Stanford University Press Blog

The Future of Work Is Already Here

The impact of the pandemic and the key questions we should be asking

JASON WINGARD 

Used with permission. Credit: Ryan Brandenberg, Temple University

 

The Future Is Now 

It’s no secret that institutions of higher education and businesses have been grappling with the impact automation and digital technologies have had on the way people learn and work. And, although robots and artificial intelligence have played a role in rethinking and reshaping our approach to work, a phenomenon even more disruptive accelerated the arrival of the future of work: the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Prior to the pandemic, efforts to keep pace with innovation and disruption affecting nearly every facet of workplace productivity provided the opportunity for organizations to assess their ability to prepare for, and evolve with, the changing employment landscape. And then, in the blink of an eye, that “opportunity” turned into an “imperative.” 

Seemingly instantaneously, employers and employees were required to adapt to new technologies and new ways of working. The swiftness with which many organizations adapted to these changes demonstrated the necessity of a nimble workforce that is prepared to both meet current demand and anticipate and adapt to future change.

The Great Skills Gap » explores the shifting of the skills and preparation that employers need from their talent pool, and how both higher education and business can collaborate to keep pace to support a workforce that is technically proficient and exceptionally agile in their capacity to think and act creatively and quickly learn new skills. As we all learned throughout the pandemic, agility, creativity and adaptability—along with a growing set of technical skills—are and will remain essential to being a successful worker in the future of work.

Taking stakeholders, rather than Milton Friedman, seriously

Beyond “shared value” approaches for corporate social responsibility

SARAH KAPLAN

Free for commercial use via Pixabay.

 

For decades, we have mythologized Milton Friedman’s 1970 dictate that corporations have a primary responsibility to deliver financial returns to their shareholders. But, the winds are shifting.

Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman is calling for “heroic chief executive officers” to achieve sustainable development goals such as more inclusive business practices and reduced carbon use. Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock, an investment firm that manages over $1 trillion in assets wrote in his own Letter to CEOs: “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. Companies must benefit all of their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate.”

There are almost too many reasons for urgency. Whether it is the risk of disruptions due to climate change; the Millennials who won’t work for companies that are only focused on the bottom line; workers using social media to fight sexual harassment and discriminatory work conditions; consumers boycotting products that don’t meet ethical standards; greater inequality is leading to political instability…Companies increasingly need to address the full set of stakeholders who surround them: all 360 degrees.

As I contend in The 360º Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation, the big problem is that meeting these stakeholder demands often requires action that could compromise profits. Improving worker conditions, investing in environmental advances, addressing the impacts of consumerism, creating talent pipelines for marginalized communities, or stopping polluting activities, are all costly. Costly in terms of cash, time and organizational disruption. Yet, just because they are costly doesn’t give organizations an excuse to go slow. In fact, the urgency for action in addressing these trade-offs could not be greater than it is today.

On Leadership and Contribution

John Hennessy’s ongoing lessons in leading people as service, and shaping the future.

by STEVE CATALANO

 

On March 21^st, 2018 it was announced that former Stanford President John Hennessy was to be the recipient, along with David Patterson, of the A.M. Turing Award. This is “the most prestigious technical award, given for major contributions of lasting importance to computing.” Their work at MIPS Computer Systems in the development of microprocessors that operate at a faster speed while using less energy was certainly transformational in the field. While the technology itself that resulted is ubiquitous—its form appears in almost all smartphones, tablets, and computers today—it is the development process that is of even greater note. John and David pioneered a quantitative approach to design and evaluation that provided repeatable principles for computer architecture. This methodology is now used by generations of engineers and scientists.

By sheer coincidence, March 21 happened to be the day I met John. Stanford University Press had just signed his new book, Leading Matters: Lessons from My Journey, and SUP Director Alan Harvey and I were meeting him for lunch to discuss the book. Before we even sat down, his colleagues at the Faculty Club were congratulating him; we thought it was because he had just been named Chairman of Alphabet (the parent company of Google). He quietly mentioned that it was announced that day that he’d just received the Turing Award for 2018.

The Creator’s Journey

The creative process is about much more than the “aha!” moment.

by MATTHEW A. CRONIN

Public domain via Pixnio.

If there is a part of the creative process that captures people’s imagination, it is the moment of inspiration. Stories of creativity via a sudden spark of inspiration abound; I am sure you, dear reader, can think of some as you are reading this. These stories trace the emergence of some fabulous invention or discovery back to a single fundamental insight—some breakthrough idea that grows out of a serendipitous, revelatory moment that others could not imagine. Not to be a killjoy (for we so love these stories), but it turns out that this fabled “aha!” moment is more reality TV than reality. But on the positive side, there is a better alternative—one that may be more useful if you actually want to take the creator’s journey.

Kepler—a case study in creativity

An example that illustrates the journey, and how it can be overlooked, was astronomer Johannes Kepler’s seventeenth-century “insight” about planetary motion. At the time, the universe was all about circles, which were both perfect and heavenly. Orbital paths were modeled as “circles-within-circles.” Once Kepler had had his say, however, he had literally changed the universe, or at least how people saw it. His insight could be summed up in a single idea: planets moved in elliptical orbits at a varying speed, not in circular orbits at a constant speed. But while Kepler’s journey may have ended at an idea, it did not start there.

The fabled “aha!” moment is more reality TV than reality.

The Promise of Peer Coaching

Helping relationships between peers can lead to significant breakthroughs.

by ILENE C. WASSERMAN and KATHY E. KRAM

Public domain via Pxhere.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts a small educational nonprofit called Breakthrough Greater Boston is changing the academic trajectories for underserved middle school students. The organization, which offers year-round, tuition-free instruction outside of regular school hours recruits college and high school students to teach in the program and act as coaches for the younger students. Breakthrough calls this its “students teaching students” model, and the resulting success of its programs have been phenomenal: the high school graduation rate for its students is 98 percent. Better still, college-bound students at Breakthrough—which has strong partnerships with local universities likes Tufts and MIT—have a college graduation rate of over 95 percent.

Peer Coaching at Work » delivers a hands-on guide to a powerful relational learning technique.

What the success of Breakthrough teaches us is how valuable peer coaching can be. We define peer coaching as a focused relationship between individuals of equal status who support each other’s personal and professional development goals, like the student teachers and their pupils at Breakthrough or that colleague you collaborate with closely at your office. Whether in not-for-profit entities such as Breakthrough, in learning circles to support CEO development, or in health care, business, or government sectors, people are forming collaborative relationships to support their growth both in and outside of the workplace. These helping relationships involve two or more individuals who supportively learn from, actively listen to, and judiciously question each other, which leads to breakthroughs that otherwise may lie dormant and prevent growth and effectiveness. In today’s turbulent, globalized, and complex world, collaborative relationships with peers are an important resource for tackling the challenges we face.

Borders and Barriers

Economically anxious countries are tightening borders and imposing trade barriers but to no avail.

by MANLIO GRAZIANO

Mexico-US border wall at Tijuana, Mexico. Photo by Tomás Castelazo. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikipedia.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was hailed as the beginning of the end of all walls and barriers separating individuals and peoples. Yet as of 2007, just eighteen years later, Europe and its Eurasian margins saw the creation of about 16,600 miles of new political borders, which means that for every mile of one dismantled border (the Berlin Wall), 107 miles of new borders have been built.

Why so? Because the new international disorder, precipitated by the dissolution of the Cold War, has led to more wars, more walls, and a more disunited world. It has also accelerated the shift of power from the old industrialized countries to the “emerging” nations: starting in the 1970s, the countries that used to dominate the world witnessed the rise of an increasing number of new international competitors. The top global companies of the Fortune 500 between 2001 and 2017 reveals the trend: the number of North American and European companies that make the cut have declined, while Asian-based companies (from China in particular) have steadily filled the breach.

For growing sectors of the American population and, more generally, the population of the old industrialized countries, this shift of power translates into uncertainty and fear. This is not necessarily because their living standard has worsened; on the contrary, in terms of per capita product, the United States is the ninth richest country in the world—a distinction it held in 1999 at the pinnacle of the economically robust Clinton years. But compared against its performance in 1999, the United States slightly closed the gap between itself and the other eight richest nations in 2016, when it experienced an increase in its per capita product relative to those countries. What these populations feel, fear, and know, however, is that their living standards cannot improve anymore, and that sooner or later they may very well worsen.

Many of those same countries eager to close their borders and expel foreign-born residents could stand to benefit greatly from immigration.

A Critique of the Critique of Finance

Critics of neoliberal capitalism rarely recognize the productive power of speculation.

by MARTIJN KONINGS

CC0 via Pixabay.

If there is one theme that unites the various critiques of contemporary finance, it is the emphasis on its speculative character. Financial growth is said to be driven not by the logic of efficient markets, but rather by irrational sentiment, “animal spirits” that do not respect fundamental values.

Capital and Time » advances an understanding of economy as a process whereby patterns of order emerge out of the interaction of speculative investments.

Emphasizing the role of volatility in contemporary capitalism (evident at the time of writing, as the stock market is experiencing a downturn) is important as an antidote to notions of market efficiency and equilibrium. But it is a mistake to think that it provides a sufficient basis for effective critique. Predictions regarding the limits or collapse of neoliberal finance have simply not enjoyed a good track record. Over and over, the contemporary financial system has proven capable of sustaining higher levels of speculative activity than anticipated. This has certainly been true of the past decade. Capital and Time: For a New Critique of Neoliberal Reason is my attempt to make sense of this—that is, to understand what might be wrong or missing in the existing heterodox critique of speculation, and to advance a more accurate understanding of the role of uncertainty, risk, and speculation in contemporary capitalism.

At the heart of the critique of speculation we find a distinction between real and fictitious forms of value. Although “essentialist” (or “foundationalist”) modes of explanation have been under fire across the social sciences for several decades now, when it comes to the critique of finance they have had considerable staying-power: without a notion of real value, it often seems, we lose any objective standard against which to assess the speculative gyrations of capitalist markets.

At the heart of the critique of speculation we find a distinction between real and fictitious forms of value.

The Failings of Economic Nationalism

Many fail to grasp how partnerships with Asian manufacturers benefit the United States.

by GARY G. HAMILTON and CHENG-SHU KAO

A Foxconn factory producing the iPhone 7. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

In his inaugural address, Donald Trump painted a moribund picture of American manufacturing, decrying the “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones” across the country. This decline in manufacturing was part of what he termed “American carnage.” While Trump hung much of his presidential campaign on the promise to restore this sector of the economy, he has hardly been the only politician to make such pledges in recent years: Both conservative and progressive politicians and pundits have vowed to restore manufacturing jobs that the United States has lost to outsourcing. These activists, however, miss one fundamental fact: In the last four decades, capitalism in the United States, and indeed, throughout the world, has steadily changed. Today, the sellers and not the makers of consumer products are the firms that now drive the global economy.

Reliance on contract manufacturing has become a characteristic feature of capitalism today.

No longer can we say, “What is good for General Motors is good for America.” Instead, we champion merchandisers (like Apple and Nike), retailers (like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy), and internet giants (like Google and Facebook), none of which make the products that they advertise and sell. Capitalism today is led by demand, that is, by the ability of merchandisers and retailers to use point-of-sales data to reliably calculate consumer demand for the products they sell and, based on that calculation, to order those products from contract manufacturers.

Reliance on contract manufacturing has become a characteristic feature of capitalism today, and contract manufacturing itself has become a highly specialized and advanced sector in the global economy. Even Boeing and Ford no longer make many of the parts that go into their planes and cars. They, too, each in their own way, have become merchandisers and assemblers. So who and where are these contract manufacturers?

Four Fishes, One Whale

How China diverges from the other economically emergent BRICS nations.

by SALVATORE BABONES

The leaders of the BRICS countries. Left to right: President Michel Temer of Brazil, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, President Xi Jinping of China, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikipedia.

In early September, 2017, the leaders of the five BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—met for their ninth annual summit in the old port city of Xiamen. The BRICS began life as the BRICs (minus South Africa), an investment category cooked up by emerging markets analyst Jim O'Neill in 2001. As it evolved into an actual political bloc, China insisted on the inclusion of South Africa to provide geographical balance. Since 2010 the leaders of the BRICs, and since 2012 the BRICS, have met every year to celebrate their economic success and growing power in the world.

BRICS or Bust? » makes the case for the implementation of government policies as a key means for jump-starting the economies of the BRICS countries.

And irony. "Keenly aware of the negative impact of corruption on sustainable development, we support the efforts to enhance BRICS anti-corruption cooperation," the five opined in their closing declaration at Xiamen. But to be fair, BRICS statements on feel-good topics like corruption, environmental protection, and the like are just platitudes, and everyone knows that. The real issue is economic development.

When it comes to economics, corruption is not the only thing that the BRICS have in common. All five are middle-income countries with declining poverty rates but persistently high levels of income inequality. They are all making big investments to modernize their physical and human infrastructure and have the government capacity to follow through on these investments. And each of the BRICS is the dominant economic power in its respective region.

Of course, they differ dramatically in size. China is the whale, South Africa the minnow of the BRICS. China's economy is more than twice as large as those of the other four countries put together. But as in biology, size really isn't that important in economics. Look beneath the surface, and the big difference is structure.

The Economic Puzzle of Japan

Socio-political factors may explain Japan's perplexing stagnation in the global economy.

by KENT E. CALDER

Tokyo, Japan. Photo by Francisco Diez. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

For a century and more Japan was regarded globally as a pacesetter for economic growth. Then, in the 1990s, its economic bubble suddenly collapsed. The country’s growth engine has never really re-started, despite two decades of macro-economic stimulus, a variety of reformist governments, and most recently Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “three arrows” stimulus program. Japan’s protracted stagnation has global implications, both economic and strategic. Most importantly, within the past decade, China has replaced Japan as the largest economy in Asia, and the second largest in the world. Japan’s ability as a US ally to balance China is eroding as a result, and its capacities as a provider of development assistance and global financial stabilizer are waning as well.

For a century and more Japan was regarded globally as a pacesetter for economic growth. Then, in the 1990s, its economic bubble suddenly collapsed.

Japan’s checkered economic course raises at least three puzzles of broader global and theoretical relevance. First, observers continue to debate what precipitated the country’s stunted growth of recent decades; Japan grew rapidly for generations, from the 1880s through the 1980s, and then abruptly stagnated. Second, questions remain around why the country’s response to globalization has produced mixed or less-than-ideal outcomes. It enthusiastically supported global institutions like the United Nations and became one of the world’s largest capital and goods exporters but failed to respond rapidly to sweeping international changes in communications, transport, and educational exchange. And third—to compound the paradox—there were significant cross-sectoral variations in Japan’s globalization response. While some industries excelled in globalized markets, others have struggled—why is this?

Evaluating Activism

Activists would do well to borrow from the tenets of advocacy and policy change evaluation to enhance their efforts.

by ANNETTE L. GARDNER and CLAIRE D. BRINDIS

Images (left to right) from the 2014 New York City Climate March (CC BY-SA 4.0), the 2017 March for Science (CC BY-SA 3.0), and the 2017 Women's March (public domain). 

The 2016 election has embroiled the United States in political upheaval, the likes of which have not been seen in recent times. The politics of inclusion are competing head-on with those of division, and political rancor runs high. Advocacy is now front and center, with much of it being creative and engaging, but not all of it. Considered a critical means for expanding democracy, this broad swath of political actors, whom we call “advocates,” are bringing to bear their influence, using traditional strategies and tactics, such as organizing protests and showing up in force at town hall meetings. However, without thoughtful reflection, advocacy strategies are unlikely to result in the policy mobilization and impact that they intend; those who seek greater social justice will be thwarted in their efforts unless they more fully understand what is effective in mobilizing communities and shaping public and political opinion.

Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation » looks at the concepts, designs, methods, and tools needed to conduct effective advocacy and policy change evaluations.

This is where evaluation comes in. Skilled evaluators have long been at work designing appropriate evaluations to meet diverse needs: increased foundation interest in supporting advocacy and policy change initiatives to achieve systems change; evaluation of democracy-building initiatives worldwide; and diffusion of advocacy capacity beyond the traditional advocacy community. Evaluators have met many of these needs with good success, building a new field of evaluation practice, adapting and creating evaluation concepts and methods, and shaping advocate, funder, and evaluator thinking on advocacy and policy change in all its diverse manifestations. We predict the field will only continue to grow and evolve, and those aiming to effect political change, whether at the grassroots, or institutionally, would do well to borrow from the tenets of advocacy and policy change evaluation to guide and enhance their efforts.

Those seeking to bring about policy change need to be prepared to evaluate a broad range of advocacy strategies and tactics to be effective.

The Sway of Economists in Public Policy

How have economic experts come to wield so much influence in policy making?

by JOHAN CHRISTENSEN

Public domain via Pixabay.

During the Brexit campaign, the British politician Michael Gove famously stated, “I think people in this country have had enough of experts […] saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.” The Trump administration’s indifference to the scientific consensus on climate change and promotion of “alternative facts” is only a more extreme expression of what has become a hallmark of the current wave of populist politics: a profound rejection of experts and facts. Indeed, the populist movements raging in the U.S. and Europe can be understood as a reaction against the power of experts in contemporary policy making—whether the targets are the “technocrats in Brussels,” the scientists in the Environmental Protection Agency, or more vaguely, the élites who make policy decisions.

Since the 1980s, economists have had an outsize influence on the design of public policies in many Western countries.

Some of the fiercest of these attacks have been directed at economists and their political sway. Since the 1980s, economists have had an outsize influence on the design of public policies in many Western countries, pushing neoliberal reforms that have increased the reliance on the market and often produced widening income gaps. The deregulation of financial markets and the privatization of parts of the public sector are only a few examples.

The power of economists in politics takes many forms—from the influence of international economic expert institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, to the role of advisory bodies, such as the Council of Economic Advisers in the U.S. But scholars also point to the symbolic power of economics: Having economic expertise is seen as a guarantee for sound and responsible policies. Every time Italy is in deep financial trouble and needs to reassure investors, who do they call on to lead the government? An economist.

The Downfalls of Data

Our future successes will rely less on data and more on decisive action.

by JULIAN BIRKINSHAW and JONAS RIDDERSTRȦLE

 

We live in the information age—a period in human history in which data is the gospel and information is touted as the preeminent source of competitive advantage—for individuals and companies alike. In today’s business landscape many observers say the power to harness information is the key to future success. The McKinsey Global Institute has called big data the “next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity,” while technophiles like Google’s Ray Kurzweil say the basis of advantage in the years ahead is simple: more data, more information, more knowledge.

But, where some see a world of accelerating change, we see the seeds of creative destruction taking hold. To be clear, technological innovation is a big part of our future, and harnessing information will continue to be an important part of every firm’s strategy—but we believe the case for big data and advanced analytics is overstated. Information overload at the individual level leads to distractedness and poor decision-making. At a corporate level, we end up with a bias toward rational, scientific evidence at the expense of intuition or gut feel. These pathologies have a deleterious effect, lessening the quality and speed of decision-making. What’s more, as data becomes ever more ubiquitous and search costs trend to zero, the capacity of information to provide any leading edge declines.

To be clear, technological innovation is a big part of our future, and harnessing information will continue to be an important part of every firm’s strategy—but we believe the case for big data and advanced analytics is overstated.

Millennials Just Want to Have Fun

Why the tenets of improv are key to thriving in today’s changing workplace.

by BOB KULHAN

Only two decades ago, most executives wore business suits to work almost every day. Then, as dot-com companies flourished, powerful corporate giants like Bill Gates tossed the tie and showed up to work in a dress shirt, blazer, and dress slacks. Now, in 2017, billionaire titans of industry casually wear hooded sweatshirts, T-shirts, and occasionally (gasp!) flip-flops to the office.

Many of America’s future business leaders desire a casual work culture, in which fun features as a fundamental part of the nine-to-five.

The evolution of workplace attire exists in concert with the ascension of millennials, who insist on a new type of corporate environment, different than their parents’ workplaces. Many of America’s future business leaders desire a casual work culture, in which fun features as a fundamental part of the nine-to-five, and corporate America is responding! Glance through any of the many lineups for “the best places to work”: Facebook, Twitter, SAS, and Google, (to name a few) are all successful, powerful, multibillion-dollar organizations, and they also each boast the reputation of being “fun” while thriving. The message: you can have fun and still be incredibly productive.

As work environments continue to evolve, one elementary truth holds constant: As long as there has been an aging workforce, there has been a need to find, engage, cultivate, and retain great, young talent. There has also been a struggle to bridge the communication gap between generations in meaningful ways—which can prove to be a significant hurdle.

Beyond the Polls

Some saw the 2016 election as an upset but many indicators hinted at a Republican win.

by RAY C. FAIR

CC BY-SA 2.0 via Go Fish Digital and Flickr.

The 2016 presidential election was not a good year for pollsters. Most anticipated a strong Clinton win in both the popular and the Electoral College vote, precipitating a lot of subsequent discussion about why polls performed so poorly in this election. There are a number of possible reasons. First, polling needs random samples of people who will vote, and this may be getting harder to do. Second, in this election people may have been reluctant to give their true views. Third, people's views may simply have been unstable over time. Whatever the case, polls did not do that well.

The 2016 presidential election was not a good year for pollsters.

An alternative approach to predicting presidential elections is to look at the fundamental forces driving people's voting behavior. This is the approach I take in my election work. The approach does not take polling data into account. It does not ask people how they are going to vote, but tries to explain what motivates them to vote the way they do.

Using econometric methods and data extending back to 1916, I have found four conditions that affect votes for president. The first is whether the president is running again. If so, this has a positive effect on votes for the president. The second is how long a party has controlled the White House. Voters like change; when a party has been in power for two or more consecutive terms, this has a negative effect on votes for that party's candidate. The third is the slight but persistent bias in favor of the Republican Party.

The Libertarian Alternative

This unconventional election year underscores the merit of the third-party option.

by NIKOLAI G. WENZEL

A "Don't Tread On Me" flag at a rally in 2010. Photo by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

 

With the advent of two unpopular front-runners and the rise of third-party candidate Gary Johnson, libertarianism has factored more prominently in this presidential election than in any other cycle in recent memory. Given the nature of voters’ pronounced concerns over the economy and the credibility and efficiency of the federal government, this is not surprising. Libertarianism is not just an alternative to two unpalatable mainstream parties. Instead of tinkering with details, libertarianism squarely addresses the shortcomings of politics as usual, while also offering an opportunity to reflect on first principles and the proper role of government.

Indeed, libertarianism is not (just) about being left alone, and in the context of the 2016 election cycle it is not (just) an alternative to a tired insider or an erratic outsider.

Indeed, libertarianism is not (just) about being left alone, and in the context of the 2016 election cycle it is not (just) an alternative to a tired insider or an erratic outsider. Rather, libertarianism offers a principled approach to political life. At its core lies the “non-aggression principle,” which rejects the initiation of force against others. Based on this principle, government is limited to the protection of individual rights, and leaves the rest to markets and civil society. If the government attempts to do anything beyond protecting rights, it will—by definition—violate the rights of some to benefit others.