THE age of the gig economy has begun and with it, the evolution of the “organisation”.
The Inuit 2020 report states that 34 per cent of Americans are working independently in the gig economy. Independent workers comprise the fastest growing group in the European Union labour market.
Closer to home, according to reports (from EPF), Malaysia’s gig economy, also known as the open-talent economy, has grown 31 per cent this year, surpassing the traditional workforce.
With the trend of hiring contingent workers expected to accelerate with more than 80 per cent of large corporations planning to substantially increase their use of a flexible workforce, organisations and governments have been quick to adapt their human capital policies to manage contingent workers.
Personally, the most interesting aspect of the gig economy is how this will affect leadership in our organisations.
Apart from flexibility and remoteness, a hallmark feature of the gig economy workforce is diversity.
Finding the right talent to lead and manage a diverse group of people will then be the next challenge of the gig economy.
If I were to choose the most suitable leaders for the gig economy, I would choose an “evolutionary psychologist”.
I firmly believe that the evolution of a successful venture, whether it’s a nation, organisation or any business, has a lot in common with the evolution of human society.
Therefore, an evolutionary psychologist would be best positioned to identify the priorities to build upon and move the venture forward by tapping into the diverse talent pool.
One significant change that this evolution brought is the assortment of capital. By definition, capital means “value”.
As civilisations progressed, new capital structures evolved. Starting with natural capital (food, water etc.) and physical capital (like safe living conditions), new capital structures, including intellectual capital and human capital, evolved. The world now revolves around these capital structures.
This begins with assessing “what matters” or “what is of value” to individuals.
In many Asian cultures (and Western cultures, too), especially in the past when “religion and society” were the main support systems, the indicative measure of a man’s value was the number of people who turned up for his funeral. Aside from the social drivers, this number commensurated largely with the connections and relevance the individual had in his society.
The combination of the inherent tendencies of humans to be “connected” and “relevant” to fellow humans is what I term as “social capital”.
The shift from small hunter-gatherer groups to village and city-dwellers needed humans to connect, build relationships and form civilisations.
I believe this shift was also motivated by their inherent drive to build “social capital”.
Every capital structure associated with human societies grew over time, including human capital. In essence, that single driver or capital structure from which all other capital structures emanated from is the building block of “social capital”.
The academic world has taken multitudes of approaches to measuring social capital. A simple approach is to measure social capital across three broad dimensions — structural, relational and cognitive capital.
Structural capital is the capital that gets generated by building connections with customers or by helping customers to build connections with each other (eg. Linkedin, Airbnb). In relational capital, instead of mere connections, it’s about “relationships” with each other (Facebook made it big by helping its customers quantify and flaunt this). Cognitive capital is formed when the customers align at a deep mental plane or cultural plane with an idea that it becomes a “movement” in itself, larger than the individuals involved.
Cognitive capital is the ultimate form of social capital a venture can aspire for. From freedom movements to businesses, there are ventures that have built this.
One striking example from the world of business in recent times is Tesla. Tesla’s focus on a sustainable energy ecosystem appeals to our inherent driver to be a part of something much bigger than ourselves.
If building social capital is what drives humans forward, then, it should also drive organisations forward. The focus of an organisation and its leaders should be to build a culture and strategy focused around that. Fundamentally, the psychology and DNA of the organisation itself should be geared towards that.
Now, who would know that better than an evolutionary psychologist?