THE PERSONALITY OF THE FUTURE
As the Third Wave cuts across our society, work grows less, not more, repetitive. It becomes less fragmented, with each person doing a somewhat larger, rather than smaller, task. Flextime and self-pacing replace the old need for mass synchronization of behavior. Workers are forced to cope with more frequent changes in their tasks, as well as a blinding succession of personnel transfers, product changes, and reorganizations.
What Third Wave employers increasingly need, therefore, are men and women who accept responsibility, who under-stand how their work dovetails with that of others, who can handle ever larger tasks, who adapt swiftly to changed circumstances, and who are sensitively tuned hi to the people around them.
The Second Wave firm frequently paid off for plodding bureaucratic behavior. The Third Wave firm requires people who are less pre-programmed and faster on their feet. The difference, says Donald Conover, general manager of Corporate Education for Western Electric, is like that between classical musicians who play each note according to a predetermined, pre-set pattern, and jazz improvisers who, once having decided what song to play, sensitively pick up cues from one another and, on the basis of that, decide what notes to play next.
Such people are complex, individualistic, proud of the ways in which they differ from other people. They typify the de-massified work force needed by Third Wave industry.
According to opinion researcher Daniel Yankelovich, only 56 percent ofU.S. workers—mainly the older ones—are still motivated by traditional incentives. They are happiest with strict work guidelines and clear tasks. They do not expect to find “meaning” in their work.
By contrast, as much as 17 percent of the work force already reflects newer values emerging from the Third Wave. Largely young middle-managers, they are, declares Yankelovich, the “hungriest for more responsibility and more vital work with a commitment worthy of their talent and skills.” They seek meaning along with financial reward.
To recruit such workers, employers are beginning to offer individualized rewards. This helps explain why a few advanced companies (like TRW Inc., the Cleveland-based high-technology firm) now offer employees not a fixed set of fringe benefits but a smorgasbord of optional holidays, medical benefits, pensions, and insurance. Each worker can tailor
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