Three Horizons of Work | Hinesight....for Foresight

I had the pleasure of participating on a panel exploring the future of work at the GAO for IFPTE Local 1921annual union meeting. We had ten or fifteen minutes to talk – quite a challenge given all the interesting things happening in the future of work. I decided to organize it around the Three Horizons Model (see Curry and Hodgson’s wonderful paper).

I selected three issues, going from the long-term to the short.

(Horizon Three) The transformation of work. Work is going through a transformation, as three driving forces — the rise of automation and machine intelligence, shifts in individual values, and the rise of a new economy – are challenging key assumptions about the role of work are being challenged: (1) work is central to individual’s identity (2) work structures daily life, and (3) work is the primary source of income.

(Horizon Two) Hey, that’s cheating: Augmentation in the workplace. Augmented or enhanced human characteristics will present challenges for organizations and individual talent. Significant technology advances, from mechanical implants to chemical, genetic, and nanotech-enabled approaches, are making human augmentation a reality.

(Horizon One) Fairness becomes impossible. The need to customize and personalize to attract talent will make across-the-board, same-for-everyone types of policies increasingly untenable. The high premium on getting the right talent shifts the bargaining power to them, and they will use it.

It was great fun to share and discuss, and to sneak in a very useful foresight framework. Andy Hines

About Andy Hines

Dr. Andy Hines is Program Coordinator at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Foresight, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight.

Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies/Innovaro, and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university since 2004. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.

In this pursuit, he has authored five books: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape (No Limits Publishing, 2011); Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007); 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997); and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994) and has another in the hands of publishers: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education. He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards’ Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for “An Audit for Organizational Futurists” and the 2008 award for “Scenarios: The State of the Art.” He has appeared on several radio and television programs, PBS Houston, KRIV-26 News, and the CBS “Early Show.” He also co-founded and is former Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists.

About Andy Hines

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply