11 years ago, and while I was at work as an estimator for Performance Contracting, I was handed a little booklet entitled “New Work Habits For a Radically Changing World”. This was all part of a corporate culture change project and like most in the corporation, I resisted that change. But I read the booklet and kept it.
Of course the culture did change and I gracelessly kept up as best I could. With some aspects of the change, I excelled; and at others…I kept a neutral face and pretended to go along. That worked.
Well, I found that little booklet the other day while working in the garage and I sat down to read it again. Here are some excerpts/quotes from it that I found to be quite interesting. Remember; the facts and the predictions presented here are 11 years old.
“As recently as the 1960’s,almost one-half of all workers in the industrialized countries were involved in making (or helping to make) things.
By the year 2000, however, no developed country will have more than one-sixth or one-eighth of its workforce in the traditional roles of making and moving goods.
Already an estimated two-thirds of U.S. employees work in the services sector, and “knowledge” is becoming our most important ‘product.”
This calls for different organizations, as well as different kinds of workers.”
(Peter Drucker “Post-Capitalist Society”)
“In 1991, for the first time ever, companies spent more money on computing and communications gear than the combined monies spent on industrial, mining, farm, and construction equipment.
This spending pattern offers hard proof that we have entered a new era.
The Industrial Age has given way to the information Age.”
“I have a microwave fireplace. You can lay down in front of the fire all night in eight minutes” (Steven Wright)
“Less than half the workforce in the industrial world will be holding conventional full-time jobs in organizations by the beginning of the 21st century. Those full-timers or insiders will be the new minority. Every year more and more people will be self employed. Many will work temporary or part-time – sometimes because that’s the way they want it, sometimes because that’s all that is available.” (John Handy – The Age of Unreason)
“There has been more information produced in the last 30 years than during the previous 5,000. A weekday edition of The New York times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime during 17th century England…the information supply available to us doubles every 5 years.” (Richard Wurman – Information Anxiety)
The first practical industrial robot was introduced during the 1960’s.
By 1982 there were approximately 32,000 robots being used in the United States.
Today, (1994) there are over 20,000,000.
In 1991, nearly 1 out of 3 American workers had been with their employer for less than a year, and almost 2 out of 3 for less than 5 years.
The United States contingent workforce – consisting of roughly 45,000,000 temporaries, self-employed, part-timers, or consultants – has grown 57% since 1980.
Going, if not yet gone, are the 9-5 workdays, lifetime jobs, predictable, hierarchical relationships, corporate culture security blankets, and, for a large and growing sector of the workforce, the workplace itself (replaced by a cybernetics “workspace”).
Constant training, retraining, job-hopping and even career-hopping will become the norm.” (Deveraux and Johansen –Global Work: Bridging Distance, Culture and Time)
“Look at a roster of the 100 largest U.S. companies at the beginning of the 1900’s. You’ll find that only 16 are still in existence.
Then consider Fortune magazine’s first list of America’s 500 biggest companies. Only 29 of the 100 firms topping the first “Fortune 500” could still be found in the top 100 by 1992.
During the decade of the 1980’s, a total of 230 companies – 46% - disappeared from the “Fortune 500”.
Obviously, size does not guarantee continued success. Neither does a good reputation.”
And finally, this quote…
“The first time I walked into a trophy shop, I looked around and thought to myself, “This guy is good!”’ (Fred Wolf)
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