“their [schedules] sounded like a session of Future Workaholics of America: crew practice at dawn, classes in the morning, resident-adviser duty, lunch, study groups, classes in the afternoon, tutoring disadvantaged kids in Trenton, a cappella practice, dinner, study, science lab, prayer session, hit the StairMaster, study a few hours more… […]

They are goal-oriented. An activity — whether it is studying, hitting the treadmill, drama group, community service, or one of the student groups they found and join in great numbers — is rarely an end in itself. It is a means for self-improvement, résumé-building, and enrichment. College is just one step on the continual stairway of advancement, and they are always aware that they must get to the next step (law school, medical school, whatever) so that they can progress up the steps after that…

Kids of all stripes [today] lead lives that are structured, supervised, and stuffed with enrichment […] In short, at the top of the meritocratic ladder we have in America a generation of students who are extraordinarily bright, morally earnest, and incredibly industrious. They like to study and socialize in groups. They create and join organizations with great enthusiasm. They are responsible, safety-conscious, and mature.”

Much of that still resonates today, as I have seen in the college journeys of myself and many of my friends. We feel good about the kind of life we are going to lead, the skills we are improving daily and the promise of a better future. We work hard, sometimes too hard to the point of breaking down. We are then forced to decide what matters to us. We realize many pursuits don’t matter, and even for those that do, we have our limits. Then we learn self-care and rein in our commitments. We take yoga classes and exercise regularly to achieve work life balance, because being a professional student is demanding. We have to learn to seek and accept help.

Being in college is an incredible opportunity that we want to make the most of by starting with the end in mind. Yet it is not as simple as it seems: Anyone who has travelled knows we cannot jam everything in our bag. We want to pack the essentials and leave enough room for surprise. What we picture as “ends” may change quicker than we think.

The shift

Fifteen year later from David Brook’s article, I’m starting to see a shift. My college is still a place for high-achievers, but what counts as “achievement” has changed. Many are looking to do meaningful work and achieve organizational success. Asking people in college “What do you care about?” and you will find a wide range of answers. Asking “What does it look like in your life?” and you will soon admire many of these young people for their energy and dedication to the causes they pursue.

The questions we ask ourselves have changed from “What’s next?” to “What do I really want?” It is heartening to see more generation Y asking these questions. Many are questioning the existing structures, skipping what is the traditional menu and choosing the create-your-own-future path — the entrepreneurial journey.

In many higher education institutions, we see an explosion of many Entrepreneurial Leadership Study programs, business competitions, incubators and venture funds to support students pursuing this path. For the young people from elite universities, entrepreneurship is indeed the new black. On this, Peter Drucker remarks “The popular picture of innovators — half pop-psychology, half Hollywood — makes them look like a cross between Superman and the Knights of the Round Table.” While much has been said about this image, I think it does make a point: what Superman and Knights of the Round Table do have in common is that they are deeply engaged in their worlds. They are everything but bystanders.

There have always been entrepreneurs; those who look critically at current realities and act on the opportunities they see. But these were more exceptions than norms. As Peter Drucker in his essay “Principles of Innovation” said, if we want to make entrepreneurship an integral life-sustaining activity for organizations and society, we need to create the environment where it becomes a sustained practice. We need to shift the collective perception of entrepreneurship from desirable to necessary, for “giving people what they want isn’t nearly as powerful as teaching people what they need” as Seth Godin, the marketing guru, once mentioned. Not everyone wants to start her own endeavour, yet the entrepreneurial mindset has to be cultivated.

What does it mean for the individual, especially young ones like me?

One insight that Peter Drucker considers to be obvious but often ignored is that innovation is “hard, focused, purposeful work making very great demands on diligence, on persistence and on commitment.” As such, the making of the “Organizational Kid” is an important prerequisite for the “Entrepreneur Kid” for two reasons. Organization Kids are relentlessly goal-oriented, have high expectations, high performance and result. This drive makes them willing and able to do the work. Behind the glamorous image of Silicon Valley startups is the messiness of the entrepreneurial journey — the infamous “startup grind”. It is slow. It is work. And it is disciplined.

Where Organization Kids may fall short, however, is the ability to adapt, not so much because they can’t but rather because they haven’t allowed themselves to learn that while structure is crucial, it has to be fluid in order to respond to the needs and opportunities arising in the moment. An example I’ve seen it in me and others is the temptation to schedule everything to the minute, and then wonder why creativity has gone missing in our lives. It took me a while to learn to create space for more spontaneity in my overbooked schedule. I never look back, for this new way of life has allowed me the space to explore so many previously invisible opportunities.

If day to day plans can change so much, imagine how hard it is when people ask me about my goals, let alone a specific plan, for the next 5 years. I don’t know, and I don’t want to pretend to know. It is far more engaging and likely to yield results to stay in the Now. By definition, innovation is an inefficient process because we do not know where we are going. Yet instead of getting frustrated, we can choose to embrace its messiness while keeping our eye on the original Why.

The Organizational Kids will have to embrace some spontaneity over planning so they can learn to see and think for themselves. This might be the most challenging yet important skill to learn, and they will need the help of more experienced journeymen. It is too tempting to get lost in the doing, especially when the formula has always been proven to work. Yet it is worth remembering that the best thing about habits and practices is that they give us time in our otherwise messy lives. We use that time to connect to the truly new. Drucker again has warned us, “all that one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and do as one has always done”. While I am in favour of the entrepreneurial “bias towards action”, maybe we also want to preamble it with a “bias toward perception”. How can we first see more clearly with ourselves and with others so that we can do what needs to be done?

I’m part of an exciting transition. The Organization Kid is still here, doing well, being more prepared than ever in history. And he is also evolving.

To paraphrase Peter Drucker’s question, will his successor be the Entrepreneurial Kid?

About the author:

Khuyen Bui won the Drucker Challenge 2015, and is a current senior at Tufts University. He is interested in organizational learning and development – how do people and groups come together, learn and evolve as well as how technology can help or harm that process.

As the business world is changing, so should the way we lead. The concept of “The Entrepreneurial Society,” which I had the pleasure of deeply contemplating and discussing at the recent Drucker Forum, offers guidance for leaders today (though Peter Drucker saw it coming in the mid-1980s). The notion of enabling employee ownership, responsibility and autonomy is key for driving innovation at any organization. Empowering others can alleviate many of the mental and physical challenges we as leaders experience daily.

Many leaders recognize the need to foster a culture of entrepreneurial behavior, and are looking for tools to help them do just that. I believe the workplace itself can help leaders lead better and, in turn, help others around them succeed. Think about your own work environment and ask yourself:

1. Does my office facilitate connections and collaboration?

Historically, executives were top-down decision makers. In today’s business world, exemplary leaders are those who are more connected and in tune with the organization. Doing so enables them to cultivate a positive corporate culture, help people do their best work and find the best ideas from all levels of the organization.

The office can also facilitate better connections between people and information. It can provide remote workers with a virtual presence similar to those who are physically present. We’ve all experienced a poor connection when calling into a conference call. A well-designed, technologically advanced conference environment can make that experience better for everyone.

To facilitate these types of collaboration:

• Provide casual meeting places like a lounge or café area that encourage people to come together and meet.
• Incorporate technology into these spaces so people can easily tap colleagues who may be located elsewhere by phone, video conference or other connection.

2. Does my work setting make my job easier?

When I first began my career, the corner office was a sign executives had “made it.” But think about the implications of a corner office; the physical space shuts the leader off from his or her colleagues and provides only a singular layout that doesn’t offer flexibility. The old model just isn’t cutting it today with the new challenges and intense distractions of today’s new world of work.

Many companies have made changes to their offices, including executive leadership spaces, to make them more open, transparent and flexible. For some leaders, this change is well-received. For others, this change is too drastic. It’s about striking the right balance. For example:

• Designate leadership workstations in or around a main thoroughfare within the office. This will create visibility and enable leaders to keep their finger on the pulse of the organization, so they can understand and recognize promising talent and ideas outside their direct reports, and mitigate inefficiencies where needed.
• Incorporate a mix of shared spaces which people can use depending on the type of work they need to accomplish.
• Provide spaces not just for maximum performance, but for rejuvenation and recovery, such as a private enclave for an executive or employee to decompress, rest, stretch or have a personal conversation during a micro “down moment” between meetings. This can improve the wellbeing of your employees and help them maintain focus and engagement.

3. Does my office encourage flexibility and autonomy?

I’m often surprised to find many leaders at major companies still have an owned workspace and rarely work from other spots within the office, other than to attend a meeting in a conference room from time to time. Often, this is because there aren’t many other desirable places for a leader to use, due to technology constraints, a lack of comfortable seating or other issues. When the workspace features a variety of work stations leaders can use effectively, they will be more likely to identify and use the right place for the task at hand. And, when other employees see leaders take advantage of this flexibility and autonomy, it allows them to do the same.

To provide your leadership team and employees with more choice and control over where and how they work:

• Create spaces that allow personalization and individual customization, instead of tightly enforced workplace standards.
• Provide a mix of types of work stations open to everyone: both open and private, large and small, options for sitting and standing, etc.

As approaches to leadership evolve in this new world of work, it’s critical the office also evolves to support these expectations, challenges and behaviors. It’s critical executives lead by example. This means stepping out of the corner office and moving around the space. In doing so, we enable an entrepreneurial culture, and can unlock the true promise of our organizations.

About the author:

Sara Armbruster is Vice President, Strategy, Research and New Business Innovation, at Steelcase. She oversees strategy creation and corporate business development, as well as Steelcase’s design research activity. Find her on Twitter: @saraarmbruster.

During my talk, “Creating an Innovative Enterprise,” I asked the 500 participants if their staff were given a value-creation playbook along with innovation training so they could be effective value creators.  Only 5 people raised their hands.  (My presentation is here:  drucker-forum.)

This is a striking result given the quality of the group, but it is typical of what we have discovered around the world.  Companies train their staff on project management, design-for-six-sigma, teamwork, leadership, negotiation, and many other topics.  But still not innovation.

As Peter Drucker said, “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.”  To do this, we need to move from the “what” of innovation to the “how.”  How to liberate creativity, how to create a transparent organization, and how to make high-value innovative results inevitable.

We are in the global innovation economy.  Technology improves exponentially fast, the world is hyper-competitive, and it has an abundance of major new opportunities.  Almost every area of business has endless opportunities for major innovations. Consider the financial industry and emerging technologies such as block-chain.  The waste in the financial industry is estimated to be trillions of dollars per year.  Eliminating this waste represents hundreds of opportunities for major new innovative companies.

But to develop these opportunities we must know how to innovate.  Today, relatively few professionals have those skills.  Big companies are going away at record rates, more U.S. companies are dying than being born, and almost all measures of innovative output are grim.

Typically, experience shows that 80% of the so-called “important” company initiatives create no value for the company.  Most university “tech transfer” programs lose money. Even the name is wrong.  Tech push does not work.  National laboratory directors around the world will admit in private that, despite their huge budgets, they are frustrated at the lack of useful results produced.  The waste of money and people’s potential is enormous.

Remarkably, as noted above, most companies do not use effective innovation practices.  Almost every CEO will say they do, but if you ask mid-level managers to describe their system, they can’t.  If they can’t, there is none.  That is what we find around the world – it is almost an iron rule.

That has started to change but only at the margin.  Agile and its derivatives are being increasingly adopted, but mostly for developing incremental innovations. NSF created I-Corps to teach students about value creation. Start-up incubators are promoting more rigorous practices.  And the US NSF and Singapore NRF are working toward use of better value creation practices.   But these efforts have still not broadly taken hold.

As we make progress we must also drive out bad ideas.  For example, I constantly hear, “To succeed at innovation you need to fail fast.”  That is a terrible idea. It is meant to be clever, but it gives no guidance about what to actually do.  The goal of successful innovation is to learn, search, and create fast; not fail fast.  That learning perspective defines the concepts and practices required for innovative success.  Every concept and methodology should be judged on whether it increases effective learning.

The innovative enterprise embraces a number of essential principles:

• Strategic Intent: Innovation is at the heart of the company’s strategy, with people, practices, and resources in place.
• Customer Focus: Peter Drucker said, “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.”  Most executives say their companies are customer focused, but they are not.  A test: “Does every business meeting start with the customer’s needs?
• Important Opportunities: The company works on important customer and market needs, not ones that are just interesting. Are metrics in place that define what “important” means?
• Value-Creation Playbook: To speed value creation, all employees understand and use core innovation concepts and processes.  One of the most important concepts is the “value proposition,” as described here.  Most companies have a confused or even wrong definition for this most important concept, which defines success from R&D, to business plan, and to sales. If you can’t present a compelling value proposition, you don’t know what you are doing.
• Rapid, Fervent Learning: Processes are in place to accelerate learning; those that slow it down are eliminated. We emphasize the use of Value-Creation Forums, which are recurring, multidisciplinary meetings where teams present their value propositions for critiquing (see Carlson and Wilmot, “Innovation“).  Note that these are not brainstorming meetings, project management reviews, or seminars, which are ineffective when the goal is the creation of new customer value.

The comprehensive use of these practices transformed SRI International in Silicon Valley from failing to becoming one of the world’s most successful enterprises, having created many tens of billions of dollars of new marketplace value through innovations, such as HDTV, Intuitive Surgical, and Siri on the iPhone.  Experience shows that the use of innovation best practice can enable improvements over 100%.  These practices are now being used by companies, universities, and governments around the world.  Some are moving from the “what” to the “how” of value creation and innovative success.

About the author:

Dr. Curtis R. Carlson is Founder and CEO of Practice of Innovation.  He works with global companies, universities, and governments on improving innovative performance. From 1998 to 2014 he was CEO of SRI International in Silicon Valley.  While CEO,  SRI became one of the world’s most productive innovation enterprises, having created HDTV, Siri on the iPhone, and many other world changing innovations.

“Global Peter Drucker Forum is not so much about better answers as it is about better questions” — Richard Straub

Any discussion about technology invariably has some forms of “What is in the future?” question. What changes will technology have in our lives and professions, how should we be prepared, what will happen to us?

The attitude behind these questions must be a proactive one. There is a big difference between “concern” and “worry”; only the former allows for practical actions. As Peter Drucker said, “The only way to predict the future is to create it”. Technology co-evolves with humans. For anything humans do, we can imagine machines replacing us: the ability to judge and make decisions, to analyze and synthesize information, or even to feel and convey emotions. Somebody will, or are already making these once sci-fi ideas happen.

Let us not forget in the midst of so many talks about “Technology”, the greatest invention for humans has been language — it allows humans to exchange ideas, coordinate actions and develop cultures. Cultural evolution has been faster than the biological one. While it is true that the biological makeup of our human brain hasn’t changed that much since we were all in Africa, the environments have drastically changed. As mentioned by Marten Mickos (CEO of MySQL), the waiting time in every conceivable services of every industry from transportation to healthcare to education has reduced. It also means that we are able to create and iterate on prototypes much quicker. As feedback loops tighten, we can learn exponentially faster as individuals and and even more so as communities. The latter is crucial because it binds societies together, especially in our current fractured world of clashing ideologies and dogmatism. This reminds me of Henry Mintzberg’s quote: “If you want to know the different between community and network, try asking your friends on Facebook to clean your house”. One responsibility for our future is then clear: we need to understand and leverage on the power of networks to strengthen learning communities.

Another message from the forum is that we should not get too distracted by technology and forget the essential challenge: to continually find and define ourselves, regardless of our time. Management should always start with that realization. We must focus on being human and on the human beings around us. I hope the terms “human resources”, “human capital” or “human assets” should be out of the management lingo soon. They all imply being “used”, or at best “renewed”. Why don’t we call it “human potential”? Potential is limitless yet can only be realized through intentional work and effort; it is promising but unguaranteed. The purpose of any kind of leadership is then to realize such potential and thus collectively shape our futures together.

Another dominant theme of the conference is the need to rethink the nature of work. I believe one reason for the theme for Drucker Forum next year being “The Entrepreneurial Society” stems from the question of engagement at the workplace.

Jim Keane, CEO of Steelcase, mentioned the 2015 Gallup study that 87% of employees report they are disengaged. We have designed the workplace with the alarming assumption that most people don’t want to work, and that we have to use incentives (either carrots or sticks) to motivate them. Carrots and sticks are, however, so 19th century ,Industrial Revolution. They no longer work in the knowledge and creative economy of the 21st century, and as long as managers still hold on to that assumption, they won’t survive. How can we inspire people around us when we ourselves are not even inspired?

That grim state of disengagement at work is why we need to foster an entrepreneurial spirit. Few things are as engaging as being part of a new and meaningful endeavor. From startup founders, social entrepreneurs, intra-preneurs, to solo-preneurs, those with such spirit are the boldest, most energetic and creative people. They will set the standard for the next generations for what real engagement at work looks like by setting their own examples.

Having an entrepreneurial spirit doesn’t necessarily mean becoming entrepreneur – or at least the image of all-consuming start-up founders we are used to. In fact, it can be quite draining to surround oneself with this group too often. Some people are more inherently driven to create solutions, while others tend to muse on the problems. Each of us in fact operates everyday by switching between these two modes of being. The task of self-management is thus to balance between the two extremes: mindless actions and actionless mind. I once heard of the “Cry test” to decide if one should pursue an entrepreneurial lifestyle: only when I cry about a problem that I should commit to solving it. An extreme test but not without some truth, given how lonely, tough and all consuming the journey will be.

Regardless of which path to choose, a big lesson that I am learning is that in order to do anything truly good, fear must be explored and transformed into aspiration. There is a great deal of people with the Fear of Being Mediocre syndrome, who think that their lives must shine and that they must be different from the rest. Alas, while the spirit is laudable, worrying too much about being mediocre is a surefire way to become one. What is the antidote then? I’m reminded of Drucker again: focus on contribution and being consistent with one’s effort. The first mantra steers our vision on the right path, and the second ensures we keep moving. They have always been and will continue to be the key to meaningful and valuable work.

How can I bring these ideas into my daily life? By practicing a habit of retreat and reflect often (especially when our smartphones keep vying for our attention) and taking deliberate actions. “Follow effective actions with quiet reflections, and there will come even more effective actions”, as Drucker once said. Each of us has to be both mountain and cloud, always grounded in purpose while floating with changing realities.

About the author:

Khuyen Bui won the Drucker Challenge 2015, and is a current junior at Tufts University. He is interested in organizational learning and development – how do people come together, learn and adapt and how technology can help or harm that process.

Some people don’t get the idea of the plural sector, perhaps because it has been so marginalized by the great debates over left versus right—private sector markets versus public sector governments. Where to put the plural sector, comprising all these community-based and other associations that are neither public nor private? NGOs, clubs, churches, unions, mass movements, social initiatives, and so on? Wolfgang Műller, Chief of Operations of the City of Vienna, who had read my book about Rebalancing Society, got the idea—in principle. Then he experienced it in action.

I met Wolfgang last Wednesday when he organized a workshop I did with his colleagues at the City of Vienna, before I attended the Global Drucker Forum in that city. He recounted a story about how this understanding in principle suddenly became an understanding in practice. I asked him to write his story down.

WM:  On Friday September 4, I was sitting in my office in Vienna City Hall when I learned on twitter that refugees from Syria and Afghanistan, some with children, had decided to walk the several hundred kilometers from Budapest to the border of Austria, determined to get to Germany, their land of hope.

Suddenly, within hours, Vienna’s train stations became organized as hubs for thousands of refugees—buses in, trains out. In such a situation medical care, food, and overnight shelter had to be organized, usually in association with NGOs such as the Red Cross.

While my staff was coordinating the crisis management network, I needed to get a hands-on impression of what was happening. I went to the new central station, where I saw all kinds of people helping with translation, providing medical aid, and distributing blankets, clothing, and food. Among them was a group wearing shirts emblazoned with “Sikh Help Austria”; they were dishing out warm meals from big pots that they had brought.

Something truly amazing had happened. Citizens young and old, some the children of immigrants or themselves earlier immigrants, decided to take action. They asked themselves what in Henry’s book is called “the Irene question”—“What can I do?”—and here they found an answer. Using social media, they organized themselves into a sort of citizens’ start up, dedicated to helping the refugees. They called it The Train of Hope (@trainofhope).

Here are some statistics: 180,000 meals were served in September alone, by 350 volunteers every day, including about 5,000 warm meals by Sikh Help Austria. (These statistics are from what could be called the management accounting “department” of that Train of Hope! Even that sprung up, as if from nowhere.)

Now, when The Train of Hope asks via social media for bread or bananas, the items usually appear within the hour: hundreds of kilos. Social media entries are updated regularly and the posts are now followed avidly by about 300,000 Austrians.

At first, we in the city administration were very surprised. But then we realized that this was not uncoordinated. It was a highly professional, high speed performance. That is when it dawned on us that here was the self-organizing plural sector in action. So we in the city administration decided to give The Train of Hope all the technical support it might need, including background support on call. We then invited The Train of Hope to join the city’s crisis management network, an offer that was accepted. I am delighted to report that this cooperation has continued to perform consistently well, with no end date yet clear.

This is a PPP of a different kind: a public-plural-partnership, agile and flexible—sharing the governing of a crisis. Why Not? Isn’t this smart government? Much has been written about the sharing economy. But this is not like sharing lodging, as in Airbnb. It is about sharing concern, and help, and hope.

I am passionate about my work for the city of Vienna, and I feel privileged to be part of these very special events. Thanks to The Train of Hope, and the contribution of plural sector as a whole, I am now even more positive and optimistic about our future. If you are near Vienna, just go and take a look.

HM: I went on to the conference the following two days. On Friday, Wolfgang sent me his email with the story. I read it late that evening. My alarm was to ring in time to get me to my plane the next morning, but I woke up earlier. What to do with the extra time? Of course: just go and take a look.

It was quiet in the station at 8 am. (Turns out that it is now cleared in the evenings so that every refugee has an overnight bed.) But I was able to walk through where several people were still there, some in family groups, many sleeping, while other young men were talking together, killing time. I asked one family if I could take a photo but a young man waved me off.

Outside, clothing and supplies were stacked up neatly in tents. I saw a rough sign that read “Refugees Welcome.”  Nearby was a plastic sheet meant to be a door. I went in: this turned out to be the volunteers’ area. A woman at a desk asked “Do you want to help?” “I’m sorry, I can’t”, I said, “I have a plane to catch.” But then I realized that I too had an answer to the Irene question: “We’re writing a blog about this.” About hope.

About the authors:

© Henry Mintzberg and Wolfgang Müller 2015. The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions to which they are affiliated.

In addition, such commoditized labour experiences a globalization of competition (unless it’s bound to a site like taxi driving). Crowdworkers (freelancers on platforms) will also not have a work contract, but sign standard terms of service instead. Pay is determined by auction, not by minimum wage and work may be allocated by an algorithm, i.e. the boss is a computer.

Hence we have work ‘above the algorithm’, creating the platforms, and work ‘below the algorithm’ receiving their tasks from platforms [2]. Work above the algorithm tends to program its ideology into the code. The ideology found in a number of on-demand platforms is wage dumping. In Turkers’ (casual for freelancers on Amazon Mechanical Turk) descriptive lingo: “Wage theft is a feature, not a bug“.

We have seen this before: As one era ends and another begins, change occurs at a pace and scale that disrupts all aspects of society. We are now leaving the industrial era and enter the network society. When, over centuries, ancient civilization morphed into the industrial era, traditional craftsmen were disrupted by early industrialists. Even government was disrupted: monarchies were replaced by republics and democracy. The early industrialists, the ‘Robber Barons’, could amass great wealth in that they owned machinery and factories, giving them the power to dictate work conditions and wages. Then unions formed and re-established balance.

Today, people, driven out of regular jobs or not making enough as freelancers compete for tasks that are paid a tiny fraction of any possible minimum wage – several hundred thousands of them on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform alone. Just like the last era change, but with one difference: the new ‘Digital Robber Barons’ own data and infrastructure as intermediaries, but not the physical assets needed to deliver the actual service sold. Uber as the largest taxi company in the world doesn’t own one taxi, Airbnb doesn’t own a single apartment and Facebook as the largest media concern doesn’t produce content. The physical assets required to do the job are paid for by the workers.

Business models and the way we work, even government, are ready for disruption again, and maybe this is a chance for millions of people to create work for themselves in a self-responsible manner. Following the thoughts of Angus Deaton this could even enable developing countries to better participate in growth. Mankind has come a long way negotiating and fighting for social standards evolving from the tribal and feudal system and early ‘Robber Barons’. As such, business models are up for disruption, but social achievements have to be safeguarded and even developed further to suit network society. In fact it’s less about humans against robots: the question is more about how humans treat humans.

It may not be too realistic to expect the economy to regulate itself in creating fair working conditions. There is no such evidence in history. Without some kind of unions and a suitable legal framework crowdworkers alone may not be able wrest sustainable conditions for themselves (no such earlier evidence either). The responsibility for a smooth transition of society, preventing upheaval and unrest due to poverty or mass unemployment lies with governments, along with setting the rules for a networked society – and co-creating a vision of how such a future should look like.

Governments could be disrupted by corporations that already operate like platforms and networks – later maybe starting to form corporate states similar to the seasteads (floating cities of likeminded people recognized as a sovereign state) as proposed by Peter Thiel of Paypal. Who knows? Government is under attack at its core: MIT’s John Clippinger is quoted saying “Who needs government?” Currently, governments are confronted with a very powerful private sector and face eroding trust by the population. How to regain this trust and re-enter the arena as a balancing factor vis-a-vis the private sector protecting citizens against eroding social standards? Short: How will government disrupt itself?

Across the historical divide the organisation charts of companies and governments of every era took the shape that society showed as a whole. Currently organisation charts are developing into a networked structure. Therefore, government, too, must interact with networks. This way contact with citizens can be re-established and mutual (!) trust may be regained. Change wouldn’t need to be imposed – it could be co-created. Such results may see better endorsement, too – something that current policies often lack.

Finally, when it comes to co-creating a vision and common understanding of how our future should look like, a book by Jonathan Lear comes to mind: In ‘Radical Hope’ [3] he tells the story of the Crow Indians who were confronted with the extinction of the buffalo – their almost sole source of work and food. They were faced with cultural devastation: The way they used to live for centuries would end. Realizing the desperation and depression of his people, Chief Plenty Coups realised that his nation had to develop a new vision of how they should live and eat in the future. He called this concept ‘Radical Hope’. The economist Lawrence Summers warned that the world currently lacked that kind of political leaders – similar to the ones who helped shape the public policy during the industrial era [4].

The Crow Nation survived. Today it is our generations’ common responsibility to build a future that is inspiring and worth while – not just for a few, but for society as a whole. A strong public sector needs to re-enter the playing field to help build shared prosperity in addition to shared economy.

About the author:

Isabella Mader is Director of the Excellence Institute and university lecturer in the fields of Knowledge Management, Information Science and IT Strategy. 2013 she was awarded “Top CIO of the Year”. Her current research focuses on Network Economy, Communities and the Sharing Economy.

[1] Pofelt, Elaine; Shocker: 40% of Workers Now Have ‘Contingent’ Jobs, Says U.S. Government. Forbes, 25 May 2015. [Online]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/elainepofeldt/2015/05/25/shocker-40-of-workers-now-have-contingent-jobs-says-u-s-government/

[2] Compare: Wing Kosner, Anthony: Google Cabs And Uber Bots Will Challenge Jobs ‘Below The API’. Forbes, 4 February 2015 [Online]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2015/02/04/google-cabs-and-uber-bots-will-challenge-jobs-below-the-api/
[3] Lear, Jonathan; Radical Hope – Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Harvard University Press, 2008.
[4] Hill, Andrew; Divisions emerge over effect of digital disruption. Financial Times, 24 January 2014- [Online]: http://app.ft.com/cms/s/3a7190a2-84df-11e3-8968-00144feab7de.html

The preliminary events began with a CEO Roundtable on the afternoon of Wednesday November 6. The opening ‘provocation’ was supplied by Tom Davenport and Julia Kirby’s June 2015 Harvard Business Review article “Beyond Automation”. In it they address the threat that artificial intelligence in the form of smart machines is encroaching on knowledge work to such an extent that it will lead to widespread unemployment. In the past machines took over work that was dangerous, dirty and dull. Now they seem to be taking over decision-making roles. Does it mean automation and the replacement of humans or is there scope for augmentation of human cognitive powers by machines? Should we be worried? The Davenport/Kirby shorthand answer, “Yes-No-Yes”, captured the both uncertainty of our questions about the future and the equivocality of the ‘answers’.

In the two days that followed the executive roundtable speakers and participants alike struggled to understand these questions and to come to grips with Peter Drucker’s acute observation that the major questions regarding technology are a not technical but human. The result was an exhilarating roller-coaster ride with unsettling plunges and thrilling loops that deposited all the riders safely at the end, but with their brains lightly fried. What follows is some of the highlights from the conference.

Tensions and Dilemmas

Tensions and dilemmas were everywhere at the forum. Are we dealing with a technology issue or a mindset issue, technical or moral? Or both? Are there limits to the ability of machine to make decisions? Should there be? How about limits on humans? What if a smart machine had overruled Lufthansa’s suicidal pilot? What distinguishes the zealots from the Luddites; West Coast optimism from East Coast pessimism? Is it a generation gap? Who will be affected and in what way? In the short-term or the long run? How do we distinguish hype from reality? What should who do about what? What’s the game plan? How do you manage? How do you lead? What’s our theory of change?

The conference participants, like the speakers, were a mix of tech-friendlies and tech-skeptics, with a full spectrum between the extremes. A sharper division was that between the values and concerns of small entrepreneurial firms and those of large established organizations, both commercial and governmental. Most of the academics and consultants present seemed more attentive to the latter group, who are presumably their natural clients.

Above and Below the Algorithm

One of the more interesting comments on the role of digital technology came from transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase, who pointed out that major innovations like Airbnb and Uber are aimed at either slicing up or aggregating existing spare capacity in society’s physical assets. This is why they neither own nor produce anything. The assets (housing and automobiles, roads and infrastructure) exist already. They may be disrupting the hospitality and taxi businesses around the world, but at the society level, despite all the talk of a ‘sharing economy’, they are primarily efficiency innovations that will reduce more jobs than they create. This may explain the pervasive ambivalence toward such technologies that create short-term benefits for individuals (albeit through what some describe as insecure, contingent jobs) but may spawn longer run problems for communities. Those who work “above” the algorithm (a tiny minority) may be fine; those who work “below” it will struggle.

Would a Thinking Machine do the Haka?

What does it mean to be human? New Zealander Kevin Roberts, Executive Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, captured its essence in a video-laced presentation to illustrate the ‘unreasonable power of ideas’. Rational thinking leads to conclusions but it takes emotion to get action and to generate ‘loyalty beyond reason’. With the 2015 World Cup of Rugby still fresh in fans’ memories, his video of the ultimately victorious All Blacks using their Haka war cry to intimidate their opponents was a compelling example of how humans deal with challenges in a ‘Super-VUCA’ world that is vibrant, unreal, crazy and astounding. It was a very welcome break from the pervasive rationalism that dismisses such human phenomena as ‘biases’ to be countered and eliminated. Would a thinking machine do the Haka? Why?

A Second Silent Spring?

Sherry Turkle, Director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, addressed the growing movement among the digerati of people who would “rather text than talk”. She argued that communications technology makes us forget what we know about life. The result may be a second ‘silent spring’, an ‘assault on empathy’, that makes us less able to appreciate the situation of another person and to ‘give voice to the other’. John Hagel, Co-Chairman of Deloitte Consulting’s Center for the Edge, agreed, saying that technology brings out the worst in us and he stressed the power of narrative, the incomplete story that calls to its listeners to take action and see how it ends.

The Mindset Problem – It’s Bigger than Thinking

Peter Drucker once wrote that “The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” What wasn’t being discussed at the Drucker Forum was the either role of or limits to reason in management, organizations and work, both descriptively and normatively. Ever since the European Enlightenment there has been a struggle between Adam Smith’s “sociology of virtue” and the French “ideology of reason”. Smith contended that the essence of humanity was both a concern for justice driven by empathy and a preoccupation with self-interest enabled by reason. The French philosophes, however insisted on the primacy of reason. There is no doubt where Peter Drucker stood on this issue: he saw humans as living in a world of existential tensions, strung between their concern for others and their preoccupation with themselves. It is a world of “both…and”, not either/or, that offers continual opportunities for creativity and innovation. American management, on the other hand, theorists and practitioners alike, has tended to prefer the ideology of reason and the cult of efficiency that often accompanies it.

Several speakers at the Forum remarked that the CEOs of many large companies pursue efficiency to the exclusion of anything else. This approach places them firmly on the side of the machines and the use of digital technology to replace rather than to support people. Here is a symptom of the ‘mindset’ problem, but its root causes remain to be explored. One suspects that they lie much deeper than many imagine and that their exploration will have a huge impact on how we act and think. Fortunately this means that there is plenty material for future meetings that will do well to match the intensity and excitement of the 2015 Drucker Forum.

About the author:

David K. Hurst is a management author, educator, and consultant. His latest book is The New Ecology of Leadership: Business Mastery in a Chaotic World (Columbia University Press 2012).

…by which I mean they have self-belief, self-control, and self-actualisation.

But they’re not the solution to rising unemployment caused by the rise of machines. We heard a lot at the recent Drucker Forum about the rise of machines, and how natural monopolies are being eliminated as competitive advantages erode quicker. Stability is not normal any more.

So we can plan our societies for reducing levels of employment, and find things for people to fill their time with, together with a socially inclusive way of allowing them to fulfil their needs for food, shelter etc. and/or we can find ways of allowing them employment opportunities which are different from now. There is a rise in freelancing – in other words, small projects for disparate employers, and rising entrepreneurial activities now as big businesses benefits both in employment and market share eroded rapidly. We’ve argued before that small businesses will be taking over from big business and we’ve heard nothing to the contrary. Big business ways of working/models are in the main dead men walking. We want more personalisation and customisation and better experiences with the things that we buy, and big business has difficulty in providing this in a mass production and mass marketing environment.

My suggestion is that we have moved from a village economy pre-Industrial Revolution through mass production and standardisation during the industrial and technological revolutions of the last 200 – 300 years, and we are moving back now to a village economy, albeit a global village, where we can get exactly what we want made with direct input from ourselves to the maker.

How does this help what is becoming a rapidly disenfranchised workforce as jobs are lost through technological advances? A session at the Drucker Forum argued that entrepreneurs would provide much of the solution, but I don’t think this is the case. Entrepreneurs are self-centred. That’s a good thing if you’re an entrepreneur, as it helps you to grow businesses. But individuals cannot grow the many businesses needed to soak up the excess employment capacity that is going to be generated. And I don’t think they need to. Excluding those activities that will still work in big businesses which will maybe run utilities and transport and the like, I think there are now three classes of employment. There will still be the freelancers who work for individual projects for whoever will pay them. There will still be entrepreneurs who will employ a body of people for that activity. But I think the big rise will be in self-employment. And by self-employment I mean people who will work for themselves employing a few people in a localised manner with no real requirement to build the business into something which they will intend to sell, and then start again like an entrepreneur does.

As such I think that the word entrepreneur is being misused. Not all people want to be an entrepreneur, but most aspire to be able to control their own destiny, which self-employment (and freelancing) provides every bit as well as entrepreneurship. Most will actually be entrepreneurial in some aspect of their activities, without having to build a model which relies on rapid growth and sale, just to do that over again. That doesn’t fit with most people’s objectives and aspirations.

The technological revolution has allowed small businesses to compete on a global stage, as we’ve mentioned before, and also compete against any size business. The small business can be more flexible, more personal, and faster to respond to changes in markets. It’s also very quick easy and cheap to test markets in this digital era.

The challenge for government is to stop pouring resource into the 5% of high growth potential businesses which are going to succeed anyway, and start teaching and supporting self-employment in a way that encourages many small business owners to take on at least one extra person. Just by doing this, potential unemployment issues caused by replacement technology could be significantly mitigated.

To achieve this, education on self-employment needs a radical overhaul. Just as graduate business education needs significant changes to nurture softer skills rather than just analytical ones, so does education for the self-employment model need realignment. This is currently being taught as a series of disparate technical disciplines with no way of amalgamating disciplines to see how they interact and fit together. We are taught how to write a business plan, how to do our books, how to do social media marketing, but we are not taught how these pieces of the jigsaw fit into the picture. Essentially businesses get the jigsaw pieces but they never see the picture on the box. How then will they know where the pieces relate to one another and the overall picture, and how they can join those things together? That is the challenge for education and government.

We try in our own small way to coach our client base so they understand how things relate and how they can think better about it. By doing this we expect our clients’ businesses to be easier for them to manage, and to achieve the growth that they want. This is not necessarily the most growth achievable as it is their individual/personal objectives which are important. These may not be wholly money based and in fact they seldom are. As our values change to reflect the richness of our life, this balance of aspirations will become more important.

Entrepreneurs still have their place, as they will lead where markets will be in future. The self-employed can feed from the knowledge created by entrepreneurs of what is new, useful and interesting. But they don’t have to be as daring as the entrepreneurs to achieve their objectives. They can go near the leading edge, instead of what is often the bleeding edge with its higher risks. They may wish to balance their risk profile because of other personal factors, such as family, and community.

Government policy has to recognise this change. Most governments operate some decades behind the times in terms of how they think businesses are structured and work. They also impose and rigorously enforce rules which become increasingly nonsensical in the workplace. Apart from the changing education policy towards self-employment, there needs to be more awareness of how social change affects public policy, and an implicit assumption that policy and rules have to change a lot faster. As government’s main job is to be re-elected, they need to tune in to popular movements which involves doing two things differently. Firstly, they should listen considerably more than they talk, and secondly, they should not assume that they have all the solutions (and neither should the electorate). The American constitution starts with ‘We, the people’, not ‘We, the government’. We need looser public policy to accommodate rapid changes in demographics and work profiles, which needs a growing realisation that people, whether freelancers, self-employed, or entrepreneurs, insist on running their own lives in their own way to make it meaningful for each individual.

About the author:

Nick Hixson is a business adviser and accountant, helping small and medium size business in strategy, leadership, management and team engagement. He also moderates the Drucker blog series.