Patrick Dickson, the author of the book “THE FUTURE OF (ALMOST) EVERYTHING” explains succinctly the three important drivers of the future – “SKILL, SCALE AND SPEED.” These three factors appear to be the influencers of the dynamics of all discourses on the future, whether you are working as an individual or as a group, whether you are working in a personalized trade or a corporate driven by certain professional competencies, whether you are working at a cognitive level or in a universe of automated dealings impacting productivity. A close scrutiny of all these three factors would indicate an underlying social current of a world aspiring to be reshaping itself trying to redefine its own purpose of existence. No wonder, it does impact everything – from lifestyles to logistics, relationships to religious designs, recruitments to revenue models, this calls for renewed thought architectures at every level and coping skills with stressed emotional work-outs. While it appears that we may not be able to control these dynamics with powerful brake-systems, while we may not be able to reject them totally as irrelevant to our own frames of mind -socially, culturally or psychologically, it puts every human being, every organization, every model of social architecture- on a new learning curve. It doesn’t matter whether you are a doctor, engineer, architect, teacher, chartered accountant, politician, business magnate or a CEO of a multi-national company, please note you are always on some dot of the learning curve for your future professional existence.
These three elements which are intrinsically interwoven show that you cannot just adopt any one of them and lay the others to rest. Each of them has a drag on the other and hence we have to look at them as inclusive, holistic and inter-dependant.
Skills -whether cognitive or pragmatic, whether hands-on or machine driven, whether dynastically handed over or delivered from the embryo of the artificial intelligences – demand an update for purposeful existence. The relevance, the contextuality, the utility and the ease of operability of the skills are impacted by a fast-changing world – through effective communication, through renewed models of technology, through changing objectives of life purposes, through relationship models which are more formal in a world where “Me” dominates over the other motives of the mind. The ability of certain individuals to acquire, to articulate, to package and to deliver these skills, put the rest of the cohort into a competition for equity and survival. At a larger level, the companies and the industries are put to continuous tests to ensure their survival by demonstrating their renewed skills and delivery models. Consequently, the entire human resource of the organization becomes skill-conscious and skill driven, to meet the new vision of the organization. The need for congruence in the professional skills with current needs and competition puts increased pressure in the leaders of the organization to continuously upgrade the skills and empower the employees. Organizations, are therefore called upon to remain as learning organizations eternally. However, the change dynamics is indeed a challenge as it depends on the learnability of the members of the team which has several variants.
Change, by itself, is not an event and it is a process. Hence the organizations would require to put a complete system to take care of the change dynamics and make periodical interventions not only to fill in the gaps wherever they are, but to be continuously researching on the futuristic relevance and dimension of these skills. In a world that is continuously evolving not only locally but globally, the scale of such changes becomes mind-boggling. The direct and indirect impact of the changing skills not only in its own universe of operation, but to an entire system of satellites which stand gravitated to this universe opens up a scale of impact which is phenomenal. The availability of fast communication tools of today, does send messages to the entire world of its operation in split seconds thus creating a hunger for an immediate relevance driving consumerist tendencies demanding instant gratification of their social desires. Thus, the scale at which the revised skills, the products narrated on these skills are consumed or felt to be acquired, calls for fast delivery models enhancing the speed dynamics of the entire system.
Interesting to note, the market forces have a great playfield working on this gratification urges to push in products and services based on newer skill models to the doors of the consumers at a scale and speed which is unimaginable. The realization of the fact that the life period of these skills, the related products, the emerging consumerist urges have a very short life time, the organizations and the industries want to encash on these investments in a dream time. Psychologically examining, these models do lead to increased aggression either in production or consumption, in researches and in revenue generation.
Learning, as a process, has thus become multi-faceted and multi-dimensional more driven by needs of the future – the skill, the scale and the speed. Shyam, during his discussion with me asked “Sir, then what about the joy of learning?” I just had to smile and say “Well, the joy of learning is also impacted by these three factors” – As I finished having a second look at the book, I saw a newspaper on my table carrying the advertisement “Make your children future ready- Coaching for IIT from class Six now- Limited seats.”
SKILL, SCALE AND SPEED – the three drivers of the Future!!
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