How to be ready for your future, now - Lynda Gratton at TEDxLondonBusinessSchool

Lynda Gratton suggests 3 shifts for the future generations from her own experiences.First, to build mastery in the field that you love, instead of to become a generalist. Second, the future environment will not be only about competition but about combination and cooperation. And finally, work will be where we find meaning of life than just a place to make money.

Thank you so much.

You know, sometimes in our lives
something happens to us

that changes the way we think,
that changes what we're going to do.

And I wanted to start
by telling you a story

about something that happened to me
almost five years ago

which really set me off into thinking
about this question

of how do we regenerate ourselves.

About four years ago I decided to take
my younger son Dominic to Africa.

You know he's like
many teenagers in London

spending lots of time
hanging around, you know

and I wanted him to really understand
what was happening in Africa.

And in particular you know
he was just becoming a young

adult, I wanted him to spend
time with a Masai warriors.

And so we took a plane - we
took a little private plane -

we got into a car and eventually

- it took us about two and a half days -
we ended up

in a Masai village in the middle
of the Masai Mara in Tanzania.

And just as we had hoped
there were a couple of

Masai warriors that spent time
with us over a couple of days

talking to us about their rituals

and so on, wonderful stuff.
You know this was great

for a teenager to really understand
what it was like to be a warrior.

And one morning he took
us to the top of the hill

and what he was doing
is he was showing us

his Masai territory and he was
talking about how it was

to be a Masai warrior
and what it meant

the implications, that they
you know, had to live by.

And there he was standing in his whole
Masai wonderful red robes

carrying a spear, a spear
to kill lions with.

This was an authentic moment.

And as we stood there,
there was a funny little sound.

Can anyone imagine what
that funny little sound was?

(Audience: It was his phone)

It's his mobile phone!
So out of his pocket

you know this sort of
leopard skin pocket

he gets his mobile phone.

And like every 23 year-old

he has a very excited conversation
on his mobile phone.

Well at that moment, I realized
that my world had changed

more than I ever imagined it
would have done or could do.

But that wasn't the only thing that
happened that afternoon because

when he put his phone down,
being sort of an inquisitive professor

at the London Business School
I said to him,

"What was the conversation about?
Who were you talking to?"

And he said "Ah!
I was talking to my brother"

Now he as a warrior, his job
was to look after the cattle.

But his brother who was younger
than my son a 12 year-old

was looking after the goats
and in fact his brother

had gone out that morning,
at six o'clock in the morning

and had taken the goats out.
This was about 12 o'clock by now.

He said,
"Well I was talking to my brother."

I said,
"Well what was the conversation [about]?"

He said, "My brother
had phoned me to tell me

that the goats had
just found green grass" .

Now you see that for me is
the paradox of the future

because in many ways things
changed beyond imagination.

Who would imagine that a Masai
warrior four years ago

would have a mobile phone?

By the way he had no electricity,
he had no car,

he had no refrigerator, but he
did have a mobile phone.

But yet at the same time there
were things about his life

that had remained essentialy the same

in terms of his values, his beliefs,
and what was important to him.

You know, I think the challenge
that we face now

is we are in the midst of the
biggest transformation

that the world had ever seen.

When I wrote my book
"The Shift" I said

"The biggest transformation
since the industrial revolution" .

I don't think that's the case anymore.

In the two years since
that was written

I realized it's the biggest
transformation ever.

And one of the challenges that
we face is to ask ourselves

"What sort of a world do
we want to construct?"

And more importantly, what sort
of a life do I want to construct?

And there is no question
that there are some

pretty tough things happening
to us in the future.

If we look into the future
what's clear is that

you could walk into
the future blindfold.

You know you could walk
into a default future

where you don't make choices,
you let the future unroll

in front of you or you could be
a lot more thoughtful

about the future that
you want to create.

You can create in other
words a "crafted future".

Now to do that, I think you
have to think about

some of the things that are
happening in our lives

over the next couple of decades.

Both in terms of the bright side
and in terms of the side

which is a dark side.

You know, one of the things
that's really clear about the future,

about our lives,
about the lives of our children

is it could be a life
of fragmentation,

it could be a life where
in fact everything is broken

into three minute periods.

If you look even now at your life
you'll find that even now

you're constantly interrupted
by technology.

It's sort of like a bad tempered
two year-old.

You know you can't really
find the time within your life

that allows you to be reflective,

that allows you to be thoughtful.

So isolation, fragmentation,
is a really important part

potentially of our lives. But yet it
doesn't need to be like that.

The very technology
that interrupts you

the very technology
that behaves like

the bad tempered two year-old

can also provide enormous
opportunities for co-creation.

Right now across the world
tens of thousands of people

are joining together on platforms
like InnoCentive

to share ideas, to think
through the opportunities,

to solve problems, both
in their own country

and indeed in other countries.

It could be a world of isolation.

There is a potential for many of us

to be living in small families.

We've moved into the city,
we've lost our family roots

we're very mobile,
we're working at home

rather than in an office and it could
be a really isolated future.

It could be a future where
it's hard for you to connect

but at the same time
you know there are

opportunities as we've heard
today to really connect

into your societies to connect
into your communities

to be part of the place that you live.

And it's a world of exclusion.

It's a world where the rich get richer,

where the poor become poorer,

wherever they happen to be located.

It's a world where if you don't

or you're not educated you can't join

the global labor talent pool,

you have no way
of actually accessing

the value that the world's creating.

But it could be a world
where you become engaged

and where five billion people
can connect to each other

using the abundant knowledge
that's available now

through the sort of hand-held
devices that my Masai warrior

was holding that could create
enormous amounts of engagement.

And what I want to suggest
is that the challenge

that we face now
is that we could walk into

the future blindfolded or instead we
could make some important shifts

that change the way that we think,

that change our behavior,
that change some of the ways

that we want our future to continue.

And it seems to me, that right now,
we are faced both with choices

and with consequences.

And I want to suggest three shifts

I think each one of us
should be thinking about

in terms of how we create
the sort of future

that's going to be important to us.

The first is about the way we
think about our own skills.

Now you know there was a time

that you thought maybe,
you know, to be a generalist

would be wonderful.

I just need to be like a
T-shaped manager.

I need to know a little
about a lot of things.

But frankly if you know a little
about a lot of things

you're competition is not those smart
highly educated people in China.

Your competition is
Wikipedia and Google.

So, you need to build mastery.

You need to focus on areas that you
love, that you're passionate about,

because the future in my view
is about hyperspecialization.

And if can do two things,
then that's even better.

So, number one, first shift,
think about what you love,

what you're passionate about
and really really focus on it.

Number two. You know
certainly when I was

growing up what we thought was
the way to get on was to compete.

You know, that there was a rank
and some people will be at the top

and some people would
be at the bottom.

And the way to make sure
that you were at the top

was to compete with
everybody else around you.

and to be the best that you can be.

What we're now realizing
about the future

is that there are
incredible opportunities

to build value through collaboration
and through cooperation.

Technology, those
billions connected,

abundant knowledge provides
incredible opportunities

not simply to compete
but also to realize

that networks are going
to be important.

And those could be
the sort of networks

that are the possy, you know those
people who are really close to you

who understand your knowledge
who can ride with you

it could be the regenerative community,

those people who you're close to,
who you give time to,

who you can reflect to, it could
be the big ideas crowd.

The thousands of people
you might know

who between them have ideas
that you can't even imagine

but the combination with your
ideas could be very valuable.

And the final shift is this.

You know when organizations
began to industrialize

the deal between the worker
was very simple.

You work to earn money to buy
stuff that makes you happy.

I don't think that's working anymore.

I mean what we're
beginning to realize

is that there's very little correlation
between higher standards of living

and better feelings about
happiness or quality of life.

And what we're also
realizing is that

if we're going to be working
until 75, which we will be,

and if we're going to have
work as a center

of our life, which for most of us
it will be,

work is where we find
meaning and I believe

that in the future the shift
comes less from thinking

about work as a means
of making money

to buy stuff that you
can consume

but rather to see work
itself as a source

of enormous creativity
and a source

of enormous possibilities in
terms of what would help

each one of us to become
the very best we can.

You know human potential
is indeed infinite.

And I believe that
whilst there are

some very tough parts
of the path ahead

at the same time,
we have opportunities

for the next 10, 20 years
to be incredibly exciting

for every one of us.

Thank you.

(Applause)