The future of work is a hot topic of conversation, with thought leaders and executives weighing in on everything from automation to skills to leadership. But few are asking the fundamental question: What is work?
The everyday meaning of “work” is activity that requires effort or exertion, often paid or remunerated. It also may refer to a specific task, activity, or occupation, such as writing an exam or carrying a load on level ground. Work may also imply the use of skill or knowledge for a purposeful end, such as a person’s vocation as an artist or writer.
Scientifically, however, work is an increase or decrease in energy transferred from or to a system (a system being any object that undergoes a change of position). It is a scalar quantity with magnitude equal to the force times the displacement, and it can be positive, negative, or zero, depending on the relative directions of the force and the displacement.
When the direction of the force and the direction of the displacement are the same, as when a person swings a heavy object backward and forward on a string, no work is done because the force is perpendicular to the displacement. When the direction of the force is opposite the direction of the displacement, such as when a car is pulled down an inclined surface by rolling resistance and air drag, the amount of work done increases to overcome the frictional forces that are resisting the motion, making the work negative.
Moreover, if the direction of the displacement is parallel to the direction of the force (as when a person slides down a slide), the amount of work done remains zero because the object does not change its position. Finally, if the direction of the displacement is perpendicular to the direction of the force (as with a person holding a heavy object stationary), the amount of work done increases to move the object from its original position to its new one, but the work is negligible because the object does not change its position much.
To redefine work, companies will need to rethink their entire organization—workplace environments, operations, management systems, leadership and management capabilities, performance management and compensation practices, etc. This will require cultivating and drawing on intrinsic human capabilities to do work for fundamentally different purposes. To make this a reality, it will be essential for leaders to understand what work is and what it can and cannot accomplish. That means reimagining the nature of work beyond a short-term engagement in problem identification and solution approaches that are meant to fix a process or correct an inefficiency, feeding back into more structured and tightly defined work for the future. Instead, a more sustainable vision of work will require ongoing creative, imaginative identification and solutions to unseen problems and opportunities that will continuously expand value for the company, its customers, workers, and their communities. This type of work will require a substantial commitment of time and effort, but it will also be incredibly rewarding.