Name: The Adaptation Advantage
Rating: 4.4 (258 reviews)
Author: Heather E. McGowan and Chris Shipley

What’s in it for me? Learn how to embrace adaptability in the workplace.

Listen.

That was the sound of one second. And what happened while you were listening?

Well, among other things, Visa processed 1,700 transactions; Amazon robots packed 17 packages; Twitter users posted 9,000 tweets; and people searched 76,000 things on Google. Oh, and 2.8 million emails were sent as well.

It’s hard to imagine the sheer scale of it all.

Stuff is changing fast these days. And if all this happens in a single second, imagine what happens in a day, a week, a year.

One of the many consequences of “things happening” is that the world of work is evolving at a pace that will make your head spin. You know this already – the media’s constantly declaring that robots are taking over our workspaces and coming after our jobs.

And it looks like we have a pretty good reason to be afraid – before too long, we’ll be out of work, sitting at home with nothing to do . . .

But, according to Heather McGowan and Chris Shipley, authors of The Adaptation Advantage, perhaps the opposite is true. Instead of believing we’re in competition with tech, we can use technology to our advantage, benefitting from the additional time that tech saves us in order to continue evolving. And this is our big advantage: our capacity to adapt.

Things are changing fast at the moment – and you’re already adapting.

Not to freak you out or anything, but if you think things are changing fast now . . . just you wait!

The rate of change is increasing exponentially. Which means that right now is actually the slowest rate of change you’ll ever experience.

Here’s just one example of the huge-scale changes that are underway.

When you think of the biggest populations on Earth, you probably think of China and India. But what about social media populations?

There are 2.2 billion Facebook users, compared to China’s 1.34 billion people. And 1.9 billion YouTubers, compared to 1.23 billion Indians.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger also beat India when it comes to population size. And these are communities that have sprung up over just a few decades.

And there are other changes too. Demographically, huge shifts are taking place in the Western world in terms of race, religion, gender identity, aging populations. While attitudes towards issues like racism and sexual harassment have changed almost overnight. So it’s hard to imagine where exactly we’ll be in a decade’s time.

And when it comes to changes in the workplace, there’s, of course, the impact of technology, but that’s been going on for a while now. Computers have been changing the workplace for decades. So have smart digital assistants – like PalmPilot which launched wayback in 1996.

And there’s a good reason for this change: machines are genuinely better than humans at routine and well-defined tasks. That is just a fact.

But this doesn’t mean we’re about to lose our jobs to robots, in fact, we might say the opposite is true. Think about all the ways that technology already helps you in your work. Most of us use phones or laptops daily, we stay connected with people all over the world. You might use platforms like Upwork or Fiverr to outsource work, platforms that help you break down big tasks into smaller, more manageable units – also known as the atomization of work.

Meanwhile, tech is also behind the automation of many work processes, from batch-sending emails to automatically updating calendars. We use tech in some cases to enhance human capabilities, a concept called augmentation. Just think of surgical robots helping doctors in ER – or of GPS systems allowing drivers to navigate their city quickly.

So, yes – tech is rapidly changing the workplace. But we are accommodating it. And it’s helping us. Thanks to these three A’s - atomization, automation and augmentation - tech is far from stealing our jobs, it’s actually giving us back precious moments which we can re-invest in ourselves; from learning new skills to re-prioritizing romantic relationships.

An adaptive organization is one that puts culture and capacity first.

We’re going to end by asking the question, what makes a successful organization? One traditional view is that organizations exist purely to serve their shareholders – that’s the view famously put forward by Milton Friedman in 1970. Friedman’s belief was incredibly influential for many years. But these days? Not so much.

Key ideas in The Adaptation Advantage

About the Author

Heather E. McGowan is a speaker and strategist specializing in the future of work. She’s helped employees and leaders of Fortune 500 companies prepare for and adapt to jobs that don’t yet exist.Chris Shipley is a journalist and technology analyst with more than 30 years of experience. She has consulted hundreds of companies on business modeling and innovation practices.