IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO NOT GROW UP

This glimpse of the future was crafted by: Trevor Sharrock

YouTube video link, ‘Just Imagine asks kids: “Who will you be
when you grow up?”’

Let’s face it ‒ most 15-year-olds don’t have a
five-year plan. Even Bill Gates didn’t aim for ‘Harvard dropout’ on his résumé. The pressure of
establishing a career comes all too early and demands our asking, is it
even a good question at all? Given that we are multifaceted and
protean in design, should we even aspire to forging one career path?

Jaime Casap, the Chief Education Evangelist at Google,
says: “Don’t ask kids what they want to be when they grow up but what
problems do they want to solve. This changes the conversation from who do I
want to work for, to what do I need to learn to be able to do that.”

We need to flip the age-old conversation on its head
and speak to character more than career. The Herculean ‘job title’ is dying.
It’s now about the type of person we want to bring into our workplaces. The age
of the time-honoured and tendered executives is behind us. Today’s
organisational cultures are looking for that certain ‘spark’ as much as they
are skill. The ones who take the future may just be those foolish enough to
believe they can be a dentist and a dancer in a day.

Gone are the days of ‘for better or for worse’ between
employee and employer. Today, one in four workers has been with their current
employer for less than a year, and one in two for less than five years. And
going forward, a Jobvite study has found that 42% of millennials expect
to change jobs at least every 1-3 years. The corporate ladder has lost its
lacquer; people are pursuing a windier path that is project-based and not
locale or company-based.

Today people are on the move, choosing to freelance,
work part-time, consult, or come in as a third party. Flexibility and
agility are kingpin attributes in a corporate world that has to move at
lightning pace; knowledge needs to span specialties and even industries.

The millennial workforce has an insatiable appetite to
learn and try new things ‒ even if they fail while doing it. With purpose
motivating stronger than paycheck, the prospect of employer monogamy can
be the great enemy, if the atmosphere of opportunity is stale. We have to make
sure our organisations are offering multiple pathways to keep growing our
people. ‘Up’ is not the only direction anymore. Millennials are looking to go sideways ‒ and even down
‒ if it will benefit their professional and personal portfolio.

Simon Sinek believes
that somewhere between Gen X and today, the tectonic plates of
corporate reality have shifted. Previously the benchmark was job loyalty,
stability, financial security. The narrative is now “How do I make an impact?”
and even “How do I save the planet?”

The previous generations of 20 years didn’t have this
view. But then, inter-generational affluence has seen each generation
progressively give their kids better. Through each generation, kids get better
educated, go on better holidays, and have better experiences.

Access to better education and having generally better
amenities in life means that they want for less, but also that this ‘better
life’ becomes the new norm for them. When they turn their mind upwards as to
‘what they want to do’, their starting point is higher and hence their
aspiration generally goes higher. 20 years ago, life was about achieving a good
stable pay check, but now it’s about bigger things like saving the whales or
the planet.

What will the new norm in another 20 years be as
societal inter-generational affluence continues to grow and each generation of
kids experiences a better quality of life? Starting from an even higher
benchmark, what will the future generations aspire toward – and how will
employers start to build that into their work structures and employment offers?

The digital evolution is creating some deep rabbit
holes of opportunities. If we’re honest, we don’t know where we’ll come out on
the other side. No longer can we afford to make it just about the job; we need
to be looking for people who know how to stay one step ahead of whatever that
job may be.

When hiring, we need to be asking questions
like: What motivates you? What are your passions? What legacy are you
going after, both personally and professionally? What would you be proud to tell
your parents or your kids about? Finding the right problem is the meat
and potatoes of innovation, and we need to cultivate a culture that attracts
the divergent thinkers. The companies that will run ahead are those who know
how to apply today’s skills while drawing out tomorrow’s skills not yet
imagined.

Casap reminds us to shoot higher as we reinvent our
organisations. The right question is ‘how do we want to change the world?’
rather than ‘what do you want to do for a living?’ Suddenly, “the conversation
changes from ‘which rung on the ladder do I want to reach’, to ‘should I even
climb a ladder when a combination of escalator, water slide and a ramp might
get the outcomes that matter to me?’” Our work can be far more generative if we
become more authentic through the process.

Maybe it’s time to re-pose the question to our
6-year-old selves, who (not what) do I want to be in the future? It’s
never too late to not grow up.

(The kids featured on our video are Aurecon employees’
kids with incredible imaginations and a determination to explore the
wonders of the world where there are no limits and anything is possible.
They epitomise the courage to ‘Just Imagine’.)