Charles Handy article on the future and four parables of instruction. Handy uses the four parables to describe several lessons about careers and the workforce. The first is that, according to the S-shaped Sigmoid Curve, one invests more than they gain back, making mistakes and thereupon it grows but in the end declines, and how new things must be started before one stagnates; the second, that the technological imperative has limited the available opportunities for lifetime employment in an organization and, as a result of such a development, workers will continue to become what Handy calls 'portfolio' workers. Such workers must have a range of skills and experience in different types of jobs, and must market themselves to employers on a fee, rather than contractual wage, basis. In this sense, industrialized Western nations will become increasingly post-organisational. Handy notes that such developments will have special implications for capitalist societies. Specifically, he notes that society will have an obligation to train people to become competent and take responsibility for their own lives. Handy concludes his analysis expressing four worries and four hopes for the future.
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