Accelerating To The Fourth
Mapping COVID-19’s Impact on the Nature Of Work and the 4th Industrial Revolution
Humans have always been a curious creative species, never shying away from finding new ways of doing things. Since the early 1800s, whenever mankind discovered or invented technology that significantly changed how things are made at Industrial scale, it was called an Industrial Revolution.
The First Industrial Revolution is associated with the Steam Engine and other important inventions created in the 1760s. These innovations created the first giant strides in mechanisation of production and agriculture and lasted until 1830s. The Second Industrial Revolution sparked from the mid-1800s was created when electricity, gas and oils were used to greatly improve the time and speed of production through the use of Internal combustible engine (ICE) technology. In that time, automobiles and other ICE-based technologies brought humans closer. The interconnection of people, towns, cities, states and nations led to trade booms.
The Third Industrial Revolution came on the back of breakthroughs in electronics and computing, singlehandedly transforming the DNA of work. Man could now process and store geometrically higher levels of data at increasingly lower sizes and costs. Every revolution represented a leap forward in how we lived and created, each time opening up new vistas of opportunities for even more invention, innovation and growth.
Enter the Internet and The Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Internet revolutionised how we got things done and ultimately, became the harbinger of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or 4IR. 4IR refers to the massive leap in technology such as 6G bandwidth with speeds reported to be up to 1 terabyte per second (max 5G speed is 20gigabyte per second) , Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented and Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Machine Learning (ML) — to name a few, and the benefits they bring at scale. The key feature of 4IR technology is that, at a large scale, they can replicate the look, feel and effectiveness of some elements of human intelligence in the execution of certain tasks. Whilst this definition is useful, it is incomplete. 4IR is symbolic of something more profound — how we create and interact as we work. In the 4IR, work is decentralised, data-driven and disaggregated from reality — requiring less human interaction.
5 New COVID-19 Trends at Work — Prologue to the 4IR
The first trend COVID-19 created was Remote Work. Though the capacity for this had always been there for a lot of desk jobs, culture never allowed it — until the pandemic left little alternatives to working. Remote working forced people to work in independent more digitally connected teams to the point Zoom became a household name.
Customer Orientation is another important trend. Customer alignment acquired over several build-measure-learn cycles is oxygen for any successful product or service. Mission-focused organisations create, led heavily by customer feedback. With smaller teams and shorter work cycles (or sprints), learning, validating, transforming and adapting work is much profitable because you get closer to what makes life easier for customers i.e. more accurate. Jeff Bezos and his team at Amazon were lightyears ahead of the curve with their obsession with the customer. Little surprise Amazon’s share price has gone up from US$18 to about US$3,000 today.
Third is that Command and Control management style is on its deathbed as smaller more agile units of remote, interdependent and mission-aligned teams become the new norm, working to achieve mission-focused results quicker and with less bureaucracy. Smaller teams require less instruction, less control, operating with frightening efficiency and effectiveness when laser-focused on the right goals. The keys: Mission-focus, Autonomy, Skill and Culture. Mission because they are committed to the same strong sense of Why. Autonomy because workers need to be able to make judgement calls on their own. Skill because customers are paying for experts not learners. Culture because it is the currency that buys stickiness to the mission.
Migration is another trend. With less C&C, fewer of us are physically working together and more virtually. Many businesses are noticing significant savings on rent, travel and other expenses. Many organisations have now opted to take their work permanently remote. In a recent survey, 4.5% or 416,000 Londoners said they were definitely moving out of the city within the next 12 months. Put together, managers are relying less on control and more on a strong sense of Mission, Objectives and Key Results built on a culture of trust, transparency and cadence to ensure teams remain accountable, productive and are contributing to the mission.
Finally a shift in focus to Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is another important trend in the Post-COVID workplace. Where C&C emphasized Management By Objectives, OKRs emphasize Management through setting objectives, listing and chasing key results, holding continuous feedback sessions and recognising successes and challenges in reaching those goals. This is the kind of style that saw Google grow to one of the largest companies in the world in under a decade. Introduced to Google by John Doerr, the founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, gave their people a clear sense of why, an ambitious definition of what to build and allowed them express their creativity (their how) — including a freedom to fail forward — which was essential to Google’s eventual success.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Future of Work
There are a number of use cases of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other 4IR tech. For instance, Dating and Credit scoring apps, Autonomous Vehicles and even in medical sciences — all now use a degree of AI or another. In some quarters, many believe AI, ML and Supercomputers will significantly change the composition of the workforce — rendering some jobs irrelevant. Whilst it is debatable exactly which professions will be impacted, it is generally accepted that AI, ML and Supercomputing are irreversible 21st Century trends. In fact, in a 2020 study on AI, MITconcluded that;
Instead, we believe that — like all previous (labour-saving) technologies — AI will enable new industries to emerge, creating more new jobs than are lost to the technology. But we see a significant need for governments and other parts of society to help smooth this transition, especially for the individuals whose old jobs are disrupted and who cannot easily find new ones.
Interpretation: there will be casualties, but the benefits exceed the costs. Governments, Businesses and workers must plan for the transition because the revolution will not be delayed. That plan must include putting in place effective (but not destructive) regulation, workforce reskilling and upskilling and critically, reengineering the Education system.
Some Challenges with 4IR Technologies
The 4IR is not without some challenges. The first is 4IR technologies such as AI and ML do not possess a sense of judgement and dynamism in thought, ethics and innovation. Secondly, 4IR technology are still one-dimensional and limited in intelligence to the field and specific roles, they have been designed for — such as autonomous driving, credit scoring or recommending options. The AI behind Amazon’s product-suggestion algorithms wouldn’t know the product choice I should make given my current level of income or credit score. However, with more data fed into its model, the better the quality of its suggestion. The other challenge with the 4IR is it is creating a growing gap between the haves and have-nots. Many developing nations don’t have an effective data-management philosophy or strategy let alone data-harvesting capabilities to capitalise on 4IR. In the data race, you must first realise you are in a race before you check you have the necessary equipment to compete.
According to the World Economic Forum, 90% of the 4IR patents are from just 10 countries. Developing countries on the other hand, still need to address basic survival challenges such as security, healthcare, education and ease of doing Business. This will preserve the parallel development trajectory between Developed and Third-world nations. Finally, Security. 2020 saw a jump in records exposed to data breaches. Cyberwarfare is also an increasingly familiar trends as recent events with Iran, China, Russia and the US have shown. The gains of the 4IR cannot be realised without an effective cybersecurity framework at Corporate and National levels.
Teflon Jobs?
In his very fascinating piece, 10 Jobs that are safe in an AI world, AI Expert and CEO of Sinovation Ventures — Kai-fu Lee lists 10 careers that could experience smaller disruption from the 4IR. Jobs in Psychiatry, Therapy, Medical Care, AI-related fields (duh), fiction writing, Teaching, Criminal Defence Law — among others are relatively safe from the new trend. This is a general oversimplification, but it is important not to look at the 4IR with fear and dread but with a sense of premonition — that we know where the future will come from allowing us position and prepare.
May The Fourth Be With You
When the world abruptly hit the breaks in the early months of 2020, it made us more comfortable with work fluidity and data-driven quantum technology. COVID-19 accelerated our arrival to the Forth Industrial Revolution in only a few months. These quantum 4IR technologies are disrupting not just the way we work, but how we live. Workers, Businesses and Governments need to position and prepare because those who succesfully use it will accelerate their transformation even faster. Those who ignore it will become uncompetitive and therefore poorer.
A whole new and exciting world beckons and the only appropriate response is to embrace it. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here.
About the Author
Sam is a Transformation and Change Management expert and leads the Transformation team at SSAC Advisory & Professionals. He is also a Chartered Accountant and advises Banking, VC, Big Energy, Technology, Identity Management and Public sector clients across Europe, UK and Africa. He also leads the team at ikOOba — the SSAC Technology Unit. He is a public speaker and regularly runs workshops and seminars on Tech, Transformation, Change Management, Corporate and Product Strategy. Sam spends his time between Lagos and London
