Skills And The Future Of Work

WINNER OF CMI MANAGEMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 Are you a future-ready leader? Based on exclusive interviews with over 140 of the world's top CEOs and a survey of nearly 14,000 people. Do you have the right mindsets and skills to be able to lead effectively in the next ten years and beyond? Most individuals and organizations don’t even know what leadership will look like in the future. Until now. There has been a lot written about leadership for the present day, but the world is changing quickly. What worked in the past won’t work in the future. We need to know how to prepare leaders who can successfully navigate and guide us through the next decade and beyond. How is leadership changing, and why? How ready are leaders today for these changes? What should leaders do now? To answer these questions, Jacob interviewed over 140 CEOs from companies like Unilever, Mastercard, Best Buy, Oracle, Verizon, Kaiser, KPMG, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Yum! Brands, Saint-Gobain, Dominos, Philip Morris International, and over a hundred others. Jacob also partnered with Linkedin to survey almost 14,000 of their members around the globe to see how CEO insights align with employee perspectives The majority of the world's top business leaders that Jacob interviewed believe that while some core aspects of leadership will remain the same, such as creating a vision and executing on strategy, leaders of the future will need a new arsenal of skills and mindsets to succeed. What emerged from all of this research is the most accurate groundbreaking book on the future of leadership, which shares exclusive insights from the world's top CEOs and never before seen research. After reading it, you will: Learn the greatest trends impacting the future of leadership and their implications Understand the top skills and mindsets that leaders of the future will need to possess and how to learn them Change your perception of who a leader is and what leadership means Tackle the greatest challenges that leaders of the future will face See the gap that exists between what CEOs identified versus what employees are actually experiencing Become a future-ready leader This is the book that you, your team, and your organization must read in order to lead in the future of work.

Looking for ways to handle the transition to a digital economy Robots, artificial intelligence, and driverless cars are no longer things of the distant future. They are with us today and will become increasingly common in coming years, along with virtual reality and digital personal assistants. As these tools advance deeper into everyday use, they raise the question—how will they transform society, the economy, and politics? If companies need fewer workers due to automation and robotics, what happens to those who once held those jobs and don't have the skills for new jobs? And since many social benefits are delivered through jobs, how are people outside the workforce for a lengthy period of time going to earn a living and get health care and social benefits? Looking past today's headlines, political scientist and cultural observer Darrell M. West argues that society needs to rethink the concept of jobs, reconfigure the social contract, move toward a system of lifetime learning, and develop a new kind of politics that can deal with economic dislocations. With the U.S. governance system in shambles because of political polarization and hyper-partisanship, dealing creatively with the transition to a fully digital economy will vex political leaders and complicate the adoption of remedies that could ease the transition pain. It is imperative that we make major adjustments in how we think about work and the social contract in order to prevent society from spiraling out of control. This book presents a number of proposals to help people deal with the transition from an industrial to a digital economy. We must broaden the concept of employment to include volunteering and parenting and pay greater attention to the opportunities for leisure time. New forms of identity will be possible when the "job" no longer defines people's sense of personal meaning, and they engage in a broader range of activities. Workers will need help throughout their lifetimes to acquire new skills and develop new job capabilities. Political reforms will be necessary to reduce polarization and restore civility so there can be open and healthy debate about where responsibility lies for economic well-being. This book is an important contribution to a discussion about tomorrow—one that needs to take place today.

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem. The United States has too many low-quality, low-wage jobs. Every country has its share, but those in the United States are especially poorly paid and often without benefits. Meanwhile, overall productivity increases steadily and new technology has transformed large parts of the economy, enhancing the skills and paychecks of higher paid knowledge workers. What’s wrong with this picture? Why have so many workers benefited so little from decades of growth? The Work of the Future shows that technology is neither the problem nor the solution. We can build better jobs if we create institutions that leverage technological innovation and also support workers though long cycles of technological transformation. Building on findings from the multiyear MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, the book argues that we must foster institutional innovations that complement technological change. Skills programs that emphasize work-based and hybrid learning (in person and online), for example, empower workers to become and remain productive in a continuously evolving workplace. Industries fueled by new technology that augments workers can supply good jobs, and federal investment in R&D can help make these industries worker-friendly. We must act to ensure that the labor market of the future offers benefits, opportunity, and a measure of economic security to all.

Times are changing and the labor markets are under immense burden from the collective effects of various megatrends. Technological growth and grander incorporation of economies along with global supply chains have been an advantage for several workers armed with high skills and in growing occupations. However, it is a challenge for workers with low or obsolete skills in diminishing zones of employment. Business models that are digitalized hire workers as self-employed instead of standard employees. People seem to be working and living longer, but they experience many job changes and the peril of skills desuetude. Inequalities in both quality of job and earnings have increased in several countries. The depth and pace of digital transformation will probably be shocking. Industrial robots have already stepped in and artificial intelligence is making its advance too. Globalization and technological change predict the great potential for additional developments in labor market performance. But people should be ready for change. A progression of creative annihilation is probably under way, where some chores are either offshored or given to robots. A better world of for jobs cannot be warranted – a lot will be contingent on devising the right policies and institutes in place.

An extraordinary confluence of forces stemming from automation and digital technologies is transforming both the world of work and the ways we educate current and future employees to contribute productively to the workplace. The Great Skills Gap opens with the premise that the exploding scope and pace of technological innovation in the digital age is fast transforming the fundamental nature of work. Due to these developments, the skills and preparation that employers need from their talent pool are shifting. The accelerated pace of evolution and disruption in the competitive business landscape demands that workers be not only technically proficient, but also exceptionally agile in their capacity to think and act creatively and quickly learn new skills. This book explores how these transformative forces are—or should be—driving innovations in how colleges and universities prepare students for their careers. Focused on the impact of this confluence of forces at the nexus of work and higher education, the book's contributors—an illustrious group of leading educators, prominent employers, and other thought leaders—answer profound questions about how business and higher education can best collaborate in support of the twenty-first century workforce.