The Future of Work Isn’t What You Think It Will Be

Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.

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Topics: Organizational Culture

Exploring the future of work has, throughout my career, been a remarkably hot topic. I cannot begin to count the number of articles I’ve read about it. For that matter, I can’t count the number of articles I’ve written on the topic either.

Reading about the future has an inherent allure. It appeals to the same impulse that drives our fascination with stories and storytelling: We want to know how things play out. Moreover, we want to believe that everything will come together in a coherent way. We are looking for a neat and satisfying resolution to our current complexity and messiness. We want to know that there is a suitable ending, where everything turns out okay and everyone lives happily ever after.

Writing about the future has an inherent allure, as well. For writers, it parallels and shadows the desires of readers. Writing about the future is about trying to make sense of our current reality. It is striving for insight and meaning, guidance and structure, explanation and exploration. The normal means of doing so will be enormously familiar to fans of science fiction. Start with current reality, identify a critical inflection point that will change that reality, and extrapolate on the consequences that result.

The problem is that this view of the future is fantastical speculation (a point that science fiction is at least forthcoming about). It …

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