Evaluating Your Readiness for the Future of Now — SEGA L’éveilleur®

The impact of technology cannot be over emphasized in the evolution of organization as the business landscape and market complexity mirror the kinetic state of human knowledge.

From the individual perspective the global job market no longer prioritizes the traditional 9–5 work model as bureaucratic cultures are forced to innovate either based on current realities with better approaches or the response to global threats (global pandemic, unfair global trade, migration, volatility of global capital markets etc) and as such forcing the adoption working from individual private spaces at anytime.

It is becoming common for people to work from anywhere now unlike the restriction to corporate offices. From the predominant use of company equipment to the adoption of private devices to get the job done. Focus is no longer on inputs but outputs and the corporate ladder is fast becoming anachronistic as workers create their own ladder.

The days of pre-defined work are numbered as work is predominantly being customized to suit the desires of burgeoning markets. The corporate structure that values the hoarding of information are dying to structures that freely shares information. Workers now have a voice as potential leaders unlike the vertical collectivism ridden model of the past.

Emails, focused knowledge and corporate learning and teaching are becoming obsolete as modern workspaces rely on collaboration technologies, as focused on adaptive cum democratized learning and teaching. Firms are no longer valued based on the magnificence of their headquarter positioned in central locations and occupied by large teams. Today’s brands are globally distributed and their ideas, brand differentiation and solutions are driven by small teams.

Siloed workforce have been carnibalized by connected workforce. Companies focusing on the needs of the market are easily overrun by those catering to desires. Modern firms are readily adaptable since innovation is not centralized and operation is not restricted to any location/premise but run its systems in the Cloud.

Tradition hierarchy has been replaced with Holacratic structures that facilitate lateral growth. Employees of modern firms are most often assigned to work on special ideas or projects given the time and freedom to develop the project as an entrepreneur would (Intrapreneural model).

Due to the need for fast and effective decision making, more women are often found in senior management roles for the importance placed in their natural intuition, multitasking capabilities and uncanny story telling abilities. Unlike the days where profit margins are the focus at the expense of growing adoption, modern firms focus on the utility of their innovation/solution while securing the prosperity of their brand differentiation.

In the most populated black nation (Nigeria), with an estimated population of over 200 million, of which 80% are youth (18–35) and an urbanization rate of 52.3% and growing, one can imagine the complexity and characteristic of the market.

Africa with 43.4% urbanization, faces Youth Bulge as a global reality just as it is with 79 million millennials in the U.S, as against 48million Generation Xers. The purchasing power of millennials is estimated to be $170billion per year, while making up 50% of the U.S. workforce by 2030. Globally 3 in 10 millennials are self employed and forms majority of innovators and early adopters of mobile technologies.

Due to the dynamics of the market, business models and strategies are changing and schools have been reduced to producing literates only prepared to be teachable in order to effective as qualifications are determined not only by education, but also by experience and personal qualities. Resumes are no longer strictly relied on to understand how prepared candidates are to learn new things, how enthused they are about the industry and vision of the firm, and how committed they are to excellence.

So if you are to strategically reposition your organization for enhanced and sustainable service delivery, would you do a better job with the above information or would you reinforce the old models that require endless management meetings that continuously remind employees of their lack of purposeful living?

Self Actualization remains the ultimate pursuit of every individual (see Abraham Harold Maslow’s inverted pyramid — Hierarchy of Needs) as we mostly seek to be part of something greater than us for the fear of missing out. It is all about the team work. Without a professional team, it is impossible to implement and promote even the best and most promising idea.

The desire for high paying jobs with no sense of purpose has been proven to make fulfillment forlorn and most would rather prefer being in a challenging connected workforce that brings out the best in them towards impacting and influencing the culture of a global community.

I dare ask, are you ready for the future we call today?