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A guide for individuals and organizations navigating the complex and ambiguous Future of Work


Foreword by New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas L. Friedman


Technology is changing work as we know it. Cultural norms are undergoing tectonic shifts. A global pandemic proves that we are inextricably connected whether we choose to be or not. So much change, so quickly, is disorienting. It's undermining our sense of identity and challenging our ability to adapt. But where so many see these changes as threatening, Heather McGowan and Chris Shipley see the opportunity to open the flood gates of human potential-if we can change the way we think about work and leadership. They have dedicated the last 5 years to understanding how technical, business, and cultural shifts affecting the workplace have brought us to this crossroads, The result is a powerful and practical guide to the future of work for leaders and employees. The future can be better, but only if we let go of our attachment to our traditional (and disappearing) ideas about careers, and what a "good job" looks like.


Blending wisdom from interviews with hundreds of executives, The Adaptation Advantage explains the profound changes happening in the world of work and posits the solution: new ways to think about careers that detach our sense of pride and personal identity from our job title, and connect it to our sense of purpose. Activating purpose, the authors suggest, will inherently motivate learning, engagement, empowerment, and lead to new forms of pride and identity throughout the workforce. Only when we let go of our rigid career identities can we embrace and appreciate the joys of learning and adapting to new realities-and help our organizations do the same.


Of course, making this transition is hard. It requires leaders who can attract and motivate cognitively diverse teams fueled by a strong sense of purpose in an environment of psychological safety-despite fierce competition and external pressures. Adapting to the future of work has always called for strong leadership. Now, as a pandemic disrupts so many aspects of work, adapting is a leadership imperative. The Adaptation Advantage is an essential guide to help leaders meet that challenge.

The Adaptation Advantage - Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work

Foreword xiv





Introduction xix





Breaking with Identity to Seize the Adaptation Advantage xix





So What's Changing? xx





How Did We Get Here? xxi





How Big is the Challenge? xxii





The Adaptability Gap xxv





Amid Rapid Change, Keep Calm and Adapt On xxvi





So What's in This Book? xviii





Who is This Book For? xxix





Notes xxx





Part I: Adapting at the Speed of Change 1





1 The World is Fast: Technology is Changing Everything and Planting Opportunity Everywhere 3





Wait a Second 3





Technological Climate Change 5





Environmental Climate Change 8





Climate Change of the Market 10





The Force of Three Amplifying and Interlocking Climate Changes 12





Notes 15





2 The Only Things Moving Faster Than Technology are Cultural and Social Norms 17





Shifting Ground Beneath Our Feet 17





From Linear and Local to Exponential and Global 19





Race 20





Religion 22





Age 23





Family 25





Gender Identity 25





Truth and Trust 26





Consent and Power Shifts 28





Death of Distance Reshapes Human Relationships 30





So, Who are You? Occupational Identity and Expertise 30





Notes 32





3 You're Already Adapting and Not Even Noticing 35





We've Already Begun to Outsource Our Memory 35





People Aren't Horses 37





Atomization, Automation, and Augmentation 38





Atomization in Action 39





Automation in Action 39





Augmentation in Action 41





Putting Atomization, Automation, and Augmentation Together 41





Notes 46





4 Getting Comfortable with Adaptation: The Slowest Rate of Change is Happening Now 47





The Power of Pause 47





From Scalable Efficiency to Scalable Learning 48





From Stocks to Flows of Knowledge 53





From Learning to Work to Working to Learn Continuously 54





Identifying Patterns to Build Bridges 56





Notes 60





Part II: Letting Go and Learning Fast to Thrive 63





5 What Do You Do for a Living? The Question That Traps Us in the Past 65





The Questions That Limit Our Identity 65





The Identity Trap 71





How Identity is Formed 71





Narratives Can Trap Us in the Past and Limit Our Future 73





Gender, Narratives, and Identity 73





The Confidence Gap 74





Identity is Never Done 77





An Occupational Identity Crisis Isn't Limited to Job Loss 78





Notes 80





6 Finding the Courage to Let Go of Occupational Identity 83





What Does the Parable of the Three Stonecutters Have to Do with You? 83





The Day 1 Mindset: You are a Prototype; Start with Why 85





How Job Loss Can Be a Gain 89





Modeling Vulnerability: We Share Our Hard Lessons 91





What Do You Do Now? 95





Notes 95





7 Learning Fast: Why an Agile Learning Mindset is Essential 97





Learn Fast-What Does That Even Mean? 97





What Do We Mean by Learning? First-, Second-, and Third-Generation Learning Organizations 98





The S-Curve of Learning: Explore, Experiment, Execute, Expand 99





The Curse of Expertise: The Challenge of Unlearning 102





The Iceberg: The Substance Beneath the Surface 102





Identity: The Core of the Adaptive Mind 103





The Agile Learning Mindset 104





The Enablers: Uniquely Human Skills 108





Why We Need the Agile Mindset: The Broken Education-to-Work Pipeline 111





ABL: Always Be Learning 114





Notes 114





8 Rise of the Humans: Developing Your Creativity, Empathy, and Other Uniquely Human Capabilities 117





Play is the Way Forward 117





The Uniqueness of the Human Drive to Learn and Create 119





The Predictive Markets Declare Future Skills Favor Humans 122





Understanding Uniquely Human Skills 127





Chasing STEM at Our Peril 128





The Skills Battleground: Humans Need Apply 132





The Return on Being Human 133





Return on Humans for All Jobs: The Special Power of Empathy 134





Evolving Beyond Shareholder Value: The Purpose of a Company 135





To Maximize Human Potential, Place the Human in the Center 137





Notes 139





Part III: Leading People and Organizations in the Evolution of Work 143





9 Leading in Continuous Change: Modeling Vulnerability, Learning from Failure, and Providing the Psychological Safety that Builds Trusting Teams 145





You are at the Wheel 146





Leadership, Power, Cookies, and Chickens 146





What Makes a Modern Leader? 153





Transformational Leadership 167





Transformational Leadership and Change Management Models 168





Leading with Fear: The Burning Platform 170





Putting It All Together 173





Notes 173





10 The Adaptive Organization: Creating the Capacity to Change at the Speed of Technology, Market, and Social Evolution 175





What Should We Measure? 175





The Power of the Culture and Capacity Focus 177





Culture at the Core 177





Capacity: Culture's Partner 184





Capability and Context: The Scissors Metaphor 186





In Accelerated Change, Focus on the Inputs Rather Than the Outputs 187





Becoming a Learning Company 190





Notes 193





11 Capability is King: Looking Beyond the Resume to Design Your Adaptive Team 195





No More Little Boxes 195





The Job Description is History 197





Job Descriptions Become Traps 198





Fire Your Job Description 200





Hire for Cultural Alignment 205





Hire Adults and Let Them Do Their Jobs 208





Turn the Right People into Great Teams 209





Embrace Cognitive Diversity 212





Get Comfortable with Failure 214





Live in a State of Continuous Learning 215





Manage a Multigenerational Workforce 216





How Do We Get from Here to There? 217





The New Leadership Imperative 218





Notes 219





12 Getting Ready to Seize Your Adaptation Advantage 221





Notes 223





Additional Resources 225





Books 225





Videos 226





Acknowledgments 227





About the Authors 229





Index 231