The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here

The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here
Lynda Gratton

An unhysterical look at the future of employment.

We are now facing a revolution in the way we work. A substantial schism in the past which is so great that the work we do will change – possibly so that in two decades our working lives will have been so REWORKED that they are unrecognisable.

This is not just about the impact that a low carbon enonomy will have on the way we work. It is also about how the nexus of technology and globalisation will work together with demographic and societal changes to fundamentally transform much of what we take for granted about work.

Why will things change so quickly? What will these changes look like? Who will benefit and who will suffer? How do we navigate our career through these times?

Lynda Gratton, Professor at London Business School, is the perfect person to answer these questions. For the past three years she has worked with companies around the world to draw up a picture of the Future of Work.

In this book Professor Gratton looks at the forces which are changing how we work; explains the potential impact on our future working life; and gives us guidelines on how to thrive in a REWORKED world.

THE SHIFT

THE FUTURE OF WORK IS ALREADY HERE

LYNDA GRATTON

For my mother Barbara’s grandchildren

– the ‘regenerative generation’ –

Carla, Max, Christian, Frankie, Dominic, Hunter,

Freddie, Tilly, Jasmine, Eve and Summer

Contents

Cover (#ua4612f34-d455-5a50-a115-7aa92844d697)

Title Page (#u6e11393e-e574-5155-a965-2046958815ac)

Preface - Tomorrow’s work begins today

Introduction - Predicting the future of work

PART I - The Forces That Will Shape Your Future

Chapter 1 - The five forces

PART II - The Dark Side of the Default Future

Chapter 2 - Fragmentation: a three-minute world

Chapter 3 - Isolation: the genesis of loneliness

Chapter 4 - Exclusion: the new poor

PART III - The Bright Side of the Crafted Future

Chapter 5 - Co-creation: the multiplication of impact and energy

Chapter 6 - Social engagement: the rise of empathy and balance

Chapter 7 - Micro-entrepreneurship: crafting creative lives

PART IV - The Shift

Chapter 8 - The first shift: from shallow generalist to serial master

Chapter 9 - The second shift: from isolated competitor to innovative connector

Chapter 10 - The third shift: from voracious consumer to impassioned producer

PART V - Notes On The Future

Chapter 11 - Notes to children, CEOs and governments

Endnotes

Bibliography

Learning more about The Shift

Acknowledgements

Index

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Preface

Tomorrow’s Work Begins Today

It all began with one of those simple questions that teenagers have a habit of asking. Seated at the morning breakfast table, I found my train of thought interrupted by my eldest son Christian who, 17 years old and fresh out of school, was clearly pondering his future.

‘I’m really keen to be a journalist,’ he remarked to his brother and me.

His brother Dominic, two years his junior, perhaps inspired by his lead, followed on with ‘And I’m thinking about medicine.’

Both sentences were spoken with sufficient query that I took them as questions rather than statements of fact.

Having been a professor in a business school, and an advisor to companies for nigh on three decades, I consider myself something of an expert in the why and how of work. Of course, I am also the first to acknowledge that my sons, being teenagers, are unlikely to have much interest in my opinion. But it struck me on that busy morning that I did need at least a point of view about the future of work. The challenge was this: what was my point of view? I began to realise that, despite my years of advising companies and researching work, all I could muster that morning was a rather half-baked, old-fashioned set of assumptions, combined with ‘tidbits’ of data that seemed both hopelessly out of date and extraordinarily incomplete.