The Next World War and What US Leaders Must Focus On

“The Coming Jobs War” by Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup (as in "Gallup polls"), provides a provocative look at our next world war, the war for jobs. Mr. Clifton writes: “If the U.S. allows China or any country to out-enterprise us, out-job create us, out-grow its GDP, everything changes.”  This war is “for all the marbles” as it will determine the leader of the free world. And “if countries fail at creating jobs, their societies will fall apart. Countries and more specifically cities will experience suffering, instability, chaos, and eventually revolution.”

If we fail, it will be due to bad policy, wrong-headed social assumptions, mentors who do not connect with potential entrepreneurs, cities that collapse, kids who could have graduated into productive contributors to society but did not, people who could have been healthy became an economic drag on society, workers that could have been engaged but were never inspired, and jobs that could have been created but were not. Clifton resources Gallup’s base of knowledge and combines it with his experience and observations to outline a national focus on the critical seven strategies we must adopt for a winning effort:

1. Today, the “global will” is centered on the creation of “good” jobs over all else. “What would create worldwide peace today, global well-being, and the next extraordinary achievements in human development, the immediate appearance of 1.8 billion “good” jobs.”  Nothing would change the current state of mankind more.
2. The supercollider of immediate job growth is America’s top 100 cities, top 100 universities, and top 10,000 local tribal leaders. Job creation must be initiated in the cities.
3. Innovation is not rare but those who can translate good ideas into new customers, and jobs – entrepreneurs – are.  “The scarcest, rarest, hardest energy and talent in the world to find is entrepreneurship. Call it rare salesmanship, call it genius business-model design, call it rainmaking, but whatever the case, America does not have enough to fight the coming global jobs war.” We must switch our investment focus from innovation to entrepreneurship – from investment into the cart o the horse pulling the cart.
4. Healthcare is a drag on call economic activity and is sucking the economic lifeblood out of this country. There must be a focus not only on performance and growth but also on overall health and wellbeing.
5. Most workers today are not fully engaged at work, and are costing us valuable productivity as well as sources of inspiration. “Highly inspired workplaces hatch literally millions of new startups, while low-energy, uninspired workplaces hatch virtually none.” Companies must focus on improving worker engagement.  
6. 30% of our students drop out of school resulting in a significant loss of human capital. Our fate rides on literacy of the population and the resulting entrepreneurial energy that it provides.
7. With the global economy growing from $60 trillion in GDP to $200 trillion in thirty years, we must understand and prepare for a war that is going to be fought globally - for global customers.

Clifton argues that Gallup’s own studies covering the world’s seven billion inhabitants, across every country and demographic and sociographic group, shows that we are reaching a new evolutionary stage of civilization. With basic needs met, “What the whole world wants is good jobs.”

This is our next battleground. Leaders must consider this everyday in everything they do. Leaders must make this their Number One priority. “The Coming Jobs War” is a must-read for all national and local, economic, educational, political, and non- and for-profit organizations.

• Add new comment