The Great Realization: Know more about 4 macro trends that are impacting today’s workforce model! [Fridays: Mindfulness by Miles]
Miles Everson’s Business Builder Daily speaks to the heart of what great marketers, business leaders, and other professionals need to succeed in advertising, communications, managing their investments, career strategy, and more.
A Note from Miles Everson:
How many of you have heard of “The Great Resignation?”
That’s a term many people in the business industry coined to refer to the mobility of talent nowadays and the many realizations of full-time and part-time workers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, I’d like to share with you some stuff that I think is a lot more “The Great Realization” than it is “The Great Resignation.” This is not just a play on words. I’m using these to go through some trends that I’ve been tracking for about a decade now.
As someone who manages a large human capital team, I’ve been taking note of these trends to understand what the future of work means for myself and the society as a whole. I believe these things are not temporary. Having knowledge about them will help change the way you generate returns in the future.
Continue reading to learn more about The Great Realization and the four macro trends that are impacting the future of work.
Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute
Mindfulness by Miles
Work setups across industries are turning out to be more remotely distributed nowadays.
According to MBO Partners CEO Miles Everson at the 2021 Stansberry Conference & Alliance Meeting, the current working climate has shown trends of great resignation and a significant increase in the number of independent professional workers.
Because of these changes, he said several labor policies may need to be re-examined and reconsidered. This is vital to understand this shift and effectively traverse the challenges in the future of work.
What else did he talk about at the Stansberry Conference & Alliance Meeting?
Everson shared his insights regarding “The Great Realization,” the economic climate amid the pandemic, and the key trends that are shaping the future of work.
Below are the top 4 trends Everson has been tracking for about a decade now:
- The rate of change accelerates.
Everson said the acceleration of the rate of change is not a news bulletin. It has already started a long time ago.
However, the significance of knowing this trend is that the rate at which innovations come out are also accelerating. When these innovations converge, they will have demonstrable impacts on society.
Let’s take a look at Everson’s example about Artificial Intelligence (AI)…
AI was invented in 1956, but it took at least 24 years before AI technology successfully reached mass adoption.
Why?
It was only in the 1980s when we had more innovations in technology, data storage, data organization, and data movement. All of these were necessary for allowing the mass adoption of AI.
20 years later, it’s taken less time to improve AI technology, which is now being used on smartphones.
Everson’s point?
Through technological advancements and changes throughout the years, innovations accelerated… and they did not just accelerate! They also converged and that’s what made a HUGE impact on society―ease of processes, more convenience in terms of work and communications, and more.
- Progress becomes deflationary when it has societal impacts.
Who would’ve thought that you would be easily carrying a billion-dollar industry high-tech computer in your pocket (a.k.a. your smartphone) nowadays?
According to Everson, this wouldn’t have been possible around 20 years ago. He said a few decades back, you’d have to spend lots of cash to buy a computer, phone, or any new technology at that time.
Today, you’d only need to spend a smaller amount of cash to buy a high-tech smartphone, which has almost all the features of a desktop or laptop computer.
Another example he mentioned is the Genome Project that cost USD 100 million in the early 2000s. Now, if you want to ask someone or a company to decode a genome, you can get it done for less than USD 1,000 at scale.
These examples show that technological advancements become deflationary or decrease in price levels when it becomes more widely available. This is because technology, automation, and globalization continue to accelerate and become more accessible to the public.
Society will continue to see this trend and as Everson said, this will happen at a faster rate over time.
- There is power in “Knowledge Flows.”
Everson said that during the industrial era, the strategy was always,
“I’m going to get my intellectual property, I’m going to keep that as a secret recipe, and then I’m going to sell it mostly in binary transactions.”
However, when “Knowledge Flows”―the transfer of knowledge and information to stimulate innovative capabilities and achieve competitive advantages―came, he said the strategy shifted to,
“I’m going to open up my questions and then I’m going to open up my technology to get more people thinking about it.”
In a Knowledge Flows setup, it’s no longer about protectionism but about open source technology… and for Everson, this is one of the most innovative technologies in the world today.
- The “fractionalization of everything” has boomed.
The first trace that Everson saw regarding the “fractionalization of everything” goes back to the East Dutch India Trading Company.
What happened here was that an individual investor would finance a ship of goods but frequently, because of storms or diseases, those goods would never get to the destination.
As a result, that individual investor had a 100% loss. After experiencing a series of that unfortunate event, that investor got together with some of his friends and told them that instead of him backing just one shipment, each of them should ship 20% of the goods.
That’s a good risk diversification strategy!
Let’s apply this fractionalization in the concept of the workforce…
Everson hears a lot of people talking about the pandemic and saying that’s the reason why many are resigning from their full-time jobs and choosing to become independent.
However, he believes the fractionalization of the workforce already began even before the pandemic came. That’s why he left his job at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and joined MBO Partners.
He said,
“Once you fractionalize that asset class, the human capital asset class, people are going to get a better way of life, it’s going to improve their well-being. Companies need to fractionalize because a full-time dedicated workforce is no longer sufficient in terms of attracting the best talent.”
The only thing that the pandemic did?
It increased the social acceptance of remote work and the use of independent professionals in the workforce.
According to Everson, in today’s hybrid workforce model, it’s socially acceptable to work remotely and communicate asynchronously.
[Asynchronous Communication: A type of communication where data or information is transmitted intermittently rather than in a steady stream.]
He believes this system will be a societal change that will last beyond the pandemic era and the business landscape will have more work arrangements for both full-time employees and independent professionals.
His advice to fellow business leaders?
Take note of and welcome these changes! Nobody can get enough of the right people. It’s just a matter of fishing in the right pond―attracting the best talents for your company.
For Everson, if you value learning, you’ll easily adapt to change with a positive outlook and continue to learn new skills and capabilities.
So, keep these key trends in mind and take them seriously!
As you use this information to prepare for the changes that could take place in the future of work, you’ll see that these will also help change how you strategize and generate returns for your brand in the future.
We hope you’ve learned a lot from Everson’s key insights!
(This article is from The Business Builder Daily, a newsletter by The I Institute in collaboration with MBO Partners.)
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Fridays: Mindfulness by Miles”
High-performance businesses are run by people who think and act differently.
In other words, these are people who are high-performing individuals.
Companies and individuals of this kind have found ways to escape the grind of commoditization and competition by focusing on the RIGHT goals.
High-performing businesses and individuals are also “return driven” businesses and “career driven” individuals. They conscientiously develop unique capabilities and resources that allow them to deliver offerings in ways no other firm or individual can.
Every Friday, we’ll publish tips and insights from MBO Partners and The I Institute’s “The Business Builder Daily” newsletter.
These will help you gain knowledge on the things that Miles Everson, the CEO of MBO Partners, often talks about regarding the future of the workforce.
We’ll also highlight other mindfulness advice on how you can be a high-performing individual both in your career and personal life.
Hope you’ve found this week’s insight interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Friday’s “Mindfulness by Miles!”
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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