somewhat of an existential crisis experienced by millions of workers worldwide, particularly Boomers and Gen X’s who, are less likely to trust smart technologies than younger generations according to a Harris Poll in 2023. The advent of AI, or the automation of thinking, is a major disruption to the way humans work and live as smart technology takes over more tasks that people used to do.
As a consequence, to stay relevant, the World Economic Forum (WEF) anticipates that about 40% of core skills will change by 2025, and about half of all employees will need re-skilling. Key skills growing in importance over this period are anticipated to be critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, as well as self-management skills. The WEF publishes a top ten list of skills relevant today and in the future each year as part of their Future of Jobs report. In 2023, the top 5 skills expected to be in demand in 2025 are:
Why these skills? Because they are uniquely human.
Jamie Meristosis is the president of Lumina Foundation and author of “Human Work”. He argues that to prepare for this new era, we need to work alongside smart machines and develop skill-sets in the kind of work that only humans can do; skill-sets that echo the lists regularly produced by the WEF including thinking critically, reasoning ethically, interacting interpersonally and serving others with empathy.
The nature of the game is changing, and with this change comes a need for us to continue to evolve in the very ways that elevate our humanity.
The upside to this story is that if you’re not tech savvy, if you were born before the year 1980, if you fear for your future in this rapidly changing world – you don’t need to. So long as you have technical literacy, your future is in your hands. The future of work is human – and your capacity to create spaces and places where people can think, learn, adapt and grow is what will allow teams and organisations to transform and endure.
If you want to work on your capacity to think, learn and adapt as a leadership team – that’s what I do! Check out my website to find out more.