I have spent quite a bit of time over the last seven years writing about how work is changing and about the rise of the creative as a key economic driver. I remain confident in what I have written. But as the sun sets, when I am left to my own thoughts, I am often disturbed by a potential flaw in my thinking. "What about the people who aren't creative?"
I believe that creativity is an inherent human trait, and that when the economy inexorably shifts to valuing innovating and the creativity that drives it, that the number of people who are in a position to increase their standard of living will increase. I continue to believe that an economy driven by innovation will be more fundamentally fair and just than an economy that is driven by physical labor or an economy that is driven by analysis and communication. The point of this blog has been to express a desire for create social and economic justice through moving to maximizing each person's inherent value and productivity, putting them in control of their own means of production and putting the value of talent before the value of the management of capital.
But all that doesn't mean that there won't be people left behind. We have all known people who were just born to be bureaucrats and administrators. Bless them all, these people want to be told the right thing to do, and they value ensuring that the policy an procedure is followed to the last detail. They are the bane of my existence, and I am all too ready to casually dismiss their value. Often, after I have been told by yet another lawyer that I can't do something or another administrator that my vision is too risky, I think "You are on top now, but when the age of creativity rises you'll be in trouble." That is my darker, "Mr. Burns" sort of side, which I am working hard to get rid of.
But this morning I was watching the ongoing disaster in the Gulf, and I realized that I had been wrong. There not only is a place for the ardent administrator: they will in fact be in great demand. And none of this changes that the fundamental economic driver of the 21st century will be innovation and commercialized creativity.
Most industrial disasters, big and small, are not a result of bad planning. And they are not a result of bad leadership (except where that leadership diminishes the value and role of the administrator, as we shall soon see). The plans are usually in place, and the leaders say the right things about making sure that people do the right thing. What happens is that the role of the administrator becomes secondary to meeting some other deadline or objective. The administrator (including inspectors and other bureaucrats) will prophecy doom but be roundly ignored.
The present calamity in the Gulf is a perfect example. Bits of rubber coming up with the mud was a pretty clear signal that the BOP was not going to function as required. But the rig had a good safety record to that time, and BP had to get the rig capped to move to the next drill site. So the people who pointed out that things should be slowed down and precautions taken were ignored as being to sensitive to risk. Had they been listened to we would likely not have the disaster we now all face.
Administrators will continue to be overly sensitive to risk, and will often fail to update their models and analysis to add real value (rather than just prevent all the innumerable bad possibilities from occurring). But in a time of increasing complexity due to technological advancement and economic interdependence, the value of the inspector is growing.
The struggle between the forces of innovation and the forces of inspection will therefore rage, and this is a good thing. We will of course be left with a greater need for mediators, translators and integrators, those who can see the point of both side and effectively create solutions that answer the needs of both sides (the genius of the "and"). The role of leadership will change to value this role over the knee-jerk expectation for bold visions and calls to action. Perhaps this will be as important as systems architecture and translator. A thought for a future post perhaps.
But what excites me most is that all those people who want to be told what to do, who want to enforce rather than create and who see their purpose as safeguarding against disaster; those people are a key part of the future economic landscape. In fact their wages can rise and their conservative worldview can find a comfortable place in the unpredictable creativity of the future. They are the yang to the creative yin, both of which are needed to bring the system into harmony. That leaves me feeling even more optimistic about the future, and that's a nice way to feel on a beautiful Saturday morning.
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