White-collar and knowledge economy jobs are no less vulnerable to automation than factory work. Law firms, accounting houses, asset managers, banks and management consulting firms are increasingly automating tasks that are labour-intensive and usually done by junior staff. More is being asked of less people, leading to stress and burnout. This nets our economy the unintended consequences of decreased happiness, mental illness and lost working days. We all know that experts can get it very badly wrong too. One only has to see what has happened in the UK throughout the Brexit vote. It is too early to say what the implications will be in the medium and long-term for the wider and even global economy, but it is a sobering reminder of how perilous life can be for a so-called rich nation.
This is an absolute gem from one of my favourite thinkers, Alan Watts:
“If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are “crying for the moon.” We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.”
-Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951
I meet and work with numerous people who are very nervous about the future, not least in financial services: Fintech start-ups eating into retail banking and payments, offering peer-to-peer lending, the Blockchain (as yet untested) revolution. There are manifold, justifiable reasons for feeling fearful when we have so little control over the world around us. What we can control, however, is our response to uncertainty. In fact, I would go so far as to say one should embrace it! Yes, we live in the age of insecurity, but why wait for circumstances to shape us? The discerning knowledge worker has his/her focus on the skills they offer and is constantly questioning, learning and networking with others.
This all ties in with the hitherto ‘fluffy’ notion of your personal brand. How are you intending to stand out from the crowd when your company suddenly announces a merger with a major competitor? You will undoubtedly have an opposite number to compete with. Or how about the fact that you may be able to acquire a more dynamic, well-paid and exciting role at an upstart firm that is making great inroads in its industry because it has no legacy problems to slow it down? Why not take a risk and join the rollercoaster? What have you got to lose? You will be stretched when required to undertake more responsibility and be rewarded by having a greater say in how things are done in a smaller, hungry and more nimble organisation. Conversely, you can speak up in a larger, more established firm to question why things are done in a certain way. If the answer is, “We’ve always done it like that!” then you can push for an alternative and build a network of support for moving forward to transform ways of working that make no sense in our current, dynamic and global marketplace.
We cannot sit around and expect our management or organisation to give us better career prospects. Perhaps for the exceptional few, your life is sufficiently charmed and you are picked as the next generation of leadership. For the rest of us we need to stay focused on bringing value, being relevant and having an ability to change our organisation for the better.
The trajectory of the knowledge economy requires you to be creative. Stop thinking that this is all about your IQ too. This is, crucially, your emotional quotient (EQ), which lives entirely in tandem with strong cognitive skills so as to inform complex and creative problem-solving whilst working well with others. No matter how much automation is coming, business is always going to be about people!
