How to source, hire, engage and develop leaders for the hyper-digital future, we all know is coming. It will be big, we need to be ready, and we must start by becoming “futurenauts.”
The talking heads, the podcasters, the business press and even the popular press is commenting on how different the future of work is going to be with robotics and AI and its AGI derivatives.
We calm ourselves by opining that computers will never be able to do all the things the Human brain can do. We agree with that belief. Our view is a little different in that we believe AI and AGI will be able to do most of the things the brain does better.
AI and robots don’t get tired, sick, need affirmations to feel good about themselves. Don’t complain and don’t strike. Don’t need time off or take vacations. They seldom ask for increased pay. Never litigate. Don’t mind showing up for work. Don’t get Covid.
They do what they are programmed to do with less error and more speed.
A Collective Future Vision
The collective vision of that future goes from not much will really change to it will impact almost all roles and jobs. Like the DVR and the Smartphone, only much bigger.
Talent Management and HR are the only functions that really have to think about the leaders of any future. In future back planning, you must prepare leaders for a different future differently. And it takes 20 years to do it from an internship to starting a material leadership role (top 2% of jobs). Leadership preparation must start now for the ambiguous and uncertain then.
Nice surprise! So far, it doesn’t change much for leadership development and succession planning. Why? Because today’s High Potential is pretty much the same as the requirements for future leaders in the heavily digital revolution. Today’s High Protential will be the same but in different domains and specialties. So far, tomorrow’s SuperWorkers are today’s High Potentials and Protentials.
What’s New: Future Characteristics
There are some added characteristics. Obviously digital agility will be required. AI assistants and working aside robots are just a part of it. KSA acquisition will be accelerated. Knowledge will be readily available (not all will go through the effort to obtain it). Skill enhancement and skill addition and reskilling and upskilling will all be easier and readily available to all (not all will go through the effort to take advantage of it). Another additional requirement will be personality agility because people networkswill be less stable, there will be a lot of gig work and work will be broken downintotasksmore than now. Dealing with new people will be more frequent. Change will become even more normal. Collaboration will be an imperative. Forming instant productive working relationships with a more diverse set of co-workers will be the norm.
The vision and predictions all agree it will take less people (employee headcount) to do more. Robotics, AI and its derivatives will do more of the work. The total employee headcount will have more High Potentials and Protentials by percent of total.
The talking heads all agree that the gap between the informed and uninformed, the agile learners and those stuck in the past, the early adopters and the resisters will increase. Many will be left behind. Motivated and curious learning agile SuperWorkers will gain the most.
Strategic advantage will be harder to achieve. Everyone will (can) have all the available decision-making data. Moats will be less deep and have less crocodiles. Finding strategic edges will be a more important task.
Leadership development and training and development will become universally more available. Those who are disciplined learners will gain a gigantic advantage. Just like remote working and remote education via zoom.
So What? The Importance of Potential and Protential
So, High Potentials and Protentials are the same people with the same current skills and mindsets using their learning agility and achievement orientation to learn faster. Skilling will be spread across the whole career journey. The half-life of past acquired skills will decrease. More like a series of Skillettes.
Careers will be more zigzag. Gig work will increase. Organizations will need more short-term task specific SuperWorkers to get great things done faster.
Business as Usual
Keep on keeping on. Find and develop High Potentials (the sprinters) and Protentials (the marathoners). Add Digital Agility, Personality Agility (EQ Skills) and Systems Theory for both screening and development.
Also look for Sci-Fi fans as an additional resume item. We (Sci-Fi fans) have seen this movie before. Robbie the Robot in Forbidden Planet. The AI assistant built into the Enterprise used mostly by Spock loaded with all the knowledge of the universe. Mr. Data, the humanoid robot. Dr. Know in AI. The revenge of the robots eliminating the irritating people. We have seen the future in which we will be called upon to lead. We have read the book, seen the movie and followed the possible scenarios. We know to beware the Borg. We know how NeuroLink works.
We know the best practices. We have the tools. Just need to execute. We can help.
