Tag: career

The Most Important Skill of The Future

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Our world is changing rapidly. Everything is in a state of flux. What works well today may be ineffective tomorrow. The skill we need to survive an uncertain future is the ability to change gears.

  • Just think through the daily challenges we face in an omni-connected digital society. We must juggle between our online persona and our real world meat space personality and values
  • Navigate the impact of technology in the field we work and how this influences our future income streams
  • Adapt to new interpretations of language to more closely reflect a fluid society
  • Guess at how to interact with social media’s opaque algorithms for desired outcomes on digital tools
  • Relearn how to use constantly updating software
  • Continually re-establish ourselves on digital platforms to protect our brand reputation and connection to followers
  • Decipher organisational hierarchies and working norms reshaped by emergent generations
  • Figure out work-arounds in a volatile global environment with increasing costs of capital and supply chain risk

This list could be a 100 lines long. The one takeaway is that we can’t get too comfortable with the status quo. We need to embrace uncertainty and become accustomed to a state of flux.

The best way to prepare is to develop daily habits that are change-centric. We need to deliberately do things differently, so that it becomes second nature. This is less about technology and more about ourselves as people. By changing our approach, we cope better with rapidly changing technology. This is particularly important when we’ve been successful in business or work, because success hates change.

We all had to do this as a part of the COVID pandemic. Now it’s important that we don’t fall back into the habits of yesterday as work normalises. Personally, my TV show The Rebound would never have happened if COVID didn’t force my hand. Beyond that, there’s many things I do in my career that just don’t work as well as they used to. My Twitter account is a classic example. Engagement in that channel is now very low – change happened. Occasionally, I didn’t adapt as quickly as I should have.

Hack your future – change gears often

Hack your own mind to improve at changing gears by using different approaches to work and life. Treat different situations differently – adapt your style and messages in different forums. It forces an internal shift and helps you cope better with changes that are outside of your control. Kind of like CrossFit for the mind.

Here are examples of how I change gears:

My books and blog: Mostly about technology and its impact on business and the economy, my writing is where I flex my knowledge on the future, emerging technology and geopolitics. These are more intellectual forums for potential clients who want to scrutinise my work and be comfortable in the depth of my knowledge before they hire me in some capacity.

Media: In this forum (News, TV, radio), the gear I’m in is technology translator of the future. I want to show how I can explain the complex in simple terms. I also want the market to know I’m the go-to guy on anything tech and the future. I use the media to build confidence and brand awareness.

Keynote speaking: As the veteran of 500 keynotes in 14 countries, I often tell people that when you’re a keynote speaker, every day is a job interview. You don’t have the luxury of a bad day. In my experience of making speeches, the entertainment factor is more important than knowledge. How engaging you are is what gets you the next gig. However, unless you’re perceived to be an ‘expert’, you’ll never get that first gig. I focus on involving the audience, not talking at them. So it’s a gear that constantly oscillates between expertise and entertainment. In keynote speeches, I need to turn boring tech into something that electrifies a live audience.

Boardrooms: In this forum, my game is full-on economics. It’s about the impact technology has on future business strategies. My gear here is to use a strong financial dialect. It’s all about market capitalisations, price earnings ratios, revenue streams, cost infrastructure, disruptive technology and industry margins. The audience must immediately understand that I’m more than a technologist – I’m actually an economist by training, who just happens to have a deep understanding of technology.

Projects: My projects are all about getting my startup and innovation hat on – to show that I practise what I preach. I’m not an academic, but instead, a practitioner. I know it, because I’ve done it. My latest project is 3D printing a house with Tom from SlikBuild. Here it is all project managment.

Linkedin: This is where I share the work I’m doing. It’s uncomfortable to self-promote.. I aim to show others I’m doing lots of media, projects and keynote speaking. Here I want the masses to see what I’m doing, and that I’m in demand. My prospects will feel assured they are in good company when they hire me.

TikTok: This is my latest social media foray – and it is quite daunting and awkward. In every other digital forum, I have relatively sizeable followings. On YouTube, my videos have enjoyed over 12 million views. I’ve got 10k+ followers on LinkedIn and Twitter. But on TikTok, I am at total ground zero. I’m a beginner again. Two weeks ago, I started posting every day and even have a bet with my son that I can get to one million views by the end of the year. It’s very unlikely I’ll get there, but it’ll force me to upskill in short form video. Despite only having a measly 200 followers, I have posted two videos on TikTok which gained 10,000 views. TikTok has super high engagement levels, hence my investment in the channel. The gear here is one I rarely use in my work – it’s pure motivation and inspiration. I focus on teaching people life hacks to get more out of their career and money. It’s generally something I’ve avoided until now, but I think I have something to offer in this realm, so I’m putting myself out there to see what happens. Get on my TikTok here – it’s gold, baby!

If you can change, everything can change in your favour

Moving between gears doesn’t mean we throw out the skills we have. Instead, we should change how they are used and interpreted in our market segments. The more gears we regularly employ, the more future-proof we become, ready to respond to anything the market throws at us.

If you challenge yourself, you’d be surprised how many gears you can access in your skill base. By changing pace and thought patterns around your work, you’ll garner more respect in your industry, and make an investment in your future.

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Keep Thinking,

Steve.

Graduate to Greatness

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

To make it to the upper echelon in any field, we need to be able to do one thing:

Graduate from competence to confidence.

The foundation of any career is technical capability. You need to prove you are a competent accountant, lawyer, marketer, electrician, whatever. This is your time in the field and getting some metaphorical dirt under your fingernails. It’s when you convert study and training into action. It’s also when you find out that nothing is more valuable than real world experience. At this point in your career, you ARE the factor of production. It’s a vital stage to becoming a leader in any field – people want to know you’ve had your time on the tools. But you can’t stay there. You have to graduate.

The next phase in your career is all about confidence. In fact, you don’t even have to be the greatest ‘technocrat’ to rise above. It’s all about the belief you have in yourself to be more than someone who manages tasks and projects.

This time, there is no graduation ceremony.

You need to decide when you deserve and want to be more – and it is all about attitude. The ironic thing is the people who give you the chance to lead in your field are looking for the signs that you’ve made this internal decision. They are not looking for technical ability. They are looking for vision and leadership. When it comes to decision makers around you and your career, one simple thing is true: they believe what you believe. If you don’t believe in yourself, they’ll be able smell it.

The reason this matters is that you’ll never be able to know everything in your field.  No one does, no one ever will. There’ll always be someone who knows more, and the next generation coming up will have new technical skills and abilities you won’t. Yes, it’s important to be across what’s new and its impact, but going back to study its implementation is a fool’s errand. Leave that to the newbies. If you go there, you simply drag yourself back into the competence pool. You become an undergraduate again.

Don’t think for a second that Steve Jobs was writing code for the new iPhone, Elon Musk is sketching out blueprints for new car batteries or Jeff Bezos is designing his new in-home drones. They have competent people to do that for them. How many times have you seen people who are great technocrats, the best at getting stuff done, who know more than anyone in their field, but never seem to get to the top? It’s because they didn’t graduate. I used to write code, build new technologies and be very hands on – but now, I get other people to do that for me instead. My job is to think, write and speak about technology and economics. I graduated and it was the best thing I ever did in my career. I didn’t ask for permission. I just did it.

Sometimes you might even need to change places to graduate to confidence. For example, you may be overlooked for promotional opportunities in your current organisation. As soon as you are overlooked – move on. If management doesn’t have confidence in you – leave and leave quick. Go somewhere where you can refresh your self confidence and your personal brand. I’ve seen people who were out of favour in one company, change places and go on to become CEO elsewhere or start a successful business. The world’s a big place.

Next week, I’ll lay out the three competencies that great careers are built on, once you graduate from the operational level.

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Keep thinking,

Steve. 

Perception and Your Career – COVID-19 series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Perception is a powerful thing: What we do, where we live, which school we went to, which company we work for and who our clients are paint a picture of where we belong in people’s minds. Rightly or wrongly, perception is reality. Perception also informs finance.

A thought experiment: You meet someone at a function and ask the obligatory question of what they do for a living. You get the following answers:

  • I work for a large warehousing and logistics firm
  • I work in the energy industry, primarily focused on electricity
  • I work in consumer electronics sales
  • I work for a large taxi services firm
  • I work at a very large information indexing firm.

Some people (not us) nod politely and move onto the next conversation. But of course, the above statements could also read like this:

  • I work at Amazon
  • I work for Tesla
  • I work at Apple
  • I work at Uber
  • I work for Google.

Same job, different description, entirely different perception.

If someone works at a ‘hot’ company, surely they must be smarter, better, more competent. A possibility few people consider is that they might just be lucky to have ‘a seat on a rocket ship’ – simply riding the success of what happened before they got there. Maybe the more competent person is working damn hard and smart in a failing firm with fewer resources and a worse brand perception. Reality is rarely as it seems.

The economics of perception: Perception doesn’t only change minds – it also influences the economic value we assign to something. People, careers and especially corporations. If a firm seems ‘futuristic’ enough, the market can be incredibly irrational. Uber has lost $38 billion since 2013 and yet still has a market valuation of around $60 billion. As I discussed on The World on ABC News, I don’t believe Uber will ever recoup investors’ money and I still stand by this. But the reason Uber is valued so highly has little to do with reality and more to do with perception. In the short run, perception is more profitable than reality.

Now let’s compare Tesla with its closest competitors. The figures below represent the market capitalisation of the biggest car companies in the world, divided by how many cars they sell per year.

– Tesla $ valuation per car sold = $302k
– GM $ valuation per car = $5k
– Ford $ valuation per car sold = $17k
– Toyota $ valuation per car sold = $15k

Even though Tesla makes terrific cars (and has a wider portfolio) – its valuation is seriously inflated. Tesla plans to make 500,000 cars this year, while Toyota will ship around 10 million. Even if Tesla sold 5 million cars (10 times more than it does today), it would then have a valuation of $30,000 per car sold, which is still double that of Toyota. It just doesn’t add up. We must also remember that Tesla’s advantage in electric cars is quickly being eroded. You don’t have to be a maths major to understand that the economics of this will eventually drag their share price down. Likewise, it’s a lesson in the importance of brands, and being seen as technologically competent and future-centric. It’s one of the things our economy values most highly today.

Here’s the kicker – this isn’t just important for companies, it’s vital for you.

The Economic Perception of You: Being seen as future-focused and technologically literate in your career is a bankable asset. In uncertain times, people want to back those who have a handle on the future. It gives them confidence in you and gives you outsized opportunities. Being good at what you do today isn’t enough. People need to believe you’ll be good at whatever they’ll need tomorrow. This is a perception game – a matter of personal brand. How ‘Elon Musk’ are you? Our work lives used be based on qualifications, experience and competence. Increasingly, having a personal brand is becoming a core competence for everyone.

The World Just Got Flatter: Twitter, Facebook and other large technology firms have just announced their staff can work from home ‘forever’. Once we start to work from home, employers can hire staff from anywhere globally. It’ll be harder to build relationships, so having a personal brand will be even more vital. What we know from consumer culture and technology is that the most impressive brands command the highest price, not the most functional ones. This means that the marketing we do for ourselves might even be more important than the marketing do we do for an employer.

Keep thinking,

Steve. 

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P.S – My Post-Covid-Economics briefing is getting rave reviews. I’ve now done with Fortune 50 firms and Governments in the USA, India, China, Singapore & the UK. I have a few corporate slots left for the month of June. Details here.

The problem with corporate climbing

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

A weird fact about corporate career hierarchy climbing is this: the skills you need to get to the top are not the skills you need once you get there. Some leaders are true polymaths who can adapt to the different behaviour needed. But we’ve all experienced managers who make us wonder how the heck they ended up running the show.

So there are two parts to the problem: skills and politics.

The Skills Problem

Think about the work we do at lower levels in most organisations. It’s about managing process and executing with excellence. But as we climb the ladder, it becomes about managing strategy, people and finance. While they feed into each other, you need to prove your executional skills before you get a shot at the strategic tasks. But what happens when people excel at the more capstone strategic tasks but not the rudimentary executional elements? Here’s what happens – they never get a chance to show what they’re made of. It’s why many talented people who just don’t quite fit the corporate mould end up going it alone as freelancers or starting up their own firm. In this instance, Big Co misses out on great talent.

The Political Problem

Another way people climb the hierarchy is via the political process. The people good at managing up tend to advance further than those who don’t, regardless of companies claiming they promote purely on merit. Political performance in many companies outweighs all other factors. But the problem is that once they ascend to the stratosphere of leadership, they need to be very effective at managing down, motivating and empowering the troops to form a strong team. These are two very different sets of skills that are challenging for one person to master.

What’s this got to do with the future and what to do about it

Technological disruption is most often a top-down phenomenon. It’s the leaders of the organisation who choose the strategic direction and allocate capital for their future revenue streams. Getting to the top is a long journey. The winners tend to believe what got them there in the first place is what they need to continue doing.

Board members of established firms looking to survive disruptive change might need to rethink how they staff the C-Suite. Perhaps the dissidents who never made it past middle management or who left disgruntled are just what they need in times of rapid change.

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Be sure to check out and subscribe to Future Sandwich Now-Soon-Later my weekly web series to keep you up to date on the latest tech news to give you sound bites of brilliance for the boardroom!

Reinvent Yourself

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Both entrepreneurship and technology were once fringe activities. Saying you worked for yourself or you were an entrepreneur was often interpreted by the other party as admitting you were unemployed, or even unemployable, the last refuge of the unskilled and unwanted. So too with technology, that weird stuff nerds did late at night in garages with chemistry sets and soldering irons. Now these two activities are reshaping our economy and our futures, whether we pay attention to them or not.

We must all upgrade our skills in these areas if we want to remain relevant and independent in the modern economy. No doubt you’ve got used to having to upgrade your technology devices and software. Every time that message pops up on our screen, we should ask ourselves this;

‘When was the last time I upgraded my own software?

‘When did I last download a new module to make myself more useful and more in demand in the marketplace?’

Upgrading our grey matter is no longer a choice. It’s a kind of ongoing economic hygiene check, in which small regular interventions ensure our long-term economic health. And it’s easy to do if we do it regularly. It’s a game of frequency, not depth. And the really good news? For the the first time in history, it’s not a game of resources. If you have an internet connection you have every resource you need at your disposal.

Maybe you’re scared? Maybe you think you don’t have the ability or potential to cope with our complex world? Well, I have good news about that too….

The most difficult thing a human being can learn is language; when it comes to computational complexity, natural language processing (computers learning human language) is still at the top. Therefore anyone can who is clever enough to learn to speak a language (everyone reading this), is also clever enough to upgrade their skills  and reinvent their career. And just like learning a language, or learning to walk, it’s about just keeping on and keeping on. You’ll see how a little bit often can have a huge impact later. Here we need to remember the law of relatively: everyone can, but most people won’t. Your success will depend on the effort you put in compared with others. So remember 2 things:

(1) You are capable of more than you know.

(2) Most people won’t bother.

Be the person that bothers. Your future it turns out, is mostly up to you.

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* If you want an inspirational and informative keynote on the Future of Work at your next conference  – give me a hoy here – it’s my latest jam.

The weird world of people as brands

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The new year often brings career considerations. How will we position ourselves to take the next step? These days, this involves the nuanced world of personal branding. And while it makes many of us feel squeamish to think of ourselves as a brand, it’s not a new phenomenon.

Before industrialisation, we were what we did. Just quickly scroll through the contacts list on your phone and there’s a chance you’ll see a few of the OG personal brands. Surnames like Smith, Carpenter, Taylor, Baker…  If you think personal branding has gone too far, then don’t forget our brands used to come with us everywhere, and not just appear on our LinkedIn page. Washing powder and electronics aren’t the only brands, people are too, and have been for a very long time.

But then, once we industrialised much of our branding, as economic participants at least, was derived from where we studied and the corporations we worked for. ‘She went to Harvard.’ ‘He worked directly under Henry Ford.’ We built ourselves around the institutions we spent time in. The evidence of who we were and what we were capable of was a function of where we spent time. It was their brands that we had to leverage as we became cogs in their machines. The era of being known for our output got lost, and this was for one simple reason – most of us became part of something much bigger than ourselves. For most of us, there was no longer a table we could imprint our name on, or suit with our name in the jacket pocket. Our work became shared, we only made a slither of the final output – we got lost in the system. As people, we essentially morphed into sub-brands of large corporations. It was then that the great brand reversal started to happen, as mass media infiltrated our homes.

Once upon a time, things were once just things – bread, washing powder, suits, you name it. But in order to build trust, corporations who now made what we used to make, used the branding process to personify what they were selling. In a way, things replaced people as brands. Companies had to make things seem reliable like people, because, who the hell knew who made what? The bread didn’t come from Billy’s bakery – who we knew and trusted – it came from a big factory somewhere.

The tool used to personify the products and build brands during the 20th century was mass media. The factory and the TV were the perfect partners. Big budgets and big scale were both mandatory. Together they combined to make us believe that very average things were worth more than they actually were. Much of the value, credibility and the premium price we paid was a function of the advertising. What we were consuming was ostensibly a parasocial relationship. It was a closed shop for the big and privileged – until now.

For the first time in history, people can now brand themselves at scale. The emergence of fragmented, low-cost and highly distributed media on the web means anyone can play. Anyone can build their brand, and then charge a premium for their services. Just like brand XYZ became known as a premium brand, so can we. The more well-known someone is in their industry, the more they will earn – it’s just a modern inalienable truth. I know it feels like a very uncomfortable transition, especially when the world of personal brands is filled with hucksters, and camouflaged Amway sales people on Instagram trying to sell you milkshake weight loss powders by showing their photoshopped abs. Yes, there’s lots of dodgy players out there, using the new cheap tools and make a quick buck – but isn’t there always?

What we might consider instead, is to build something respected and sustainable based on real work and insight. How do we display, using the tools available, our capability? How do we become more than our formal qualifications and experience by sharing new ideas, projects, industry transitions and connection? How do we share things of value with others and then let the law of reciprocity set in?

In simple terms, we just need to decide what we want to be known for – and take that to the market. For me it’s being the guy who understand technology’s impact on business and society – and helping people navigate the future. I study this stuff all day long, so my customers don’t have to. They can focus on their industry and plug in my skills when required.

But in a busy world, where everyone is the CEO of their own personal media corporation, it’s hard to be heard, where everyone has something to say. It might even mean we need to invest in ourselves, and actually pay to build our personal brands. Yes, advertise ourselves, just like the hero brands of the TV Industrial Complex did back in the day. It’s never been more affordable to take control of our own futures, perceptions and capabilities. If it’s good enough for corporations products, then why not people?

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Thanks for reading this year. Have a great 2019. Steve. 

Our careers as projecteers

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The riskiest career choice of the future will be to have a single job. When we have a job, we not only have 100% of our cashflow linked to a single customer (employer), we see less of the changing world. For the best part of 200 years – craftspeople, artisans and farmers couldn’t compete against the industrialisation of pretty much anything. But we live in the generation, where all this is about to change. The best careers will become those of projecteers.

While no one really knows the exact technical skills we will need in the future, we do know that the world will be a very different place 10, 20 and 50 years from now. It might even be that for the first time in history we can’t specifically tell our children – that qualification XYZ, will hold them in good stead. The one thing that they, and we, will need for sure, is the ability to reinvent ourselves repeatedly through our working lives. This means that human based skills like emotional intelligence, anti-fragility, and adaptability will become increasingly important.

If we think about work, we have historically tied ourselves to titles. Often, the first question we get asked at a social gathering is what we do for a living. We psychologically link ourselves to that ‘thing’ we do to make money – and in some ways this makes it difficult for us to change direction. If traditionally we have built our economic identities like stone houses with very deep foundations, going forward it will make more sense to build economic identities like tents, that we can fold, pick up and move elsewhere. Even though we don’t know exactly where we will have to move, we know shifting constantly will be inevitable.

Then – Why has this person moved around so much? Are they unstable or incompetent?

Now – Why has this person been in the one place so long? Are they scared or incompetent?

By taking the ‘tent‘ approach, every move creates a new knowledge set. A new set of experiences created by the new environment itself. We’ll see new things and develop new ways to ‘set up the tent’. The mobility, invents the skill set. As a projecteer this is exactly what I do. Economically I change places almost everyday… it’s a weird and wonderful mix of different, yet related experiences. A keynote speech here, a c-suite strategy session there, a media interview the day after, startup mentoring and investing, a new book next year, and a hacker project or two on the side. Yet, I still maintain the single minded proposition of what I do: Experiment with emerging technology in business.

The breadth and variety of work we’ll do in the future, will be the thing that makes us more valuable to those who seek our services. The skill corporations, governments and communities will need in the future is flexibility of mind – not process efficiency.

If we’ve ever viewed our life as a movie we star in – then we all need to start thinking a lot more like big movie stars. People who will be in far more than a single blockbuster – but a large number of movies, some on the big screen, and some indy side projects. We’ll play a variety of different roles, in different movies, but each set we walk onto, we’ll bring with us what we learned on the previous gig.

If you liked this post – you’ll dig my latest book