New Age Job Survival

Daniel H. Pink has written a terrific book called "A Whole New Mind - Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future". I recommend it to anyone who is concerned about job survival in this new age.

Daniel postulates that the world has evolved through three distinct ages over the last 150 years - The Agricultural Age, The Industrial Age, and The Information Age. More importantly, he speculates we are entering what he calls The Conceptual Age. One which favors "Right Brainers" (creators and empathizers) over the traditional "Left Brain Skills" (analysts).

We have arrived at the new Conceptual Age, due to three major forces which have essentially changed the rules of competition. These forces are Game changers on a global scale, which Daniel describes as Abundance (excess of available choices), Asia (dramatically lower cost), and Automation (machine driven productivity). To survive in this new age, Daniel argues, you must ask yourself three questions:

1. Are you doing something that cannot be done cheaper by someone overseas?

2. Are you doing something that cannot be done faster by a computer?

3. Are you offering something that is in demand (differentiating) in an age of abundance?

If you answer yes to these three questions, then you are safe (for some time). Answer No, and you are in deep trouble.

I have argued on this blog ("Lifetime Employment - Apply Here") that only employees and companies capable of changing faster than customer choices are changing will survive. The fact is, low cost labor (Asia), and massive productivity improvements (Automation) have created far more choices (Abundance). And, the information age has enlightened consumers as to the availability of these abundant choices. The result is a need for more differentiation. Products have to stand out, they must have soul ("Are you obsessed about Quality? Do your products have soul?"). Similarly, new skills are required for you to stand out.

Read the book to find out which skills Daniel Pink believes will be more important in the future!

"A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future" (Daniel H. Pink)

Where does talent come from?

Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer, golf, surgery, piano playing, Scrabble, writing, chess, software design, stock picking and darts. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers.

Their work, compiled in the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance," a 900-page academic book that will be published next month, makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming — are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.

Ericsson's research suggests a third cliché as well: when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love — because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't "good" at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.

Excerpt From A Star Is Made - New York Times referencing the research of Dr. Anders Ericsson

When we first moved to Florida in 2004, our good friend Barbara Wall, who runs the local Prudential office, invited us to lunch at the Eau Gallie Yacht Club. While there, she introduced our daughters (then 6 and 9) to a wonderful young girl just ten years old. Bre was friendly, charming, beautiful and made it really easy for our daughters to make the transition to their new home. It turns out, Bre Morgan is also a very talented young artist. In 2006 she won a national singing contest, and has recorded her first album at age 13.

The same year we first met Bre, my cousin Wilfred and Juliet welcomed their first grandchild. Kaitlyn is a lovely young girl born to wonderful parents, Allison and Reuben Maher. It's 2008, now just four years later, and this last week, Kaitlyn was selected to be among the top 10 of the popular show America's got Talent.

Ten years, four years, charming, beautiful and loaded with talent. But, where did the talent come from? Was their talent born, or made? I suspect these two young ladies were born talented, but the good news for the rest of us can be found in the work of Dr. Anders Ericsson. He attributes most expert performance to something he describes as "deliberate practice". In other words, "practice does make perfect". Turns out, you are more likely to practice something if you enjoy doing it. In case you are wondering, these two young ladies, they love what they do, and they practice a lot.

Want talented performance at work? Then your teams must love what they do, and they must practice at getting better!

Importance of Education to your future

Education is the key to prosperity. There’s simply no way to sugarcoat that fact. Communities without a strong educational foundation — good public schools, community colleges, a local college or university — are at a severe disadvantage in the competition for good-paying jobs with a future.

Employers need intelligent workers who can grasp new ideas and concepts quickly, who can think for themselves, who can visualize the big picture. It used to be that a high school diploma was the ticket to the middle class. Nowadays, one in four adults over the age of 25 possesses at least a bachelor’s degree, and in some metros — Boulder, Colo., for example — that figure exceeds 50 percent.

From Research Studies: Knowledge Worker Quotient

Are you obsessed about Quality? Do your products have soul?

The Japanese are particular about things; they understand the "soul" of things.

We aim to develop products with soul. The idea that products have soul is perhaps only understand by the Japanese, the French and the Italians. The reason why the Japanese understand it is, I think, because they have such a long history of tradition. There are Japanese craftsmen who spend years perfecting lacquerware. Others protect the 1,500 year tradition of using red dye from the safflower. Others still are attempting new experiments using 21st century technology with traditional colors. And there are many people who are called "living national treasures". The Japanese are particular about things. They like to embark on new adventures and think about the next idea while still retaining the soul of things. Of course, not all consumers are "living national treasures". But this kind of thing is understood at DNA level. The Japanese are sensitive to things. They understand the goodness of our products, beyond their appearance or brand image. And for that reason, I think they are an important market for us.

Let's say you buy a garment and a thread comes out of it. The French would cut the thread off themselves, then wear the garment. An American would wear the garment without noticing the thread. The Japanese would take the garment back to the shop and complain that it was damaged. Japan is a market that makes such demands.

Richard Collasse, then President of Chanel, Japan addressing the Tokyo International Forum

Japan is roughly the size of Montana in land area, and has about 127 million inhabitants (roughly one-third of the USA). And, the Japanese are obsessed with luxury goods. They consumed 41% of the worlds luxury sales in 2006. Thus, when the Japanese customer is not satisfied with threads hanging from their newly purchased outfits, it makes sense for the luxury goods companies to pay attention.

The Japanese define quality in two ways - atarimae hinshitsu and miryokuteki hinshitsu. The first term atarimae hinshitsu, refers to the expectation that the item works the way it was intended. Miryokuteki hinshitsu means "bewitching" or "enchanting quality" and refers to the desirability or aesthetic appeal of the product. In essence, by focusing on both, you ensure your product works the way a customer wants and is also desirable to have (it has soul).

If your customers won't tolerate hanging threads, should anyone on your team? Learn from your most demanding customers, and ensure everyone in your organization is focused on exceeding those changing expectations. This is the only way I know to drive long term sustainability.

Fix your shrinking knowledge quotient

Every hour of every day I'm learning more

The more I learn, the less I know about before

The less I know, the more I want to look around

Digging deep for clues on higher ground

From UB40 - Higher ground Lyrics

I love listening to UB40, a British reggae band formed in the 70's. Their songs are usually light hearted affairs sung to a catchy melody which reminds you of being on a Caribbean beach vacation. Then I listened to the lyrics of the song "Higher Ground". Now that was more serious stuff than I was accustomed to. I did not know what to make of it.

Over the years though, the meaning has become clearer to me. Friends warned me that, the more I learned the more I would not know. Recently I came across some stunning statistics on knowledge expansion and information overload. Did you know for example, that:

• It is estimated that one weeks worth of New York TImes contains more information than an individual would have encountered in a lifetime in the 18th century.
• IDC estimates 160 Exabytes (160 Billion Gigabytes) of data was generated in 2006, more than was generated in the previous 5000 years.
• It’s estimated that the amount of stored information is growing at a rate of 30 per cent a year and that the US generates about 40 per cent of that. The researchers estimated with a world population of 6.3 billion that would mean 800Mb of data each and less than 10 per cent of the world’s population have access to computers or the internet.
• Technical information is doubling every 2 years.

The stunning result of this exponential information explosion is that your personal knowledge quotient (and mine) is shrinking.

Fortunately, there are ways to ensure your knowledge does not become obsolete. An important action you must take is to continue to develop what you know personally. More important, you need to recognize that the rate of information growth is exponential, while your personal information growth is more likely to be linear (based on what you read, touch, experience etc.). Therefore, you should focus on capitalizing on the network effect. In our increasingly connected world, your network knowledge quotient is perhaps more important than your personal knowledge quotient. For it is your network, what it knows, and your ability to leverage that knowledge which is becoming increasingly important.

The most effective ways to build your network knowledge quotient is effectively increasing your network. Stuff it with the smartest people you know and tap into their knowledge a much as you can. Somewhere out there is n answer to any question you might have. Do you know how to find it?