Embrace the NEW Industrial Revolution

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.” – A Yale University professor

(This was the response of a Yale University professor to Fred Smith, on his paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith would later found FedEx. He not only created demand for overnight package delivery, he built a $34.7-billion empire.)

Continuing with the concept of the RAS, I want to change your belief system about working hours. What you have been told to believe is probably absolute nonsense.

Let me explain.

We are in the beginning stages of a new industrial revolution. One that will disrupt the workplace as dramatically as industrialization did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This time, however, it’s a good thing for skilled workers whereas back then, it was disastrous.

It might not yet be obvious to you, but I believe this revolution offers everyone the opportunity to rewind back to a time when people live a more balanced life. Also, our new era offers an unprecedented opportunity to attain financial freedom via entrepreneurship. This is a Get Big Fast era.

It’s the era of not just lean companies, also sole proprietorships. It has never before been so easy for a single person to start a company and impact the whole world.

The only tools required are a computer and a few brain cells.

Companies once thought to have 100-year lives are going bankrupt at an alarming rate. The reason. Their structures, procedures and leadership styles do not match the new energy. For the first time since before industrialism, individual skilled workers have a huge advantage over multi-tiered hierarchical organizations that have dominated for centuries.

Imagine building a company worth $100 million from the spare bedroom in your house, all while working less than 5 hours a day. Sound good?

That’s exactly what I have done several times over the last 20 years. At first, people thought it was a fluke. Investment bankers laughed in my face, commenting that I was, ‘lucky to have got away with it.’ Now, they line up to learn more.

Success with balance requires a complete change in mentality from the old to the new industrial revolution. Mentality is defined as, ‘how we automatically react to sensory input.’ So, if you are presented with a business threat or opportunity and your automatic reaction is to call a meeting or hire someone to handle the situation, then you have the mentality of the old revolution.

In the new industrial revolution, you need to adapt quickly or die. This means you do not just need to have a lean company structure, you have to be flat. Your management style has to switch from supervisory to peer-to-peer trust. Your decision making is no longer by committee and consensus. It is intuitive. The buck stops with you.

With the right mentality you can respond to any changing market or business decision in an instant. You can direct every function of the business from your office chair. You can build a global market with a little insight and a few technology tools, and you can make optimal decisions without fear.

To develop that mentality and the business structure around it requires we go…back to the future.

Pre-industrialism

There is a modern myth that unions of worker’s rights have reduced worker hours from inhumane to tolerable. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The prevailing belief is that slavery-like hours prevailed for centuries.

Everyone knows the novella, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, with societal reluctance to give a worker even one day of rest. But in reality, those brutal conditions only existed for the short duration of industrialism. Prior to that period, skilled workers led a balanced life in which the priorities were family, church, leisure and then last of all, work.

‘The laboring man will take his rest long in the morning; a good piece of the day is spent afore he come at his work; then he must have his breakfast, though he have not earned it at his accustomed hour, or else there is grudging and murmuring; when the clock smith, he will cast down his burden in the midway, and whatsoever he is in hand with, he will leave it as it is, though many times it is marred afore he come again; he may not lose his meat, what danger soever the work is in. At noon he must have his sleeping time, then his bever in the afternoon, which spendeth a great part of the day; and when his hour cometh at night, at the first stroke of the clock he casteth down his tools, leaveth his work, in what need or case soever the work standeth.’ – James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, ca. 1570

The majority of people lived in a village-centric culture consisting of cottages and rooms surrounding a communal green close to the local manor. Villages were the soul of the nation. Development of the country lay in development of self-centered, self-sufficient villages, which were independent of each other.

Villagers worked on crafts or agriculture, making products needed by the village or the manor. Sustainability wasn’t just a buzz word, it was how people actually lived. A blacksmith made farming tools from disused weapons. An apothecary treated ailments using herbs and spices. The people worked right where they lived and often inside their own homes. (working from home is not a modern idea.)

Other people made baked goods or weak beer, they weaved or whittled wood into cutlery or musical instruments. Then, sold their wares from the kitchen window, or from barrows and baskets on the green.

According to Oxford Professor, James E. Thorold Rogers, the pre-industrial workday was not more than six hours. That sounds brutal to me, I never work more than a few hours a day.

According to a survey from the Corporate Executive Board, (which represents 80% of Fortune 500 companies) people who feel they have good work-life balance are shown to work 21% harder than those who don’t. For me, it’s not that I work harder, rather more productively.

It’s not only about how many hours a day, also how many days a year you work that creates balance. During pre-industrial times, slack periods accounted for a large part of the year and steady regular working hours were not usual. The calendar was filled with holidays. Official — church — holidays included long “vacations” at Christmas, Easter, and midsummer, and also numerous saints’ and rest days. These were spent both in sober churchgoing and in feasting, drinking and merrymaking. In addition to official celebrations, there were often weeks’ worth of ales — to mark important life events (bride ales or wake ales) as well as less momentous occasions (scot ale, lamb ale, and hock ale).

All told, holiday leisure time in pre-industrial countries took up about one-third of the year. And the English were apparently working harder than their neighbors. The ancient règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. Half the year was rest. In Spain, travellers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.

Skilled workers were the ‘middle class’ of the time. They tended their own gardens, worked on textiles in their homes or small shops, and raised farm animals. They were the original sole proprietors.

“their dwelling and small gardens clean and neat, —all the family well clad, —the men with each a watch in their pocket, and the women dressed in their own fancy, —the Church crowded to excess every Sunday, every house well furnished with a clock in elegant mahogany or fancy case… Their little cottages seemed happy and contented… it was seldom that a weaver appealed to the parish for a relief… peace and content sat upon the weaver’s brow” – One contemporary observer (Thompson)

Industrialism

How disruptive was the Industrial revolution to a balanced lifestyle?

The same observer (Thomson) later commented: “A quarter [neighborhood] once remarkable for its neatness and order; I remembered their whitewashed houses, and their little flower gardens, and the decent appearance they made with their families at markets, or at public worship. These houses were now a mass of filth and misery.”

The biggest disruption, the invention of the Spinning Jenny and Power Loom. This increased production with a smaller expenditure on human resources meant the middle classes could no longer live at their own pace or supplement their income with gardening, spinning, or communal harvesting.

The relaxed, balanced, nature-driven lifestyle of the average worker in the romantic renaissance period vanished in the industrial age. The use of new basic materials like iron, and new energy sources such as steam, led to a rapid change from village-centric culture to the ‘factory system.’

It’s hard to write about this disruptive force of mechanization without feeling that industrial ‘progress’ came at a high cost to the average family. Something magical was lost during that time and the concept of a balanced life was rendered impossible. Now, we all have lots of things and the appearance of richness, but what have we given up for it?

Seemingly overnight, the invention of production machinery brought a seismic shift in lifestyle and conditions. Including, compulsory public schooling, commuting and, long work days. Machines made money only when they were working. For the first time work-shifts came into being to keep the machine grinding 16 hours or more a day. Unsurprisingly, lifespans of working people plummeted during this time.

In the first sixty years of the Industrial Revolution, working-class people had little time or opportunity for recreation. Workers spent all the light of day at work and came home with little energy, space, or daylight for leisure. The new industrial pace and factory system were at odds with the old traditional festivals which dotted the village holiday calendar. What vacations were once a worker’s rights, vanished.

Plus, local governments actively sought to ban traditional festivals in the cities. In the new working-class neighborhoods that shot up close to factories, people did not share the same traditional sense of a village community. Owners fined workers who left their jobs to return to their villages for festivals because they interrupted the efficient flow of work.

It has taken a gradual and difficult movement over 200 years to reduce this voluntary slavery from inhumane to tolerable. Even so, a 2020 national Gallup poll of modern workers put the average number at 47 hours worked per week. That’s 9.4 hours per day, with many saying they work over 50 hours per week.

Twice as much as our ancestors worked before industrialization.

The American Stress Institute estimates that American businesses lose $300 billion a year because of work-related stress. About one million Americans stay home from work every day because of stress and tension felt at work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found the average amount of time off due to stress at work was 20 days.

According to Brain Rules, three things determine if a workplace is stressful or productive.

1- the type of stress experienced

2-the balance between stimulation and boredom

3- the condition of home life

‘Work-family-conflict is the root cause of stress and depression,’– says the author, John Medina.

Post-industrialism

Today, we are experiencing another industrial revolution, one almost as disruptive as industrialism. This time in a potentially positive way, I believe we have come full circle. We live in a time when we can, if we choose, return to our previous hamlet lifestyles. The key phrase is, ‘if we choose.’ Habits can only change if we choose to change them.

Here is a fantastic TED talk. Well, they’re all great. Also, to reprogram your RAS you might want to spend more time watching TED talks instead of doom scrolling on social media.

This one is about the impact of A.I. for Startups, a new piece in this industrial revolution. Currently, we are at hour one and there are no experts.

Advances in science also allows us to understand how the brain works especially around lifestyle habits. Ones that can enhance brain output and ones that damage the brain. Later on, we’ll see how damaging 50-hour work-weeks are to the brain and how fruitless half those hours are to productivity.

In most industries automation now rules, and you can work from anywhere while engaging a global audience. Artificial Intelligence promises to revolutionize the workplace, but only if we learn to work with it and not against it. You can be your own boss using ideas and skills to customize offerings to individual customers, all with the click of a mouse or subtle change in software program. There has never been a better or easier time to start your own venture. There have never been so many possibilities created by technology to be your own boss, set your own hours, and live a balanced life. All while achieving financial freedom.

Economist’s like, Klaus Schwab, define the First Industrial Revolution as one that used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second, used electric power to create mass production. The Third, used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now, a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building upon the Third. The digital revolution which has been occurring since the middle of the last century. This one is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

‘There are three reasons why today’s transformations represent not merely a prolongation of the Third Industrial Revolution but rather the arrival of a Fourth and distinct one: velocity, scope, and systems impact. The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.’

– Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum

On the supply side, introduction of new technologies creates entirely unique ways of serving existing needs. You no longer have to build the infrastructure yourself and have access to global digital platforms for research, development, marketing, sales, and distribution. The business structure of this new era is more favorably an outsource model. You can simply contract with someone and scale up or down resources as needed, or as your budget allows. Cashflow management is easier. This is important because until now, 82% of all company failures, regardless of size, were for cashflow management issues.

On the demand side, customers have more power than ever. It used to be said that a happy customer told seven people and an unhappy one told over 20 people. Today, a single customer can influence hundreds and thousands of other people instantaneously. It becomes imperative to not only make the customer happy but to delight them.

The thing about technology is that it reprograms our RAS. In 1821 Faraday succeeded in producing mechanical motion by means of a permanent magnet and an electric current—an ancestor of the electric motor. Ten years later he converted magnetic force into electrical force, thus inventing the world’s first electrical generator. Imagine going back in time and describing to him how his invention would one day lead to televisions or laptops? He would have you guillotined for reasons of insanity. Inventions, however, set in motion RAS reprogramming. So do winning start-up ideas.

The timeless quotes I use at the top of every activity are evidence plenty that people’s RAS fix their beliefs. But how wrong they become. Technology helps us constantly reprogram and therefore should never be feared. As an entrepreneur you should always be seeking out the latest trends and latest invention. Let your RAS then get to work.

Homework Time:

Although this has been a mostly educational activity it provides food for thought and the chance for self-reflection. I recommend taking a break here. Go take a stroll, sit under a tree, or find a quiet space to be alone in the house. Think about how much of your time is spent working. How many hours do you work a day.

Don’t judge yourself. Just assess.

Think also about how many of those hours are spent in unproductive meetings.

Contemplate the ways you allow work to dominate your thoughts and private life, how often work interrupts the family, leisure and spirit time.

Close you eyes and imagine what it must have felt like to once be your own boss making crafts around the village green, playing with your kids, vacationing stress-free. Often when we step into the feeling of something we can connect with that same energy. Sometimes imagining the idyllic past can bring that energy into your present.