Constant Change as the New Normal.
A Conversation with Sinead Bovell of WAYE: The Model Who Talks Tech.
Hi All,
Welcome to the first official newsletter of the Infinite Learner. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope you enjoy the content and welcome any feedback!
This week I'm grateful to be in conversation with Sinead Bovell of WAYE: The Model Who Talks Tech. See below for the full conversation where we cover topics like intentionality as a part of corporate culture, virtual collaboration as a core skill, and preparing youth markets for the future of work and life with advanced technologies.
If you missed last week's interview with Neil D'Souza of GetSetup, you can find it here! GetSetup aims to be the modern day community center, providing the 50+ demographic a place to learn new skills, and socialize online with others through education.
Next week I'm in conversation with Olav Schewe, author of Superstudent - a book on how to learn more effectively.
Happy reading.
If the Covid pandemic has thrust us into the future, can we still call it the Future of Work, or is it simply now just work?
“There is no looking back now,” says self-proclaimed futurist and founder of WAYE Sinead Bovell. Known as the model who talks tech, Sinead launched WAYE as a mission-driven organization designed to bridge the gap between young entrepreneurs and the digital future. I had the fortunate opportunity to connect with Sinead recently to talk about the business she’s built and what COVID-19 means for our generation's relationship with advanced technologies. We also spoke about continuous learning, the role of our different institutions in upskilling the workforce, and how we, as the generation coming into power, need to play a vital role in making sure tech works for the benefit of us all.
COVID’s impact on the global workforce over the last six months has provided a proof of concept for what’s possible. What we’ve learnt most importantly is that working remotely can work. Has it been perfect, no, but Sinead remarks that in just a short amount of time we’ve learnt that the existing infrastructure is capable of holding the stress and change that we've applied to it suddenly. She watches with satisfaction as some of the companies she works with at WAYE quickly adapted to our new normal, making both immediate changes and adjusting their plans for the future with the little information they had. The companies that have been successful had a head start; they were hyper intentional about their work, focusing on getting it done instead of getting it done perfectly. Those businesses and employees with a culture of challenging the status quo will continue to see the most success in our new normal.
“I think it's more about intentionality behind all aspects of our work. One of those being when you go into an office... we were so unintentional about it, it became this post World War Two Industrial Revolution style existence. For a lot of people, it doesn't make any sense at all. So going forward, we need to be more intentional about tying our work to a [physical] office, and not just for our own mental health but for the sake of the planet as well.”
A recent announcement by Siemens, one of largest industrial manufacturing companies in the world (385k employees in 200+ countries), highlights the shift needed in many corporate cultures. They established mobile working as a core component of the company's new normal. What does this mean? For two to three days a week, they will allow all global employees to work from anywhere. In addition, Siemens Deputy CEO Roland Busch said, “These changes will also be associated with a different leadership style, one that focuses on outcomes rather than on time spent at the office… we trust our employees and empower them to shape their work themselves so that they can achieve the best possible results [independent of location].” An approach usually reserved for tech companies or startups, this new normal promotes and aligns accountability across employees and employers. In the same way that Siemens’ success is measured by their output and not strictly their input, so too will their employees. This type of adaptation and focus on intentionality is key for Sinead, and a common theme in the way that WAYE promotes opportunities for organizational growth and change moving forward.
Being intentional about adapting is not simply about learning something new. It is often as much about being able to unlearn or relearn. Sinead makes the point that we started as hunters and gatherers, that work/life was innate to us, and everything else we’ve had to adapt to and learn. For our generation, the ability to adapt to new tech and the application of that tech will be the key to our success and relevancy moving forward.
“Whether you're a retailer or a doctor, [your industry] will be tied to technology in some way. So for me, continuously learning is about how to adapt as different technologies disrupt the status quo.”
As our reliance on tech and the prominence of a more virtual existence grows, experiential learning becomes even more important, according to Sinead. We need to move away from learning styles where we simply memorize things and apply them to problems later on. “Don’t just teach the theory, teach the execution in a real world manner,” she continues. This approach is much more aligned with the principles of andragogy (adult education) rather than pedagogy (child education), whereas adults benefit from learning the process and less so the theory. Whether skilling or upskilling, there needs to be a greater focus on the why and the value this skill will bring. Sinead believes these fundamental changes need to be holistic - not just from schools, not just from government, not just from the individual, but from all.
The truth is that in every part of the world, the role society plays in up-skilling is different. In Europe, governments are often a lot more involved, whereas in the US, you see the responsibility lying primarily on the individual, although that is slowly shifting to include businesses as well. Ultimately if we are to find success on a macro level, it will need to be through some combination of the three, says Sinead.
Governments need to place “more emphasis on educating their constituents since national companies no longer need to rely on local talent - they can recruit from anywhere.” Take Singapore’s SkillsFuture program, which emphasises the need for retraining as the pace of technological change increases. The program provides every Singaporean 25 and older with over $500 in credits usable towards retraining programs at 2 higher learning organizations with the goal, says the Education Minister, of “deepening Singaporean’s skills in various domain areas, [making it] harder for technology to replace what we do.”
Businesses need to play a role too. They need to ask themselves what they want the future of their companies to look like - what role will upskilling play in their culture? We can look towards Verizon. During the pandemic, rather than letting any of its 135,000 employees go, they upskilled them. They specifically focused on those employees whose jobs were most susceptible to automation by training them in digital skills and providing mentorship to help them thrive in the modern economy.
For individuals, it is not enough to recognize that things are changing because of technology, but to realize that they will keep changing. Sinead emphasizes the need to be intentional about always staying one step ahead, especially when your expertise is challenged by automation. (See here for her op-ed on how AI is changing the modeling industry and what models can do to maintain relevancy and their voice.)
There are many factors at play as we move from the future of work to just work, but the takeaway is that we all need to be more intentional about our [lifelong] career. We can no longer assume that a work-hard-heads-down approach will provide safety and long-term job security. Whether it is hard skills like data analysis or UX design, soft skills like being culturally flexible or virtual collaboration, we need to be constantly growing our toolbox in order to fulfill new roles in the future workforce. Sinead reminds me that the learn, work, retire model is dead. Therefore, it’s not just important to acknowledge and adapt to the fact that things are changing now, but also, that they will be forever changing in [the future of] work.