rediscovering Why rediscovering your humanity is your best competitive advantage By Jo Eismont With Spencer Gillman and Doug Upchurch

Transcription

1 rediscovering H U M A N Why rediscovering your humanity is your best competitive advantage By Jo Eismont With Spencer Gillman and Doug Upchurch With foreword by Andy Lothian

2 Chapter one An age of hope, opportunity and humanity

3 Rediscovering Human Welcome to the digital revolution: the age in which you can choose to rediscover what it truly means to be human. Think that sounds like a juxtaposition? After all, technology eats innovation for breakfast and pushes boundaries before you ve even checked the morning headlines, whereas just being human is nothing much to write home about. You re wondering what s so great about humanity when we ve got new and incredible innovations coming to our lives and workplaces. There s so much around that s cool, ground-breaking and potentially life-changing that it would be easy to rush headlong into what s new, and take the tried and tested gifts of humanity itself well, a little for granted. But, you know let s not do that. Let s choose, instead, to appreciate humanity in all its glory, while bringing the most revolutionary tech into our profoundly human lives. There s no doubt that there is a sort of tension growing in our 21st-century lives, between technology and humanity and the point here isn t that one is good and the other bad, or one is somehow right and the other wrong. This isn t a book that forces a choice upon you either humanity or technology. You don t have to ditch your smartphone to get on board. Instead, we ll look at both humanity and technology, and how this digital revolution might just inspire a human revolution. There s so much beautifully, weirdly, wonderfully human potential in our workplaces, our schools, our communities, our societies and across our nations. In this age of technology, it s going to be the responsibility of every single one of us to take the very best of the tech that comes our way, and use it to do better, more audacious, more human things than we ve ever done before. As we move deeper into the Information Age, the real magic will be found in the creative tension between the two, and we want to know what that s going to look like for you, for us, for everyone. We re privileged to live in an age of such speedy and slick technological innovation, and even luckier that access to it is so ubiquitous that we already take it for granted. More than that, society has evolved in any number of ways that makes us damn lucky to be part of the 21st century: in this decade close to 87% of children worldwide complete their primary education, which is still not good enough (after all it isn t 100%) but it s the best we ve seen yet. Most of us have access to clean water and nutritious fresh food. Healthcare has seen great progress so that we re living longer, and it s claimed by some that the first 150 (or even 200, but we re not convinced) year-old person has already been born. Our workplaces are generally safe and clean, and for many of us, we re encouraged to find work that gives our life direction and purpose. But progress in all walks of life isn t solely positive. Progression of even the best kind is also disruption, and it s fair to say that we are living through some pretty disruptive times. 1 2

4 Rediscovering Human Because it s undeniable something is changing, morphing, rearranging the way in which humans live, work and exist together. And to some extent that s always been the way of things from the industrial revolution, skipping on through globalisation and then right up to today s Information Age, change has forever been a constant, and always will be. Every change adds new layers and facets to how we live our lives, both positive and negative. However, there was always a progressive nature to these changes, and a cyclical one too. Change would arise, bringing both good and bad, and after a time, we d all settle into our new normal. But this feels like something different altogether. AI and nanotechnology applied in the workplace are soon going to rearrange what our jobs and lives look like. The way we learn has certainly changed irrevocably, and today s learners demand online interaction, gamification and to have their ipads on hand at all times if they re going to stay engaged. Our curated, digital lives are being offered up for the judgement of others every day; indeed, the central demand in our society is that we all lay ourselves bare for the approval and judgement of others. But how does this cultural thirst for authenticity sit alongside the workplace cubicle culture which demands conformity, and the curated lives that many of us feel forced to live on social media? This is just a tiny microcosm of what s been evolving in our societies, but these things are all indicative of what feels like a hollowing out of our organisations, our communities, and of our humanity. The critical mass of disruption We re reaching a tipping point in time, a critical mass where we could invent ourselves out of a great many jobs. According to the World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, some countries could lose as much as 85% of their jobs to automation in the coming decades. This critical mass takes many forms. Teenagers think actually talking to people is totally uncool and conduct most of their communication through screens. Our workforces are spread around the world, meaning we offer a 24-hour service, but may never cross paths (or even time-zones!) with people in our own teams. How (and from whom) we get our news is becoming a stark ideological choice, so that our worldviews become more and more polarised as time passes. Loneliness and mental health issues are matching pace with the rise of technology. Entire industries are disrupted by the creation of an app that changes the playing field, for employees and employers. These things combine to feel less like the next steps in the natural evolution of our world, and more like a cliff-edge: a moment in time which demands that we make some real choices about who we are and who we want to become, both as people and as society. And yet, given all of this change incremental, epochal or somewhere in between this can be a time of hope, and a time of opportunity, if we keep humanity at the centre of our society. 3 4

5 Rediscovering Human This book is for anyone who s wondering what kind of workforce their kids will join once AI becomes an everyday office presence. It s for anyone who gets their breaking news from Twitter, but also misses the days when we didn t have to condense our complex thoughts into a tweet for the consumption of the waiting public. It s for all of us humans who have a stake in the future, and are still waiting to see the full potential of humanity realised in all of its wonderful, flawed, crazy, ambitious, intelligent glory. We make no apologies for what this book is: intensely pro-human. We re just as connected as you. We re dedicated to harnessing technology that will encourage people to truly understand themselves and others in order to live a more authentic life. And we re amazed, most days, by the power of humanity and what can be achieved when we come together as communities. What we want to talk about in this book is how we got to this point in time: why do we learn the way that we do (and why do we learn what we do); why our workplaces prize traditional hard skills and put much less of a premium on recruiting brilliant communicators, visionary leaders and people who can network like an extroverted ninja; how we take in information from the world around us, and how the way in which we build relationships has changed with the times, just like everything else. And once we ve taken a good look at where we are in history, we re going to work out what we do next. Because, despite all of the wonderful ways in which technology enhances our lives and communities, it s vital that we don t step aside and let it core our innate humanity, and the human heart from our communities, without us even looking up from our screens. What we decide to do next, as a species, will be all about making good on what we ve lost and being aware of what we could potentially lose if we don t rediscover our true humanity. But don t get depressed or downhearted; as you head through the chapters you ll be reminded that the digital revolution is delivering much that is positive and life-changing and awesome, as well as bringing challenges and forcing us to ask questions of ourselves as a species. We ll take a look into education, assessing how and why we learn what we do. Then we ll dig into how the information age has revolutionised the way we consume news; the way in which industries and workplaces have changed, and in fact continue to change at a rate unseen since the Industrial Revolution; and how our relationships those human connections which are so integral to who we are are evolving in this digital age. And as you read on, you ll see it s our contention that humanity itself is standing in a moment of huge opportunity, and that it s our innately human traits that will force us all to raise our game, and our gaze, to see what s possible now in the midst of so much technological advancement. There are going to be decisions to be made as society continues to advance even further. Do we want sheer economics or the needs of people that shape our workplaces? Are we happy to retreat 5 6

6 from our public spaces, and if we do, what does that mean for our parks, libraries, shops, schools in short, what happens to our communities? Do we all have to live at digital speed now? For those of us who like to fire off a couple of s and a pithy tweet before we even get out of bed, great, but if you don t is it inevitable that you will become disconnected from the world around you? So many questions, each with a common theme: in this Information Age, what are the dangers, choices and opportunities for humanity? But stop: we re marching ahead of ourselves, leaping into our unknown future without first looking back and considering: How did we get here? 7