Morning Must Read: Adam Ozimek on Tyler Cowen: The Future Of Work (And Life) Is Conscientiousness

Adam Ozimek: Tyler Cowen: The Future Of Work (And Life) Is Conscientiousness:

His most recent book Average Is Over. In what is both his most fun and also his scariest book yet, he emphasized conscientiousness will be more important in workers in the future:

Team production makes the quality of “conscientiousness” a more important quality in laborers. Managers need workers who are reliable. If you have a team of five, one unreliable worker is wrecking the work of four others. If you have a team of twenty-five, one unreliable worker can negate the work effects of twenty-four others. managers will stay away from possibly destructive labor and they will put a lot of care into building and managing their teams.

This came to mind recently while reading an article from Derek Thompson at the Atlantic about the most used words in 259 million LinkedIn profiles in 20 countries. The most common word was “responsible”…. More surprising is the 5th most common word: patient…. Another word associated with conscientious is the 4th most common: effective…. Like Tyler I’m not necessarily an optimist about all of these changes….If all of this future seems tiring or overbearing perhaps you can take comfort in the idea that behavior modification drugs will make conscientiousness a lot easier for you. My guess is most won’t find this comforting.