Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.

—Niels Bohr

The future is unimaginably wonderful. Consider how advances in health care, communications, business, and technology will expand in the next couple of decades. But if you want to know the future, don’t listen to the so-called experts. They have a sorry record with prediction. Look at this:

“It is impossible to transmit the human voice over wire.”

—Lord Kelvin, Royal Society

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”

—H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers

“A rocket will never be able to leave earth’s atmosphere.”

—New York Times editorial

“I think there is a world market for five computers.”

—Thomas Watson, IBM

“No reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

—Ken Olson, Digital Equipment Co.

“The Internet will soon collapse.”

—Robert Metcalfe, co-inventor Ethernet

“Remote shopping, while feasible, will flop.”

—TIME magazine

“Cellular phones will not replace local wire systems.”

—Marty Cooper, inventor

“No chance the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.”

— Steve Ballmer, Microsoft

These opinions are useless because they are an attempt to extrapolate the past into the future. Ever since technology appeared in the form of the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago, change and advancement have been the norm. Look at just a few key events of the past 20 years.

• 1990: First major layoffs bring end to loyalty and lifetime employment
• 1997: Dot-com mania promises a new order before crashing in 2001
• 2003: Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reconfigure America’s world reputation
• 2008: Liquidity crisis leading to prolonged reconfigure in the United States and in Europe
• 2000+: Growth in personal computers, cell phones, Internet, tablets
• 2004: Social networks changing human communications and turning chief technology officers into risk managers

Major events change life as it was previously known. That is why predictions are fragile. Therefore, if you do not limit your thinking to what has gone before and let your imagination run free, your guess is as good as anyone’s.

Currently, we think of advancement in terms of new and better machines. From the Jacquard loom to the iPhone, it has been about leveraging human capability. Each invention changed the way we lived. However, that is now an obsolete way of looking at the future of the planet, if not the universe. We are past the machine stage and into the human capability era. Realize it or not, the application of the conscious and the unconscious minds in pursuit of advancement is the new game. Future production leverage will not be through a new communication machine. There is already preliminary research on brain-to-brain connections. We are on the threshold of truly unleashing the power of human intelligence. So, let’s think ahead in those terms.

What might 2033 look like? The odds are that if you are under 50 years of age today, you will still be working. You may work at home or from other remote sites. But one thing is undeniable. Long before then, analysis in various forms will be the common calculus of business and human capital management. Calculus is the mathematics of change, and change is the defining process of the universe.

In the near future, all administrative work will be handled directly from beginning to end by computers. Pay and benefits will be processed according to some objective goal. Most of staffing’s hands-on processing will be eliminated. Recruitment requests will go directly from the hiring supervisor to the staffing database of applications. In return, applications/resumes will be scored against a standard and forwarded for interview or rejected.

But all that is not the goal. It is merely the means to free ourselves for more profound thinking, decision making, and communication. We are closing in on the direct application of human intelligence to managing change.

The role of human resources (HR), if the role even exists, will be focused on human capital planning and development and on organizational effectiveness. For example, a new and better way to appraise performance will develop, possibly wherein each person is given verifiable objectives and the system automatically records and scores the work as it is performed. Intelligent programs will make the evaluation. Also, 360-degree performance reviews may be improved to provide an objective balance. A computer will collect and score all the data with intelligent interpretations included. A report will go to the supervisor as well as the employee and into the permanent record for future evaluation and planning. Development programs will be provided automatically to improve performance. All this will occur without someone from HR needed to process it.

One does not have to be clairvoyant to know that predictive and prescriptive analysis will necessarily be applied to the competitive talent market and the Big Data problems we face. It simply has to be, given these dynamics. If HR wants, as it says, to add value and claim a seat at the table, it must employ analytics in the daily course of its business.

Assume nothing from the past or present and let your imagination run. Haven’t you said there is a better way to do something? Analytics will find it.

The scenario at the end of Chapter 7 provides a small glimpse of the future.