What future career would you bet on?
With school starting back around Australia, it’s a perfect time to ask ourselves the perennial question of which careers and future are we preparing our kids for?
As a baby boomer, my world of education asked me at the end of my final year of high school to make one (1) career choice and to get a job a trade or a qualification in it. My employer would promote and reward me for my longevity and at the end of my 40 years retire me, hand me over to the government for a pension and to my family for my final golden years.
Today’s kids have no promise of job tenure, but instead will have six (6) careers and 14 jobs in their lifetime. They will work until their mid 80″s, live to 120 years of age and work in a digitally connected world in careers and jobs that we can not imagine today.
Over the next 40 years industries, professions, careers, job titles, job roles, daily tasks will fall away, rise and be born and work styles, habits, work hours, work places and work technologies will all evolve to replace the previous normal.
The challenge facing us is how do we educate today’s children for a world none of us can accurately predict and will largely be up to them to innovate and invent. How do we impart and measure life long knowledge and wisdom through an education system that is itself changing daily and in a world where debate is rife around what education is, when it is gained and what it should be.
This was the starting point of this mornings regular chat with David Dowsett of ABC Wide Bay, so have a listen now, read through my earlier article on tomorrow’s career choices and let me know what you think we need to do to get our kids job ready for the world of tomorrow.
With school starting back around Australia, it’s a perfect time to ask ourselves the perennial question of which careers and future are we preparing our kids for? As a baby boomer, my world of education asked me at the end of my final year of high school to make one (1) career ch.
The shift around What future career would you bet on is not purely structural. It changes what capabilities organisations value, how people find meaning in their roles, and what conditions make good work possible. Leaders who understand this early retain the talent they need and build cultures that attract it.
The most important question is not whether What future career would you bet on will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
