In a conversation with Jenny Darmody, writer Diana Wu David said that although technology comes with benefits and challenges, some of the biggest obstacles facing the workforce of the future come from the people themselves.
The topic of the future of work has been discussed at length for so many years now that it can often seem like a redundant statement. For many years in which this alleged future has been discussed, it has often been implied that this same future is “already here” or almost here.
One of the biggest tangible trends that has been creeping into the global cognitive workforce at breakneck speed through the COVID-19 pandemic has been an almost entirely remote workforce. This has since opened the door to a lot of hybrid and flexible work setups in many companies to transform this trend from a future possibility to a present certainty.
So, as we look to the next chapter of working life, what do leaders, managers and workers need to think about next? This question alone can create a little anxiety and fear for many. The very idea of change is something that is difficult for humans to comprehend.
Resistance to change by default
Psychological resistance, also known as resistance to change, is a phenomenon often encountered in physician-patient settings when patients are perceived as resistant to a physician's suggestion to change certain behaviors even if doing so would improve health. The idea that humans are hardwired to resist change has been central to the study of social psychology for a long time and can be seen in simple anecdotes of workers saying phrases like “This is the way we've always done things.”
Change usually means new; Change often means uncertainty and human brains crave certainty. In fact, a 2016 University College London study published in the journal Nature Communications indicated that participants who had a 50% chance of receiving a small electric shock were more nervous than those who knew they would definitely get a shock.
How will this resistance to change affect the workforce of the future? The rapid development of emerging technologies and how quickly change is occurring within today's workforce means that the need to manage, adapt to and even embrace uncertainty and change could become the most valuable skill for every member of the workforce of the future.
Diana Wu David is a former executive at the Financial Times and the author of Future Proof: Reinventing Work in the Age of Acceleration. In a conversation with Jenny Darmody, editor of SiliconRepublic.com, she said that keeping up with accelerating technological changes can be very difficult for humans, who are usually very linear.
“I feel very optimistic about technology enabling remote work and enabling communication between people,” she added, “but I also think it imposes a huge tax on individuals in terms of how to manage all this change.”
“The biggest adaptation they have found is developing the skills to examine and understand how to select and apply new technologies to vulnerabilities, customer solutions in particular and sometimes employee solutions.”
The journey to being ready for change
Using the past few years alone as an example, Wu David pointed to several emerging technologies that have been sweeping businesses by storm. Generative AI is currently the only thing C-suite leaders are focusing on, but there has also been blockchain, metaverse, Web3, automation, robotics and sensors to name a few.
Being able to adapt to these changes as an employee will be an important skill for current and future workers, but in order to truly stabilize the next generation of workers and ensure a culture of adaptability, leaders must be aware of psychological resistance to change and be prepared to address it head on with every change they come with. it, whether technological or otherwise.
“We're not doing a great job of thinking about the secondary impacts of technology implementation.”
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Research published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2021 explored the challenges surrounding organizational change. The research stated that while companies are under pressure to implement organizational change, the literature indicates that two-thirds of change implementation efforts fail, and that one of the most significant failures revolves around employees' attitudes toward change.
One of the key ways leaders can help change attitudes toward change is by demonstrating fairness and equity in outcomes, distributing rewards, being transparent about procedures and policies, and communicating throughout the process.
Wu David added that when it comes to adapting to and embracing technological changes, which will continue to grow in the future, demonstrating an understanding of the outcomes of each change or implementation will help create a readiness for change that can serve as a vehicle to some extent. An antidote to psychological resistance.
“We don't do a great job of thinking about the secondary impacts of implementing technology. As a visionary, that's something I like to do when a company is thinking about implementing technology at scale, 'Okay, so if that happens, what happens next?'” she said. “For me, it depends on the results we want.”
“As people in business, it's important to understand that we can harness technology to do better and really think about the human value we add.”
Change attitudes, stay human
Once humans begin to reframe our behavior toward change, Wu David said we can harness the power of other human-centered skills to unlock more possibilities, even in a world that is becoming more technology-centric.
“I think skills like empathy, emotional intelligence and creativity will be what people pay us for, so we won't lose them because they will become a more important part of our jobs,” she said.
“I think of it like you're on a sports team. It's the coach using data to figure out how to maximize the performance of his team and the players on his team. But then, there's something about that human element where a coach can get performance from a player that's not statistically possible.” And I feel like this is the human element, or our ability to understand another person, their motivations, their potential and their potential.This is where I see all the soft skills really come to the fore.
When thinking about the ideal working world of the future, Wu David said it would be a workplace where people have a deep understanding of skills, competencies and characteristics as well as environments that bring out the best in people. “For example, Mercer has done work where they actually rank skills against the cost of skills. [And] One company I teach in China has done sentiment analysis to connect teachers with students, and even students with each other and a video classroom to see who works best together.
She said that these examples illustrate the possibility of how a proper understanding of humans can help maximize their potential in a way that helps them deliver their best work through thoughtful change management, organizational design, and human-centered leadership.
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