Learning how to be successful in the future

Had a really interesting conversation yesterday with an ex-colleague about how to be successful in the future - what is it going to take? He had recently read Daniel Pink's book 'A Whole New Mind' and shared with me how it is starting to change the way his company thinks.

Daniel Pink's vision of the 3 most powerful key influencers in the next 10 years are:

1. Consumer abundance - too much choice
2. Asia - work (manufacturing and service based industry) will continue to migrate to Asia and this will increase dramatically in the next 3 years
3. Automation - machines and computers do it so much better than humans

So humans need to decrease their logical ways of being and develop a more of the “conceptual” side of themselves. And this is the cultural challenge that my friend is leading within his company - driving the team's six critical competencies required for the conceptual age.

1. Design - functionality is now a given and the design will be key to win consumers emotionally
   
2. Story - creating stories that engage with consumers - not just a series of product benefits
3. Symphony - adding invention and big picture thinking (not just detail focus)
4. Empathy - engaging emotion
   
5. Play - incorporating fun and lightheartedness into the work place as the products/services
   
6. Meaning - understanding your contribution to the success of the team; the value that the company's products and services deliver for its customers

Will be interesting to meet-up with him again in 6 months time and see how he has progressed. In the meantime I have my spring read sorted.