Lynda Gratton - The Future of Work

The 100-year life: reframing longevity as a gift

Sometimes the future doesn’t turn out as you had predicted. Whatever happened to Second Life and the avatars that I – and thousands of others – created? And let’s face it, Uber caught most of us by surprise – and yet now we have no qualms getting into a stranger's car. Sometimes the future hurtles in unexpected directions, and we just have to learn to catch up.

In some cases, however, the signs are there for all to see. Yet we just don’t notice them, or we misinterpret them. The future creeps up on us. For me, longevity falls into this category. 

Longevity: a creeping curse?

I’ve been studying the trends that will shape the future of work and living for decades. I’ve written about technology and societal trends and the impact of globalization and have certainly always been peripherally aware of demographic trends. I’d seen the inverted age pyramid of Japan and knew that more than a quarter of the country’s population is over the age of 65. Initially, I interpreted this primarily as an issue of ageing, the last decade of life, and of pension provision. I’d seen this demographic data as a curse – when life elongates surely that just means more years of ageing diseases such as Alzheimer’s? It was not something I particular wanted to think about, to study or to write about.

What changed, was that my colleague Andrew Scott and I began to talk more about these demographic trends – and as we did so, we began to reframe the trend data. In fact, rather than looking only at the last decades of life, we began instead to see that longevity impacts on every stage of life. Once you reframe in this way the trend data is extraordinary. Imagine that for every year of life, life expectancy increases by three months. Most of us will live significantly longer than our parents, and right now many babies born today are expected to live for at least 100 years.

The implications are that across the space of the next two generations, individuals, institutions and governments will have to accommodate to two, possibly three more decades of life – and that’s what really caught our attention.

Reframing longevity as a gift

Andrew and I are both academics – he an economist, I a psychologist. The way we normally study the world is by looking at it closely. But how many people currently have lived to 100 years, and can their life experience really tell us much about the future?

So rather than observing what we can see around us now, we decided to project into the future. To do this we took one young woman, whom we called Jane, and built for her a series of scenarios about how she could live the rest of her 100-year life. As we built Jane’s life story, we began to reframe longevity as a gift rather than a curse, focusing on how she could live in a productive and happy way. Our aim was to explore what her possible future lives could be and to play out the consequences of the decisions she might make at various points in her life.

Building these scenarios was fascinating. It taught us a lot of things, which we were eager to share. That’s why we wrote The 100-year Life: living and working in the age of longevity. We believe the conversation about longevity is crucial - and that every one of us needs to re-learn how we plan our lives and our careers.

To learn more about what it takes to live a long and productive life, visit our website at www.100yearlife.com and pre-order the book.

Related articles

The Future of HR: Preparing for Longevity

How Will Japanese Corporations Address their Ageing Workforce?

More women at Davos? Not at this rate

Recently in an interview with the BBC's Peter Day, I was asked about the future and replied that I expected gender parity within the next decade. Peter simply looked at me and said "But that's what you said when I interviewed you 20 years ago and it still has not happened." Of course he is right and at Davos this week I expect that, as in past years, there will be only a small proportion of women. I'm publically optimistic, but privately pessimistic about achieving a gender balance in the next couple of decades.

There are four key reasons why Davos 2024 will probably look exactly like Davos 2014. Firstly, while societal norms move fast (think about the speed with which attitudes to gay marriage or divorce have changed), corporate practices change at a glacial pace. For example, the way corporations select, promote, appraise people has hardly changed in the last 20 years. Since many of these practices were designed for people who had child care at home (ie a wife), who worked in an office (rather than at home), and who could work standard hours (rather than flexibly) they have proven to be barriers to anyone (often women) who want to work in a different way. And moreover, these are barriers that appear to be resolutely impervious to changing circumstances.

It takes a wise and courageous CEO to actively promote women into business orientated senior executive roles. Some of course do but many do not. Without this push it's almost impossible to achieve gender parity. Research has shown that more often CEOs promote one woman to the senior team and then stand back and think the job is done. Or alternatively they support a women's network, a process that we know makes little difference to promotion prospects. We need CEOs who realise these token efforts aren't enough before we will see any big change.

Like many, I believe that gender parity will only be achieved when men are willing to take as much responsibility for raising a family as women do. Of course there are families where there is already a balance, but this is not the norm. Current working practices implicitly assume that the worker is supported by someone who can stand in for them with regard to family responsibilities, this needs to be true at home.

Finally, and most depressingly, the simple truth is that there are jobs that lead to the top – jobs that require significant management of large numbers of people, jobs that have a heavy dose of finance, jobs that involve working in multiple locations. These are typically not the jobs that women apply for, or are selected into. As a consequence many women are already out of the promotion ladder within a decade of joining the workforce. I hope I am proved wrong. How marvellous it would be to see equal numbers of men and women at Davos in 2024 but I'm not holding my breath.

The Five Unanswered Questions on Gender

Last month, I took the train up to the beautiful city of Cambridge to speak at their Gender Summit. Over the course of the day, and with the help of a varied panel of business and academic speakers, we explored what it takes to promote gender equality and diversity within organisations. We debated a wide range of themes, from the impact of corporate governance structures on gender policies to the practical steps for increasing the number of female applications for the best jobs. The strength of the debate revealed how much opinion is still divided on this issue, and the wealth of research still to be done. As I travelled home, I reflected on the themes we had covered and found that five questions in particular deserved further research:

1. What are organisations doing to change attitudes to fatherhood?

Throughout the day, we touched on the complexity of balancing working life with being a mum, and the emotional and physical exhaustion that can result from ‘trying to have it all.’ It seemed that the problem wasn’t trying to have it all, but trying to do it all. Women continue to be the primary care givers at home despite taking on more responsibility in the world of work. One of the reasons behind this is that the concept of fatherhood has remained quite static over the last thirty years, with short paternity leave entitlements and a continued focus on being the main breadwinner. To really achieve gender equality in the workplace, we must also work on achieving it in the home.

2. How can women operate in male dominated senior networks?

Women are still drastically under-represented at the senior level, at around 17% of all members of FTSE 100 boards and senior executive teams. The result is male-dominated senior networks that are incredibly difficult to penetrate if you are an ambitious woman. So, whom do women end up networking with if they are not easily accepted in the male-dominated elite circles? All too often, the answer is other women more junior than them who can’t help them advance their career. To get more representation of women at the top, we need to ensure they have access to influential senior networks.

3. Are quotas useful?

Norway has pioneered the quota approach to bringing women into the boardroom and now has 40% female representation at board level. However, this has resulted in some negative labelling of these new appointees as ‘golden petticoats’, promoted to tick a box rather than as a reflection of their talent. So, what is the answer? In my opinion, quotas are still essential in getting women to the top. By forcing the distribution, we can get women networking with the right people and can begin liberating men to take more responsibility in the home.

4. How can people bring their best selves to work?

An emerging theme in management thinking is how to encourage your employees to be the best they can be at work. This requires more than just generous compensation packages; it means that working life must be tailored to individuals by acknowledging their interests, concerns and commitments. In particular, women can’t be their best selves at work if they are distracted with family obligations they are neglecting while building their careers. Organisations must invest time in understanding their employees’ needs and building more tailored arrangements to cater to them.

5. How can we move beyond narrow categorisations of women?

In my blog on May 22nd I talked about how we continue to categorise women leaders by their personal circumstance rather than their goals and ideals. These women are far more heterogeneous in their backgrounds and outlook than many of their male peers, however they are often classified according to whether or not they are married, how many children they have and what kind of mother they are. These narrow categorisations fail to recognise the real difference these women are bringing to the world of work. To truly embrace diversity we must first be able to appreciate difference.

This year I launched an Inclusion and Diversity Research Consortium to bring organisations together to provide answers to these questions. We’re hearing some very interesting insights that I look forward to sharing with you in the coming months.

The 10 ways to Future Proof your Career

 

With the publication of my new book The Shift: the future of work is already here - there has been much debate about what it really takes to craft a career that is likely to stand the test of time. In the book I talk a great deal about the five forces that will shape work and careers: ever greater globalization of innovation and talent; the development of ever more sophisticated connective technologies; profound changes in demography and longevity which will see many live until they are 100 and others live in regions where 40% of the population are over 50; broad societal forces that will see trust in institutions decrease and families become ever more re-arranged; and finally, the impact that carbon use and Co2 will have on how we think about our own consumption patterns. Taking this rich cocktail of forces into consideration here are my 10 tips about skills, networks and choices.

1. Don't be fooled into walking into the future blindfolded - the more you know what's in store, the better able you will be to meet the challenges and really capitalize on your options. So keep abreast of the forces that are shaping work and careers in your part of the world and think about how they will impact on you and those you care for. Making wise choices will in the end come from your capacity to understand – don’t rely on governments of big business to make the choices for you.

2. Learn to be virtual - we are entering a period of hyper technological advancements - avatars, holographs and telepresence are all just around the corner. If you are a young ‘digital native’ you are already connected to this – but if you are over 30 the chances are you are already behind on your understanding. Work will become more global and that means that increasingly you will be working with people in a virtual way – its crucial that you learn to embrace these developments and don't let yourself become obsolete through lack of technical savvy.

3. Search for the valuable skills - think hard about the skill areas that are likely to be important in the future - for example sustainability, health and wellness, and design and social media are all likely to be areas where work will be created over the next decade. Also remember that jobs that involve working closely with people (chef, hairdresser, coach, physiotherapist) are unlikely to move to another country.

4. Become a Master - don't be fooled into spread your talents too thinly. Being a 'jack of all trades' will mean you are competing with millions of others around the world who are similar. Separate yourself from the crowd by really learning to master a skill or talent that you can develop with real depth. Be prepared to put your time and effort into honing these skills and talents.

5. Be prepared to strike out on your own - there will always be work with big companies - but increasingly the real fun will come from setting up your own company. We are entering the age of the 'micro-entrepreneur' when ever decreasing costs of technology will significantly reduce the barriers to getting off the ground, and when talented people across the world will be connected and keen to work with each other.

6. Find your posse- to create valuable skills and knowledge you will need to quickly reach out to others who can help and advise you. This small  'posse' of like-minded and skilled people is a network that will be central to your really building speed and agility in your career. Don’t leave it too long to find and cultivate it.

7. Build the Big Ideas Crowd - the future is about innovation, and sometime your best, most innovative ideas will come as you talk and work with people who are completely different from you - perhaps they have a different mindset, or come from a different country - or are younger. It is this wide network, the 'big ideas crowd' that will be a crucial source of inspiration. Make sure that you don’t limit yourself to working only with those who are just like you.

8. Go beyond the family  - your career success will depend in part on your emotional well being and resilience. In a world of ever shifting relationships, it's important that you invest in developing deep restorative relationships with a couple of people - this is your 'regenerative community' and they are crucial to your well being and happiness. Make the investment as soon as you can and make an effort to maintain and build these relationships over decades.

9. Have the courage to make the hard choices - your working life will be shaped by the shifting patterns of longevity (you are likely to live considerably longer than your parents) and demography (in many regions there will be a much higher proportion of people over 50). So you need a strategy for the long term. You have three hard choices:  1. Build a career that enables you to work longer (at least into your late 60's or early 70’s), 2. Be prepared (like the Chinese who save around 40% of their income) to save a significant proportion of your income throughout your working life, 3. Consider ways to reduce your consumption and live more simply. It does not matter which hard choice you make – but you are going to have to make at least one of them.

10. Become a producer rather than a simple consumer - And finally... the old deal at work:  'I work, to earn money, to buy stuff, that makes me happy' is rapidly becoming obsolete. Engaging in meaningful work where you can rapidly learn will become a priority (although fair pay will always be important). So think hard about sharing and great experiences rather than simply building your working life around consuming.

 

Take a look at my videos and download The Shift Workbook at www.theshiftbylyndagratton.com. You can also download The Shift from the App Store now.

When Time Fragments

In last week’s blog I rallied against the 40% of time at work that seems to be spent "working on projects that had no significance, going to meetings that had no outcomes" and made some suggestions for solving the paradox at the heart of work.

My question about what to do was answered in part by Kevin Ball. His experience makes him wonder if this is a problem that needs to be solved; if there is not some universal truth about people in all this ‘wasted’ effort.

"The knowledge that some part of your day can be spent in pointless activity is really rather relaxing and it can be accomplished guilt-free if you can explain it as ‘necessary’ to comply, conform and cooperate with the organisation around you. For the early days of my working in the spare bedroom, this meant suppressing the protestant work-ethic and doing some housework in the ‘working’ day; it meant measuring the output rather than the hours spent on input and it meant wrestling myself into a position of accepting that it was OK to be unproductive sometimes."

He has been influenced by Oliver Burkeman’s piece in the Guardian about the extent to which busyness is good. Oliver quotes economist Todd Buchholz: "What you really want is to chase your tail, even if you never catch it". His view is that alternative theory: that calm is the enemy of happiness, and that it's busyness on which we thrive. Railing at the calm advocates he calls "Edenists", he proposes that striving keeps us neurologically fit: "The people who sit back and relax… those are the people who become truly miserable." Research, he notes, suggests that retirement prompts a reduction in cognitive abilities. "What you really want," he insists, "is to chase your tail, even if you never catch it."

He quotes the physicist Richard Feynman who experienced the logical consequence of the dominance of productivity over all other concerns. Feynman found he didn’t envy the geniuses at Princeton who occupied a clutter-free environment where they were allowed to think without interruption: "These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves. So they don’t get any ideas for a while… a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you… and nothing happens."

But it seems to me that the choice is not between mindless busyness and tranquil edium – but rather about the extent to which we can focus and concentrate. It’s a process that is central to my new book The Shift: How The Future of Work is Already Here – the idea that what’s really crucial is that we are prepared to concentrate, focus and, from this, to master something – that could be a skill, a knowledge area, an understanding of a particular network. It’s this focus and concentration that will be increasingly crucial for the future. Focus does not need tranquility – but it does need long periods of undisturbed time – when concentration is possible. What is tough about busyness is not that it stops tranquility – but rather that it fragments work into such tiny slithers that the concentration needed to learn something deeply is gone. 

My guess is that Richard Feynman was wrong about the geniuses at Princeton when he saw "those poor bastards" sitting on their own. What they were actually experiencing was the marvelous luxury of undisturbed time, unbroken into fragments, providing them with an opportunity to develop deep mastery.

Busyness is fine - it’s the three-minute fragments that so often comes with busyness that is the curse of modern work.

The Paradox at the Heart of Work

So here is the thing… last week I heard two paradoxical facts:

Fact 1 – we have no time. 

We are nearing the end of our research consortium focused on the future of work and need to ensure that the ideas that have come from the research are translated into facts, ideas and actions for the companies that have participated. That’s going to take time – perhaps four hours a week of focused team-work to ensure the translation takes place. Yet when we ask executive teams about putting this amount of work in thinking about the actions for the future, the overwhelming response is that many teams are simply too busy to dedicate this time. It’s not that they don’t think this is important for the future – but as often happens at work, the short term is overwhelming the longer time priorities. So – the first fact I heard this week is that many executive teams simply have no time for this type of longer-term work.

Fact 2 – we waste 40% of our working time.

That reality was in my mind when I worked earlier in the week with a major US based multinational company. The team was mulling over the results of an analysis of the working patterns of hundreds of employees they had commissioned. What was clear was that more than 40% - yes you have heard it right – not 4% but a full 40% of work currently being undertaken was not actually productive work. Doing stuff that was not needed, working on projects that had no significance, going to meetings that had no outcomes.

Now the paradox emerges. At the very time that we are overwhelmed by the minutia of everyday work – we are simultaneously engaged in work that has no productive outcome. Now that’s interesting. 

So how has this happened? I’d be interested in your views – but here is my own starter for 10.

1. Bureaucracies tend to be great at starting things (projects, meetings, committees, processes) but not so good at stopping. Typically there is lots of kudos in being the initiator – but little in being the stopper. So we are faced with layers and layers of work that should have been stripped out years ago.
2. We are making scant use of technology. This is apparent in the wails of the youngsters Gen Y who are often appalled and frustrated at how little impact technology has had on work productivity. We send emails when a drop box would be better; we jump on a plane when a video conference would have been as effective; we analyse data manually when a well crafted business analytic would have achieved the same outcome in a nanosecond.
3. The boundaries of time and work have disappeared with iphones and blackberries. We have become addicted to that little sound that reminds us a new message has arrived and can spend many happy hours sifting through our email. Deeply satisfying?  Yes. Really productive?  Hardly.
4. Leading – be that the smallest team or the largest corporation is very, very tricky in 2011. There is the complexity of managing in a virtual environment, the challenge of working with different nationalities and all the cultural specificity that can go with this, and the sheer difficulty of potentially managing five generations with very different attitudes and working styles. As a consequence of this trickiness my view is that many leaders are simply not performing. It’s not that they are not intelligent, and indeed its not that they are highly motivated, enthusiastic and energetic. No, the challenge is more profound than that – they simply have no idea how they are supposed to lead. And faced with this dilemma they spin the wheels, creating endless work for others and re-working when one pass through would do. That’s by the way why (as I mentioned in an earlier blog) so many Gen Y’s are leaving – the spinning wheels is driving them mad and they are resenting the hours they have to work.

So how to solve the paradox? In a sense the answer lies in that often discarded aspect of human resources and organisational development – the design of work. Sure it’s crucial to pay people properly and to design an organisational structure that works with the strategy. However, unless we can become more adapt and skilled at designing work then the paradox of no time and 40% unproductive activity will remain.

Your thoughts on the paradox would be very welcome. Have you seen it? Is my analysis of why correct? And what do you see as the solutions? I look forward to that little sound that reminds me that a message has come in!