Jobs in the New Economy
Consider the traditional hierarchical organization.
It's represented in a tall fashion; direction flows from the top-down through delegation; there are many subordinates who receive delegated orders.
Over the past two decades, the trend has been to flatten tall organizations like these by eliminating middle management layers, and by automating and "empowering" workforces so that line level employees could work with limited direction.
Thus organizations become leaner and more efficient, faster.
But what about the future? How does the organization of the new economy look like? What will jobs in the 21st century look like? Companies in the future will consist of small cores of people.
The "core" consists of one, two, maybe three people.
It could be somebody good at sales and winning customer confidence; it could be another person who's great at finances and accounting; it could be yet another person extremely familiar with a manufacturing process, or, just an idea-guy.
Unlike our previous two models (tall and flat), however, the virtual organization exists in a state of equals.
There's no delegation - decisions are made by consensus.
Each of these parties exist in the virtual company as equals, one neither greater than the other.
The core drives the company, makes all decisions, engages in contracts, and will eventually dissolve the company once it's usefulness has expired.
The core may never physically meet each other, may never have an office, or may never purchase a plant: it exists purely at the convenience of its members.
These organizations don't take on additional hierarchy because that would mean long-term commitments to labor.
Instead, virtual organizations hire "layers" to the core which exist temporarily to add value or services.
Each contracted, outsourced service provides the core with cost center functions at a capped, predictable cost that can be started and ended at will, or, exist only for a small amount of time.
In this model, the core gets all the milk without owning the cow, and when their needs are met, the services and value may end without long-term obligation.
Work becomes organic.
There is a significant process of competition here that drives personalities and talent between the cores of new organizations.
Inefficient or ineffective leaders, executives, mentors - what have you - are discontinued by natural selection as companies are rapidly born, thrive, and die.
Multiple companies may exist only as a means to perpetuate a brand or create a viral response in a marketplace, only to pass along their intellectual property at the end of their useful function.
Meanwhile, services between companies are shared and symbiotic.
They represent consolidated, centralized, efficient services that seek the greatest automation to increase the speed, accuracy, and reliability while containing labor expenses, becoming extraordinarily efficient and producing increasingly-higher value through economies of scale and low cost.
Competitively, these support services are also locked in a fierce battle for survival.
Competitors in this ecosystem can't be complacent and wait for technology to produce higher economies of scale for their competitors.
Instead, they must constantly be innovating, finding new ways to add value to their relationships.
Labor must constantly be reduced.
Time must constantly be reduced.
Complexity must constantly be reduced.
In the new economy, a tiny group of capitalized, brilliant, talented, entrepreneur-individuals will core and then rapidly create, sustain, and destroy companies.
In the new economy, a vast majority will work for support services catering to the needs of these cores to add layers of services.
Fiercely competitive, what jobs that'll be offered by these layers will be temporary contract positions, and every year, these services will learn to operate more leanly and to shed the cost of labor.
Labor is constantly at risk in this ecosystem so long as they haven't the ideas, capital, skill, or spirit to create their own cores.
That transformation - just one individual that at once leaves the preoccupation of employment - will be the measure of growth and betterment in the macro-economy.
Those fortunate few will become the engines of all private growth and private wealth, where other become the background services attending to their needs.
R
It's represented in a tall fashion; direction flows from the top-down through delegation; there are many subordinates who receive delegated orders.
Over the past two decades, the trend has been to flatten tall organizations like these by eliminating middle management layers, and by automating and "empowering" workforces so that line level employees could work with limited direction.
Thus organizations become leaner and more efficient, faster.
But what about the future? How does the organization of the new economy look like? What will jobs in the 21st century look like? Companies in the future will consist of small cores of people.
The "core" consists of one, two, maybe three people.
It could be somebody good at sales and winning customer confidence; it could be another person who's great at finances and accounting; it could be yet another person extremely familiar with a manufacturing process, or, just an idea-guy.
Unlike our previous two models (tall and flat), however, the virtual organization exists in a state of equals.
There's no delegation - decisions are made by consensus.
Each of these parties exist in the virtual company as equals, one neither greater than the other.
The core drives the company, makes all decisions, engages in contracts, and will eventually dissolve the company once it's usefulness has expired.
The core may never physically meet each other, may never have an office, or may never purchase a plant: it exists purely at the convenience of its members.
These organizations don't take on additional hierarchy because that would mean long-term commitments to labor.
Instead, virtual organizations hire "layers" to the core which exist temporarily to add value or services.
Each contracted, outsourced service provides the core with cost center functions at a capped, predictable cost that can be started and ended at will, or, exist only for a small amount of time.
In this model, the core gets all the milk without owning the cow, and when their needs are met, the services and value may end without long-term obligation.
Work becomes organic.
There is a significant process of competition here that drives personalities and talent between the cores of new organizations.
Inefficient or ineffective leaders, executives, mentors - what have you - are discontinued by natural selection as companies are rapidly born, thrive, and die.
Multiple companies may exist only as a means to perpetuate a brand or create a viral response in a marketplace, only to pass along their intellectual property at the end of their useful function.
Meanwhile, services between companies are shared and symbiotic.
They represent consolidated, centralized, efficient services that seek the greatest automation to increase the speed, accuracy, and reliability while containing labor expenses, becoming extraordinarily efficient and producing increasingly-higher value through economies of scale and low cost.
Competitively, these support services are also locked in a fierce battle for survival.
Competitors in this ecosystem can't be complacent and wait for technology to produce higher economies of scale for their competitors.
Instead, they must constantly be innovating, finding new ways to add value to their relationships.
Labor must constantly be reduced.
Time must constantly be reduced.
Complexity must constantly be reduced.
In the new economy, a tiny group of capitalized, brilliant, talented, entrepreneur-individuals will core and then rapidly create, sustain, and destroy companies.
In the new economy, a vast majority will work for support services catering to the needs of these cores to add layers of services.
Fiercely competitive, what jobs that'll be offered by these layers will be temporary contract positions, and every year, these services will learn to operate more leanly and to shed the cost of labor.
Labor is constantly at risk in this ecosystem so long as they haven't the ideas, capital, skill, or spirit to create their own cores.
That transformation - just one individual that at once leaves the preoccupation of employment - will be the measure of growth and betterment in the macro-economy.
Those fortunate few will become the engines of all private growth and private wealth, where other become the background services attending to their needs.
R
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