The future of work

ATMs and Strategy

When ATMs were first rolled out, economists, politicians, and the media panicked. Automation was to rob bank tellers of their jobs! With people no longer required to give the correct change and stamp deposit slips, the world was tipped to be experiencing the early stages of the robot revolution.

Sound familiar?

Well, for what it's worth, there are more bank tellers than ever. Rather than widespread job loss, introducing technology for routine tasks changed the job focus for bank tellers to higher value tasks like customer and relationship management, financial services, and sales.

Bank tellers are just one example of an industry where the changing nature of work, technology, and society demands different skills from our workforce. I’ve been reading about this a lot lately to get my head around the nature of human work, teams, leadership, and strategic change that complements the coming wave of AI and big data.

The big thing that stands out to me? The skills and capabilities most required, moving into the future, all centre around some core themes:

Critical thinking, engagement, and influence, and contextual/tacit knowledge

…. aka the stuff we aren’t aware enough of or too inconsistent or ambiguous about automating.

…. aka: strategy, change, and influence.

“We know more than we can tell.” – David H. Autor

The Human Value Chain

Only humans are strategic. Ironically, even getting to a machine-led future, which requires meaningful and intentional integration of technology into our lives and organisations, demands the strategist to understand context, set direction, align social and cultural norms and change hearts and minds.

It’s like when you buy a new piece of technology or software to solve all your problems (I’m looking at you, Apple Watch gathering dust in my bedroom) and realise you need to change something about yourself or your life to get any value from it.

Renowned economic historian J. Bradford DeLong talks about the ten categories of human productive value, tracing their evolution over time.

The first two levels involve manual, physical labour, and manufacturing, while the third and fourth capture the control of machine-driven production.

In the fifth and sixth categories, we move through to jobs requiring us to use and exchange information and communication – like accounting and communications. At the seventh, we create meaning and systemise tasks (such as writing code and developing software.)

The eighth level sees human connection introduced, while in the ninth, we become more relative in our significance (acting as “cheerleader, manager, or arbiter for other humans.”)

The tenth and final level sees us thinking critically about complex problems, then inventing ideas and solutions in response.

Technology has been working itself through the bottom levels at pace.

According to Delong:,

“Over the next few generations, this process of technological development will work itself out, leaving humans with just four categories of things to do: thinking critically, overseeing other humans, providing a human connection, and translating human whims into a language the machines can understand.” - J Bradford Delong

Delong wrote this in 2019, long before ChatGPT, and is surely feeling justified as a cottage industry of AI experts, trainers, and 'prompt sheets' pop up everywhere around us.

Investing in Strategy

Level ten is where we need to be. Thinking critically about complex problems, then inventing ideas and solutions in response. It makes sense, then, that these are the capabilities we invest in for our future.

Except… we’re not. Employers are asking (crying out for?) for strategic thinking, but our universities are still turning out graduates with memorised subject matter expertise, and our career pathways are rewarding much the same. It's time to shift.

ATMs did not spell the end for bank tellers. Machines are unlikely to spell the end for strategists any time soon –the demand for jobs with critical analysis, meaning-making, and leadership skills is predicted to skyrocket.

It's time to get ahead, and learn the skills you need to stay flexible with change, make great decisions, and think in complex systems. If you're up for the challenge check out Not An MBA.