There is a movement
coming. Professions are dead. Well, not technically because we all still
have to work to earn money to live.
However, we are slowly seeing its demise with our ever-evolving mindset.
I remembered in primary school, they
asked us what we want to be when we grew up every year. You want to be a doctor? You want to be an engineer? You want to be an economist? Wait, how does a kid know what an economist
is? Does the kid even know an economist
does?
According to an article on
the BBC titled “The next generation of jobs won’t be made up of professions”,
we got a look into the mind of Jean-Philippe Michel, a career coach based in
Toronto, Canada. What’s interesting
about Mr. Michel is that he does not believe in the concept of growing into a
profession. Instead, he asks his
students what they want to do in the future.
No, you don’t “do a doctor” or “do a singer”, you want to advance human
health or you want to out-sing Mariah Carey on “Insert Cheesy Name for Musical
Reality Competition Here” respectively.
You may find this foreign
concept odd but it is hard to argue against it.
Speaking from experience, my best subject was Math. Does that mean I was going to be a
mathematician? Staring at Xs’ and Ys’
all day wondering what they are up above the chalkboard so high? There are a host of other jobs that involve
Math. Hell, you may even make the case
that every job uses numbers.
The reason for this change
in mindset for Jean-Philippe is because he wanted to create a new culture. In his words, he said “They need to shift
from thinking about jobs and careers to think about challenges and
problems.” That is the purpose at the
end of the day, right? We do what we do
to counter challenges and problems. We
want to get to the other side of the river, let’s build a bridge. I’m sick, let’s invent a medicine to cure
me. I smell bad, let’s buy soap. My neighbor won’t shut up at 2 a.m., let’s
call the cops on him.
If we were to shift to
such a brand new way of thinking, it will lead to an economy full of micro
jobs. In some ways, this allows
individuals to branch out but still be single-minded. That sounds confusing, I know. Here’s an example. Let’s say an individual specializes in “Predicting
the future”. That individual can work in
the stock and commodities market, the weather channel and Fox Sports. And from “Predicting the future”, they will
learn new skills like math modeling, meteorology and sports science. It’s like a lovechild of a jock and a nerd.
The traditional roles of
professions are gone. People can talk
about what they actually do instead of just “I’m an account executive.” But what does an account executive do?! Sure, this will upset the big companies who
will see their employees dwindle down as more people become freelancers or
internal freelancers. But honestly, this
benefits shoppers more than they know it.
I was at a restaurant
yesterday that took more time to bill me than serve me my food. I would think a business would be eager to
make money off of me but no, they served my food in less time than an episode
of How I Met Your Mother but it took them the length of a Game of Thrones
episode to get me to pay.
And do you know why? This restaurant hired employees to work as
waiters, cashiers and cleaners. And as a
result, there’s no specialty. They have
to constantly multitask and that results in a lack of focus on the job-at-hand. And without clear responsibility of the
task-at-hand, which was delivering my bill, nobody knew what they had to do.
Specialization helps
consumers as much as the individual employee.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get something done without the hassle of other
stuff? “I’m just here for my fish. Don’t try to sneak in a pitch for an octopus
because I don’t eat octopus!” Consumers’
demands and wants will be easily resolved and clarified by employees focusing
on solving the problems and challenges rather than purposefully confuse
customers and paint broad strokes.
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