The Sunday Mail
The future is not some strange place that will never come. It is approaching faster than you think and is more radical than you can imagine.
You may have filled the past with exploits, but refuse to be left out of the future. Remember Lot’s wife. In times of change, those who are bent on learning, adapting and growing will survive and thrive.
Those who think that they are too smart to learn and too experienced to care will easily find themselves irrelevant.
Life is meant to be more than an endurance and reluctant participation.
To live without dreams is dry and to have frustrated dreams is disappointing. Be too wary to die in your winter, too daring to linger in limbo and too vivacious to lose your vision. Move daily regardless of how modest the steps. Face your giants and tame your fears.
Run fast, run hard.
This life is a race for the running and not the tired and timid. What you think you know, in the future you may easily be ashamed to call yourself as expert. Keep upgrading and growing.
Dashed hopes
Soon after graduating from University of Zimbabwe I joined a leading bank as a graduate trainee. When I reported at my assigned branch in Harare, I had high hopes and ambition.
My ladder was set and I was ready to climb.
I was swiftly ushered into the branch manager’s office. He was an experienced banker who had been in the business for more years than I had been in school.
He was loyal, hard-working and never could he have imagined that the bank that he had so faithfully served would retrench him.
He had a deputy manager and an assistant manager to assist with advances. It was the days of branch banking where all the ledgers and data processing work was done at the branch. Then, each branch ran like a franchise of the bank.
The bank had an operations manager and an accountant who was responsible for all the transaction processing and maintenance of customer accounts.
In ledgers, part of the duties included sorting cheques, reconciling customer accounts, ticking statements, posting charges and sending paid vouchers to the customer.
It was all manual and busy. Overtime was a perennial problem.
The branch had close to 50 people in all departments that included ledgers, data-capture, manager’s department (that was responsible for loans and facilities), exchange control and administration.
It was good and the loan facilities you enjoyed made being a banker fashionable.
All was well until after a few years. We heard that the bank was moving from a branch-based banking system to a central processing system. There was going to be massive change.
A business process re-engineering team was set up. As the momentum of change moved on, there was need to “right-size” the bank as it was called then.
The bank pledged to be kind and fair. A number of people were retrenched in keeping with labour laws and nothing had prepared most for the challenge of going home when you had pinned all your hopes on a job for life.
The number of branches was trimmed. Processes were changed and in time the face of the bank and how it operates changed. Those who could not survive change were changed.
We hoped that was going to be the last change alas, it was just the beginning. Rapid and radical change has begun but never stopped. There was no going back to the past.
The hopes and dreams we had in some cases were dashed when we saw the ladders we hoped to climb being reduced into pile of firewood.
Change happens
This story of change could just have been in any other industry. Change is happening and will continue to happen.
Change happens and if you happen to insist on not changing you will be changed. If you are not ready to change, you are not ready to live.
Change is not an option, the option is how ready you are to keep adapting and learning. When you can no longer change you are truly old and aged.
So yesterday
Many people are used to the standard eight-hour day, commonly 8am to 5pm.
Working with a standard 8-5 mindset is so yesterday. If you watch the clock too much in your working you may soon freeze in time.
Long ago work was a place you went to. In some jobs it still is, but in many jobs this has changed.
Work is no longer a place I go to but what I do. It no longer is the size of the office that matters but the influence you have and the work you do.
The size of your bandwidth is better than the size of your desk.
Everything will change
Everything that you used to know about work and professions will change. Most of the courses that students are taking now are not related at all to the reality they will face when they graduate.
Most of the curriculum and methods of teaching are outdated and are preparing students for a world that used to exist and will never exist.
A lot of the new jobs and professions that are emerging were not existing just five years ago. Unless you are forward thinking you may be setting yourself up for frustration. Be obsessed with increasing your domain expertise not just racing for certificate accumulation.
Life long employment
In the past work was a permanent fixture. Life-long employment was everyone’s dream. You knew that once you got a job, behaved well, stayed out of trouble you were guaranteed lifetime employment, a pension and medical aid until you died.
Those were the days when companies behaved like a caring grandmother.
Regrettably, the situation has changed. Organisations are increasing behaving like professional football teams. Everyone is on a performance contract. Some of the contracts are a month, three months or three years.
Contracts are the new wave and they will continue.
Dated employment methods stifle innovation and are unsustainable. The organisation is not mandated to look after you when you are not performing and pulling your weight.
Keeping thieving employees is madness. Employee organisations that advocate for “grandmother” type work arrangements are setting up people for frustration and failure.
People who do not want to work should never be let loose in any work area or welcome to lounge around any work-site.
Mentally fresh
The mind is its own place. The tragedy in life is that it is easy to let your mind get dusty, rusty and dull. Age has nothing to do with mental laziness. Refuse to let your mind grow dim and dull.
Clean your mind often and challenge it to grow. Use it for thinking and not just data storage. Refuse to let your mind grow old simply because you have started seeing a few wrinkles line your face.
Your mind is age-less.
Choose to be as old as you dare and dream. Keep your mind young and alert. You will need that mind to navigate the future.
Refuse to neglect your mind. Keep mining it and sharpening it. Fertilise it with meaningful conversation, stimulate it with new ideas, stretch it with purposeful thought and challenge it through creativity and problem solving.
Geography
The most important geography is the one between your two ears. Change will increasingly challenge your concept of geography and distance.
Technology and media will continue to warp distance. Stop having petty fights and jealousies.
Your competition is not the people you can see in your neighbourhood, but someone at the other side of the globe who is doing what you are doing better, faster and cheaper.
If what you do is simply routine, you need to upgrade fast.
Creativity will keep increasing in importance. Start thinking in a border-less manner. The boarders you build in your mind, limit your world and constrain your opportunities. Never take your popularity in your village as your claim to global fame.
If you think too small you will plateau too soon. If your concept of geography is too small you will miss out on opportunity and play a losing game. Playing on the African space does not in any way mean that you have to lower your standards and expect world pity.
Passion drive
The world will always stand in awe when it sees a person who is passionate and committed. No amount of education can give you passion. If people do not see your passion they may never give you a second look.
The future belongs to those who are passionate about what they do.
Let your work show that you are passionate and excited. There are no half-hearted champions in any space.
Passion will inspire you to keep learning and growing. Find a musician who has found an instrument he loves. He will carry his instrument every where and hold it with pride.
Everyday will play and practice for long lonely hours without crying for a break or leave. It is not a chore but a labour of love. If there is no love in your work, there will not be success in your corner. If you love what you do, what you do will love you.
If you find yourself trapped in a job you hate, doing work that frustrates you, you need to start making changes soon.
If you do not, you will be shown the door.
Milton Kamwendo is a cutting-edge international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy and innovation consultant and leadership coach. His life purpose is to inspire people to release the greatness trapped in them. He can be reached at [email protected] and on WhatsApp number 0772422634
