The future vs moving forward

by Martin Pettinati:

I am a very outspoken advocate of remote work, decentralization, agility, asynchronous collaboration, and many other things that go along the lines of “the ways in which we have always worked are no longer working, we need to find new ways”.

In an interesting conversation with a colleague, she asked me what I thought would happen “moving forward” with remote work, and how it would affect the ability of companies to retain talent.

That phrasing sparked something in my head. “Moving forward” and “the future” are not the same thing. Far from it.

And I think this idea applies to many other scenarios, and it’s a fairly important idea to discuss. So here I am, opening this discussion.

The Future is not moving forward

I think of the future as something that is inexorable, inevitable. The future will come. The future is coming. That’s just how things are. But progress, or “moving forward”, is a very different thing.

Let’s take writing as an example. It doesn’t really matter what you need to write: it can be a novel, a screenplay, a proposal, a thesis, or an elevator pitch. Whatever. If you don’t write anything today (or if what you write doesn’t work), tomorrow will still come. The sun will set and rise again, and it will be a new day. You haven’t made any progress, you haven’t moved forward at all, but you have moved into the future.

This idea, that the future is what is going to happen, but it isn’t necessarily a forward motion, is a fundamental game changer. It brings to the surface a consideration about what we want to happen, and all the actions we can take to make that a reality.

Moving forward is strategy

Forward motion is a decision. And a personal one, at that. I think we should think of forward motion in terms of goals, which makes it evident that, in order to move forward, we have to first have decided where it is that we want to move toward. This becomes, then, a conversation about strategy.

When we establish goals, we define a path to achieving those goals. And we can do it consciously, though mostly we do so unconsciously. That path is our strategy.

Strategy is not a complex, elaborate and multi-moving-part artifact that simultaneously holds and promises the secrets to success. Strategy is as simple as what we imagine will be the shortest, easiest or most effective way to achieve something.

Strategies for time travel

This takes me back (pun intended) to time travel. Because when we think about traveling to the past, we are immediately overcome with this popular notion of the Butterfly effect: that we need to be very careful not to alter anything, because that could have unfathomable repercussions on the present, once —and if— we return. 

But, for some reason, we don’t really think that way about the repercussions that our present actions will have in the future. This might have something to do with the fact that we know the present and, if time travel was possible, and we effectively went back and changed something, we would then return to the present, and it would be different from the one we knew.

This doesn’t happen when we think about the future because we don’t know it. All we know is that it’s coming, and this idea tricks us into believing that the future is the same thing as moving forward.

The Future of Work

So, going back to that conversation with my colleague, I told her that, in the future, it’s quite likely that we will all be freelancers or some other form of autonomous agents (freelancers, consultants, advisors, free-agents, fractional Xs). That does seem to be the trend, as we see a worldwide shift to the shrinking of state governments and public service structures. This is coupled with a similar motion in the private world, as companies shy away from having talent on payroll to become more nimble and able to survive economic and financial swings, and are increasingly appreciating talent on flexible contracts, to both bring down costs, and freeing themselves from the associated costs of a large workforce.

But, we have to ask ourselves: is that a move forward?

Two kinds of freedom

To answer that question, we need to consider the difference between ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’, in the terms of Margaret Atwood.

The selling points for becoming a freelancer talk about the freedom to work for whomever you want, or the freedom to take different projects you find interesting. What it’s often not mentioned is that we are also accepting a deal in which we are ‘free from’ a bunch of important things, like social security, public health, unemployment insurance, etc.

While the rhetoric of freedom appeals to a side of us that wants to get rid of red tape, mind-numbing corporate practices, excessive regulation, or simply having to commute to the office, there is another side to it, in which we do come out effectively liberated, but from the protection that is inherent to the responsibilities employers assume when hiring someone. It is also seldom mentioned that these employers also get ‘free from’ the usual burdens of having employees: health insurance, paid time off, employee benefits, taxes, and even the cost of renting office space.

If this is beginning to sound oddly familiar, that’s because it is the exact same shift that took place when modern societies moved from feudalism to industrial capitalism. The narrative went on about how workers ‘broke free’ from their feudal masters, and hid the fact that these feudal lords were also liberated from their responsibilities in looking after their serfs. No more having to worry about providing them —and their families— with housing, meals, or looking after them when they were ill. Blessings, oh poor peasant, you are no longer a serf bound to your master, but a free agent of the market, free to sell your work to the employer of your choice!

The freedom to move forward

Fast forward to our present day, the narrative changes its external design, but the same old engine purrs underneath: Blessings, oh poor employee, you are no longer a professional bound to your employer, but a freelance agent of the market, free to sell your hours to the clients of your choice!

It is becoming increasingly more apparent that the future has come, but not much progress has been made.

So, the conundrum in front of us has very much to do with the strategies we lay in place to achieve our goals, and the context in which that happens. And, as we inexorably embark on this time-travel toward the future, we would do good to ask ourselves what do we want to alter, to move the butterfly’s wings as much as possible, and create our own unfathomable repercussions.

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Martin Pettinati is a Madrid-based strategic marketer obsessed with bringing clarity to businesses all over the world. He is a Strategic Columnist and a #WeLeadComms honoree.

Written by: Editor