This chapter begins by reinforcing a comment I made on an earlier blog. Thanks to globalization 3.0, we are no longer just competing with other M.B.A.’s in the U. S. We are competing globally with Indian and Chinese students as well. For us this means we have to work much harder to be successful. My question is, is that enough? According to Friedman, it is we must simply focus on developing our skill sets so that they are efficient in the global market.
Friedman outlines what we could do to be competitive in the global market. According to him, the key is figuring out how to make yourself an untouchable. These are people whose jobs cannot be outsourced, digitized, or automated. These jobs fall into three broad categories.
Special or Specialized: These are you athletes, musicians, authors, and surgeons. These jobs are so specialized they cannot be outsourced and they have a global market so they earn global wages. Not very many of this will fit into this category because all of these jobs require you to have a level of innate ability that we do not all posses.
Localized or Anchored: These are jobs that must be done in a specific location so they are considered untouchable. There are many jobs in this category such as servers, plumbers, cooks, repairmen, cleaning ladies, nannies and sales clerks. Do you notice a trend with these jobs? They are numerous but necessarily the most desirable. Granted there are some desirable positions in this category I believe they are outnumbered. I wonder if people think, “why go to college and study accounting where there is no job security when I could go to cosmetology school and be ensured employment?”
Middle Class Jobs: These are not the traditional middle jobs of course because they are being outsourced whenever possible. These are the “new middle jobs”. Managers will now have to be horizontal collaborators. Every job will have a local aspect but it is important that they have the ability to collaborate globally. One key field that Friedman mentions is managers who can orchestrate 24/7/7 supply chains. (I guess that makes me a little happy because my focus is on supply chain.)
There are a couple more of these “new middle” type jobs that I felt really stood out.
The Great Explainers: These are people who see complexity and explain it with simplicity. If you can explain something well you can see the opportunities better.
The Green People: With the world developing so quickly and people wanting so many things the world will need many “green jobs”. These jobs will involve sustaining the environment or creating renewable energies.
The Passionate Personalizer: These are people that add the special personal touch to routine middle jobs. Basically anyone that can change an old middle service job and add something special to it there is a chance it will not be outsourced. I like this the most because that means there is hope for some of the people not aware of changes in the flat world.
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2 comments:
I commented on that earlier blog also, and disagree to some level with you. This not something to be worried about or think as a barrier. We should use this as motivation to continuely better ourselves, and look at the situation as an opportunity. We now have a chance to go to their nation and compete with them. How do you think they look at us? They have to compete with top ranked America for American jobs, and we out number foreigners by far. I rather be the underdog to tell you the truth, more motivation. Adaptability through education is the key to economic security. As I said in other post, yesterday's bachelor's is todays master's degree. We still have an edge with our MBA, but it is fading. We can't sit and whine about other people trying to beat us out, we have to do something about it.
Erica, to answer your question "Is that enough?" I will say "Yes and No."
While over time I'm sure more and more companies will begin to outsource their labor to India and China, I still feel there will always be a job in America for us as well.
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