More and more of the work that used to justify our roles is being automated. Reports can be generated instantly. Data can be analysed in seconds. Entire workflows can now run without human involvement. And it leaves a question most of us now can’t avoid: Who am I when the old story of work stops working?
This is a personal question, yes. But the more I think about it, the more I realise, it’s strategic, a leadership and organisational question, and possibly even a societal one too.
Because if we have to rewrite the story of work anyway, why not make it a bigger one? Why not use this moment to explore what success could really look like?
Recently, Commonwealth Bank announced a $90 million, three-year Future Workforce Program designed to help more than 30,000 employees build skills and navigate the changing nature of work. From what’s been shared publicly, the bank is prioritising roles that require greater judgement, critical thinking, and empathy. In other words, human capabilities. Now of course that caught my attention!
For years, these have been labelled as ‘soft skills’ when there’s nothing soft about them. In fact, in many roles, they’re now the most valuable capabilities. And when they’re present, something important tends to follow…
People are more engaged. Work becomes more meaningful. Job and client satisfaction increases.
In other words, the very things we need more of are built through these human capabilities.
Which is why this moment matters.
Because if technology is already forcing us to rethink jobs, we need to talk about what we might lose. But we also need to talk about what we might gain.
Productivity is not the only success measure on the table right now. What if this is our chance to redefine success itself?
A Pivotal Moment
In psychology, there’s a concept called identity foreclosure.
It describes what happens when people commit to a path without ever exploring alternatives. Organisations do this too. We inherit a definition of success, lock it in early, and stop questioning whether it’s actually the right one.
I see a version of this playing out across workplaces (and societies all the time). And a lot of my leadership coaching work involves helping people revisit and redefine what success actually means for them.
For decades, organisational success has largely been measured through the same lenses: productivity, efficiency, shareholder returns. Those metrics became the default story of performance.
But here’s the interesting thing…
The nature of work is already being rewritten around us. So if the chapter is changing anyway, why would we simply write the same one again?
This moment gives us a rare opportunity to ask a bigger question: What does success actually mean now?
Playing a Bigger Game
We live in a capitalist system where productivity and performance matter.
But if those are the only measures of success, we foreclose on something far bigger…
What about engagement? What about job satisfaction? What about wellbeing? What about cultures that allow people do their best work?
When people are energised, connected and purposeful, they deliver better outcomes for customers, colleagues and organisations alike.
Yet many business strategies still revolve around a single objective – increase productivity.
But that to me feels like a very small game… What if the ambition was bigger?
Disengagement, burnout, and the struggle to find meaning at work aren’t just organisational problems. They’re global ones. Billions of people spend most of their waking lives at work. And by Gallup’s measure, roughly 8 in 10 employees are not engaged. That’s a billion-person problem.
If we get this right, we’re not just improving organisations. We’re improving how people experience their lives. And if some organisations are already investing in the development of human capabilities alongside the tech., why aren’t they measuring the outcomes those capabilities create? Imagine more leaders being willing to measure, and openly talk about, success in broader terms, and being rewarded both intrinsically and commercially for building workplaces where people and performance genuinely thrive together.
Now that would be a very different future of work – and a version of success we could genuinely be proud of.
We’re entering a period of enormous disruption. But disruption always carries opportunity.
Right now, there’s a choice in front of all of us.
Use technology to accelerate the same system we’ve always had. Or use this moment to build something better.
Because the real risk of AI isn’t that machines replace us. It’s that we use them to keep playing the same small game.
So technology will change work, but are you will willing to play a bigger game when it does?
