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Is the future of human work necessarily focused on the strategic?

Derek Tong

That the future of work should focus people on innovation, creativity and strategy, particularly as a means to combat "the march of the robots" has become an oft-quoted ideal. This recent article from HBR argues the point well https://hbr.org/2018/01/the-future-of-human-work-is-imagination-creativity-and-strategy

But the idea that people are strategic and robots (or algorithms) are technical and therefore tactical is an oversimplification and I'd argue plain wrong. Surely if we are talking about reshaping education, re-skilling, re-training...etc, we need more than future-gazing strategists. We need people to focus on tactical implementation, embedding practical action within organisations. Agree?

  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver

    Thanks Elizabeth. What I was trying to say is whether there has been such a heavy focus on the strategic/creative that the tactical (figuring out where we can add value, how best to deploy resources, how do I make the most of a tough situation) is being neglected (the article equated "technical" work to tactical work which is the main part I disagree with). Repurposing the horse and cart from regular means of transport to offering pleasure cruises would have required some creativity, but it's based on a tactical assessment and implementation of what resources you have against what wants/needs are out in the market, and what you need to keep going. 

  • I agree that it is not helpful to differentiate humans as strategists/creative beings and robots as technical / tactical beings. These dualisms don’t get to the essence of what is distinctive either about a robot/AI or about a person.

    One of the problems with much of today’s anxious discussions about automation is the way robots/AI are mystified. Digitised machines really aren’t that different to any other form of automation. Computers in whatever shape they come are indisputably much more efficient than humans in processing large quantities of data. The HBR article quoted above cites the National Institute of Standards predicting that ‘machine learning can improve production capacity by up to 20% and reduce raw materials waste by 4%’. This is the sort of economic benefit that has accompanied all previous forms of successful automation.

    For more than 250 years we have had automation and at the same time job losses and job creation. One of the big differences today is that we have a big discussion about only one half of this process. As the HBR article says it is easy to find reports that predict the loss of between 5 and 10 million jobs in Britain by 2020. We fear the mass job loss when we should be more concerned that we’re not doing well in creating new good quality jobs.

    Fear of losing jobs is real because we do not see the new sectors and new industries being created. There is not a lot of confidence about the future because we aren’t seeing either business or the government investing enough in the innovations that could bring about quality jobs for people losing the ones to automation. As Derek implies, achieving that is very much a task for humans, requiring a mix of both strategic thinking and tactical implementation.
  • in reply to Para
    Spot on Para, the Frankenstein complex has been around for longer than Ned Ludd; not only is it strongly ingrained in the human psychen, but it is also readlily manipulated for create media buzz
  • Job losses due to automation was discussed on the BBC's breakfast show this morning. One worrying opinion put forward was that the North of England and the Midlands would be disproportionately affected: www.bbc.co.uk/.../uk-england-42810898