It’s graduation season.  This is our annual time of optimism for the future.  We celebrate the accomplishments of those wearing a cap and gown. We talk of unlimited possibilities and decisions about next schools and or professions.  

We’ve been asking these graduates “what do you want to be when you grow up?” for their entire lifetimes.  Those graduating college will feel pressed to have a final answer.  Those headed to college need at least a vague idea of an answer as they choose a major.  Those headed to a trade school or the military will get paid while the others figure it out.

How does a kid these days even decide how to decide? The rules of careers and employment that worked for past generations have been loosening and devolving over time.  

Now a lot of employers don’t even require in person attendance.  A lot of jobs aren’t compensated with W-2 income.  “Side hustles” are now primary income for a lot of people.

Add to all of this the consternation that industries themselves are changing with technology at an ever increasing pace.  We’re no longer just talking about robots replacing factory workers.  

Artificial intelligence programs are now able to complete thought based tasks of humans.  We’re making individual workers more productive.  The down side is we’ll need fewer of them in many industries.  

This isn’t just a problem for future graduates facing a changing and perhaps shrinking workforce.  This flows through to workers of today.  

Anxiety about what work will look like and how we’ll make our living is increasing. Anyone who has ever been forced to attend a corporate management training workshop has likely done multiple exercises that seem to always want to emphasize the same unsurprising conclusion:  People fear change.

Change is what we have. It is a constant. And the pace of change only increases.

So how do we deal with this, as we prepare to send new graduates into this job market?  And how do we prepare those still working their way through our educational system to best handle the open ended question of what careers will look like in the years and decades ahead?

This isn’t an abstract question. In fact, I was asked this out of the blue while I was eating breakfast last week.  My server – a mom preparing to send her two teenage children on to whatever is next – took a slower moment to ask if she could pick my brain.  “How do I get them focused on how to make these decisions.”

Thankfully I had already been served enough coffee to break through my morning fog to try to compose an answer.  When in doubt, I start my analysis on questions such as this with my own training in economic philosophy.

I took a moment, and then decided to start as abstract as possible.  After all, this wasn’t the specific question we’re usually asked, and should quit asking.  We don’t get one answer to what we’re going to do when we grow up. Some of us have gray hair and are still figuring it out.

Instead, I suggested that the best way to get started, and the best way to make sure her kids and all others stay employable and upwardly mobile, is to consider their value.  More specifically, how will they create value for their future employers.

Too many of us get bogged down in thinking our time is valuable.  We quote a lot of pay scales based on time.  $15 per hour. $1,000 per week.  $50,000 per year.  It’s easy to confuse this with the fact that our future employer is paying us because they’re taking away our time.

We only get paid because someone can make money using the capital they have and infrastructure they have built, combine that with some form of labor and effort from us, and make more money or produce more for their organization.  

It’s not about time. It’s about increasing value.

An upwardly mobile society has workers at all levels thinking about growing.  Personal growth combined with growing an organization means more for everyone involved.

The opposite path is looking at all resources are fixed.  This is not a growth mindset.  It instead believes that for some to make more, someone else has to have less.  

Not only do these societies tend not to grow, but they decay. Those that should be helping grow the pie are too busy trying to take from someone else’s plate.  Those who already have wealth expend too many resources defending against someone taking it away from them.  

The better path, for everyone involved, is to focus on increasing value. A person who can figure out how to add value to any organization or any system will in turn add value to themselves.  As long as this question is asked and answered properly, today’s graduates will be able to handle tomorrow’s changes as they are presented.