Category: Change

How Careers Will Include Much Less Front-Line Work

This interesting Financial Review ‘Why this ship marks the end of your job‘ reminds us that modern equipment tend to remove the need for large crew on the front-line. In this example of an actual warship, the actual crew has been shrunk by 80% compared to traditional warships of the same size. 80%! From 200 down to 40 sailors! This trend will be observable in all occupations requiring dangerous, remote or costly human deployment. But also for a lot of front-line work that can be automatized.

We can of course observe that trend in the military with the apparition of drones of various sized and capabilities that avoid putting lives in jeopardy. But we will also observe the trend in more and more commercial ventures.

An interesting side effect of this approach is that the equipment itself is considered to be more disposable and replaceable than the previous equivalent equipment. This is apparently even true for this warship type – the limited crew will not allow to respond to all emergency situations and it is accepted that it may have to be lost with a higher frequency than previous warship generations.

The new approach comes with the benefit of exposing much less people to hazardous occupations. At the same time there is a substantial risk of loss of know-how: the current solutions are put in place with the help of those that currently do the work, but in the future no-one may remember how to do it.

As a result, there will be a deep need to review the usual career paths that have been inherited from the Industrial Age to ensure that the competencies required will still be available, as they evolve. And people that are still in the front-line will need to be better educated, more flexible and will have much greater responsibility than today. The landscape of work is already changing dramatically!

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How Electric Vehicles Seem to Become Mainstream Quicker Than Expected

In this interesting post ‘Electric Vehicles Are Outperforming The Traditional S-Curve Dynamics‘, the growth of the Electric Vehicle (EV) market is analyzed. The result is that all indicators tend to show that the product is now becoming mainstream instead of being a niche product.

The argument of the article is based on the fact that EV introduction is accelerating (in terms of year-on-year growth, thus from an exponential perspective) instead of slowing down as could be expected, “suggesting that EVs are expanding the addressable market“. This just means that the addressable market had been considered in a too restrictive manner initially, which can also be viewed as the fact that the EV product is now mainstream with a much larger market.

In fact, the initial introduction of EV was heavily subsidized and this limited de facto the possible market; such subsidies are progressively diminishing, because for certain usage patterns, EV do become economically competitive with mass production.

This analysis would seem to show that the rate of adoption would be so high in the next few years that it may be offering-constrained due to the delays in setting up sufficient production capacity, with a focus on batteries.

Electric Vehicles are some kind of hybrid between a conventional mechanical appliance and an electronic equipment, we can thus expect to see a much quicker adoption in the next few years that could be expected from a purely mechanical commodity. Next few years will be quite exciting in that respect!

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How Natural Language Processing Still Has Strong Limitations

I am getting quite interested these days about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its actual applications. Most is about Deep Learning of course, and an essential element is Natural-Language Processing (NLP) or making sense for the machine of texts or words. This is an essential first stage to allow the machine to then perform statistical analysis of the data and produce all sorts of useful analysis.

I observe that NLP now performs very well in fields where expression is quite standardized and normalized, such as in legal or scientific fields. In particular, applications of AI to legal aspects is really becoming amazing. However, it still has limitations when it comes to analyzing informal correspondence and longer texts. This makes it harder to use AI to make sense of informal messages and data and to use those datasets as a basis for further analysis.

Of course it has improved substantially in the last months and years as any user of Google Translate or equivalent can witness: translations are now more to the point thanks to AI. Still it does not appear to be sufficient to deal with large sets of informal exchanges such as messages, email and other informal communication channels.

When this aspect will be overcome – which will take time and may not be immediately transferable between languages – the power of AI will be much more visible and dramatic than it is now. Let’s watch for progress in this area!

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How the Number of Taxis and Hire Cars Drivers Have Tripled

According to this Quartz post ‘More Americans are Driving Taxis Thanks to Uber and Lyft‘, the number of drivers for taxis and other hire cars has apparently tripled in the past few years in the US. This is consistent with the increase in cars in city centers (see previous post ‘How Changes from New Technology Will Lead to Unexpected Results‘)

This shows certainly that there was an un-served demand with the traditional taxi system for point-to-point ground transportation. At the same time it does ask questions as to the actual revenue of all those drivers (some are of course now part-time with the likes of Uber and Lyft); and about what they will become if autonomous driving becomes successful, which it will effectively some day.

This example is excellent because it definitely shows how internet can disrupt the traditional economy (taxi plates’ value has dropped off significantly); create abundance where there was an artificial constraint; give opportunities for revenue to more people including additional side revenue, and more generally promote self-entrepreneurship. At the same time it also draws attention to the social consequences that ensue in terms of limited social protection for the drivers. A tripling of numbers make private hire car drivers a substantial percentage of workers and there are long-winded consequences to be expected.

The Fourth Revolution tangibly changes our world, our careers and opportunities. And not marginally!

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How We Should Not Separate the Person from the Problem in Negotiation

The ‘Harvard’ way of negotiating advises to separate the person from the problem. It appears it is possibly not the most effective way of negotiating and that negotiating on an emotional basis may be more effective. I really recommend reading the book ‘Never split the difference: negotiating as if your life depended on it‘ by Chris Voss, which is extremely enlightening. Chris Voss is a top FBI negotiator with international exposure who has become something of an authority in the field of negotiation.

His basic observation is that emotional work is more important than rational approach in negotiation. However, “Until recently , most academics and researchers completely ignored the role of emotion in negotiation . Emotions were just an obstacle to a good outcome , they said . “ Separate the people from the problem ” was the common refrain“. Since the early 2000s this view is shifting, albeit quite slowly.

Good negotiators create emotion, are excellent active listeners, and label emotions to move forward to resolution. Again, this shows how in our modern world rational approaches find their limits in the real world (see previous post ‘How We Need to Consider Heartset as well as Mindset‘).

In negotiations as in other aspects, emotional work is the key to success. Let’s never forget the personal connection and emotional work is needed in all situations even in the most tense like a touch negotiation.

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How We Need to Consider Heartset as well as Mindset

Robin Sharma makes the point that when it comes to personal leadership or change, mindset is clearly not everything. We also need emotion, or what can be covered by heartset.

As we move progressively away from the rationalism, foundation of the Industrial Age, the mobilization of emotions become visibly increasingly important in terms of success and differentiation. And it thus comes down to developing one’s own heartset in parallel of one’s mindset.

What is a heartset? According to wikipedia, mindset is “a set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by [a person]” – and it defines how we respond to an event or an action. Accordingly, heartset could be defined as a set of emotions and emotional states held by a person, that define how we respond emotionally to situations.

Your mindset is important, and you should also consider developing your heartset. Emotional work is a decisive skill in the Collaborative Age.

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How Small Groups Can Now Bring Change Even Inside Large Organizations

It is well known that “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” (Margaret Mead). It would seem this also applies from within large companies such as Google or Amazon, as explained in this interesting post ‘Small Groups United by a Shared Purpose are Changing Big Tech Companies. Here’s How‘.

The examples developed are how a group of Google employees have successfully raised the issue of the company getting involved in defense program; and how Amazon employees have pledged the company to do something active in the field of climate change.

The capability of communicating in groups, broadcasting and receiving feedback, allows easier self-organization of groups with a purpose. It may be the most visible in ‘Big Tech’ where it may be more natural, but it will undoubtedly also change how large companies address certain issues.

Employees, like citizens, are increasingly empowered to raise to their leadership topics of concern and obtain a voice for change. Welcome to the Collaborative Age!

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How to Increase Happiness After our Professional Decline

In this follow-up post from ‘How Professional Decline is Coming Sooner than We Think‘ we continue to investigate the excellent and deep material of the paper ‘Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think – Here’s how to make the most of it‘. Once we have recognized that professional decline is inevitable and probably occurs around 50 or 20 years after you started your current career, how can we deal with this to maintain or increase our happiness?

The author quotes ancient Indian wisdom about the different phases of life. It also quotes some modern wisdom about happiness of mature people. In sum, it appears to be essential to pro-actively start a new phase of life around sharing one’s knowledge and experience, connecting, and serving.

People do that in different ways, from consultants to interim managers to serving their community and becoming teachers. Many also develop their spiritual self. The way is to recognize that this phase in life calls for a change, stopping competitive behavior and sharing more.

Be proactive in recognizing that your professional decline starts earlier than you think; and increase your happiness by taking the time for yourself and to help grow others. That’s a quite good recommendation that I will endeavor to follow!

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How we Should not Use Software to Compensate for Systems that are not Properly Designed

The now famous crisis of the Boeing 737 Max shows us that there are limits to what software can compensate when a system it not properly designed. This post ‘Boeing 737 Max: Software patches can only do so much‘ is worth reading.

It actually boils down to a system-engineering issue. Adding layers upon layers of fixes to try to compensate functionalities on legacy systems only work up to a certain point. The author “cautioned his customers against using software as a patch for systems that for economic reasons or reasons of expediency, were not purpose-built. This applies not just to the most complex heterogeneous networks of systems but also small devices.”. This leads to “spaghetti architecture, or architecture by committee“, missing the important step of first listing all requirements and making sure there is consistency in the overall system and no systemic flaws.

More generally, “the old stuff just doesn’t migrate well; it needs to be redesigned from scratch“. In the next few years we can expect that many platforms used in many industries will indeed need to be redesigned to overcome their obsolescence and take advantage of the benefits of modern technology.

Existing platforms can only be upgraded to a certain point of complexity and layering, before we lose control. Then they need to be redesigned from scratch.

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How the Relative Increase of Cost for Education or Health Care Can be Explained

In a very interesting series, Alex Tabarrok explores the ‘Baumol effect‘ – the rise of salaries in jobs that have experienced no or low increase of labor productivity, in response to rising salaries in other jobs that have experienced higher labor productivity growth. Read for example ‘Why Are the Prices So D*MN High?‘ or ‘The Baumol Effect‘.

This effect explains in particular the relative rise in the cost of education and health care, and may also explain the relative rise of the cost of housing among other factors. Sectors with the most productivity increase will drive an increase in the cost of sectors will little increase of productivity. Alex Tabarrok’s post ‘The Baumol Effect‘ gives a deep insight and excellent examples of the reasons behind this effect.

Thus as we enter a new age where the relative cost of certain services will decrease substantially, we will observe the value of other services to increase relatively, changing substantially the balance of our personal budgets. It has already occurred during the industrial revolution: the relative cost of foodstuff and the share in our budgets has decreased substantially. It will now happen similarly for other aspects. Just because we can’t quite improve the productivity of certain activities.

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How to Avoid Burn-Out – a Proven Approach

Burn-out is now recognized as an occupational condition in many countries and is observed to become increasingly prevalent. In this post ‘A simple strategy helps doctors fight burnout. Could it work for the rest of us?‘ a simple method is described that appears effective in hospitals, where it is a major concern.

This method is simply to get a conversation going about difficult workplace situations, with minimum framing and facilitation. “Wherever they are, the structure is the same. Organizers choose a topic: dealing with patients’ families, for example, or a deep dive into a particularly wrenching recent case. A pre-selected panel of volunteers shares their perspective to get the conversation started. Then it opens for discussion. Moderators gently steer away from efforts to diagnosis or solve problems—no small feat in a room of people who diagnosis and solve all day, every day. The normal hospital hierarchies do not apply. The only thing participants are allowed to do during rounds is talk about how they feel. No judging. No fixing. Just talking.“

The emotional connection thus created seems sufficient to recreate a sense of purpose and get rid of the strains that are at the source of burn-out. It has been observed that burn-out is not just physical (lack of sleep for example) but is also psychological such as loss of the sense of purpose. This method addresses directly the psychology and just creating a location for emotional sharing appears effective.

It goes to show that the modern workplace does not allow sufficiently deep emotional sharing and engagement, and that may be something that needs to be addressed more consistently.

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How Innovation is Actually Behavior Change

In her post ‘Innovation is About Behavior Change‘, Valeria Maltoni makes, I believe, and excellent point. Innovation or invention is not about the tangible product, it is about how it changes habits and behavior.

This explains why there are so many inventions which seem quite a breakthrough but that never spread: it is because the associated behavior change did not happen. Maybe because there was a force of inertia, maybe because something else happened at the same time that pulled behavior change in the opposite direction.

It is a lesson for all inventors and innovators: don’t just focus on how marvelous your product is. Spend most of your effort working on the behavior that needs to change for its adoption. Work on the habits, on the social aspect of behavior, and anything that will make your innovation unavoidable on a day-to-day basis.

Innovation that would not consider behavior change is doomed. And as a Business Angel I will recognize that as a major criteria when judging the adequacy of the development plan of startups.

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