Richard W. Samson has a good perspective on the near future. As usual, far-seeing Peter Drucker told us how to prepare for this in 1999 in Managing Oneself (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
Peter F. Drucker
Product Type: HBR OnPoint Article Product#: 4444 Length: 15p
Link:
http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=4444
Charles Wankel <
wankelc@optonline.net> wrote:
The article that Edryce suggests we discuss--Richard W. Samson, "How to
Succeed in the Hyper-Human Economy," Futurist, September-October 2004, p.
38+--is an item that I suspect is readily available to most of us through
our university e-libraries. Full-text of the The Futurist is in many
databases including ABI/INFORM Global, ProQuest Research Library, Academic
Search Premier and Business Source Premier. To facilitate discussion,
however, I provide the following excerpt from this article.
The article opens with a banner saying: White-collar work is increasingly
being automated, or "off-peopled," just as happened with farming and
manufacturing work. To survive, workers will need to develop skills that
can't be performed by machines.
Human mental processes are being systematically "off-peopled"- that is,
transferred into computers, microchips, networks, and mechanical devices of
all types.
Think of it as a great global brain drain, the most critically
pivotal-either empowering or suicidal-trend of our times. Yet it is
underreported by the media and virtually invisible to the public eye. It's
not yet on policy makers' radar screens. It could create a golden age for
everyone but threatens-if current social and business practices continue- to
force millions of blue- and white-collar workers below the poverty line
while making the rich richer.
The Industrial Revolution offers a useful precedent, because we're starting
to feel the same empowerment but suffer the same trauma experienced by
laborers, farmers, and craftsmen when machine power extended muscle power
but removed sources of livelihood from labor. Except now it's mind power
that's flowing into our tools. People adjusted to the Industrial Revolution
by moving from labor intensive jobs to know-how jobs. That won't work this
time, because know-how tasks are the very kind being usurped. We need a new
strategy for the new transition, and we should not expect an improving
economy to restore the quantity and mix of yesterday's employment. Farming,
too, offers a precedent. As recently as 1900, it took almost 40% of
America's workforce to grow the nation's food. Today, thanks to progressive
mechanization, it takes less than 2%. Factory work has retraced much of
farming's downward trajectory. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS), goods producing workers decreased from 38% of the non-farm
workforce in 1940 to 17% in 2003, and it's not hard to imagine goods
production soon joining farming in the less-than-2% club. At that time, the
service sector would, by today's definition, theoretically boast more than
98% of the non-farm workforce. But there's a problem. As information
technology automates white and blue-collar functions alike, most of the
remaining jobs as we know them are being transferred into all electronic
systems. By 2100, it is possible that fewer than 2% of the U.S. non-farm
workforce will be needed to handle today's know-how functions in factories,
offices, stores, professional suites, hospitals, research labs, and
universities. If know-how work is being taken over by ever
more-sophisticated tools, what's left for people to do?
....
A new class of jobs has yet to be named: work involving hard-toautomate
hyper-human skills that go beyond know-how. We can divide today's
servicesector
workforce into two types-know-how and hyper-human. Knowhow service workers
are likely to plummet to less than 2% of the workforce by the end of the
century, but hyper-human service workers may zoom to over 90%.
....
It is possible that we are less than 5% into the Information Age in terms of
the mental functions that may be usurped by electronic intelligence.
....
Transition Tactics
As a practical matter, how can we get to the hyper-human economy
without getting lost in the transition? Here are some sensible steps that
may be taken by corporations, governments, and individuals.
Strategies for Corporations
. Offshore if survival depends on it, but prepare for employee backlash,
including union organizing.
. Reevaluate the wisdom of disrupting a stable workforce. ....
. Add hyper-human functions to existing tasks through job redefinition and
training. ...
. Automate know-how to support hyper-human functions, not replace people.
...
. Put increased emphasis on "mental models" that promote practical
reflection in areas such as product development, sales and marketing,
intrapreneurship, and management....
Strategies for Governments and Concerned Citizens
. Beef up the hyper-human content of educational programs. In grammar
through grad school, put more emphasis on creativity, discovery, ethics,
entrepreneurship, and flexible problem solving.
. Rebuild the local. Balance globalization by putting a new emphasis on
cohesive communities, in the United States and abroad. Promote
"intercommunities"-physical analogs of Internet nodes in which living,
earning, learning, and culture coexist and reinforce one another in close
proximity. [Ed. note: For examples of budding intercommunities, visit
www.eranova.com/intercommunity .]
. Use investment and philanthropy to revive local-job-creating small
businesses. ...
. Gradually move to work high on the hyper-human scale. In the near term,
there will be money in knowhow jobs for many; over the longer term, smart
zippy systems will prevail. If a form of work takes creativity, goal-focus,
ethical behavior, responsibility, and social skills, it's likely to have a
future and generate
income eventually, if not right away....
. Constantly hone your hyperhuman skills. ...
. Cut back, simplify. Don't count on corporate or social policy to protect
your livelihood. In the absence of reform, you may need to compete with
professionals in other countries willing to work for a few thousand dollars
per year. In the United States, employers will increasingly use the pressure
of foreign pay scales to negotiate lower pay domestically. Find ways to live
beautifully on less. (Not easy, but it may be essential.) The winning
strategy for the hyperhuman economy is to inject "aliveness"- including
deliberate reflection- into everything we do, and let electronic systems
take over the dull, dead stuff.
Romie F. Littrell, PhD, An f�na� fi�in
Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology
Private Bag 1020
Auckland 1020, New Zealand
Fax (64) 9 - 917 -9629
http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
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