Jeff Schwartz - Work Disrupted

The fundamental question Work Disrupted raises, is what lens are we choosing as we look ahead? Are we viewing the future as an extension of a predictable past, or are we viewing the future as a broad set of new opportunities that will reflect whatever we think is possible? In other words, are we viewing the future through a fixed or growth mindset? Are we doing more of the same, only faster and cheaper (fixed), or are we creating and innovating? If I were asking this question in 1910 or 1920, I might be asking if you plan to work for the railroad or for the upstart automotive companies.

In these pages I share some of what I've experienced and reflected upon, acting as a twenty-first-century Sherpa, as we navigate the accelerating future of work—or the beginning of what I think of as the Human Era. The era has been labeled the Anthropocene, the current geological age, viewed as a period in which human activity has been the leading influence on our climate and our environment. One of the debates coming to the fore that economists have been having for many decades is the interplay of technological innovation and creative destruction. Increasingly, when I look at the history of economic growth, I see that it has been in the process of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creative disruption that we've actually pushed forward what it means to be human, and to create meaning and impact.

I wrote this book to share my view that the future of work, a source of fear for so many, is actually about the opportunities, the resilience, and the growth that we can leverage to do things differently, to establish new priorities and new patterns, and to create a new order in our own lives, and in our communities. Work disrupted is in no way about things stopping. It reflects the continual movement and evolution of how we work. Disruption is hard. It challenges us to change how we frame and prepare for the future, reminding us that a preferred future requires new mindsets—an openness to new ways of working.

The intersection of the future of work and what we're now experiencing as the Covid-19 era represents a fault line in our lives, a uniquely instructive moment. We're invited to reimagine how we work, our educational institutions, and how we build our careers, our companies, and our communities. Adopting new mindsets and building new capabilities may be one of the critical challenges of our time. My hope as you read this book is that you gain a better sense of the opportunities that await you, the resilience that will serve you, and the growth paths that you can pursue in your own life to create, innovate, and thrive.

Jeff Schwartz

New York

August, 2020

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back .

—Paulo Coelho, novelist 1

When the coronavirus pandemic took root in the United States, we entered a time machine to the future. 2 Practically overnight, people in industries that had restricted telecommuting found themselves crawling out of bed and dialing into Zoom conference calls from their couch. For many teachers, bankers, lawyers, even NASA aerospace engineers, the coronavirus crisis was a trial run for remote work. 3 With most of the country under orders to shelter in place, many business leaders pivoted on a dime to reimagine products, reassign workers, reshape supply chains, and reconfigure operations to join the heated race to save lives. Near the top of the critical list of needs was the demand for ventilators, potentially hundreds of thousands of ventilators. In an unprecedented move, Ford and General Motors shut down car production and went into the ventilator production business. 4

Overhauling production and ramping up that production beyond anything your company has ever done before are feats of magic that business leaders have known they would be expected to perform in the future world of work. When Anne-Marie Slaughter, the chief executive of New America, said the coronavirus exposed “an opportunity to make the changes we knew we were going to have to make eventually,” and also “deep fissures and failures in our culture,” she captured both the sense of inevitability and vulnerability that many business leaders were experiencing. 5 They knew the future world of work would require boosting efficiency, proceeding at warp speed, seeking talent and expertise outside the walls of their organization, and a heavy dose of resourcefulness. However, they did not realize the future would arrive wholesale and so soon. After all, in survey after survey, business leaders consistently reported they did not feel ready for the future of work. 6

Enter the coronavirus pandemic, an abrupt fast-forward to the future of work. Changes expected to take decades, occurred within weeks. Slaughter, a former director of policy planning for the U.S. Department of State, declared that with the pandemic “the future of work is here.” 7 Indeed, the coronavirus has illustrated both the extreme challenges and inspiring possibilities ushered in by a future that swept in sooner than expected.

Around the country, business leaders were among the first to act during the pandemic. Why the need for so many ventilators? The coronavirus often kills through the lungs as patients develop Covid-19 pneumonia. 8 Ventilators help the sickest patients stay alive by providing extra oxygen to keep their lungs pumping once they fill with fluid. General Motors scrambled to train workers and locate the 700 parts needed to create a prototype ventilator, sourced from about 80 global suppliers. 9 Leaders at the car manufacturer were well-suited to the challenge: Assembling a 700-part ventilator sounds daunting but cars are typically assembled from about 2,500 parts. Auto makers have already demonstrated their ability to mass produce technical equipment quickly. However, the usual pace of production had to spring into overdrive. What normally might take months had to be done in weeks. They had to produce more, faster than ever before. At stake were the lives of acute Covid-19 patients.

Many companies relinquished business-as-usual approaches to tackle a variety of coronavirus-related shortages, including not only vital medical equipment but personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitizer. In New York City, many doctors and nurses improvised, using trash bags to replace medical scrubs and protective gowns. The Gap Inc., parent company of Banana Republic and Old Navy, shifted its factories to create protective cloth masks, gowns, and scrubs. Fanatics, an online seller of Major League Baseball gear, also started producing masks and gowns. 10 Meanwhile, Pernod Ricard, the alcohol brand, donated pure alcohol for hand sanitizer. French luxury powerhouse LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, and other high-end brands, also entered the hand-sanitizer business, using its perfume and make-up factories to produce hydroalcoholic gels. 11

To keep their doors open and their employees on the payroll, many companies changed direction, navigated red tape, and devised innovative approaches. The ability to pivot rather than panic allowed some people to apply their capabilities in new ways. 12 Small mom-and-pop shops like Essations, started by Stephanie Luster's parents almost 40 years ago, could not stay in the business of shipping hair products to salons. When salons shut their doors, after city after city ordered businesses to close and social distancing rules to take effect, Luster had an idea. She would sell directly to customers who were sheltering but still wanted their hair to look styled for Zoom video calls for work. What if the stylists created home-hair-care videos that featured Essations hair products and then posted them on Facebook? At the end of the tutorial, the stylist could provide a code customers could use to get a discount on the Essations website. Essations would know from the code which stylist had sent the customer, and the stylist could get a cut of the sale. Many stylists liked the idea and made videos featuring Essations' products, allowing online product sales to increase by 20 percent. 13