No, really. As the companies of the Idea Economy increasingly rely upon ‘liquid workforces’ — as opposed to large quantities of permanent employees — how are these organizations going to deploy, coordinate, manage, supervise, communicate with, scale, repurpose, redeploy, streamline and lead the remote groups of people tasked with getting the work done?
It won’t be a ‘permanent’ job (jobs, almost by definition, aren’t permanent) but until the day comes when the algorithms can do most or all of the above tasks there will be a shortfall of the types of people who can professionally manage programs and projects. Some companies will try to make up the difference through ad hoc arrangements. But an expanding cohort will be more strategic and build development programs (hint, hint) for people with the talent and adaptability to lead programs and projects across a wide range of functions within global organizations.
This new breed of Program/Project Leaders will be highly sought after and their compensation will reflect the demand for their services. They will need a certain entrepreneurial mindset and will certainly come to think of themselves as the ‘CEO’s of their Careers’. And they might even thank you someday for giving them the idea in the first place.