Reputation and inspiration

 I have two daughters under the age of 10 and I worry a lot about their future and the skills they are going to need to compete in the future world of work. At the same time as I am drilling my eldest in her times tables - which still seems to me to be a very important piece of rote learning - and my youngest in her number bonds - essential for anyone who loves Killer Sudoku - I wonder what skills they really will need in the future.

Given that in the 'West' most of us are educating our children to become knowledge or creative workers, then current speculation and projection suggests that our children will be independent or freelance portfolio workers. The ability to build and get the most value from networks will surely be key. Strong communication skills and the ability to build high profile and reputation for deep knowledge or experience in an area of value will also be essential. They will need to be good at selling and will need to be confident of their abilities on a global level.

Creative abilities and problem-solving will increase in importance - the ability to visualise a new solution or approach and then to deliver it.

Stefan Stern's blog in last Friday's Financial Times has stuck with me (http://blogs.ft.com/management/2010/05/14/dont-ask-business-to-save-the-...). He was writing about a conversation with business guru Michael Maccoby (http://www.maccoby.com/MMaccoby/) and speculating on whether it's the role of business to save the world.

What stuck with me is that Maccoby's admonition is that at the end of the day the business of business is to make a profit. Which is of course true - but surely that's HOW the machine of business works and keeps working, and not WHY it exists in the first place?

Truth to say the business of business can be anything that it wants to be. People found businesses these days to allow freedom of expression, a better work/life balance, the opportunity to be free of management bureaucracies. Last week someone told me of a carpet company who made carpets because it wanted to save the world - the business had a vision of environmental well-being and their starting place was carpets. But carpets wasn't why it existed. And I'm guessing profits weren't the reason why either.

It was entirely accidental that late Friday night we ended up watching a substantial part of a four hour documentary about US rock musician, Tom Petty, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

It was all long hair, smoky clubs and fringe venues until the story moved into the late 70s and 80s when Petty achieved wider commercial success with a more mainstream sound - with the help of the man who at one point was known as Mr Third Album, renowned musical engineer, Jimmy Iovine.

Turns out he was responsible for the third albums of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty amongst other rock talent in the 70s and 80s, and his core skill lay in taking raw musical ability and transforming it into a more commercial product for mainstream consumption.

A room full of London Business School MBAs, students and professors is an intense and stimulating place, especially when the speaker is the charming and polished Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management and author of 'Hot Spots', and especially when the presentation and discussion are about the future of work (http://www.lyndagratton.com/).

Lynda presented research conducted amongst 200 senior HR and management specialists and the conclusions were both positive and negative and largely focused on the impact on humans rather than on structures. It was an evening when MBAs spoke of feelings and fears.

On the dark side of the spectrum, the revolution which we will continue to experience in the workplace won't stop, and its negatives - if left unchecked in a state which Gratton described as the 'default' future - include isolation, fragmentation, exclusion, addiction and narcissism. 

More and more is written about employer brands and the CIPD has just this week published a big report on how these are aligned with total reward.

It's an important evolution in how businesses communicate with and show respect for one of their most important audiences - employees.

However, I think the most successful businesses are the ones that recognise that there is only one brand - and that the employee story is also important to the customer.

My best known example for this is John Lewis. The employee brand values and rewards are part of how the brand is positioned to the customer. Everyone knows that John Lewis is an employee benefit trust and that all employees are partners as well as they know the catch phrase "never knowingly undersold".