Are You Prepared for the Inevitable Loss of Your Job?

“Companies now have to be on a war footing. They need to learn about technology advances and see themselves as a technology startup in Silicon Valley would: as a juicy target for disruption. They have to realize that the threat may arise in any industry, with any new technology. Companies need all hands on board — with all divisions working together employing bold new thinking to find ways to reinvent themselves and defend themselves from the onslaught of new competition.”

That’s a quote from an article posted on LinkedIn June 21, 2017, by Vivek Wadhwa, Distinguished Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering. Silicon Valley. The italicized bolding is mine.  It brings to mind names like Borders, Blockbuster and Kodak, companies who failed to see the disruption coming and failed to reinvent.

Hmmmm! What about you and me?

Should we, as mere human pawns on the corporate chessboard, also be on a “war footing?” Are we a “target for disruption?” Do we really need to be serious about this ubiquitous buzzword “reinvention?”

Well, yeah!!

Have you seriously assessed where you are professionally relative to the accelerating rate of change?

Have you looked over your shoulder to determine how close the “6 Ds of Exponentials” – digitization, deception, disruption, demonetization, dematerialization, and democratization – are to what you do to buy groceries?

Those “6 Ds” are the work of Peter Diamandis, MD, engineer, entrepreneur, futurist. They are the stages that companies and products go through when experiencing disruption. If the “6 Ds” are new to you, this short Diamandis YouTube will acquaint you with them.

Is your company or industry susceptible?  If so, at which “D” stage is it?

I never saw it coming!

It’s an increasingly common lament as technology roars through numerous industries and through many historically stable professions. Lawyers, accountants/tax preparers, stock brokers/investment advisors, office workers, manufacturing workers, taxi drivers are but just a few that have found themselves heavily impacted.

The Babson School of Business has predicted that, in ten years, 40% of the Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist, disrupted by technologies that haven’t been invented yet.

That’s pretty freaking scary!

Don’t get beached.

Jay Samit, disruption expert and author of a best-selling book entitled “Disrupt You” makes this statement for a Forbes article posted on LinkedIn

“You will have your career disrupted. So you have to either proactively turn the impending change into something more enjoyable and fulfilling, or you sit in fear of the inevitable day when the hatchet comes your way and then not know what to do. People who prosper find the spark inside them to change their lives and turn potential catastrophes into career triumphs.”
“Sadly, people have given up hope for positive change. They work just enough to get a paycheck because the system has driven out individuality. They work enough not to get fired, but not enough to actually care. Self-preservation is the first rule. They duck and cover, hoping someone else gets cut.”

Maybe not the smartest thing to do.

He encourages individuals to avoid derailing a promising future by being alert and taking control of their destiny before disruption broadsides them. In the article, you will find four suggestions he has for preparing for disruption to your career.

I’d like to add three suggestions of my own:

1. Resurrect, expand and cultivate your professional network. This will help equip you with critical contacts should the hammer fall. But, equally importantly, this can be a very productive way to get marketplace feedback on potential disruptive changes in your current industry as well as insights into opportunities less susceptible to disruption. If you are north of 45, this is a vital activity, because, in addition to disruption, you are now entering into ageism territory.
2. Be aggressive in your self-development and stay current with technology. In other words, enter a new phase of learning. If the last time you were in a classroom was in college or the last book you read was around the time of Apollo 13, it’s time to adopt a new attitude toward learning lest you be left behind.   As you intensify your network cultivation, listen for who’s-doing-what to upgrade their skills.  Before you rush to an MBA or other advanced degree and a new $50K debt addition, carefully assess the opportunity cost and marginal return of such a move.  There are many lower-cost, less time intensive alternatives to a full-blown advanced degree – MOOCs such as Udemy, Coursera, Kahn Academy, local junior colleges –  that offer courses that can bring you the skills boost you need to stay up with, or ahead of, the disruption curve. And read, read, read.
3. Consider a side-hustle.  Building something on the side while gainfully employed is growing in popularity.  This new interest in entrepreneurship is being driven by the growing realization that being employed by a company is one of the least stable places to be today. With disruption, mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing looming in the background, many are doing their own thing to (1) satisfy an inner entrepreneurial drive and/or (2) as a safeguard against the fuzziness of the corporate landscape.  While there is certainly some risk (some employers have a low tolerance for what they perceive to be diluted employee commitment), the risk is minimal relative to the opportunity to take advantage of the greater access to, and lower cost, of technology that can enable a lucrative business over the long-term.

It’s interesting to note that more new businesses are being started by folks over 50 than those started by the 20-40 age group.

So the choices seem to be pretty clear.  Stay stuck, naïve and uninformed, get blind-sided and forced into a less-than-optimal, reactive position or be proactive and take charge of your career with a cautionary, forward-looking perspective.

We’d love to hear from you.  If your career has been interrupted by technology what have you done to adjust?  Do you see it coming in your industry?  What are you doing to do stay ahead of the technology curve?  We are looking for success stories for our podcast series that will be coming later in 2018.  Scroll down and leave your story or contact me at gary@makeagingwork.com.

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