Patricia Mukhim
This paper published a letter from a young person who expresses his angst about the shrinking career space and the need for career guidance for young people at the school and college level. This prompted me to read up and feel what the world is really thinking vis-à-vis careers in a world where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking away jobs from humans. There are experienced writers like Daniel Priestly who believe that the world today demands that we be adept at not just one career but that we have to train ourselves to juggle careers because redundancy is so rapid. Employers today want results. They want outcomes. If you don’t deliver; if there are no outcomes you are out on a limb. This is when one has tio change one’s entire mind space. I have changed jobs three times over and have managed to do so because of a personal interest to grow by learning new trades. It’s only in the Government sector where people enter into a career and leave on retirement without much growth along the way. The job is just that – a job that brings the salary. Government employees, by and large are hardly bothered about the impact that their job has on the public. And since there are no measurable yardsticks to assess impacts, Government employees continue to enjoy their salaries irrespective of whether they actually make a difference to anyone. But this culture will soon end as stakeholders in governance – namely the public demand better services and value for money. Besides, the world has changed and the Government’s way of doing business too has to change.
Indeed change is the buzzword today. Everything is changing at a frenetic pace, but have we changed with the times? Merely using a smart phone does not make anyone smart. This is a world of ideas – the knowledge economy as they say – and there are angel investors ready to invest in innovative ideas. This requires thinking and experimenting but I dare say our education system has hardly geared us for innovative thinking. We have imbibed the herd mentality. We generally think it’s wrong to disagree; to contest ideas; to critique a statement. If we were a thinking, analytical society we would not elect men and women who ride on the bandwagon of populism and rhetoric. We are a society where the blind lead the blind and anyone who differs from the populist viewpoint is called “leh stad,” (know it all). Ideas are not respected. And the young learn early that is it better to conform than to confront and contest.
But this is a brave new world. In his book, “Become a Key Person of Influence,” Daniel Priestly says, “There is a huge shift from employment to entrepreneurship. The best and most innovative thoughts five years ago have today become baggage. The thought leaders that we followed are now passé. The world of five years ago no longer exists.” This change can be frightening but it demands that we gear ourselves for it because if we don’t we will be left behind and become redundant. Constant learning and updating is the name of the game. Business models have to be constantly shifted and reconfigured. What’s frightening is the state of flux in the global economy. Countries that offered great opportunities for wealth creation a decade ago are now in a state of recession while poorer countries are becoming the engines of growth. US President Donald Trump was elected simply because he promised to turn the economy around. Now nearly two years down the line he has barely succeeded to make good his promises because turning round the US economy means contending with the new economic growth of countries like China and India.
Add to this global economic distress the climate change impact and we have a perfect recipe for disaster. The series of tornadoes and earthquakes that are hitting one country after the other are not unpredictable. They are graphic examples of Climate Change. Writing in The Guardian about the global financial crisis, Larry Elliot says Climate Change will make the next global crash the worst. And even as countries are gearing up to deal with these catastrophes the next one hits them and they slip even lower in terms of their ability to cope with the crises.
And in all of this, the notion of work has also changed. There is no security of tenure anymore. Employers are outsourcing most of the work because they don’t want to be burdened by labour laws and striking employees. In my time and my children’s time a career was what we could choose. Now the career chooses the best in the business. That’s why profiles are so important. When we attend a meeting and look at the list of speakers or the so-called “influencers,” and have not heard their names before we quickly Google them and the information we need is right there. Our perception of the person goes up or down depending on how Google profiles that person. And usually Google does best when it is able to read what we write. Hence writing and publishing are important for building our profiles. Alas! We live in a society where very few actually share their opinions on the range of issues confronting us. Quite a few have their pet themes and write only when they feel the urge to. Recently when noted author Jerry Pinto delivered the Convocation Address at Martin Luther Christian University, he mentioned something very important. He said he never leaves the house until he was written at least 1000 words. Writing is as important, if not more important than speaking. With writing you leave a mark; a trail that people can follow. With speaking you are only addressing a select audience.
Our education system unfortunately does not lay stress on creative writing. Most people learn that from workshops when they are well past the formative age and are already out of college. I know of many young people who have made writing their livelihoods and also earned their spurs in the international circles. So is writing a career in the sense that we understand it? Writing is a passion that can also earn you your bread; and if you hit pay dirt you could well live off your writing for a long time, until you produce another bestseller!
It’s important for educational institutions to discuss this issue with kids because most of them are clueless about what subjects to take up in order to arrive at a “career.” Now we have many more professional courses than we had in the past. Who would imagine that the fashion industry would be a money spinner, but it is today. And we have quite a few young men and women from our own state who never really studied this trade but instinctively learnt it. They are doing well for themselves and are even known in international circuits. You can Google them and they are there with all of their accomplishments. In this day and age if Google has not found you then you are not important enough and have not branded yourself well enough. And since a career is no longer a simple process where you enter into a profession after having gone through the written test followed by a viva voce, it’s important for job seekers too to reinvent themselves. Employers are looking at more ingenious ways of identifying bright sparks that can light up their companies.
The game has changed irrevocably and if we don’t change then the loss is ours. In fact social media is such a great opportunity to share and discuss ideas rather than to thunder, or shriek or rave, rant and condemn people and call them ‘betrayers’ of a national cause. There are some who would actually murder people with words. Indeed, if words were daggers, most of us who express ourselves liberally would be dead at the hands of trolls. So much for the wrong use of the internet and the smart phone, when it could be used for trading ideas with those who could pick up those ideas and pay you for it!
Each of us need to discover ourselves and our Big Game. Daniel Priestly says, “My big game is to lead people out of the Industrialized Workforce and into the Entrepreneur Revolution so they can earn money doing what they love and be free to make a difference as well.” What a great thought! Our young people need to get out of the stifling atmosphere of the classroom and explore the world outside it. It’s my gut feeling that classrooms too will soon become things of the past and I don’t wish to be proven wrong because classrooms are not where ideas are born. They are born in the minds of those who constantly challenge themselves.