Alessandro Donadio: “The job of the future? It will have purpose in the center“

“The future of work will be one in which work is meaningful, true and full. And through which, our way of being citizens of this world will also pass.“. Alessandro Donadio has no doubts: how we define the way we work will play an important part in the future that lies ahead. For this, the role of companies and, more generally, organizations is crucial. Organizations that need to be aware of their training capacity, and develop it. An associate partner at EY, a leading strategy consulting firm, lecturer at Tor Vergata University and essayist, Alessandro Donadio is one of the most authoritative Italian voices on the subject of the future of work, and to the “learning organization” he has dedicated an agile text published by Franco Angeli.

Alexander, let’s start from the beginning. Learning organizations, exactly what are they? Can you give us a definition of this expression?

We can say that Learning Organizations are those organizations that have understood, internalized, that the greatest asset they have at their disposal-the greatest source of antifragility, as I explain in the book-is the innate ability of individuals, and social systems, to learn. And who base their daily actions on this awareness.

How can an “organization” become “learning”?

No need to become one: every organization is one. The mental exercise we can try to do is to “take apart” organizations as we know them today. Let’s take away the material elements, then the technological assets, the written processes, the practices, and ask what is left: that leaves the people-or rather the relationships among them-and the ability of these people to learn as they perform the activities. From the most minimal to the most complex.

At the center of your research and exploration work is the person, the individual, with his or her aptitudes and potential. What is your reading of the relationship that is being built between people and technology, within an organization?

It is a relationship that we could say originated. From the moment our ancestor, picking up a wood on the ground and using it to make his way through the wilderness, realized how with it he could extrovert, lengthen, increase, that is when humanity began. It is a two-way relationship: the object invented by man, expands it, changes it. And thus change the very meanings he gives to life. Is this not the impact we observe in the most recent digital revolution?

We are wondering a lot, just in these weeks, about how work will evolve after the abrupt acceleration imparted by the pandemic to almost all organizational architectures. In your opinion, what form will work take in the future ahead?

I consider no predetermined form. Rather any form that will allow that specific organization to better adapt to the environment. But also-which is desirable-to the values it will want to stand for. Certainly, we grasp that there are active “forces” at play right now: the maturity of digital contexts and their adoption now unrestrained by anything or anyone. But also a wind of further emancipation of all of us, not only of the object of one’s work, but also of its impact on the world around us. It will be a hybrid world on the level of tools and resources, and stark on the level of values.

Job hopping, Yolo economy, digital nomadism-these are 3 trends that are very appealing to the younger generation, those who are now entering the world of work. What will their “work” be?

It will be a work based on Purpose, the search for and promotion of meaning. Of course being able to move around, learn, gain experience, become autonomous, become musts of the very idea of work for these generations. But as we said above, where these conditions arise without a dimension of meaning, then they will be rejected. Phenomena have in their basic statute-although informal and often unconscious-this “tension.” It will serve to listen to them and decode them well if we are not to misdirect resources. In a word, I believe that the future of work will be a key element in the construction of a modern, new and conscious citizenship. There is much to be done!