Will “live” coaches and therapists be replaced by online avatars using interactive technology? Will creative inventors recognize the preference of younger people to use their smartphones and tablets for all of their social interactions? There are clear signs we are already moving in that direction.
Career paths are being reshaped—some say permanently—partly because of the massive movement toward temporary employment. These changes will have their greatest impact on young people, who face the prospect of a lifetime of temporary or part time work, and uncertain career path, and lower standard of living with little or no payoff for their higher education.
Leadership must be important. More than 20,000 books and thousands of articles have been written about the critical elements of leadership and the impact it makes on people, organizations and countries, if not the world.
Yet even today, despite the collective wisdom of centuries on this topic, confidence in our leaders is low and continues to decline. Seventy-seven percent of those polled nationwide in the U.S. say that the country now has a crisis in leadership and confidence levels have fallen to the lowest levels recorded in recent times.
We continue to revisit the issue of motivation and specifically, the “carrot and stick” aspect. New research seems to indicate that brain chemicals may control behavior and for people to learn and adapt in the world; therefore, both punishment and reward may be necessary. This conclusion would certainly run counter to the trend towards positive motivation without extrinsic reward or punishment.
Much has been written about the need for and the power of generosity in our society, including the notion of “pay it forward.” The expression has been popularized by the best selling novel Pay It Forward by Catherine Hyde Ryan which was adapted into a movie starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. New research shows a clear link between the act of “paying it forward” and generosity.
