Matthew Bishop—author of Philanthrocapitalism, visiting senior fellow of the Brookings Institution and a founder of the Social Progress Initiative—discusses how we can begin to rethink, and reform, capitalism and better value all workers’ contributions. As we plan to emerge from a period of extreme disruption, our economic framework needs to be reconfigured and the human capital of America assessed as to whether it’s well-suited for the Future of Work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[04:00] The pandemic highlighted existing fault lines and intensified and accelerated disruptions that were already underway.

[05:37] Why does capitalism need to be reformed? 

[06:55] After the crash of 2008, it became clear that we have a system of two halves – with almost all benefits going to the half with financial capital.

[07:45] COVID caused economic justice to rise to the top of the political agenda because of its impact on the average worker who already felt insecure about work.

[08:48] Capitalism wasn’t delivering for the average family and COVID accelerated the need to address this.

[08:57] The significance of the Business Roundtable announcement about all stakeholders, not just shareholders, benefiting.

[09:56] Why it makes sense to separate workers out from the rest of ‘social’ in the ‘S’ of ESG.

[10:43] There are a lot of conversations right now on how to be a better employer--but a big challenge is to figure out how to find broad agreement.

[11:49] WorkMoney is a new organization lobbying for working family rights in Washington—including the delineation between employees and independent contractors.

[12:50] What can be reconfigured to reform capitalism—setting an enabling context?

[13:33] Next steps--vocal companies talking about long-term stakeholder strategy.

[14:23] Measuring how companies are performing against UN Sustainable Development Goal targets.

[15:20] Is it time to reformulate GDP since it has never adequately measured progress?

[16:33] Matthew co-founded the Social Progress Index—a series of measures of the good society to use alongside GDP.

[17:22] COVID highlighted places with poor social performance as more vulnerable to deaths.

[18:39] What ‘normality’ may look like with the release of pent-up demand!

[20:28] Companies will be judged on how they responded during the crisis.

[22:00] CEOs know they have to change, but will their investors punish them if they do?

[23:40] The younger generation has seen nothing but chaos and catastrophe which likely results in jadedness and low trust levels. 

[24:31] Without long-term career prospects, employees are happy to share opinions about their companies publicly especially credentials about social issues.

[26:40] Google has a large percentage of contract workers who are treated differently to employees.

[27:57] A bifurcated workforce can exist where high-paid employees are not focused on the social contract as regular employees are.

 [29:47] Gender bias in management may improve after men have been more exposed in home-based chores and challenges during the pandemic.

[30:51] Matthew believes the ability to work from home will be an option for almost every job going forward.

[31:17] African American billionaire Robert Smith has proposed the 2% Solution to the Business Roundtable to address structural social challenges. 

[33:17] COVID has highlighted deep social and structural problems in the economy and how difficult it is to get ahead.  

[34:35] There will be a need for a massive re-skilling.

[35:19] The average American family needs to be equipped for the new world of work.

[36:02] A new initiative to create a national human capital strategy for America. 

[37:03] The private sector needs to collaborate with universities and colleges and discuss future skills’ needs and what degrees will prepare future employees best.

[38:44] Employers, educators, and the government ought to get together and talk about what the future of work looks like even though you can’t predict how technology is going to evolve. 

[39:51] The pandemic has shaken up the traditional four-year in-person degree.

[41:14] Where is ‘Philanthrocapitalism’ headed in the upcoming years? 

[44:02] We have the opportunity to have a more constructive dialog between business and society.

[45:56] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Big picture - demand a national Human Capital Strategy and be willing to participate. Within your own company - Talk with your own team and find out what they really want, what their expectations are and what good practice looks like.

RESOURCES

Matthew Bishop on LinkedIn

Matthew Bishop on Twitter — @Mattbish

Philanthrocapitalism.net

WorkMoney.org

Socialprogress.org

Worldbenchmarkingalliance.org

Association of American Colleges and Universities

Robert Smith’s 2% Solution

Businessroundtable.org

QUOTES

“There was already a recognition that capitalism wasn’t delivering for the average family.”

“You look at the last year and the richest people in the world, they’ve done fantastically well, and the average worker with no benefits, their life has gotten much harder.”

“I do think a lot of CEOs get it, they get the need to change, but they are concerned that investors are ultimately going to punish them for doing that rather than reward them.”

“There is a need to look seriously, not just at economic growth, but about how the money is spent in terms of really investing in a healthy society.”

“The average working family needs to be equipped for the new world of work. What’s striking to me is that we don’t have a lot of ideas about what to do beyond going to college.”

“Nobody really knows what the human capital of America is and whether it’s well-suited to the work of the future.”

“Employers, educators, and the government ought to get together and talk about what the future of work looks like.”

“We have the opportunity to have a more constructive dialog between business and society.”

Henrik Jarleskog, Head of Future of Work at Sodexo, shares his multinational perspective transforming workplace strategies, services, and experiences to enhance employee and business performance. Henrik explains the shift from building-centric to human-centric approaches. He describes facilitating implementation of wide-ranging future workplace strategies and systems, adapting for changing business, workforce, and cultural needs, for Sodexo’s more than 400,000 employees worldwide. Henrik recognizes the critical flexible, social, and strategic imperatives of modern, distributed work, and models essential experimentation with AI promoting adoption and integration.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:12] Henrik studies mechanical engineering for its creativity, design, and business focus.

[03:29] The benefits of creativity in business for transformation and solving complex challenges.

[04:00] Henrik’s early career focuses on data-driven decisions and performance improvement.

[05:26] 20 years ago, workplace strategies were building-centric.

[06:11] The integrated facilities management trend resulted in more strategic higher-level deals.

[08:04] Workplace solutions and experiences are tailored for cultural and regulatory differences.

[09:44] Outsourced facilities management contracts taught leadership and management running significant P&Ls.

[11:58] Henrik gains great experience becoming a consultant to learn the skillset and tool box.

[12:50] Vested partnerships focus on buying outcomes instead of transactions from a supplier.

[13:42] The collaborative benefits of a relational contract which is transparent.

[14:45] A Nordic airline achieves a vested transformation throughout the supply chain.

[17:00] Transformation requires vision clarity and aligned incentives, communication, and actions.

[18:12] In transparent strategic partnerships, agree critical business metrics together.

[20:45] Henrik works with Sodexo, then his new family encourages him to take their job offer.

[22:17] How management consulting roles involve substantial solutions selling.

[23:20] Henrik works hybrid, while holding three roles, transforming the Nordic businesses.

[24:29] When the pandemic strikes, Henrik builds a fully digital region of 16 countries.

[26:00] Providing sustainable food solutions with broader services as workplace experiences to corporations.

[28:05] Sodexo recognizes the pandemic’s disruption, choosing to emerge as a thought leader.

[30:22] In employee surveys, preferences showed a huge shift in people’s expectations.

[31:10] How Activity Based Working changed workplace dynamics in Europe 20 years ago.

[33:56] New work norms and generational preferences such as flexibility and choice.

[35:45] Henrik supports companies spanning models ranging full-time in office to fully flexible.

[36:35] Providing knowledge and data for Future of Work and workplace systems and strategies.

[38:15] Clients need ‘magnetic offices’ supporting recruitment with great office-based experiences.

[39:31] Considering manufacturing site working experiences and the effect of monitoring.

[41:20] Building relationships and connection with social hubs to support collaboration.

[42:46] Two major structural changes: doing more with less and distributed work is here to stay.

[45:45] How do Fortune 500 companies’ hybrid/flexible models affect their performance?

[46:55] Nostalgia rather than data mostly drive five-days-a-week RTO mandates.

[47:35] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP:  To move your company forward effectively. One, your honor, people-centric, flexible journey. So ask your teams what's working for us and not. Two, ensure your work model aligns with the corporate mission. Three, design flexible, fantastic workplace experiences. Four, ensure everything is as sustainable as possible.

[50:13] How Henrik views AI, experimentation and AI Agents.

[54:10] Being a leading role model in using AI.

[52:10] The future of work requires empathy and human-centric focus.

RESOURCES

Henrik Jarleskog on LinkedIn

Sodexo.com

QUOTES

“Distributed work is here to stay… it’s not being hybrid, it's distributed work. And that trend is so strong that everything else about two or three days a week, being flexible or not is just a big distraction compared to that.”

“Zero of these Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. are full time in office. If you look at the same in Europe for the top 10, they are 100% hybrid…Is there a correlation between how flexible you are as an operating model and your business performance? This is becoming more and more focused on now over the last quarter.”

“I haven't still met one company who has decided to bring their people back to the office five days a week that transparently can show me the data that is building that decision. Mostly, these type of decisions are based on nostalgia and not data.”

“Leaders of this world are in different degrees ready for leading hybrid, for leading remote, or in different versions of whatever it can be, because this is a difficult thing. But data indicates that we are on a flexible journey.”

“If you look at the performance of the best and largest companies of this world…they have a people centric approach. They are asking their teams, their organizations, “What is working for us? How do you think we should be formalizing our next generation operating model?”

Sophie Wade is a work futurist and strategist, author and authority on the Future of Work, instructor on Gen Z, empathy, and Future of Work skills, and host of this show. Sophie discusses modern work—what it is, why and how it is different and human-centric. She explains how to adapt to be prepared for the ongoing changes around and ahead of us, accelerated by AI. Sophie sets the landscape, describes enterprise needs, and why employees are the focus for the future. She shares the core principles of modern work and why practicing empathy is key.

TAKEAWAYS

[00:45] Sophie wants to take stock of where we are and what’s ahead that we need to prepare for.

[01:27] Our environment is highly-digitalized and interconnected, generating fast-paced change.

[03:30] Artificial intelligence has become a top strategic priority for most businesses.

[04:19] Driven by technology, is your customer base changing, how you serve them, or how quickly you have to upgrade your products?

[04:49] To respond to marketplace demands, operations become more flexible and the nature of work evolves.

[05:52] The pandemic catalyzed us along a path we were already on.

[06:12] The impact of technology updates on employees needing frequently to upskill and reskill.

[07:07] Why enterprises need to create a skills inventory and be mapping every employee’s skills.

[07:28] Hierarchies have flattened for businesses to be more nimble.

[08:10] Non-linear careers must be planned and managed even when skills and roles are evolving.

[08:50] Internal talent marketplaces and cross organization relationships facilitate non-vertical career development.

[09:41] Why younger employees quit if they can’t easily move internally with their current employer.

[10:43] Jobs with high and low automation potential can be compared for skills matching to assess possible future transfers.

[11:53] How BCG consultants used GPT4 and completed more tasks faster and better!

[13:11] Why the Future of Work is tech-driven and talent-focused.

[13:54] Empathy is essential in modern work to ensure the emphasis is on people.

[14:38] Each business is different so there are principles of modern work to adapt appropriately.

[15:10] The core principles of modern work are: Learning, Intention, Flexibility, and Empathy.

[16:25] Why workers need to be creators.

[17:04] Thinking outside the box is critical and what the box symbolizes—before and now.

[17:45] A strong culture is essential, grounded by empathy and other timeless values.

[18:50] AI is likely to net out creating more jobs, but much will shift during the transition.

[19:10] What is the broader impact of encouraging your team to use of AI?

[20:11] Empathy can help us focus on progress rather than more debates about work locations.

[20:52] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To start the transition to modern work, be curious and open-minded. Ask coworkers for ideas and recommendations and explore new possibilities. Curiosity primes you for learning, being flexible, and empathy about other’s viewpoints.

[21:27] Modern work IS different—adjusting for our new environment as well as enterprise and employee needs.

[22:17] The process of transformation is messy, but there are great benefits all round when we create and co-create together.

RESOURCES

Sophie Wade on LinkedIn

Sophie’s personal/speaker website

Sophie company Flexcel Network’s website

QUOTES

“These change that are upon us has been building in momentum for years already and causing strain within our fixed internal structures.”

“We have been transitioning for years already to modern work which is about flexibility—accommodating activities that are less linear, less routine, with more collaborative and cross disciplinary.”

“Numerous rigid layers of hierarchy have intentionally been reduced significantly in many cases to enable businesses to be more nimble and responsive.”

“Stronger relationships are critical to develop deliberately across organizations to permit non vertical career development, so that managers are willing to share one of their rising stars to another team or division.”

“For now, it is easier for employees to quit to advance their careers than move within their own organization.”

“The Future of Work is tech-driven and talent focused.”

“Empathy is essential in modern work—giving us each ability to understand other’s perspectives and connect with their experiences.”

“Everyone providing value to your business across your entire workforce needs to be a “creator”.”

Matthias Hollwich, Founder of HKWN Architecture, has long focused on designing buildings that foster human connection and generate positive emotions and memories. He describes his vision for the office of the future designed to create a more human experience, recognizing the cadence of workers’ emotions, tasks, and other needs during the course of their workdays. Matthias explains how these offices will lure people back and support positive and productive experiences and interactions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[2:55] Matthias did not originally anticipate being an architect.

[05:00] One of Matthias’ high school teachers unwittingly set him on the path to New York.

[8:00] Why Rem Koolhaas is such an inspirational architect for Matthias.

[10:48] Matthias wanted to understand how buildings made people feel.

[13:20] Taking part in a major competition Matthias’ team’s submission was a surprise last minute combination of ideas.

[15:02] How people connected emotionally with ‘Wendy’ their winning submission.

[16:03] Memories are generated by a combination of familiarity, emotions, and novelty.

[18:22] Architects were first to recognize that we need more than just cubicles and conference rooms at the office.

[20:07] How can we lure people back to the office? We don’t want to force them back.

[21:48] For Matthias, the future office environment “resorting” comes from three mega trends: hub and spoke, hoteling, and longevity.

[23:45] Matthias just won a competition to create the first ever “work resort’ in the world and explains the goal.

[26:22] Typical resorts create experiences. What would the work resort experience be like?

[29:38] How the economics can make creating a work resort effective and affordable.

[32:10] Matthias describes the buildings with personalities that visitors can interact with at the upcoming exhibition in Berlin.

[34:31] People have agency in shaping their living and working environments.

[36:35] Why did Matthias write a book about living smarter as we get older?

[37:55] Matthias recommends visiting an assisted living facility or a nursing home for a day.

[40:00] How do you design buildings with an older person in mind?

[42:15] At each age milestone, do a review of where and how you live and look ahead. How will your environment suit your needs in the future?

[47:45] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Walk around your local environment, single out a building and consider what you like about it and how you would change it. You are the user, you are in charge!

RESOURCES

Matthias Hollwich on LinkedIn 

Matthias Hollwich on Twitter

HKWN website

HKWN on Instagram

Shape Tomorrow Expo on Nov 19 

New Aging: Live Smarter Now to Live Better Forever by Matthias Hollwich

QUOTES

“We did not create architecture, we created memories. And that was for me the big paradigm change.”

“If you can create something so emotional that people connect to, it's magic that we can give to people. Suddenly they don't respond to that object anymore, it has a personality.”

“When emotions are involved in your experience, it goes from short-term memory into the long-term memory.”

“Now we can actually design buildings that really make it attractive for people to come there and have an incredible experience, which is about the corporate culture, the community and the experiences.”

“Shape Tomorrow really is an invitation to interact with us as architects, so that people realize they have a lot of power in shaping their own environments.”

“You have to look through the lens of older people, to be able to design things [for them]. So you have to really put yourself into the shoes of an older person.”

“As the user, you're in charge, and you have the right to live in a city that serves you well.”

Brian Day is the CEO of Fuze, a global cloud communications provider for enterprises. Fuze’s workforce went mostly remote in 2017. Brian shares his insights as an experienced leader of remote teams focusing on mindset, culture, communication, and tools. He also looks ahead towards a new normal and embraces productive new habits that are benefitting his organization.

Key Takeaways

[02:32] How has the COVID-19 crisis affected progress towards Future of Work environments? 

[03:20] With the right mindset and culture, you can enable your workers to work remotely.

[04:15] How can you cultivate the right mindset and culture?

[05:29] Setting expectations with employees about working from home.

[07:11] Every communication should be video. 

[08:10] Using technology to protect employees’ health.

[09:01] What changes has Brian seen with more people are working from home? 

[11:35] How are managers managing and communicating with their remote teams effectively? 

[13:46] Brian shares how he uses different communication channels with remote employees. 

[16:46] The benefit of integrated applications—content sharing and communications history.

[19:09] Recognizing how to set up and be equipped for remote working.

[20:42] Establishing the right rules when working from home, including boundaries and habits. 

[22:32] Brian thinks most industries will not go back to Jan/Feb 2020, instead companies will continue to benefit from remote working, with shorter commutes for employees.

[24:54] When working from home, if you have the right tools, you don’t lose productivity.

[25:54] Preparing and hiring for what’s ahead.

[27:25] What is Fuze’s company’s culture like?

[27:49] Fuze believes in ‘Work from Anywhere’—what does that really look like?

[31:24] What recommendations does Brian have for CEOs leading virtual companies now? 

[35:47] How can managers nurture internal relationships when working remotely?

[38:52] Brian believes we have to unplug from the past—the world is a different place.

[40:39] The more seamless you can make communication, the better it is.

[42:19] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP – Use your video!

Resources:

Fuze.com

Brian on LinkedIn

The Ultimate Guide to Remote Working

Quotes: 

“The crisis that the world is living through today is essentially accelerated where we were all going in the first place.”

“As long as you have the right mindset and culture, you can enable your workers to work remotely, that’s the Future of Work.”

“For a lot of people, it’s a brave new world right now. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to the world of January or February of 2020.”

“I think the days of dedicated desks and offices, all that, I think those are numbered in most industries at this point.”

“You really need to unplug from the past and think about “That doesn’t matter anymore. The world’s a different place.””

Dart Lindsley is Strategic Advisor, People Experience at Google. He is also a writer, speaker, and host of the Work for Humans podcast – on a mission to humanize work. Dart share insights about his realization that businesses are multisided marketplaces where employees are (overlooked) customers of work and work is a product. To better design the work product, Dart recognizes teams’ agency and ability to allocate their attention among themselves to complete tasks effectively. He discusses a flipped org chart with managers in supportive, rather than authoritative, roles. Dart advocates for more leadership closest to the customer.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:05] Dart is an undergraduate for seven years partly because his brother told him never to graduate!

[03:47] Dart explores unpopular forms of writing which makes earning a living hard.

[04:37] Being a criminal defense investigator rearranges Dart’s soul.

[06:45] After a master’s degree, Dart becomes a recruiter to earn more as he starts a family.

[08:34] Dart’s family are scientists, so his career transitioned to analytical work after a recruiting downturn.

[09:49] Dart inserts himself into the team doing strategic work designing the new staffing system.

[10:52] Finding a home in analytical disciplines which are less burdensome and emotional.

[12:26] Dart explores tooling, UX, change management and Six Sigma, ending up with organizational design.

[13:36] Facilitating business architecture resonates with Dart who is very interested in how large systems create experiences.

[15:03] Companies are ‘n’ dimensional: humans cannot observe them or handle more than 3 dimensions.

[15:49] Human Resources had not been analyzed from a business architecture point of view before.

[17:03] Business architecture is only needed for companies going through significant transformation to discover new operational capabilities needs and how they interrelate.

[18:08] Translating strategic capability requirements into tech systems and architecture is not easy.

[20:48] Business architecture change derives from either market changes or new tech capabilities—as now.

[21:20] The pace layer of technology is usually the slowest thing. Not now, so much experimentation is needed.

[22:35] Dart initially subscribes to the traditional model of HR where employees are the inputs of production.

[23:48] Employee has happiness has not been a concern—only productivity which Dart finds ethically flawed.

[25:10] Dart notices ‘employees’ show up in two places—inside (production inputs) and outside (customers).

[25:59] Working on a patent for Cisco, Dart explores multi-sided businesses and realizes employees are also (forgotten) customers.

[28:25] If employees are customers, what are we selling them? We need to design work better.

[29:03] Do people want only autonomy, mastery and purpose? Dart finds 35+ more answers!

[30:15] People usually want 8 things from work. Only 4 likely overlap, so how to optimize individually?

[31:05] Lack of autonomy is a cost of a job, like social anxiety and threats to health and safety.

[32:33] Managers are key to a design-centered solution.

[33:28] Design is about empathy, understanding employees’ needs, scaling with managers below on the org chart.

[34:10] Managers are brokers between demand for the team’s labor and the market for work—the work people want to do.

[37:10] A team can act as a smart organism allocating its attention to work and delivering value.

[38:32] Color coding how rewarding work is—green, yellow, and red. What happens when colors change.

[39:41] The range of issues and solutions affecting the cost side of work.

[42:14] How do we design our lives so as not to be ‘inputs of production’?

[43:31] How a team agrees on what business value is and the core mission.

[44:25] Is the manager winning the work the team wants to do? And the type of client the team wants?

[47:10] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To enable a dexterous organization, let the edges closest to the customers lead. Giving more agency to the agents will facilitate guided emergence, while anchoring your organization with values, purpose, and focus.

RESOURCES

Dart Lindsley on LinkedIn

Dart’s website

Dart’s Work for Humans podcast

Bill Burnet’s book “Designing Your Life”

QUOTES (edited)

“if you're an input to production and my main objective is to make you productive, then if I can make you productive by being happy, great. But, if I can make you productive and you're miserable, great. It's not a concern.”

“The only reason I'm going to care about a human is because of what they give me as a company? It just struck me as like ethically flawed.”

“For the first 10 years of working in HR, I subscribed to the traditional model of HR which is that employees are inputs of production who must be acquired.”

“If employees are customers, what are we selling them? We’re selling them work. If work’s a product, then it’s a design problem and we can design it better.”

“Managers are designers, even ‘product’ managers. [They act] as a broker between two markets. One market is the demand for the labor of the team—so the value that flows towards the traditional customer. The other is the market for work and the work that people want to do.”

Trond Undheim, futurist, speaker, entrepreneur, venture partner, and the author of a new book, Augmented Lean in this second episode gets to the practical details of how flexibility can be achieved in manufacturing plants after a 50 year innovation hiatus. Trond draws on his industrial tech background, understanding of manufacturers’ realities, and recognition of frontline workers’ expertise to develop flexible, augmented environments. He recommends balancing inputs from both employees on the shop floor and management to “hack and govern” new solutions. Trond acknowledges these are long term paradigm shifts.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:57] Trond explains the deskless reality for factory workers results from forgetting to innovate for 50 years.

[05:00] Adding multiple screens gives employees the data they need and freedom to walk around.

[05:36] How no code technology now allows data to be widely available and accessible.

[06:26] Up to date information augments workers’ intelligence and real-time operational decisions.

[07:03] The first killer application is digital work instructions.

[07:52] Tech advances enable empathetic learning as feedback is immediate and uncontentious.

[09:44] Augmented lean approaches technology integration in a smarter way—top down and bottom up.

[10:54] Governance is an essential aspect of modern organizations.

[11:42] The problems arising with top down only technology integration.

[12:57] The benefit of bottom up analysis of bottlenecks and operating needs.

[13:51] The advantage of workers’ general understanding of operations and cross-training.

[14:38] In manufacturing, employees have to be learning on the job, on site.

[15:27] How can we expect an innovative workplace if the tools do not augment workers?

[16:32] Greenfields permit shortcuts so workers can add digital apps to legacy systems.

[17:44] What to do with legacy machines.

[18:39] Taking a First Principles approach to production based on value creation.

[19:10] Augmented lean is about context and flexibility.

[20:32] “Hack and Govern” – hacking is bottom up and governing is top down.

[23:58] Apps-based productivity in this digital revolution needs a certain amount of flexibility.

[24:56] Empowering and inspiring frontline workers to show their experience and improve ROI.

[26:15] How to get new workers interested in manufacturing jobs in the US.

[28:08] What is factory work like now? What do factories look and sound like?

[32:43] What does Trond think about Musk’s edict “return or resign”?

[34:25] Backlash or not, managers have a losing proposition trying to get everyone back to the office.

[35:44] This decade, Trond does not see factory work being done 100% on site.

[37:12] With significant advanced technologies, the shop floor has more pull than office environments.

[38:52] New fluid interfaces that interact with workers—the factory floor wasn’t ready at first.

[42:01] With cyber-physical systems, ‘prototype to product’ is not easy and can take time.  

[43:42] The vision of “lean” in Trond’s new book.

[44:54] Did we take a wrong fork in the road away from cyber-physical systems in the 1970s?

[46:22] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Rinse and repeat! Use quick iterations to experiment your way through to positive change. Hack and Govern: the juxtaposition of bottom-up and top down approaches for a more balanced outcome.

RESOURCES

Trond Undheim on LinkedIn

Trond on Twitter

Futurized & Augmented podcasts

Augmented Lean: A Human-Centric Framework for Managing Front-Line Operations, by Trond Arne Undheim

Tulip.co

QUOTES 

“If the tools that we are providing to the workforce don’t augment them, don’t make them feel meaningful, don’t give them dignity, and don’t give them knowledge, how can we expect to have an innovative workplace?”

“You have to govern technology … but on the other hand, the internet revolution is all about hacking, it is about bottom-up initiative, about enabling your smartest nerds — who nowadays can be someone who didn’t study computer science.”

“There are so many exciting factories right now … they have robots, they have digital interfaces, factories don’t look like you might imagine they do!”

“Tesla is today’s Ford — it is not a virtual organization of software programmers — Tesla produces something physical, they have factory floors, in fact, they have some of the world’s biggest factories that they just opened in Texas.”

“Software is easy, cyber-physical systems are hard.”

“Think in sprints, allow hacks, don’t forget to govern.”

“There is no management of workers that doesn’t include letting them experiment and try out new things, and there is no responsible management approach that lets everyone do their own thing.”

J.R. Richards is a platinum selling American rock artist. He was the lead singer and songwriter for the band Dishwalla which achieved a major US No 1 hit, several music awards, and released five albums. J.R. now is an artist entrepreneur with four solo albums who continues to develop his 30+ year career. He shares the open-minded and entrepreneurial approach which allowed him to ride the technology wave that disrupted the music industry. What learnings can help us adapt through the current period of disruption?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[01:28] How the music industry can offer us ideas having faced earlier major technology disruption. 

[04:16] J.R. writes his first song at nine and then starts studying opera techniques at 18. 

[04:58] The importance of protecting and managing content creation ability as an artist. 

[07:40] J.R. enters the music industry at the tail end of its traditional operating model. 

[08:19] Control was signed away to get essential physical distribution on finite shelves. 

[09:32] Artists mostly kept revenues from touring but events also relied on labels’ power. 

[10:32] The opaque economics as labels lent artists money to record, market, and distribute their albums. 

[12:24] Technology disruption hits and the labels scramble to restructure as revenues drop. 

[13:15] As digital music quality improves, distribution barriers disappear along with the need to be on a major label. 

[14:30] Label consolidation took Dishwalla from A&M Records to Polygram to Universal to Interscope. 

[16:24] A merger grounds release of Dishwalla’s second album prompting them to embrace technology developments to connect with fans directly and get more control at a smaller label. 

[18:15] Who actually had the rockstar lifestyle—the label executives or the rockstars?!

[19:37] The industry is in upheaval exploring revenue models in licensing deals with multiple platforms. 

[21:50] A dramatic murder causes the band’s label to fold and J.R. gets disillusioned. 

[23:35] The band breaks up and J.R. goes solo just as digital distribution becomes mainstream. 

[24:43] A massive Aha moment as J.R. gets his first ever accurate sales reports. 

[26:31] How the pandemic forces JR to develop emerging opportunities as venues close. 

[28:30] Why it is beneficial to check out and experiment with new options. 

[29:40] J.R. pivots well creating innovative experiences for fans (helped by a talented marketer—his wife!). 

[31:37] The vital importance of owning your core IP—the master of your album. 

[34:35] New, tougher touring economics after many venues closed down. 

[35:59] J.R. continues experimenting on YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms to engage new fans. 

[36:58] A young singer has millions of views on TikTok of him singing a Dishwalla song J.R. wrote. 

[37:25] J.R.’s equitable approach to collaborating with the singer. 

[39:25] J.R. enjoys the collaboration process and finds more access and conversation helps. 

[40:24] Inviting big fans into the song development process, J.R. agrees with one fan’s suggestion.

[41:37] How scary it was to show fans behind the curtain. 

[43:19] The new balance of art and business as creators have to push themselves out in front of people. 

[45:22] Using data to make educated decisions, control your career, and make a living. 

[46:53] How ongoing learning allows you to develop your craft and create long-term value for yourself. 

[48:35] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Be really open-minded and when change starts happening, instead of fighting against it, check it out and ideally embrace it because you may find it’s better now than it was in the past.

[53:02] J.R. Richards sings! 

RESOURCES

J.R.Richards website

J.R.’s Shop

J.R. on Facebook

J.R. on TikTok

J.R. on Instagram

J.R. on Patreon

J.R.on YouTube

J.R.on Spotify

QUOTES 

“It was the nineties, you had to sign a deal with a big label if you want to make it big.”

“It always felt like the executives running the label had more of the rockstar lifestyle and personality than the actual rock stars on the label!”

“It is terrifying because you are showing them [fans] behind the curtain. But you also realize how much people really appreciate that and it doesn’t diminish the way they look at you as an artist, it actually increases their appreciation for what you do.”

“I think the hardest thing is for the artist to put monetary value to what they do and push themselves out in front of people in hope that someone will buy what they’ve created.”

“You can get all that information and you can make some really educated decisions about where you focus your time and your energy and you can make a massive career out of it.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:24] Neil explores different life and work options at the beginning of his career.

[03:57] Neil shares his early work experiences—challenges, observations, and learnings.

[05:29] How you ask “why?” more working in a different cultural environment.

[06:42] Neil discusses the realities of direct and indirect communication and power dynamics in different cultures. 

[09:17] What it was like for Neil working remotely as his first work experience in the US. 

[11:56] As the only remote worker to begin with, Neil felt he always had to be the one making the compromises working with in-person teams and how that motivated him. 

[13:07] How Neil could sense when in-person visits were needed to reconnect with colleagues.

[14:05] Reactions to pandemic-related remote-working and desires to transition back to the office.

[15:44] In-person meetings were the over-used catch-all tool for collaboration.

[16:33] Digital work offers benefits of new workflow options, not replicating office-based work.

[17:26] How should we be thinking about meetings if we optimize with digital tools?

[19:05] Understanding asynchronous working, its benefits, and how to do it.

[21:56] If you could “hire” a meeting what would it’s functionality and objective be?

[22:56] Opportunities and challenges for digital leaders: aligning channels, content, and timing.

[25:49] Top benefits of meetings working with distributed/hybrid teams.

[27:48] Neil shares his tips for collaboration and intentional serendipity.

[29:08] How employees with different personality types show up in meetings.

[29:55] The beneficial results from starting a collaboration and ending it 24 hours later.

[31:25] Using empathy to be an effective leader of a distributed team.

[32:48] How Neil is adjusting his work preferences while onboarding a new team member.

[34:31] Neil offers advice on how to bring a new employee up to speed on culture. 

[35:46] Onboarding a new hire offers an opportunity to make, re-evaluate, and communicate promises to the team as well as share an updated operating guide.

[37:45] Neil recommends when low and high fidelity communications are best used by leaders.

[41:51] Neil has an assessment tool on his website that helps gauge your digital workplace score. 

[42:54] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Look at the next meeting on your calendar and ask yourself “what part of the meeting could be done asynchronously or another way?”

RESOURCES

Neil Miller on LinkedIn 

Neil Miller on Twitter

The Digital Workplace website

Digital Workplace assessment tool

QUOTES

“When you’re in an office, the meeting is the catch-all tool for collaboration. We use it for all sorts of different purposes. When we transitioned to digital work, we carry that reliance on meetings over with us.”

“Now I have eight ways that I can collaborate instead of just one, instead of just meetings.”

“It’s going to require a lot of digital fluency, a lot of intelligence about picking the right mediums.”

“Think of a meeting like it's something you hire. So if I'm going to hire a meeting, what is it that I really want it to do? If I'm going to hire a meeting, I'm going hire it to build connection with people because a meeting's going do that much better than a text message going back and forth.”

“Look at your schedule tomorrow, what part of that meeting do you think could be done asynchronously or could be done in another way? It just opens up a lot of good questions.”

Reid Hiatt, the Co-Founder and CEO at Tactic, launched this new venture during the pandemic to enable companies to bring employees back into the office safely and to provide long-term solutions for those moving to hybrid models. Reid shares insights about the dynamics of hybrid work arrangements and how he sees companies—including his own—using effective communication and new tools to implement them successfully. He discusses specific solutions to reduce meeting overload as well as the importance of proactive planning and participation to enable every employee to do their best work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:10] Reid never imagined being where his position is now.

[03:40] Reid finds meaning in his early career.

[04:15] How COVID shaped Reid’s life and family.

[07:00] Reid’s friend Chris calls with an interesting idea for them to explore together.

[09:38] Reid and Chris try to evaluate and scope the future of hybrid working during 2020.

[10:44] What was middle management’s reaction to hybrid work models?

[12:50] Reid learns the challenges for new recruits in distributed teams in his consulting job.

[14:58] At the end of 2020, Reid and Chris bring in a tech co-founder, and notice patterns.

[15:40] Believing the priority pain point for distributed teams is collaboration, the team is ready to start.

[17:45] How to address each person’s working preferences while enabling relationships to develop.

[19:50] The key to making hybrid work is communication.

[20:38] The importance of eliminating proximity bias.

[20:58] The approach tools for creating a good communication culture.

[23:39] We have too many meetings. How to make them effective—includind recording and documenting them.

[24:39] Reid shares an example of how to have an effective meeting using transparency and documentation.

[25:21] Being purposeful about transparency and inclusion.

[26:58] Reid was surprised by the number of hybrid models.

[29:25] The initial product launched based on their research.

[30:00] The focus on the employee experience especially collaboration.

[31:12] Hybrid preferably provides a solution to suit each individual worker.

[33:30] You need to be intentional about onboarding and employee development.

[35:12] How to choose the right model for your company.

[35:38] Effective implementation first requires a plan.

[36:49] The human-centric focus is key to success for any hybrid work arrangement.

[37:15] Internal messaging about a hybrid model is key so employees understand their wellbeing is at the core.

[38:48] What are the next steps after launching a hybrid model?

[39:29] What to do if your hybrid work model is working as well as you had hoped.

[41:40] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: First define what effective looks like and how you will measure the success of your hybrid model. Second, gather feedback from your employees to find out what their experience of hybrid has been so far.

RESOURCES

Reid Hiatt on LinkedIn

Reid Hiatt on Twitter

Gettactic.com

Tactic on LinkedIn

QUOTES

“Honestly, across the board, what we found was that the vast majority of people, both younger and older, really resonated with this hybrid model. The younger people actually more so than the older but there wasn't a ton of resistance.”

“I believe that one reason why work can be so great is because you develop relationships with people that you wouldn't have otherwise.”

“Remote and in-person, like just one or the other, is the easiest to implement. I believe hybrid, when done correctly, is the most effective.”

“If I don't have anything to share, if there's nothing for me to share, and there's nothing that I need to specifically know or do in this meeting, then I have to ask myself, is this the most effective use of my time?”

Dominic Price, Work Futurist at Atlassian, first explains unlearning. He discusses the excitement and challenges of his work ensuring his company keeps adapting to stay ahead of competitors as it grows rapidly year on year. Focused on anticipating, exploring, and improving ways of working, Dom offers suggestions to specific questions that we are all currently trying to answer such as about hybrid work models, burnout, transformation challenges, and more, sharing his lived experiences, experiments and refined solutions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:10] Starting as a chartered accountant, Dom found a “job for life” wasn’t his vocation.

[03:54] Not wanting to fit into a box, Dom had to accept uncertainty and unlearn structure.

[05:34] How to be happy with career progress when “learning” is the key measurement.

[07:47] When Dom joined Atlassian it was one of the “best places to work”, but he hated it.

[08:31] Applying his skills very differently, Dom was confronted reframing his “firefighting” role.

[11:58] Dom’s boss challenges him to adapt and grow 40% each year to stay in his current role.

[14:10] We go back to old thinking because it was certain, not because it was valuable.

[15:22] Dom’s fascination with technology ends up with him focused on people.

[17:48] Question 1 – How to tackle the complexity of hybrid models?

[19:24] Underlying question – How do we become place agnostic?

[20:24] When we are place agnostic, how can we find effective ways of working?

[22:18] Question 2 – How does work “work” now?

[23;15] Underlying question – What more can we understand about what it is to be human?

[21:45] You can offer flexibility to your on-site workers. Dom explains how.

[24:23] The importance of psychological safety.

[26:14] Dom experiments and gives an asynchronous workshop.

[28:12] We have to experiment and explore our way forward in the Future of Work.

[29:11] Question 3 – How do you learn a growth mindset?

[30:14] Dom’s Five Ls exercise that he practices regularly.

[32:55] The importance of role modeling behavior as leaders now.

[36:03] Question 4 – How to embrace change and stop people resisting change?

[37:50] Breaking down transformation into “what’s one thing we can do today?”

[39:40] Celebrating “the good old days” in a positive way to be able to move forward.

[42:41] Question 5 – How to get rid of so many meetings?

[46:19] Questions 6 - How do we reduce burnout?

[47:15] Question 7 – Should I leave my employer?

[48:55] Be the change you seek. Feedback is a gift, but only if you give it!

[51:28] Question 8 & 9 – How can you help employees think through how to live their lives differently? How can their boss support this process?

[52:00] Why Dom thinks we are obsessed with perfection and we should focus on progress.

[52:45] Systems thinking—we can block progress if we only see the boundaries of the system.

[53:51] Learning organizations don’t exist, but learning loops do.

[55:42] Dom believes the organization chart is damaging—hindering progress in organizations.

[57:33] Leadership is based on competence, not level.

[59:37] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: If you’ve been taking mental or written notes listening to this episode, don’t sign up for more knowledge obesity, find ONE thing you are willing to try, and put a date on it.

RESOURCES

Dom Price on LinkedIn

Dom Price on Twitter

Domprice.me

Atlassian.com

Atlassian’s Team Playbook

QUOTES

“I need to unlearn all these things I got taught early on in my career, about “you must have a career plan”.”

“If you wanna be great, you're gonna have to evolve how you work, how your teams work, how you influence. You're gonna have to adapt to everything constantly.”

“How do we get those teams in a distributed fashion to work effectively together? Once we solve that everything else is done, right? Everything else is gravy.”

“How can we work human to human? How do we amplify that with technology? Technology isn’t the answer, it’s the amplifier.”

“How do I build a balanced life and where does work fit into that?”

“If you've got an hour, spend five minutes reminiscing on the good old days, spend the other 55 building better days tomorrow.”

“Leadership is based on competence, not level.”

Gary A. Bolles is Chair for the Future of Work at Singularity University, co-founder of eParachute.com, and Author of “The Next Rules of Work: The Mindset, Skillset and Toolset to Lead Your Organization through Uncertainty”. After a first interview in April 2020, Gary returns to the show to report on how he sees the Future of Work progressing and our ongoing adjustments for it. He shares insights about important work trends, mindsets, behaviors, and balance. Gary describes how concurrent waves of old work rules, transitional models, and the next rules of work are impacting leaders and our multigenerational workforce with its shifting weighting of employees and non-employees.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:20] Revisiting our first podcast discussion at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, Gary recalls his article about the Great Reset.

[03:54] The helpful visual of multiple waves to understand the evolution of work.

[05:10] Some leaders have bungeed back to old rules of work while others have embraced new rules and operating systems.

[07:02] The effect of perceived incentives and disincentives on changing habits and rules.

[08:05] How to benefit from pandemic learnings and accept the messiness of adapting new practices.

[10:50] Zooming out to shift your mindset about how to solve problems across your ecosystem.

[11:36] Imagining leading without ego and with trust in order to alter leaders’ approaches.

[14:53] How media’s mischaracterizations don’t help as three waves of work try to co-exist.

[15:32] The inevitable trend of continuous co-creation which young people especially seem to embrace.

[16:30] The power dynamic had tilted towards employers which flexible work is rebalancing to some degree.

[18:29] Picture ourselves as icebergs. We employ entire people, not just the tip of the iceberg which we recruit.

[19:32] In the new era of work, leaders are responsible for workers, their lives, and communities.

[21:43] Sophie anticipates smaller core employee groups and more non-employee workers in future.

[22:50] Future employee “agency” achieved through a “worknet” - a flexible flow of talent with varying degrees of organization membership.

[24:05] How to help increase degrees of membership in your company, enable people to feel connected, co-create effectively, and be rewarded.

[25:00] Cybersecurity provides a similar framework for the worknet model.

[27:00] Using words and concepts that reflect people’s sentiments and realities helps us reach balanced understanding and outcomes.

[29:10] Aren’t young employees manifesting the Future of Work rather than disrupting work norms?

[30:15] How young people are responding to new market signals as new work practices endure.

[32:09] Why older leaders are bereft at Gen Z’s behaviors and miss the opportunity of co-creation.

[33:23] Why aren’t younger employees’ deciding their careers now, and other related outcomes?

[34:45] How the precarity of the world is driving youth to hedge their bets with a portfolio strategy.

[35:32] Looking at the three stages of life horizontally not vertically (sequentially) as proposed by Gary’s father who wrote “What Color is Your Parachute?”

[36:47] Parents ask “Why won’t my kid get a real job?” It’s a hedge strategy. It’s ensuring optionality.

[39:00] How culture can be a journey, defined by a mindset and behaviors that are reinforced.

[41:30] What is the process and ongoing actions that empower agency and co-creation?

[43:46] Gary defines empathy as lived experiences. He focuses on caring for coworkers.

[47:19] The sea change ahead as more capable tools come online.

[48:08] Work involving synthesis is greatly enhanced by AI-boosted tools.

[49:46] Leaders need to focus on helping workers be upskilled and utilize the tools to solve current problems.

[51:18] Starting with a growth (vs fixed) mindset and focusing on flex (or soft) skills for today’s business needs.

[52:15] Companies must invest in training employees as education systems are still biased towards teaching bodies of knowledge, not flexible skills that augment interactions and social situations.

[55:40] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Reframe managers and supervisors as team guides. Rethink the process, what their role is, and how you can help them to guide teams throughout your organization, “un-boss” meetings, and be there to remove roadblocks so team members can co-create solutions.

RESOURCES

Gary Bolles on LinkedIn

Gary Bolles on Twitter @gbolles

Gary’s book “The Next Rules of Work: The Mindset, Skillset and Toolset to Lead Your Organization through Uncertainty”

Gary’s website eparachute.com

Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential

QUOTES (edited)

“We’re pattern recognizers, we’re general-purpose problem-solving machines.”

“I think that’s actually a failure on our part, wasting a perfectly good pandemic. We showed that we can trust. We showed that we can imbue teams with the power to be able to decide when and where and with whom and how they work. And then we took it away from them.”

“We’re going to find that once you’ve given people agency and some level of autonomy, they don’t want to give it back. And I think that’s a perfectly reasonable request.”

“Along comes a pandemic, and suddenly you and I are looking into each other’s homes on Zoom calls. And we realize: that’s a whole person and if I’m an employer I have to be responsible for their physical health, their mental health, their emotional health, the whole person. And that’s not what I signed up for in the old rules of work!”

“I don’t hear a lot of workers complain to me that they’re not engaged. That’s not the way that a worker would say it. A worker would typically say ‘I want to feel motivated by my work’, ‘I want to feel like I have meaning in my work’, ‘I want to feel well compensated’, ‘I want to feel recognized.’”

“Gen Z was born around 9/11. They were children through the global recession and young adults in a global pandemic, on a planet on fire. There aren’t a lot of other generations that have had that sequence of precarity.”

“In a world of almost complete uncertainty, there are no safe jobs.”

“Why are you waiting to enjoy life until retirement? Does that make any sense in a world on fire? No. We’re going to do it now.”

“We keep thinking “Just shove more bodies of knowledge into those little heads”. And that’s not the way the world is working. The shelf life of that information, of those skills, is decaying so rapidly.  We have to explicitly teach these much more flexible skills and then employers have to demand them.” 

This episode Rob Tercek—author of Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World—discusses the reality of where we are, how to forecast appropriately, and plan strategically for 2021—understanding the opportunities and challenges. Rob poses questions to consider, identifies trends and advantages we can capture, as well as alerting us to dematerialization’s impact and how to work with it rather than be disrupted by it.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:56] Humans are used to adapting for short crises which made 2020 endless and hard.

[03:55] Business decisions were paralyzed as many people were unable to decide how to move forward in 2020.

[04:27] There is light at the end of the tunnel in 2021 with the vaccine rolling out.

[05:02] The vaccine doesn’t mean ‘normality’, but we can start to plan to go back to the office.

[06:10] COVID19 has just accelerated the process the internet began.

[06:53] Companies are not going to abandon the investment they made in work-from-home infrastructure leading to two kinds of workforce—distributed and onsite.

[07:56] Executives secret desires to go back to the office and concerns about remote working.

[08:46] Questions to consider as leaders assess strategic options about how to configure their workplaces for 2022.

[10:04] Companies may use a faulty forecasting process when planning for beyond crisis mode.

[10:57] Organizations can mistakenly think they are the only ones dealing with these circumstances.

[11:41] What is the impact of the broad shift in consumer behavior—changed habits and products they are no longer buying?

[12:35] Invest for the future will not be to rebuild the company as it was in 2018 and 2019.

[13:47] For B2B businesses, user and developer conferences are turning into tutorials for users—creating new habits and switching costs.

[14:57] How to use data to counter some of the loss in face-to-face meetings for sales people.

[16:47] Putting the IT department and CIO at forefront of rebuilding for the future.

[18:02] The importance of HR gathering and tracking data for C-suite discussions.

[18:46] The balance of responsibility between employer and employee to maintain skillsets.

[22:37] Rob describes how to create an actionable forecast.

[23:42] The only way you can tell if a prediction is accurate is after it’s happened.

[24:40] Why confidence intervals and probabilities matter.

[27:18] How to adjust for different geographic restrictions and vaccine rollout to develop a rough hypothesis and timeline.

[31:39] For companies to be laying a foundation in 2021 for 2022 and beyond.

Robert thinks we will have two quarters this year that will not be great.

[32:19] Plan to deploy new digital infrastructure for 2022, since it usually takes 12-18 months.

[34:07] Robert describes the significant impact of COVID19 on digital healthcare.

[35:59] What smart companies are doing differently now to gain market share.

[37:00] Critical focus needs to be on the customer journey, which may be different now.

[38:15] We have to have more self-awareness, especially about our emotional state

[39:27] The impact of digital media immersion which can act as an outrage-generator.

[40:56] Disruption is scary. It’s hard. Cutting people some slack is being empathetic.

[42:49] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: What parts of your work and life can—and will—be replaced by software or ‘dematerialized’? Consider carefully taking action or leave the opportunity for someone else!

RESOURCES

Robert Tercek on LinkedIn

Robert Tercek on Facebook

Robert Tercek on Twitter — @Superplex

Roberttercek.com

QUOTES

“There is a feeling, it’s a depressing thought, that 2021 seems like it’s going to be a continuation of 2020, and everyone knows 2020 was a terrible year on many levels.”

“Based on the current deployment of the vaccine, it seems unlikely we’re going to be through this COVID-19 until the latter half of 2021 and it could be as late as 2022. To set expectations.”

“You can’t turn back the hands of time. Many big organizations reallocated massive budgets to create a structure to work from home. That investment isn’t going to go away.”

“We lost two channels of information: Face-to-face meetings and conferences, but what we’ve gained is a different channel of feedback which is real-time usage data.”

“Everyone knows that we live in a changing world. Everyone knows that sudden dislocation seems to be the theme of this century.”

Mehmet Baha is the author of “Creating Psychological Safety at Work” and a psychological safety trainer and speaker. Baha, as he is known, discusses the critical role of psychological safety in team performance in the modern workplace. He shares insights about how open dialogue about mistakes and a strengths-based approach enhance trust, collaboration, and results. Baha explains the importance of curiosity and empathy, and giving autonomy. He offers leaders actionable tips for cultivating vulnerability and fostering safe spaces that support innovation.

TAKEAWAYS

[01:59] Baha’s childhood in Cyprus—a divided island—prompts his interest in conflict resolution.

[03:28] Assisting his father, facilitating leadership training shapes Baha’s career path.

[04:30] Music influences Baha’s innovative approach and teamwork skills.

[06:22] At Facebook early on, Baha experiences a psychologically safe workplace.

[08:05] Google’s Project Aristotle shows psychological safety is key for high-performing teams.

[09:00] Psychological safety becomes central to his training and consulting work.

[10:40] Clarity, purpose, and high standards are other key elements driving team success.

[11:28] Collaboration and openness drive better  than hidden mistakes.

[12:20] Amy Edmundson’s 1990’s study connecting reported mistakes and successful outcomes.

[13:33] Research shows learning from mistakes boosts team performance.

[14:46] Sharing mistakes, building upon ideas, and appreciating employees’ strengths create psychological safety.

[16:25] Five points for leaders to model the vulnerability vital to foster psychological safety.

[17:40] Examples include creating "failure reports" to promote organizational learning.

[18:53] Openness helps leaders improve team trust and psychological safety.

[19:45] One leader fosters openness that enables company-wide sharing of team mistakes.

[20:50] Team performance is seen when participants are willing, open, and ambitious.

[21:33] Leaders must be role models for sharing and learning from mistakes.

[22:05] The ratio of positive to negative feedback plays a crucial role in creating psychological safety.

[23:38] A case study about an award-winning practice of quarterly “mistake breakfasts”.

[26:32] How innovation and a turnaround at a bank is stimulated by psychological safety.

[28:08] Traditional organizations benefit from psychological safety, also enhancing physical safety.

[29:15] Leaders' role in co-creating safe work environments.

[31:05] Why to encourage employees—closest to the work—to share and implement their ideas.

[32:12] Psychological safety supports creativity and sharing of innovative ideas.

[32:43] How employees’ silence in meetings indicates an environment lacking psychological safety.

[33:19] The seven points demonstrating Fearless Organizations.

[35:08] Baha connects empathy with conscious listening which is key for safe workspaces.

[35:56] Curiosity is crucial, starting with curiosity about ourselves.

[38:06] Leaders can support safe work environments despite more pressure and workload.

[36:55] Leaders need to encourage open dialogue about challenges and mistakes.

[39:21] How AI can help us work with more humanity, compassion, and authenticity.

[39:27] Empowering employees through autonomy enhances psychological safety.

[40:22] Autonomy is important as micro-management greatly hinders psychological safety.

[40:35] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To improve psychological safety, show curiosity, share mistakes and give employees autonomy.

RESOURCES

Mehmet Baha on LinkedIn

Baha’s book “Creating Psychological Safety at the Essential Guide to Boosting Team Performance”

Baha’s book “Playbook for Engaged Employees: Practical Insights to Master Leadership, Agility, Teamwork, Learning, and Psychological Safety”

QUOTES

“Sharing mistakes, learning from them, and improving is one key element of creating psychological safety.”

“In a psychologically safe team, mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn, not as reasons to blame.”

“If we cannot listen well to others, we cannot really talk about psychological safety.”

“One of the biggest barriers to creating psychological safety is micro-management behavior.”

“As leaders, managers, we can share a mistake we made, what we learned from this, and what we did later to improve it.”

“In high-performing teams, there is a ratio of three to five positive feedback for every negative feedback.”

Kelly Monahan, Ph.D., is Managing Director of Upwork’s Research Institute, with research published in applied and academic journals. Kelly is the author of “How Behavioral Economics Influences Management Decision-making: A New Paradigm.” She shares insights from studies of strategic leadership and organizational behavior. Kelly urges executives and managers to rethink their approach to work and leading a distributed, blended, and AI-augmented workforce. She emphasizes accessing versus acquiring skilled talent enabling businesses to be agile and compete.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:21] Kelly misses a human element in her business degree so gets into strategic leadership.

[03:10] Kelly aligns with Edward Deming’s thinking that systems are the issue, not the people.

[03:57] Leadership feels broken. As part of her Ph.D., Kelly researches how people learn.

[04:55] Kelly discovers business philosophy is founded on the assumption that people are lazy.

[05:50] Kelly focuses on how leaders can appeal to people’s intrinsic motivations.

[06:31] Early in her career, Kelly works as a media planner during the financial crisis.

[08:55] In 2015, CEOs 3 big worries: more distributed work, blended workforces, AI taking jobs.

[12:05] Leaders struggle to manage distributed and cross-functional teams.

[12:35] Leading through influence, not hierarchy, requires the new power skill, empathy.

[13:13] Most leadership theories derive from the military and don’t translate well for business.

[14:37] Kelly finds more emphasis on empathy in the military than business leadership.

[00:15:19] At Accenture, the pandemic lockdown stops Kelly from announcing a new people-first approach.

[00:17:27] During the crisis, Kelly stress-tests the framework and sees employees’ needs evolve.

[00:19:40] Kelly joins Meta, excited about the possibilities of VR/AR in shaping the future of work.

[00:20:28] Tech companies have location-centric cultures so what is distributed work going to look like?

[21:20] Hands-on, Kelly tries to understand how leadership norms and careers will evolve.

[22:00] Relying on local talent will not be sufficient as engineer must be hired further afield.

[22:50] How Ready Player One expresses some of Kelly’s technology-related fears.

[23:28] Meta focuses on bringing social presence and connections into digital environments.

[24:53] Kelly is bullish about personal connections and realistic human presence in virtual space.

[26:05] Virtual environments could democratize access to learning, but there are trade-offs.

[26:45] Kelly goes to Upwork seeing the urgent need for companies to access skilled external talent.

[28:58] Over 2-3 years, Kelly predicts companies have a more blended talent mix to be more agile.

[31:16] Freelancers tend to stay competitively upskilled compared to full-time employees.

[32:14] GenAI is disrupting tasks, causing leaders to rethink how work is done and by whom.

[35:05] HR strategies do not align with Gen Zers’ desire for diversified work to have financial stability.

[37:05] Kelly advocates more dynamic “talent access” rather than “talent acquisition.”

[39:00] Using an abundant mindset rather than a scarcity ‘war for talent’-type mindset.

[41:00] Kelly highlights NASA which successfully uses external talent to solve big problems.

[42:56] Kelly believes connecting business performance with new ways of working is key for businesses survival.

[45:15] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP:  Rather than thinking of a job when analyzing work, consider ‘what’s the problem I’m trying to solve for?’ Then what are the skills you need to achieve the project and how can AI and skilled freelancers be incorporated as part of the solution? 

RESOURCES

Kelly Monahan on LinkedIn

Upwork

Upwork’s Research Institute

Care to do better Research

QUOTES (edited)

“The true power skill today of how people lead—it's not through formal structure, it is through their ability to empathize and move people to move in a direction they otherwise wouldn't.”

“Whether it's transformational leadership or servant leadership or authentic leadership, all these different theories, they really didn't translate well into the business world because so much of it was actually still from a transactional, top down driven approach.”

“Today's need, urgent need, is to help leaders begin to realize that there's really skilled outside talented, that they need to learn how to capture and create the processes and leadership styles and environment to actually bring in this talent in order to continue to navigate the turbulent times we were in.”

“I think the next wave of innovation is going to come from a much more disciplined approach of how companies are organizing their talent, in particular, and beginning to really right size the mix that they need. Skills change too quickly to continue to keep really large, full-time core up to date. It's nearly an impossible task.”

“Freelancers tend to be at the bleeding edge of their skilling. When your livelihood depends on it, you make the time to upskill and learn. We're seeing that with generative AI as being the most recent use case—freelancers are much more ahead of this technology curve.”

“How much is this [Generative AI] actually disrupting work at the task level itself, which is going to cause leaders to rethink ‘How do I actually really need to get this work done? Is it a full time employee or is it a combination of a freelancer and AI working together to get this work delivered?’”

“Leadership and talent in HR strategies have not kept pace with the way that the social contract has changed. When you ask the majority of Gen Z'ers today in particular, ‘Where do you find the more stability? Is it that one to one relationship or is it the one to many?’ The majority of Gen Z are telling us it's the one to many is where they actually feel more stable and they feel more in control of their career.”

“The majority of executives have been taught 'I'm in a war for talent'. When you have that mindset, it's very much a scarcity mindset. Because we're dealing with people and human beings, I encourage much more of a collaborative ecosystem, an abundant mindset as opposed to a scarcity mindset.”

Phil Kirschner, Senior Expert and Associate Partner, Real Estate & People and Organizational Performance at McKinsey where he advises executive teams on the future of work, employee experience, organizational health, and workplace strategies. Phil discusses systemic changes, expected rebounds in cities’ commercial real estate, and organizational health. He shares insights about workplace utilization, the critical emphasis on ‘how’ we work and change management to evolve behaviors, and the new retail-oriented perception of work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:25] Phil calls himself an accidental work strategist, starting out in banking.

[03:37] Phil starts in the efficiency management group looking to save money in real estate.

[04:40] How workplace innovation by Google and Microsoft caught public attention.

[05:23] Competition for talent from other industries drives investment to improve work ‘place’.

[06:30] Balancing not having your own desk with other amenities to improve the experience.

[08:06] Trying to reduce office-based friction with shared environments.

[09:00] Most managers absorbed a bit more pain to give team members a better experience.

[10:00] The loss factor and importance of change management to establish new behaviors.

[11:32] Where managers set the example carefully, the highest satisfaction is reported.

[14:02] These are not real estate projects, but culture projects—requiring a cultural shift.

[16:21] Ten years ago, productivity at the bank was measured through self-attestation and surveys.

[17:00] Team dynamics, people’s ability to focus, and overall engagement all increased significantly.

[19:57] McKinsey’s Organizational Health Framework and Index helps analyze work practices and how these tie to performance.

[21:04] Studying fully remote companies to isolate specific variables, Phil finds them to be top decile performers.

[23:20] Organizational practice surveys show if you give someone flexibility, they are much more likely to report positive outcomes for the organization.

[25:25] You have to teach people how to use new environments and tools differently.

[27:15] The four ways companies are showing up in the world nowadays.

[28:35] Building facilities for very specific purposes rather than trying to solve all needs all the time.

[30:10] Clearly defining the purposes of a workspace unlocks better outcomes.

[32:37] Progressive companies with flexible hybrid policies are working hard to figure out how to adapt fully to all the new ways of working.

[36:45] Most companies need to be focusing on ways of working and responsive spaces.

[40:27] Technology is undoubtedly driving the change in how we work, Phil touches on how AI may change this further.

[44:22] Phil explains the increasing retail nature of our work choices and some of the implications of this when it comes to competition.

[46:56] The HR/IT/Real Estate stool now needs a seat to bridge the gap in employee and customer experience.

[51:10] RTO is not sustainable; Phil explains why and what RTO focused companies can expect.

[55:47] Phil breaks down what commercial real estate issues and positive trends to watch for in the coming years.

[59:05] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Stop thinking about inputs, the days in the office, or “what’s the right hybrid?” Focus on outputs and the impact on organizational health. Study work practices and outcomes across your organization based on how people work and collaborate to figure out the secret sauce, then pilot, test, learn, and scale those behaviors, and keep evolving.

RESOURCES

Phil Kirschner on LinkedIn

McKinsey.com

QUOTES (edited)

"Those work environments with the bean bags, the beautiful amenities, and the campus also have a desk for each employee. We didn’t have the means for that, so to give you a better experience, you had to make a trade with us: give up your assigned seat."

"We found that where you had the managers who were willing to be sitting in the open having calls or conversations in the open, those zones by far were the ones where people would report the highest satisfaction."

"These are not real estate projects, they are change projects. They are culture projects that happen to manifest in space."

"When you’ve created a culture where lots of work can happen in the open, it eases demand for the formal spaces."

"Fully remote companies that have never had an office, who were born remote and not forcibly remote are top quartile, if not top decile performers against McKinsey’s 20-year experience of measuring Organizational Health."

"If you give someone a choice in where they work, either in the office or home or when they’re working their hours, we find that they’re about one and a half times as likely to report positive outcomes for the organization."

"I am fully a believer that the ways of working are far more powerful as a tool for organizational performance and experience than where we happen to be working. And I wish I knew that 10 years ago."

"For a city like New York, we have to make it compelling and affordable for people to want to live here, even if they’re not working for someone who is here."

"I will go back for experiences that I enjoy, back to the same restaurant, same bar, same shows. We like that our customers are repeat customers. We can be repeat workers, and that’s going to be a huge unlock in the coming years."

"Changing the way we work is hard, no matter the best tools in the world. It's still hand-to-hand combat group by group, culture by culture, process by process. It’s hard, so instead of doing the hard thing, we do the easy thing and there is a call to all go back to the office."

Minter Dial, a management consultant on leadership and transformation and author of several books, speaks about his latest book, You Lead: How Being Yourself Makes You a Better Leader.

Minter discusses what he learned when he ran a division at L’Oréal and what he needed to understand about himself—with the help of the Grateful Dead—along the way. He also shares why having a business purpose is a game-changer to help a company or brand differentiate itself from the competition.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:56] Minter’s career begins in banking then a start-up travel agency for musicians.

[5:05] He moves back Philadelphia and tries all kinds of jobs.

[06:28] The Grateful Dead is core to Minter’s existence.

[06:51] After business school, Minter applies to two companies: LVMH and L’Oreal.

[08:10] Minter climbs the corporate ladder as a cross-cultural leader. 

[09:48] How power and proximity affect corporate culture

[11:16] Minter is focused on creating a differentiated culture for the Redken brand.

[12:24] How they decided what type of culture they wanted.

[13:32] They figured out how to develop purpose to drive the culture.

[14:54] The challenge of translating the external purpose message for the division internally.

[16:39] The financial results of a purpose-driven business.

[18:06] The folk tale that gave the Grateful Dead their name.

[19:40] The two important morals of the story that tying into self-awareness. 

[21:12] How leadership is about letting go of your ego.

[22:55] We are never going to know fully who we are and we continue to evolve.

[23:52] The importance of understanding your emotions, including your triggers and how to be present.

[26:30] “You Lead” was supposed to be Minter’s first book and how he recognizes his need to be more self-aware.

[29:20] Minter wanted to help people who weren’t empathetic to delegate their empathy.

[31:22] The importance of self-awareness in leadership.

[34:02] Minter’s book “Futureproof” is focused on mindset.

[34:30] Trust is the critical component of leadership and requires authenticity.

[35:50] The notion of gaining trust as a leader needs to be intentional.

[38:00] The purpose of Minter’s next book is helping people heal and harder conversations need to be tackled in order to do that.

[40:11] How do we start to change our leadership style?

[41:10] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: When listening to other people, reformulate what they have said rather than bouncing off it.

RESOURCES

Minterdial.com

Minter Dial on LinkedIn

Minter Dial on Twitter

Minter’s book You Lead

Minter’s podcast Minter Dialogue

Minter’s four books on Amazon

Minter’s DIALOGOS on Substack

QUOTES

“I really felt it was important that if you run a brand, it must be different from the inside out from the other brands.”

“It has everything to do with having a de facto realistic purpose that is not all about 100% everything perfect. It's just making things manifest, making them real, and everybody talking some kind of real language.”

“In today’s world, especially now we’re working in the distributed world, if you don’t have trust, you have nothing.”

“You can’t limit your purpose to something that your team internally doesn’t experience, because if all you’re doing is making your customers happy…what about me?”

“The thing about the Grateful Dead is there’s a philosophy which is essentially once you understand that you are mortal, that you will die, then you become more grateful in the present.”

“When you think of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, he was the leader, but he was not one of those fear and control leaders. He was a participant. You were contributing with him in his leadership.”

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is the CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, a consulting, coaching, and training firm. Gleb is a behavioral scientist and best-selling author of seven books, including “Never Go With Your Gut” and “Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams”. He shares his interest in human behaviors focused on decision-making and cognitive biases. Gleb explains his passion to help people make good decisions, discussing the role of emotions, and why to try to prove yourself wrong. He emphasizes how to optimize work-related decisions to improve working environments, experiences, policies, and outcomes.  

TAKEAWAYS

[02:59] Interested in human behaviors, Gleb studies history--people in their historical contexts.

[03:53] Gleb narrows his research to behavioral science decision-making in historical and contemporary contexts.

[04:53] Gleb’s interest focuses on motivations and historical archives reveal what people were saying behind the scenes.

[05:39] We’re not very good at making decisions. We often follow our intuition or go with our gut.

[06:32] How a client’s early experiences affect how he handles conflict as a business leader.

[07:41] How do individuals and groups make decisions? What motivations cause what effects?

[08:12] How to have healthy conflicts with people.

[09:32] How do you make good decisions, proofing yourself against future disruptions?

[10:50] Decision hygiene—identify biases including not what you don’t do, that's a decision too!

[13:55] How you can misperceive yourself, your skills.

[15:04] Blind spots and how humans are full of contradictions.

[16:42] Gleb’s early books about different aspects of decision making.

[17:29] Before making a decision ask: Q1 - What information haven't I fully understood yet?

[19:28] Q2: What judgment errors haven't I fully considered?

[20:30] The need to be introspective about our emotions so they don't dictate our decisions.

[21:50] Gleb starts his own company, Disaster Avoidance Experts, in 2018.

[22:30] Gleb’s targets people whose possible bad decisions could have disastrous consequences.

[23:35] Paying attention to leading indicators to make informed decisions early in the pandemic.

[24:49] The challenges belief bias and confirmation bias can cause.

[26:30] What comparable data is relevant to ensure you are making good decisions?

[29:40] Looking at the data and challenging the motivation to be back in the office—for what?

[31:10] Managers weren't comfortable that they could control their teams working remotely.

[31:56] Combining training and techniques to not manage by walking around the office.

[33:04] Switching to weekly performance evaluations with three to five goals per week.

[35:27] Coaching style leadership was gaining ground long before the pandemic.

[38:32] College educated males choose to work fewer hours, valuing well-being and leisure more than before the pandemic.

[40:02] Research and resignations show willingness to take a 10% pay cut to keep flexibility.

[40:38] The impact of not being empathetic about your employees.

[42:37] What is best for knowledge workers? Not sitting in factory style offices.

[43:22] For knowledge work: creativity and collaboration of the human mind determine any company’s value add.

[44:33] The four principles of knowledge work to set up workplaces of the future.

[45:44] To establish trust, new systems and processes are needed including regular performance evaluations.

[47:20] Don't let one bad apple spoil it for others.

[49:35] Finding truth through content curation versus creation in an AI-powered world.

[51:40] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To adapt to modern work, survey employees about they feel about hybrid work, best practices, problems, and opportunities for improvement. Focus conversations on trust, autonomy, support, and collaboration.

RESOURCES

Dr Gleb Tsipursky on LinkedIn

Gleb Tsipursky on X

Dr Gleb Tsipursky on Instagram

Facebook at DrGlebTsipursky

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky speaker video

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky’s books include:

The Truth-Seeker’s Handbook: A Science-Based Guide.   

Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters 

Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage

QUOTES

“People often don't know what their own motivations are. They don't know how they interact, and they don't understand why they make the decisions they do. We're not very good at making decisions. We often just follow our intuition; we go with our gut.”

“There was research showing that in order to have healthy conflicts with people, you should follow a 5:1 ratio. For each one conflictual thing you do at least five equivalently positive things.”

“Taking all the social intelligence, emotional intelligence, and cognitive biases. If you can identify those in yourself right now, you can really set up set yourself up for a lot of success down the line.”

“We are human beings, we are full of contradictions.”

“Seeing the truth is very important to make a good decision, but that's not the same thing as making a good decision.”

“If you actually want to make a good decision what you want to do is try to prove yourself wrong. Try to prove that your decision is incorrect. Try to disconfirm your decision.”

“One issue is the empathy gap. We might underestimate the emotions that other people are experiencing. One of the biggest challenges in business decision making is failure to think sufficiently about emotions, our own emotions and other people's emotions. We don't realize how important emotions are.”

 “Not being empathetic and understanding emotions matters. The emotions of your employees matter. How they feel matters. And they're actually taking steps based on their feelings around retention, engagement, productivity, morale.”

“Knowledge workers function best as a combination of providing them with trust, trusting them to work in the way that they know how; providing with autonomy, having control over their time and location of work; providing them with necessary and appropriate support, giving them knowledge, information, tools: and facilitating their collaboration with others.”

As we wrap up 2021, there is much that we can learn, benefit from, and use to our competitive advantage in preparing for 2022. Much has changed since the pandemic started and the recent past—how we operated and acted over the last twelve months—provides us with some of the only available insights into how things have changed and examples of what worked and didn’t. Sophie discusses what we experienced in 2021 and areas to reflect upon. She also shares questions for you to think about to gather the insights you need to support your business’s growth and success in the year ahead.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[01:46] We are ready to put 2021 behind us, just as with 2020, but we are in a better place.

[02:51] However, the lingering pandemic has taken a toll on our mental health.

[03:19] Dashed expectations contributed to spring-time burnout, how could well-being be better supported next year?

[04:22] How empathetic concern dropped off during 2021 despite ongoing challenges.

[05:14] After a rollercoaster year, we need to pay attention to emotions and practicing empathy.

[06:30] The majority of new business conditions and lasting operational changes result from digitization, accelerated by the pandemic.

[07:40] Reflection can draw out the insights we need to transform successfully for 2022.

[08:35] Excuses that block or stall change are understandable, but they prevent important progress.

[09:56] The purpose of workplace flexibility is not “letting people work remotely”.

[10:42] There are many ways to give employees more control over how they accomplish their work.

[11:37] Offering equitable working arrangements does not mean employees all having identical options.

[12:29] Surveys help uncover suggestions from employees who know what flexibility they would like.

[13:14] A new work model will fail if leadership is not consistently committed to making it work.

[13:43] How employees act if they are engaged in their work—wherever they are working.

[14:31] Many people use those magically creative “water cooler” moments to insist on office-based work.

[15:41] The realities of creativity and serendipity and being proactive.

[16:52] Why every company needs to implement flexible work arrangements and manage differently.

[18:16] What the new “Project Economy” means regarding how we think about and organize work.

[19:20] Questions to assess 2021 project work methods at your company.

[20:43] How digitization has changed our understanding of business workflows and increased adaptability.

[21:42] Questions to assess how digitalization effected your company’s ability to adapt in 2021.

[23:23] Why are we able now to have a better understanding of our individual preferences?

[23:57] Questions to draw insights from your 2021 work experiences to optimize future results.

[25:05] Critical benefits of recognizing and accommodating our own and coworkers’ preferences.

[26:05] Where to focus useful retrospection to gain useful awareness and start 2022 off well!

RESOURCES

Sophie’s articles and interviews about the Future of Work including hybrid working models and working preferences.

Sophie’s new book Empathy Works: The Key to Competitive Advantage in the New Era of Work that will be released May 3, 2022.

QUOTES

“The purpose of hybrid work models is to improve employee engagement and performance”

“Success in the Future of Work has much to do with individuals and teams taking proactive measures.”

Sacha Connor—Founder and CEO of Virtual Work Insider—was a remote work pioneer for The Clorox Company. Sacha explains how she transitioned to working 3000 miles away from HQ for eight years and became the first fully remote member of the Leadership Team of a $1 billion division. Sacha shares how processes were reimagined, what issues arose, what solutions were developed, as well as surprising benefits gained along the way.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:50] Sacha discusses her career in marketing.

[05:28] Why Sacha chose to go remote and move 3000 miles away from her company HQ.

[06:29] How Sacha planted seeds over time to get agreement to work remotely as an experiment.

[08:32] A trusted relationship laid the foundation for constructive conversations about how it could work.

[09:29] How Sacha was allowed to lead an innovation team remotely.

[10:43] The three major career limitations that were initially part of Sacha’s remote arrangement.

[11:26] How risk was assessed in allowing this remote experiment.

[12:15] Potential was initially linked to promotability which was tied to location.

[12:38] How acceptance was enabled by The Clorox Company’s existing performance management system which tracked her defined and detailed objectives and measured her success.

[13:55] Surveys allowed Sacha to monitor team sentiment and development of trusting relationships that were important for virtual collaboration.

[14:40] What were some of the challenges and benefits of remote working across time zones? 

[15:50] How to work effectively with new team members.

[17:27] Sacha’s steep learning curve and technology challenges in 2010.

[20:19] Adapting workflow for a distributed innovation team.

[21:54] Sharing experiences, learnings, and resources improved effectiveness.

[22:24] How the Employee Resource Group for remote workers helped employees bridge gaps between office locations too.

[23:40] Sacha became an influential pioneer regarding Future of Work adaptations at a 100-year old organization.

[25:06] Definitions of workplace flexibility, hybrid models and working, and remote working.   

[26:47] ‘Virtual’ used as a term to encompass work and relationships across locations.

[28:51] Myth #1: The ‘magic’ generated by chance office encounters does not happen in virtual environments.

[31:03] Intentionally establishing rituals to create the interactions that enable creativity, influence, problem-solving, and ideation for virtual and multi-office workers.

[32:58] The importance of stimulating intersections of people across divisions and networks.

[34:05] Myth #2: Brainstorming effectively is not possible in virtual environments.

[36:09] Unintended (beneficial) consequences of new processes for virtual brainstorming.

[38:35] Hybrid meetings: reducing the challenges and biases, and improving inclusiveness requires facilitation and conscious action.

[40:10] The impact of a ‘virtual-first’ work approach and being intentional about how work is done.

[44:05] Whatever workforce and workplace strategies companies are working on now are not the final answer—it takes a flexible and iterative approach.

[45:21] It takes an infinite mindset to tackle the Future of Work—with each organization iterating and adjusting as they go. 

[47:15] Everyone needs to upskill for new work circumstances and learning virtual leadership skills, whatever role employees are in.

[48:30] More areas to emphasize to enhance virtual work—setting expectations clearly; building relationships; fostering a culture of trust and inclusion; having the right technology tools; and teaching how to use the tools.

[49:05] Empathy is key for understanding each other beyond the virtual curtains between people and other ‘soft’ skills which are critical.

[50:42] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Have empathy for yourself and others in order to be able to adjust and iterate and make this next transition. Everyone is at a different stage and comfort level about what’s next.

RESOURCES

Sacha Connor on LinkedIn

Sacha Connor on Twitter

Virtualworkinsider.com

Special resources available for podcast listeners ’10 Tips from 10 Years of Remote Work’ and ‘Hybrid Work Kickstarter Toolkit’

The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures by Frans Johansson

The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

QUOTES

“Do we want to live near the careers that we love or near the people that we love?”

“They trusted me and trust is a huge component with remote work. They knew I was dedicated.”

“Innovation felt like one step removed from the risk (of being remote) because it was something that we were preparing for the future.”

“Potential was linked to promotability which was linked to location.”

“You think about measuring performance. You need to have that in place whether you’re located together or not.”

“The seemingly innocuous moments that happen on the way to the elevator, they’re actually moments of influence. They're moments of problem-solving, connection, and idea generation.”

Amina Moreau is the CEO and co-Founder of Radious, an online marketplace offering companies flexible work locations to give their employees commute-free, homestyle, collaborative workspaces. She is a serial entrepreneur, multiple Emmy-winning filmmaker, and photographer. Amina explains why employers need to create a framework and processes that enable workplace flexibility and support employees’ autonomy, incorporating comfortable and convenient work environments. Amina shares insights about empathetic leadership and upskilled managers to improve employees’ experiences and performance. She describes critical environmental and social components of new workplace solutions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:38] Amina changes majors five times exploring what she wants to be when she grows up!

[03:35] Amina loves photography but also thinks learning how the brain works is handy.

[4:40] Storytelling means understanding who people are and how they think and see their future.

[05:49] Amina’s first business initially emphasizes innovative technology and equipment.

[07:04] Taking wedding storytelling to the next level – what has shaped who these people are?

[07:44] Tomatoes are a metaphor for one couple’s relationship.

[09:22] How relationships evolve on film and with clients.

[10:46] Entrepreneurship is Amina’s path—starting in her dorm room.

[11:47] A talent for seeing gaps in the market spawns multiple new ventures.

[12;15] Amina develops opportunities related to her core passion.

[14:30] Pandemic-related issues are the genesis for non-profit Float Small Business.

[15:43] Creative ground support for local businesses keeps Amina busy during a tough period.

[17:34] A new venture to suit flexible workstyles emerges from their Airbnb host business.

[19:22] Eliminating the overnight component increases safety and solves other hosting pain points.

[21:25] New adaptations as employers integrate remote policies for the long term.

[23:30] A compelling combination: no commuting, collaboration space, and the comforts of home.

[24:28] Who pays for the space? Shifting to a B2B model.

[26:24] Current RTO headlines don’t match the majority of companies’ work policies.

[27:50] Amina believes most companies are trying hybrid as they are stuck with office leases.

[28:38] The benefits of flexible, on-demand office spaces and who is likely to benefit most.

[32:12] Have leaders who proclaim remote work isn’t sustainable been trained to manage in remote/hybrid environments?

[34:20] Terminology needs to evolve to reflect the variety of remote work options and benefits.

[35:58] Empathetic leadership leads to better team outcome for which leaders need upskilling.

[36:58] Team level agreements need setting about expectations and communication styles.

[38:35] How much autonomy is optimal to drive motivation and outcomes?

[39:27] Companies signing up for flexible workspaces need a framework and process to ensure their employees use it.

[40:22] Working with companies to understand their context and help them choose relevant workspaces.

[41:29] Amina’s sense of purpose that energizes her and the team—we’re here to help bring fulfillment and work/life balance.

[43:35] Radious’s core environmental and social solutions are significant motivators for Amina.

[44:40] Local workspaces also support community relationships and business.

[46:04] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: It doesn’t have to be a two-sided equation — either working at the office or from home. There are many other options to consider to support your employees, which don’t have the costs or commute of an office, yet offer camaraderie and community.

RESOURCES

Amina Moreau on LinkedIn

Radious.pro

Radious on X @RadiousPro

Radious on Instagram @Radious.Pro

QUOTES (edited)

“One of the best things that you can study is how people think because in any profession, understanding how the brain works is kind of handy.”

“It turns out that having a psychology background is really valuable in storytelling.”

“There are some companies that from the beginning of the pandemic were hell-bent on getting people back to the office. Come hell or high water, those companies still exist. Thankfully, they are in the minority.”

“The headlines we see about RTO are usually made by the biggest companies on the planet which have the largest PR megaphones … and the largest real estate holdings.”

“A lot of people equate remote work with working from home, but remote work is now an umbrella term that encompasses a wide variety of ways, and places to work from. And it doesn't have to be in isolation.”

Paul Reid is the CEO and Founder of Trickle and a serial entrepreneur. He shares how his early employment experiences taught him to build trust-based, thriving cultures at his first two start-ups. Now, these learnings have been encoded into the software that powers his latest venture, Trickle. Trust—which is key for employee engagement, effective communication, and collaboration—is generally earned, slowly. However, Paul explains how to generate trusting relationships more quickly through a purposeful combination of anonymity and action, supplemented by transparency.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[04:00] Paul’s first work experience at a tech start-up and the work conditions for employees.

[06:05] How Paul tried to solve employees’ issues by sharing anonymous data.

[07:18] The surprising response he got from the company’s founders.

[08:34] The recurring process established to fix the problems and its impact on the culture.

[10:12] How important was the co-founders’ role in the process?

[11:15] Paul’s first venture—a tech start-up that focused on feedback and open discussion to create a high-performance culture.

[13:15] Recruiting software engineers and then setting them free to do the right thing.

[14:22] As a business scales up, how trust can be sustained. 

[15:09] The ‘Broken Windows’ criminology study of derelict buildings and what it signals.

[17:00] The benefit of Trickle’s internal ‘broken window sessions’.

[18:25] How do you ‘trigger’ trust in a company, enabling it to build quickly?

[19:00] Psychological safety is a huge component of a highly-functioning team. How do you cultivate that? People feel they can speak up without fear of negative consequences.

[20:18] Why Trickle doesn’t record anything if someone wants to contribute anonymously.

[21:14] Action must follow quickly after listening to employees. If you survey employees, it is important to show them progress is being made based on their feedback.

[22:01] Trickle’s effectiveness is based on tying engagement to the actual issues.

[22:58] Why Trickle focuses on introducing three things: inclusivity, transparency, and agility.

[23:25] As trust builds within an organization, many employees start to feel comfortable enough to submit feedback without being anonymous. 

[25:05] How champions spend five minutes a day to support habit-forming.

[27:19] Due to the pandemic, people were afraid to ask doctors how they were doing, so Trickle added a feature to check in with them and gathered insights to help improve their well-being.

[31:20] How Trickle helps nudge people to establish new habits—e.g. sending a fist-bump!

[32:35] Why the sign of a healthy organization is engagement with a rolling cadence responding to issues of interest to talk about.

[33:45] The three stages of check-ins to engage employees feedback on key issues.

[35:16] What will happen when people go back into the office and how can Trickle help?

[36:23] How transparency is always a key theme for Trickle.

[36:51] Why not to fear anonymity – it helps more people engage in and contribute on key issues.

[37:47] The hybrid model that Paul anticipates for Trickle going forward and why.

[38:58] What is Paul’s onboarding process like, especially sharing the company’s culture?

[41:52] How Paul helps employees speak up during uncertain times and Trickle shares targeted mental health advice responding to anonymous check-ins.

[43:51] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Don’t get hung up on how to respond to employee feedback. Gather the data so you can understand how people feel. Without that, you can't create the environments that people are going to thrive in.

RESOURCES

Paul Reid on LinkedIn

Paul Reid on Twitter — @TricklePaul

Trickle on Twitter - @TrickleWorks

Trickle.works

Smart and Gets Things Done by Avram Joel Spolsky

QUOTES

“You’re here because you’re very talented and you’ve got a desire to get things done and we’ve got a desire to be the best at what we do, and in order to do that, we are going to need to challenge each other.”

“The premise of Trickle is about helping people to speak up within an organization. So, we built it because we know that people don't often speak up about things that they care about.”

“When Google studied their highest-performing teams, what was the thing they had in common? Psychological safety. The ability to speak up without fear of negative consequences.”

“People don’t often see the value in speaking out, because they feel that things don’t change.”

“The idea is to tie the engagement and the action into one thread.”

“You’re trying to embed this openness.”

“When there's massive uncertainty, that’s when you want to be giving people a chance to speak up and get feedback.”

“If you don’t understand how people feel, you can’t create the environments that people are going to thrive in.”

Paul J. Zak is a Professor and Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University. Paul is the Founder of Immersion Neuroscience a company that enables measurement of immersion in experiences in real-time. He has authored books including Immersion and The Trust Factor. Paul emphasizes customer lifetime value and the effect of creating extraordinary experiences for customers and employees. He discusses the neuroscience linking trust, psychological safety, and employee engagement to improved business outcomes. Paul highlights emotional fitness and how leaders creating empathetic, trust-based cultures enable employees to flourish, boosting their satisfaction and well-being.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:43] Paul studies mathematics, biology, and neuroscience to understand human behavior.

[03:21] ‘Why are we nice to each other?’ has been a core area of study in Paul’s lab.

[04:00] Humans are naturally group-oriented and thrive when working collaboratively.

[05:35] Creating extraordinary employee experiences is key to engagement and performance.

[06:52] Paul focuses on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) supported by strong employee engagement.

[07:40] Improved customer service helps customers and can boost employee satisfaction too.

[10:12] Businesses must focus on retaining talent by fostering employee growth and satisfaction.

[11:15] Paul advocates for a coaching model of leadership that encourages autonomy.

[12:06] Trust with psychological safety allows employees to be comfortable and burn less neurologic energy.

[13:46] Leaders must create environments for people to flourish, not expecting consistency.

[14:39] The "Whole Person Review" is forward-looking focusing on professional, personal, and spiritual growth.

[16:56] With empathy and trust closely related, leaders best recognize employees as humans with emotions and personal lives.

[18:12] Paul enjoys daily huddles fostering team connection and alignment at work.

[19:04] Leaders benefit from in-person interactions to build and sustain relationships.

[22:04] What experiences do people value? Offer the office as a social emotional hub.

[24:24] Six peak immersion moments per day lasting three minutes build emotional fitness.

[24:56] Adding a social layer to any experience increases neurologic immersion and satisfaction.

[25:32] Video conference interactions achieve 50- 80% of the value of in-person interactions.

[28:35] Leaders need to understand brain responses to nurture psychological safety.

[29:20] Teams of 15-20 perform better because individuals can maintain strong connections.

[30:09] Creating an environment where people can flourish and be fully engaged at work and outside work.

[32:18] Eight factors generate peak immersion moments so employees can adjust assignments with their supervisor.

[33:09] A Google employee finds she loves coaching and moves to Facebook to mentor developers.

[34:38] Crafting jobs that challenge people—to do what is hard to master but achievable.

[35:40] Conversations about investing in professional development—a key trust factor.

[37:50] Train extensively then delegate generously to give people control over their work lives.

[38:41] Autonomy and job satisfaction improved when hospital nurses had more decision-making power in patient care.

[41:12] Leaders should model behaviors they want to see.

[43:52] Stress is not bad—manageable challenges can stimulate engagement and bonding.

[44:42] Paul’s skydiving experiences and his oxytocin and stress levels inverted over time.

[46:05] Challenges at work enable employees to perform at their best and achieve satisfaction.

[47:02] Create environments where employees can flourish, be safe, have immersion moments, and connect with each other.

[49:14] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: For a longer happier life, invest time in things that excite and engage you to build up emotional fitness and resilience. Emotional fitness motivates people to exercise more, eat and sleep better which improves health and extends life span.

RESOURCES

Paul J. Zak Ph.D. on LinkedIn

Paul’s company Immersion’s website

Paul’s books “Immersion”, “The Trust Factor”, “The Moral Molecule”

QUOTES (edited)

“If employees do not love what they're doing, they're just not going to perform as well. So how do I create this environment where employees can really flourish and share that with customers?”

“You have this kind of inverted pyramid where leadership is at service of the individual--employees who are creating value. Then you see this great connection with the company's purpose.”

“If we can create an environment where employees have this real sense of mission, they're connected to the purpose of the organization, they're working in an environment where they really can flourish professionally, then when they come home, they actually are more satisfied with their lives outside of work.”

“If I understand an employee as a leader—you're not human capital, you're a human being—you have emotions, you have a personal life. Hopefully, you love what you do here, you feel like you're fairly compensated and you're excited about how we improve our customers' lives. If I recognize all of that, then I'm going to be much more of a guide or a coach and less of a top-down micromanager.”

“I have to have this empathy of intolerance for the kind of weirdness of human beings!”

“Am I creating this environment of psychological safety where people are sufficiently comfortable, so they have the brain bandwidth to be fully in on the tasks they're doing?”

“From a psychological perspective, when people have control over their work lives, they have greater job satisfaction. They don't get burned out as often. And when an employee is trained, then they need some discretion on how they execute their job.”

Nick Bloom, Professor of Economics at Stanford University and co-Founder of wfhresearch.com and wfhmap.com, has studied remote work for over two decades. Nick discusses fundamental data issues, sources, and collection as well as understanding macro and firm level productivity. He talks about the demise of RTO (Return To Office) efforts and the stabilization of hybrid models. Nick describes the changing attitudes and demographics of people working from home. He also shares insights about HR’s rising strategic importance as talent management increases in complexity.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:02] Born and educated in the UK, Nick starts off consulting and working at HM Treasury.

[03:35] On a speaking engagement in California, Nick is offered a job and returns to live long-term.

[04:42] Nick was interested in management practices early on and, as a child, experienced both parents working from home.

[05:22] One of Nick’s students is a travel agent. Their randomized WFH trial generates much interest.

[04:42] Focused on daily commuting, early WFH data only tracked fully remote or fully in the office.

[06:50] Nick begins bridging the gap and finding multiple sources as government data collection lags.

[07:35] Nick finds ways to collect reliable and more frequent data from many businesses.

[09:41] Productivity is easy enough to measure at the macro level, critical for setting interest rates.

[10:31] At the firm level, productivity is very hard to measure for many disciplines and jobs.

[11:34] Initially surprised at the pandemic’s duration and effect on WFH, Nick then visualizes the tombstone for Return To Office.

[12:35] Nick explains the inherent bias in Kastle’a data for trending upwards.

[14:01] The perception of working from home is much more positive than a decade ago.

[15:28] People working remotely are now more likely to be higher paid professionals.

[16:25] The leisure boom resulting from reduced commuting—why not play golf then?!

[17:57] With hybrid stabilizing, HR is more important to manage more complex talent dynamics.

[20:55] In-person outperforms virtual teaching for now, but Nick expects this to evolve.

[22:11] How important coordination is to improve in-office experiences and activities.

[23:34] MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) learning is likely to improve dramatically with technology advances (e.g. new headsets).

[25:58] Why CEOs tend to have the most negative opinions about remote working.

[26:49] At all levels, most people find no change to corporate culture caused by working from home.

[27:32] A reasonable cadence of in-person connection to build and maintain culture.

[28:49] Nick was amazed hybrid stabilized so quickly.

[29:33] Top human resources pay has risen steeply recently to support new work- and talent-related developments.

[31:10] How work arrangements are best tailored for the target audience, product/service, and talent.

[32:16] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Your priority should be getting your hybrid model to work. If compliance is low for four days a week in the office, try one or two days and make those a success so people feel it’s valuable time spent in the office (not on Zoom).

RESOURCES

Nick Bloom on LinkedIn

wfhresearch.com

wfhmap.com

QUOTES

“Hybrid’s going to get better in the sense of more coordination, better use of space.”

“At the end of 2022, there's a little tombstone somewhere that says “Return To Office, Rest In Peace.” And since then, work from home levels have been stable.”

“I could easily see a norm being two or three days a week in the office and two, three days. The thing for me is that coordination really matters.”

“Mid-managers tend to actually be relatively positive working from home because they have houses and kids.”

“Meeting up once a month for a day or once a week for one or two days, you can really get a big boost to culture building and there are diminishing returns which is why hybrid is so popular. You just don’t need to be in all five days.”

“There's been a leisure boost. The typical professional is working from home two and a half days a week. You typically save 70 minutes a day when you work from home. If you add it up, you're looking at two, maybe three hours. And you can easily sneak in a game of golf.”

“I think now we have stabilized in hybrid. I know you occasionally read scary headlines from Elon Musk or Jamie Diamond, but in the data I'm looking at, you just don't see that.”

Ali Azeem, the Global Head of Growth at Ipsos Strategy3, has always believed in making an impact through involvement across the three professional realms--corporate, government, and charity. He shares his career journey as he has developed greater insights into human behavior—from customers and constituents to business colleagues—leading to his increasing focus on and interest in creating organizations that are “human first”.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:40] Ali is raised by entrepreneurial parents.

[03:09] Ali’s early interest in business models through video games.

[04:37] Going through a turnaround after the credit crunch.

[06:45] Learning the importance of communication with colleagues, especially during times of stress.

[08:47] Ali believes in making a positive impact across three parallel streams – business, politics, and charity.

[10:18] How Ali found being involved in politics exciting.

[11:39] The human realities of government—good and bad.

[15:30] Working at an innovation agency, Ali began empathizing with customers to tap into their experiences.

[18:54] Recognizing cultural differences when exploring new ideas.

[22:09] Ali joins Ipsos which emphasizes human insights using a design-thinking approach.

[24:22] Discussion involving people and empathy converging into a new type of organization.

[26:50] Initiatives that must accompany diversity efforts to demonstrate inclusive leadership.

[30:20] The challenges measuring inclusion.

[31:38] How business leaders can shift their mindsets to be more inclusive.

[35:20] The importance of recognizing that employees bring very different backgrounds and cultural contexts and how to enable them to be successful.

[39:42] Ali’s insights after analyzing data on gender pay gaps.

[43:07] Insight 1 – The pay gap in the UK relates to mothers rather than women in general.

[44:21] Insight 2 – Women aren’t achieving as many of the higher paid senior positions.

[45:21] Career choices many women make in corporate roles don’t often have enough flexibility.

[47:24] What many men thing of as “the proper life’ and the consequences.

[49:05] How motherhood impacts women’s earning capacity.

[50:08] New positive UK legislation regarding parental leave.

[51:05] The mindset shift supported by the legislation.

[53:40] Ali recommends we create more prosperity by making better machines and focusing on a people-maximizing approach.

[55:58] Thinking about meaningful corporate purpose.

[58:10] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Start with the right mindset. The biggest unlock will come if you take ownership of making your life better, your customers’ lives better, and the lives of people impacted indirectly by your company.

RESOURCES

Ali Azeem on LinkedIn

Ali Azeem on Twitter

Ipsos.com

Game Over by David Sheff

Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R Sunstein

QUOTES

“Often companies are talking about diversity, focusing more on the diversity side, because it’s easier, it’s measurable.”

“Hiring these [diverse] people is quite an easy job relative to the much harder thing which is to make them feel included.”

“Let’s start building better machines.”

“We need to evolve from what we’ve been doing before and that means moving away from this profit-maximizing approach to a people-maximizing approach.”

Haddy Davies is the Global Procurement Leader and Black Employee Network Chair at Johnson Matthey, a British specialties chemicals and sustainable technologies company. Haddy shares how lockdown in March 2020 forced her to do her job very differently. She recognizes the business’s heavy reliance on machines as well as the critical importance of understanding and engaging employees. Post-pandemic, her company is rethinking and testing new options—approaches, processes, and work arrangements—while Haddy uses First Principles to evaluate responsible sourcing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:00] Haddy shares why she choose a career in engineering.

[05:11] Transitioning to the UK from The Gambia was not so easy.

[06:54] Haddy does a gap year at Bible college to understand more about religion for many family-related reasons.

[09:40] The link between science and theology for Haddy is the appetite for knowledge.

[11:48] Haddy and her husband have multi-faceted connections.

[12:04] Choosing between studying engineering or continuing to study theology.

[13:03] An industrial placement year, starts Haddy’s career at DuPont in sustainable packaging which led to fuel cells using clean fuel.

{14:14] Haddy enjoys working on her company’s efforts to decarbonize the world and get to net zero.

[16:02] The power of problem solving during emergencies.

[17:46] Typical mitigating response from engineers did not anticipate pandemic.

[18:26] Crisis conditions shift investment to achieve more flexibility as resources are freed up to find viable solutions.

[19:36] Cybersecurity issues with remote working require some extra caution with linking up the plant.

[21:07] Innovation to augment machines to reduce onsite human accidents and errors.

[22:18] Haddy’s company is rethinking the design for the workplace to be “fit for purpose”.

[22:54] Flexibility allows tailoring to employee preferences and project needs.

[24:20] Streamlining operations is a continuing challenge, and we need to let go and let the machines do their work!

[25:31] Empathetic management is needed so workers don’t feel disenfranchised or unfairly treated.

[26:54] Haddy is upskilling to explore new roles and is currently working on responsible sourcing.

[28:10] Using a First Principles approach is helpful to reimagine and assess new possibilities.

[30:00]  IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: You need a courageous people plan—one that is for the people with inputs from the people—which incorporates a flexible in the approach.

[31:28] The importance of understanding and engaging workers—transparency ensuring no disparities and career rich opportunities to support retention.

[33:42] Haddy’s family is doing well!

[34:27] How the pandemic enabled Haddy and her husband to reimagine their family life.

RESOURCES

Haddy Davies on LinkedIn

Matthey.com

QUOTES 

“Most of the great theologians were great thinkers; they were exploring the disjointedness of life, they always grappled with living in the now while understanding what had come before, and science is the same.”

“Things may seem impossible: ’You can’t possibly work from home if you’re an on-site person!’ We have not been forced to define the problems and bring solutions to the fore as a collective.”

“We are rethinking the design of the workplace to make sure that it is fit for purpose.”

“We need to train the machines to be on their own!”

“If anybody says to me ‘this is how we’ve been doing it!’ I will walk!”

“You have a workforce that is showing up for you. This means that they have considered all of the other options they could have gone to and they are staying. Never take that for granted.”

“Let the people plan the people plan!”

Helen Lee Kupp is Founder and CEO of Women Defining AI and co-author of best-selling book “How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to do the Best Work of Their Lives". She discusses her experiences as a strategy and operations leader benefiting from collaborative experimentation and elevating use cases when exploring AI and other technologies for business and workplace transformation. From her tenure at Slack, Helen emphasizes data fluency and intuitive decision-making, defining and applying metrics, and implementing flexible systems. Her insights offer guidance for navigating AI adoption, hybrid work, and creating flexible human-centric frameworks that empower people and processes.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:21] Helen interest in chemistry and bioengineering prompts her to study chemical engineering.

[03:43] Helen loves to pair biology’s organic messiness with engineering and systems thinking.

[04:36] Reflecting on a non-linear career path guided by attraction to ambiguous problems.

[06:17] Helen’s desire for real-world impact leads her from lab work to consulting then startups.

[08:07] Joining Slack early, Helen drives innovation projects, expanding as a consumer product.

[09:30] The challenge of using data effectively, needing shared definitions across teams.

[11:01] How leaders must foster data fluency to enhance decision-making processes.

[11:50] Building operational intuition to make decisions using data and metrics in context.

[14:05] Flexibility is integral for organizational systems to adapt to changing market conditions.

[15:52] A ‘bridge’ describes a balanced need for stable data infrastructures for specific metrics and flexible systems for evolving demands.

[18:19] An innovative process to elevate metrics from team insights to company-wide KPIs.

[20:28] Hybrid data approaches enable both innovation and operational consistency.

[22:36] Slack’s approach to dynamic work systems shapes Helen’s understanding of agile leadership.

[24:02] How workplace tech evolves impacting team collaboration and decision rhythms.

[26:15] Helen is an early Slack user and comfortable and effective async worker as an introvert.

[29:17] ‘How the Future Works’ enabled the authors to share personal experiences and codify the redesigning of work.

[32:24] Helen’s consulting trained her about team protocols enabling effective teamwork.

[34:36] How personal work preferences are supported by team agreements.

[37:55] Helen is prompted to actively define AI inclusively not stumble into it.

[38:58] Women Defining AI launches serendipitously to craft AI development and adoption.

[43:18] A community of experimentation, Helen approaches the future with a flexible mindset.

[45:01] The importance of building intuition for using AI—it’s just as messy as humans!

[45:01] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Embrace discovery mindsets and start small by piloting AI in manageable areas of your work, ensuring hands-on practice and learning opportunities for your teams to explore its potential impact.

RESOURCES

Helen Lee Kupp on LinkedIn

Women Defining AI

Almost Technical

Helen’s book “How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to do the Best Work of Their Lives”

QUOTES

“We have a chance to redesign it all right. To redesign not just how we operate together, but to be thoughtful about how different everyone is and bring all that into the redesign.”

“People are looking for structured guidance. They’re not looking for all the answers. But they’re looking for at least that you are thinking through it and that they can try.”

“Experimenting and piloting use cases with individuals and teams to see what works for them and finding ways to elevate that across the broader organization and share practices. The more you can do that, the faster you’ll learn.”

"I appreciate the consulting training because we had to come together in teams so frequently with new teams and new managers. We needed a process around how do we understand how we operate, which may be different than your last team. How do we communicate best and how do we ensure we solicit the best of everyone in this group?"

Muriel Clauson brings a rich background in industrial and organizational psychology and psychometrics to the discussion about the importance of reorienting our employment focus from ‘jobs’ to ‘skills’. As co-Founder of Anthill—which enables adaptive talent management with employee buy-in using talent-mapping software—Muriel explains how we can emphasize people and skills, since talent, not technology, will ultimately determine competitive advantage. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:32] Muriel started in finance, but soon realized it wasn’t for her. What next? 

[03:50] With a mentor and determination, she got a job, then did a PhD in industrial and organizational psychology.

[04:48] On a NASA program, looking at humanities’ challenges, she missed the connection to work.

[05:57] Muriel was asked to fill a keynote spot at short notice. Without experience, she stepped up!

[06:45] If you’re passionate about something, tell everyone! 

[07:27] - How we have typically been cataloguing and defining different occupations—by KSAOs: knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics.

[08:40] Instead of thinking about how people can keep their jobs as automation comes to the forefront, what are people bringing to a work experience, starting with skills? 

[09:40] Using a relationship database with a more understanding of people’s skills and their jobs, the projections on job replacement went down dramatically.

[11:25] Muriel wanted to change databases so technologies being created to navigate Future-of-Work changes would be built on top of data organized around skills.

[12:29] How executives need to help employees navigate work changes as technology won't be a real differentiator in the future, it will be people.

[12:42] Employers over-correct for a gap in skills, training everyone on that skill. 

[13:50] The perfect world? Where each person understands all they bring to the table, what next steps they could take, where each could lead them, and what their priorities might be

[14:32] The 30 year linear “one” career is gone. 

[15:08] How can companies best track and manage employees’ new non-linear careers?

[16:20] Public school systems still use the Strobe Test to assess what job someone should do, although it is most correlated to their parents’ socioeconomic status.

[17:51] Muriel helps companies think about the skills their people can bring to the table and develop a strategy and jobs around them. 

[19:18] People leave companies not because they're disengaged or overworked, but because they don’t see a progression and a future. 

[20:44] More enterprises are adopting a people-first approach, realizing treating people well is aligned with incentives.

[21:03] After a necessary mental shift, how can employers individualize skills’-based solutions at scale? 

[22:56] What are YOUR skills today?

[24:20] Muriel digs into psychometrics to help people identify what their skills are.

[26:10] Context for different tests is important in order to understand what they are assessing.

[28:28] Using a relational database and much historical data, answering a few questions can generate a good hypothesis which is then refined.

[29:29] Sharing test results with employees so they also benefit from insights.

[30:59] The importance of establishing a culture of trust at organizations. 

[32:28] The benefit of asking employees: What skills and interests are you not bringing to the table now that you’d like to use more of? 

[37:01] The pandemic catalyzed many leaders to change their mindsets, strategies and thinking about work.

[39:06] Muriel has been surprised by the shift in executives’ approach to internal talent mobility.

[41:10] We do robust modeling for resources and companies, but not talent.

[41:55] Employers began to have more empathy—helping employees get the most out of work.

[43:00] Imagine employees feeling comfortable enough to say “Hey, I’m not feeling fully leveraged” so they can be moved to a new opportunity. 

[44:14] Talking about the future of work, it always boils down to deciding between technology/profits or putting their people first, but it’s a false choice. 

[47:09] Muriel considers how we can bridge the gap between employers and employees.

[48:35] As a new generation of graduates enter the workforce, what do they need to be aware of in this new work environment? 

[50:40] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: The future doesn’t have a ‘type’. In a rapidly-changing world, there is no one type of person that is most ‘future ready’. Each of us has a seat at the table and plays a role in creating our future.

RESOURCES

Muriel Clauson on LinkedIn

Muriel Clauson on Instagram — @anthillai

Anthillai.com

Onetonline.org

QUOTES

“There is so much more to people than job description.”

“I became obsessed with actually helping governments restructure their labor data in a way that was skills first.”

“When people started to take a skills-based approach, the projection on job replacement went down dramatically.”

“Technology actually won't be a real differentiator in the future, it will be people.”

“We have employees who want to learn and develop their career but lack that navigation on how to do it.”

“We need to come up with a way to help people really understand what they bring to the table.”

David Abrams is the co-founder and CEO of HILO, a platform that is digitizing customer experience to create connected communities of people in buildings. David is also host of the TEN, the Tenant Experience Network podcast. David brings his entrepreneurial and marketing background and context to explore commercial real estate landlords’, owners’, and occupiers’ evolving circumstances. He explains why they need to be collaborating to create hospitality-driven, new tech-enhanced environments and programmed experiences for tenants—for each individually and together as a community.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:29] David takes a while to sort out what he wants to study at college ending up focusing on marketing and accounting.

[03:01] David enjoys the ability accounting gives him to explore how businesses operate.

[03:49] As a first entrepreneurial opportunity, David gets involved in repositioning a struggling agency.

[04:58] Early agency clients span commercial real estate and nonprofit, the latter which David finds especially satisfying. 

[05:45] Raw Society is launched to focus on critical strategic work before the creative process begins.

[07:15] The ESG movement makes building operators start to think about environmental impact. 

[07:52] What is the effect of the densification of people living and working in central business districts?

[09:13] New thinking is first driven by occupants, relating to basic ESG initiatives like recycling.

[10:14] Operators go paperless, initiating digital communications their tenants’ employees. 

[11:32] David loves the opportunity to start creating environments that people enjoyed being in.

[12:16] The smartest operators recognized they could develop better relationships and community by connecting their tenants. 

[12:55] The ultimate goal is to improve tenant retention through better customer service and experiences.

[14:09] Every building has constant turnover—both tenants and tenants’ employees.

[14:51] David launches his new company in 2019, gets financing and is in full growth mode when the pandemic hits.

[15:37] As an entrepreneur, David recognizes his two choices - give up or dig in. 

[17:38] With little clarity about the future, they tried to be pragmatic about future technology needs.

[21:30] New realizations emerge after a difficult period that extended operators’ boundaries.

[23:09] Operators realize their responsibility to be involved in spaces beyond their buildings.

[24:24] Extra costs can be covered by charging premium rent or sharing new community spaces. 

[26:20] Connectivity is a huge driver of experience when it is pervasive and consistent.

[27:18] Investments go into programming, content, services and staff to offer white glove experiences.

[28:51] Office and multifamily categories are all hiring people from the hospitality industry.

[29:37] Programming, services, and staffing are becoming integral and significant to buildings’ offerings.

[31:00] The key factor is not the size of the building, but the commitment of its ownership.

[31:49] Across building classes, technology can be an equalizer to provide higher levels of service.

[34:05] Technology delivers better experiences and reduces friction when people choose to enter the built world.

[35:27] How can we put the power of personalization into the hands of the individual?

[36:29] David imagines we are between first and second base in the evolution of office buildings.

[37:15] People need to congregate for the right reasons in the right environments to do the right kind of work.

[39:49] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Occupiers and landlords need to think beyond the work that needs to get done in an office and co-create experiences that support good work. Consider all the various touchpoints for each person across technology, programming, content, services and staffing.

RESOURCES

David Abrams on LinkedIn

David’s company HILO’s website

HILO on Instagram

TEN – The Tenant Experience Network

QUOTES

“Buildings are not silos. They're part of a neighborhood, they're part of a city and they create community.”

“It's a conversation around where should I work on any given day where can great work happen?”

“How can we put the power of personalization into the hands of the individual. How can they use technology to better connect and engage with all the various spaces and places in their lives and have it not be top down driven.”

“People need to come together for the right reasons in the right environments with the right people to do the right kind of work.”

“The occupier and the landlord need to be open minded. They need to think beyond just the work that needs to get done and start to think about creating an experience that will support great work.”

Rekha Magon is the co-founder and Head of Education at Boundless Life and an ed-tech entrepreneur. Rekha shares her journey from accounting to combining homeschooling and entrepreneurship before and during the pandemic, incorporating mindfulness as a key component. She describes the genesis of Boundless Life and explains their transformative approach to combine education, work, and community. Rekha shares the accelerating expansion of the lifestyle network as hundreds of families join Boundless to experience the multiple destinations—enabled for remote work, cultural immersion, and a forward-thinking education system for children.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:43] With a love of math and interest in people, Rekha studies accounting and HR together.

[04:09] Rekha’s parents took her on meditation and mindfulness retreats from a young age which become integral to her life.

[05:19] Pregnant with her first child, Rekha has five months of bedrest to reflect on what fulfills her.

[07:56] In Thailand when the tsunami hit, Rekha found life full of purpose helping Thai people.

[09:25] Mindfulness is important for kids as well as adults and Rekha wants all children to benefit.

[11:06] Rekha’s son is not showing his usual curiosity and creativity in the traditional school system.

[12:08] With a fresh approach after much research, Rekha starts homeschooling her son.

[13:30] On bedrest, pregnant with her daughter, Rekha develops her company the Mindful Scholar.

[14:36] When the pandemic hits, Rekha joins a new learning venture using MIT’s creative pedagogy.

[16:44] The student led orientation and empowered education environment was hard to leave.

[18:37] Boundless Life begins with locations in Portugal, then Greece, Italy, and now Bali.

[19:06] Rekha explains the genesis of Boundless Life and the solution it offers for families.

[20:28] The founder offers Rekha an empty canvas to develop and run the education program.

[21:09] Rekha finds her children always grow and evolve significantly whenever they travel.

[22:38] Boundless Life’s creates an education system with the world at the forefront so children learn about other people as themselves.

[24:26] Boundless Life launches quickly during the pandemic—the time is ripe with parents working from home.

[25:23] For many people, it is a pivotal moment as they consider returning to a prescriptive life/lifestyle.

[28:04] Community becomes one of the biggest value propositions which was a surprise for the team.

[29:14] How does Boundless Life work? What do the different programs offer?

[31:16] Who are Boundless parents? How are they able to join the programs?

[32:44] New offerings for older kids and a travelling school!

[35:07] Rekha shares what happens to kids going back to “normal lives” after Boundless.

[36:54] Parents’ reactions when they get back home after their Boundless experience.

[38:35] Embracing the lifestyle, 40% of families join the longer term cohort—6, 9, and 12 months.

[41:14] Visas currently limit long-term stays, but Boundless enables families to try out a new country.

[42:20] The demand for programs for older kids implies a desire for a long-term lifestyle offering.

[43:00] Despite growing through word of mouth, hundreds of families have already participated in Boundless programs.

[44:03] Mostly US and Canadian to start, now more European families—including Italian, Greek and Polish—are signing up.

[44:45] Rekha explains Boundless offers the Nordic Baccalaureate curriculum.

[46:45] Breaking the older fear-based apprehensions about education is part of the process.

RESOURCES

Rekha Magon on LinkedIn

Boundless.Life

QUOTES (edited)

“At this point, mindfulness wasn't a thing. Calm didn't exist. Headspace wasn’t doing anything specifically for kids. I just knew it was what I needed to teach my kids, but why should it only be my kids?.”

“Why can't families be able to travel and educate their kids at the same time?”

“I saw how my kids grew and evolved to the next levels whenever we were traveling. So to me, that was the most appealing part of this, facilitating more parents to be able to give this lifestyle to their children.”

“We need more kids to see each other and other people around the world as themselves and not as opposing enemies. The best way to do that is to take them to countries they've never been to and to get them to learn about the culture and feel like they're part of it.”

“Boundless puts older kids in more of a leadership role, and the younger ones have these mentors in their area. So I think there's a lot of growth when it comes from these social skills and communication skills and having the autonomy and responsibility to tackle real-world problems.”

“I think what we do experience is that some parents want something independent and alternative in terms of education, but they're still very much fear-based and still very indoctrinated that education needs to look like the way we were educated as kids.”

Jenn DeWall is a leadership development strategist, workshop facilitator, and coach working mostly with and on behalf of her Millennial peers. She also hosts The Leadership Habit podcast. Focused on supporting rising Millennial leaders’ progress, Jenn shares her own experiences—successes and struggles—that have shaped her perspectives and approach to leadership development in the new era of work. She explains the goals, mindsets, and concerns of many Millennials and suggests productive, sustainable ways for us all to advance and grow.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:49] After college, Jenn’s initial enthusiasm about leadership soon wanes.

[03:30] Despite good results, Jenn gets an unexpected, negative review.

[04:34] Jenn is devastated. “Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

[06:21] Jenn loses confidence and gets conflicting direction about how to act at work.

[08:33] After some struggles, Jenn is asked to start training and mentoring her peers.

[10:20] Organizations need diversity across many dimensions, allowing people to show up as themselves.

[12:04] How Millennials were not prepared at college for the rules of work or to know their value.

[13:40] Jenn interviewed senior leaders to find out where Millennials are getting it wrong at work.

[14:55] Issue 1: Millennials want to have fun at work.

[15:42] Issue 2: Millennials yearn to develop and understand the big picture.

[16:49] Issue 3: Millennials desire for flexibility and work/life integration.

[18:46] Initial confidence about their potential and future is dulled for those not falling into line.

[20:12] As Millennials become leaders, how are they fulfilling their needs for external validation?

[22:01] Lacking conditioning for internal validation to know “I am enough” “I have the skills I need to succeed.”

[23:20] Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Our fundamental need to be connected.

[23:58] Millennials ask themselves “What is my life really worth?”

[25:02] The working environment has affected Millennials – such as 9/11 and the Great Recession.

[25:49] How technology has expanded Millennials’ worldview, footprint, and decisions.

[26:53] Jenn discusses how her peers think through “What do I want work to feel like?”

[28:42] Resignations often happen when employees assume/fear their employer will not be open to making accommodations.

[29:25] How the need for external validation affects workplace confidence and behaviors.

[31:59] Jenn shares Millennials’ confusion: Why can’t I have fun at work? And why can’t I also work hard?

[33:31] As such a large generation, Millennials are not afraid to stay and be the voice of change.

[34:52] How rising leaders benefit from being intentional about soft skills and behaviors they promote.

[38:25] Jenn advises leading with curiosity and empathy and assuming positive intent.

[41:20] You can’t hang your hat on stereotypes as everyone’s lived experience is different.

[42:46] Non-linear career paths are now the norm, requiring different consideration and allowing different possibilities. 

[44:55] Reacting to “What is my life worth?” leads to disruption with new work configurations. 

[47:12] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Find the common ground. We all carry an invisible suitcase that is the collective experience of our hopes, dreams, fears, and pains, and there is commonality within. Be intentional and find that commonality so we can work better together.

RESOURCES

Jenn DeWall on LinkedIn

Jenn DeWall on Twitter

JennDeWall.com

Jenndewallcoaching.com

Jenn DeWall on Instagram

QUOTES

“Through hardship comes great outcomes.”

“If we want a homogenous workforce where we are more alike, what does that do for innovation?”

“I never wanted millennials to feel less than, I just want them to feel empowered. You deserve to be recognized and seen for who you are.”

“This is where the helicopter parenting didn't set us up well because you need to have confidence at a foundational level to influence, to make a decision. And Millennials were very much conditioned for external validation.”

Tim Oldman is the CEO of Leesman and Founder of the Leesman Index - the world leader in measuring and analyzing the experiences of employees in their places of work. Tim is an expert in user experience of the built environment. He explains why we need to be considering whether work environments are supporting employees’ activities, needs, and satisfaction. Tim brings his wealth of knowledge to explore and reveal how workplaces—wherever people work—are tools for organizational performance and how we can measure that.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:25] Having always enjoyed building things, Tim studies interior design at college.

[02:51 Tim opts for a shorter course in interior design admitting he is impatient!

[03:22] Tim would love to study at university now with rapid prototyping and other advances.

[04:00] Encouraged by his uncle and tutor, Tim secures his first design job at 16.

[05:36] Tim first works in transport design, realizing the impact of design on bus stations and airports.

[07:06] The attention and detailed science in every aspect of airport design, including signage legibility.

[08:08] Tim wants to apply more and more rigor and science as his career develops.

[09:33] Tim discovers retail design is more numerically driven that he had understood earlier.

[11:27] The shift in retail emphasizing the shopper's brand experience.

[13:26] Tim's time at Vitra exposes him to extraordinary design history and expertise.

[14:20] It was a mind-boggling experience to work on the campus every day for five years!

[15:10] The user-centric design of a new distribution center makes Tim energized and very curious.

[17:22] Using transport examples to illustrate the importance of employee-centric office design.

[18:48] Developing the Leesman Index, Tim encounters naysayers to begin with.

[19:46] Initially provocative, “space is a tool in organizational performance” sticks.

[20:59] How space is a tool in organizational performance.

[21:48] Contrary to expectations, the design community initially resists the Leesman Index.

[23:07] A friend’s referral leads to the first successful deployment of the Index.

[23:36] The index reveals engineers’ preference for compressed, energetic workspaces.

[24:41] The facilities management industry becomes a key user.

[25:02] Executive leadership teams appreciate data-driven insights.

[26:43] Tim describes the Index's methodology and its impact on workplace design.

[27:50] The Leesman index measures employee activities and their satisfaction with workplace features.

[29:41] ‘Sentiment Superdrivers’ are crucial to accommodate to achieve workplace satisfaction.

[32:54] The importance of supporting individual focused work.

[33:29] The pandemic highlights the inadequacies of traditional office designs.

[35:52] Many organizations are now seeking to improve their offices to better support employee needs.

[36:44] The rise of video conferencing underscores the need for better acoustic and visual privacy.

[38:12] Organizations increasingly seek to create offices that employees genuinely want to visit.

[39:45] Tim’s new venture aims to help clients improve both remote and office-based work environments.

[42:31] Commute satisfaction correlates with the quality of the office environment.

[45:28] The shift towards higher-quality, more amenity-rich office spaces.

[47:40] Standard Chartered Bank exemplifies successful office space reduction while enhancing quality.

[49:24] Tim advocates for clearly articulating the purpose of office spaces.

[52:15] How Facilities Management can create more technologically advanced, smarter buildings.

[54:09] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Use evidence and be real, conversational, human. Find out what impacts the human experience as the human dynamic is motivational guidance. Live a day in the life of a frontline employee, experience it yourself.

RESOURCES

Tim Oldman on LinkedIn

Leesman’s website

QUOTES

"Whether it's an exhibition stand that you're building that's only up for five days, or it's a retail environment, or it's a bus station, or as we now are looking at the impact of office design on the organizational performance of the companies that we're working with.”

"I would leave work in a day feeling more energized than I arrived there in the morning. And I wanted to know why, fundamentally, I couldn't work it out. And that was really where the ideas behind Leesman and the idea of a measurement protocol started to seep through."

“It's all economics driven. Whether it's an exhibition stand that you're building that's only up for five days, or it's a retail environment, or it's a bus station, or as we now are looking at the impact of office design on the organizational performance.”

"Having thought about your day at work in the way that you have, can you tell us what you think about the following things in relation to your workplace? So, does it enable you to work productively? Are you proud of it? Do you enjoy it? Do you think it supports your organization's environmental sustainability standpoint?”

 I think the bigger a workplace gets, the harder it is to satisfy everybody, because the more people are in it, the more variability there is in the work that they do and their personalities and their size and their demeanor and all the other things that make us different than individual human beings."

John Lee is the CEO and Founder of Work From Anywhere and a serial entrepreneur. John describes his experiences living and working in multiple countries and the complexities of intercultural communication across large multinational organizations. He discusses the opportunities and issues for employers who seek to offer employees options to work remotely internationally and increase their international hiring, which his company helps with. John shares his expectations about the Future of Work and the advantages for employers of accessing a broader talent pool.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:48] John studies accountancy — the “language of business” — to support his desire to become an entrepreneur.

[03:50] John was inspired to create something bigger than himself and leave an imprint for the better.

[05:00] John develops his natural language gift.

[05:45] John explains how learning other languages enables deeper human connection.

[6:10] John picks his worst skill to work on in college which propels him internationally at Deloitte.

[07:10] How John's language skills are useful working on performance improvement initiatives around Europe.

[07:35] Plant managers share many more issues when communicated with in their own language.

[08:20] John built strong relationships and learned much about the international businesses thanks to his communications and cultural sensibilities.

[08:55] A transition moment to leave the corporate world, catalyzed by John's mentor.

[09:18] John's wife, Dee, conceives of the first business concept focused on intercultural training.

[10:12] They launch a travel well-being community to foster and share travel related soft skills.

[11:20] John and his wife noticed their Lonely Planet guide didn't share information about countries’ cultures and people.

[12:14] Intercultural research was a core resource integrated to offer culturally-focused local videos and information.

[13:12] CultureMee wins a prestigious award for best business travel technology product.

[14:36] Dutch and Irish cultural differences had interesting repercussions when John worked at CRH.

[16:28] A yes/no Bulgarian example of communication differences!

[17:18] John has a deep curiosity about people, their cultural and other identities.

[18:20] The shift from studying national differences to encompass diversity, inclusion, and more.

[19:14] Pivoting to a business travel API, they have major growth opportunities in the US.

[20:00] The pandemic hits at the worst moment—John takes time off to regroup.

[21:55] What is the No 1 obstacle preventing internationally distributed working for millions of people?

[22:50] What is the right solution for your next international remote hire?

[23:51] Companies are exploring distributed work: temporarily working in different countries and structurally hire people in different jurisdictions.

[25:00] Key reasons include accessing a deeper talent pool or getting closer to customers.

[26:45] Cities are assessing the visitors they attract—from cruise passengers to digital nomads.

[29:45] Digital nomad visas—which had gaps initially—are accelerating the future of international remote work.

[30:39] Local economies benefit by encouraging new visitor types.

[31:16] The second accelerating factor is the “employer of record” arrangement.

[32:00] How businesses can expand internationally easily using new options.

[33:43] John on the recent partnership with Mercer.

[34:38] Some companies are adjusting better than others to new working options. John feels we are still working it out.

[36:25] John’s own preferences, perceived benefits, and balance.

[38:31] What are the implications for income tax?

[39:24] What will the impact be on traditional education systems?

[40:00] John is intrigued by Plumia, a venture trying to create a country on the Internet!

[42:02] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: If your company is interested in offering international remote working options, review useful white papers for benchmarks about global mobility, chat with a tax or immigration provider, and a good employment lawyer about new international working models.

RESOURCES

John Lee on LinkedIn

Work From Anywhere

SIETAR Europa

Running Remote

QUOTES (edited)

“A lot of the talks I’d been to from entrepreneurs, those that didn’t have a finance background said they felt it held them back. They kind of described accountancy as the language of business.”

“I loved the fact that when you speak in somebody’s language, you connect with them on a much deeper level.”

“I was at the 10-year-point in my career and I still had a burning desire to be an entrepreneur. My mentor at the time said to me, ‘John, you have a great career here, but if you do want to become an entrepreneur, do it now. You can always come back but if you stay here for another five or 10 years, you’re gonna become institutionalized. It’ll be much harder.’”

“The Dutch tended to discuss things democratically but were very direct in their communication. Whereas, Irish people tended to decide hierarchically, but were indirect in how they communicated. And what ended up happening was there was a lot of intercultural friction because you’d have some misinterpretation.”

“And so that’s what we've built with Work From Anywhere, a platform that automates the ‘how.’ It tells you what the risks are. It tells you if you can or cannot do remote.”

“In Barbados, a year after they launched digital nomad visas, they had over a hundred million generators for the local economy. You can imagine they had a huge drop off in cruise passengers because of COVID-19. So obviously, launching this helped mitigate the shortfall from cruise passengers.”

Danielle Farage is a Gen Z, digital native and nomad, and a work futurist. Danielle helps seasoned senior executives attract and better understand their young workers as well as giving advice to fellow early career talent so they can find employers who will support their growth and mental health. Danielle explains how vulnerable approaches help connect us with others’ experiences. She shares insights about what resonates with Gen Z, from culture, values, and leadership, to onboarding and career progression, especially for those entering the workforce for the first time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[02:46] Danielle's interests have always been closely connected with people, leading her to major in psychology.

[04:49] Danielle notices her older siblings did not love their jobs.

[05:17] Danielle asks herself why do companies not treat their employees like human beings?

[07:26] Focusing on leadership, Danielle discovers the best leaders have good human skills including empathy and active listening.

[08:18] Danielle’s first job is an internship turned full-time, turned remote by the pandemic, and deteriorates.

[10:45] Danielle has an exemplary leader as her next boss.

[12:23] Valuing a tough initial experience, Danielle is pushed further and develops a broad array of new skills

[13:49] Onboarding was a meaningful experience, firstly, highlighting diversity and inclusion and their steps to eliminate bias.

[15:39] Secondly, the Head of Sales breaks down Danielle’s goals showing they are interested in her growth.

[17:02] Why a three-month contract to start is such a win for Danielle.

[21:04] Producing different events, Danielle notices conversations about the Next Generation do not include inputs from Gen Zers.

[22:28] Danielle starts sharing her voice moderating ideas about mental health, culture, and leadership.

[24:25] Mixing a diversity of people and of ages is key to building generational bridges.

[25:15] Danielle's audiences on LinkedIn are mostly older decision makers and on Instagram are Gen Zers.

[26:39] Danielle finds being curious and open-minded, she is able to start changing people's minds.

[27:15] Danielle shares a recent situation explaining her point of view about leadership vulnerability.

[30:17] how people's experiences affect their perspectives about loyalty.

[31:11] What the right culture looks like to Danielle.

[35:23] Gen Zs didn't start ‘job-hopping’ or ‘quiet quitting’, they illuminate existing problems.

[37:08] Fear, uncertainty, expectations, and choices make career exploration challenging for Gen Z.

[40:35] Startup experience—wearing multiple hats—and rotational programs are helpful for early career talent to experience.

[41:10] To recruit and retain people, invest in them.

[42:29] Students coming out of college still don’t feel prepared for the workforce.

[45:00] Danielle asks friendtorship workshop attendees three questions to help them discover what they want to learn.

[46:50] Discovering people's knowledge bases, skills and interests to leverage people for the job they were hired into AND the job they might want to explore.

[48:48] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Inspire younger employees in ways that will benefit them as well as being vulnerable — such as sharing daily stressors as points of connection to empathize, and mutual support and accountability.

[53:24] Gen Z is motivated to make change but disheartened by how inauthentic Corporate America is.

[54:53] Danielle shares succinct advice for people whose career launch was impacted by the pandemic.

RESOURCES

Danielle Farage on LinkedIn

QUOTES (edited)

“Why does it seem like companies are treating people like cogs in a wheel rather than human beings with lives and aspirations and goals and children?... The problem must be that people in these organizations don't really understand what people want.”

“It was a three-month contract, which I really appreciated: it’s a full-time job but if it’s not the right fit, it’s not the end of the world. And you haven’t invested so much into them to the point of an average employee, which can be a higher cost.”

“I would want my leader to talk about some of the vulnerabilities that they struggle with so that I could feel safe enough to come to tell them what I have to deal with.”

“You're looking at an entry-level job that requires you to have two to five years of experience, no guaranteed training, and there’s no pension, there’s no lifelong employment. You’re an at-will employee, which means you can literally be fired any time. Would you commit to staying 25 years with that?”

“The ideal is those rotational programs where you get to really experience different things. I think that’s the best investment a company can make in early career talent. I think it’s a great way to recruit and retain people.”

Norman de Greve, the CMO of CVS Health, discusses the importance of practicing empathy, both as a senior leader and an executive of the largest health and wellness company in the US. He describes their ongoing response to the COVID19 crisis—listening to customers and employees, addressing their needs, and communicating frequently. Norman shares his views about the beneficial outcomes for leaders who take empathy-driven action to build trust, connection, and demonstrate commitment to helping people achieve what they want to achieve. He notes how CVS Health measures and rewards empathy-driven results.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[01:13] Empathy is indispensable for business leaders to practice to help customers and employees feel safe.

[02:03] A strong focus on caring and empathy has long been a deep-rooted value at CVS Health.

[04:00] How integral is empathy now to corporate mindsets and practices, especially for leaders?

[04:46] Companies that are succeeding now have a deep understanding of both their employees and consumers.

[05:43] Norman shares how empathy has helped CVS Health respond to the Covid-19 crisis.

[07:00] How CVS Health listens to the voices of customers and employees to understand and address their needs.

[08:13] Considering the servant leader mindset and relevance in current circumstances.

[10:00] Key challenges CVS Health faced were being able to pivot quickly and preparing for the unknown.

[10:29] At the leadership level, what did CVS Health do differently?

[12:05] This crisis has brought out the humanness in people.

[13:18] Norman shares a more human approach as plans to return to the office are developed.

[14:06] How communication was the key to reassuring employees when CVS Health started Covid-19 testing.

[15:09] Across corporate environments, there is a heightened listening to, understanding, and responding to employees.

[16:00] How Norman is preparing for months of uncertainty and considering remote work options.

[17:24] Moving into a new world where we value the individual more than just a ‘resource’.

[18:30] Delivering empathy through a C.A.R.E.R. interaction model in stores increases customers’ adherence to their medication.

[19:21] CVS Health’s satisfaction scores are going way up because people are valuing empathy and kindness even more than ever in this stressful time.

[19:47] When CVS Health decided to track empathy internally, the reaction was ‘thank goodness’!

[20:30] An organization needs to deliver both operational follow-through as well as having empathic behaviors to enhance the customer experience.

[21:41] How empathy impacts the compensation of the management team of CVS Health.

[22:28] How does Norman define empathy?

[23:13] The role of empathy in cultivating a welcoming environment for a diverse population so people can reach their potential.

[24:08] We have a racism problem in America, as well as a mental health problem. People are not feeling enfranchised to bring all their skills and talents to work.

[25:26] How CVS Health supported their diverse workforce and achieved #24 on Diversity Inc’s top 50 companies for diversity for 2020.

[27:57] For leaders, Norman cautions that empathy is not just about listening, but also taking action.

[28:49] For any company, to enable everyone to bring their full potential, it starts with: what do we believe is the right vision for who we are and how we operate.

[29:37] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Ask your boss how they’re doing, not just the people who work for you. It’s a way to connect and hear what’s going on, and people need it.

RESOURCES

Cvshealth.com

Norman on Twitter

QUOTES

“It’s a very different environment than it used to be and companies that are succeeding are the ones that have a much deeper understanding both their employees and consumers.”

“The theory of the firm, which is usually why companies exist; and they exist to take the friction out of working together. Turns out Zoom does that pretty well.”

“This is challenging the paradigms we have in our heads.”

“Success really comes from a combination of operational and empathic behaviors.”

Elias Baltassis is a Partner and Senior Director at the Boston Consulting Group. He has deep expertise in AI- and data-enabled strategy, data operating models, data governance, responsible artificial intelligence and ethics, and new data-driven business development. Elias is passionate about data and analytics and the transformative impact of artificial Intelligence on business and society. He shares his insights about generative AI and LLMs, their potential effect on business, productivity, and relationships, including our necessary attention to ethics and far-reaching implications of AI in the workplace and on the Future of Work.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:42] Elias starts trading bonds after studying math, econometrics, and computer science.

[04:17] From notation calculators to basic spreadsheets to nascent AI, Elias sees patterns in tool evolution.

[05:17] Elias moves to consulting, always involved in quantitative fields.

[06:20] The significant AI break throughs since 2016-17.

[07:12[ Why self-supervised learning was one critical advance.

[07:50] New architectures--enabling much larger models—were a second step, leading to generative artificial (GenAI) models.

[08:55] What the “language” of Large Language Models (LLMs) covers.

[10:00] After training ChatGPT by absorbing the internet, “hallucinations” need to be eliminated.

[11:06] “Red teaming” to eliminate hallucinations.

[12:11] The next refinement step is “reinforcement learning from human feedback”.

[13:00] The issue of “jail-breaking” models to circumvent “blocked” answers.

[14:32] Data embedding or fine-tuning: using private data to train GPT.

[16:02] Why did ChatGPT stop data accretion in 2021?

[16:30] The considerable cost of topology, training, and refining AI models.

[17:43] User input in ChatGPT serves to refine the model more so than to teach it.

[19:37] The Future of Jobs: Will generative AI lead to mass job losses? If so, when?

[21:37] Why the impact of GenAI will be delayed in some areas.

[23:00] GenAI is impacting certain areas faster—such as coding and customer service—generally enabling significant productivity gains.

[24:35] Career progression must adjust as corporate pyramids’ bases shrink.

[26:00] Knowledge management will change appreciably, with new jobs created and new tools and processes invented.

[29:14] Different professions and companies try to codify their “secret sauce”—what can GenAI take care of?

[30:30] What will remain? How people show empathy, interact, and give emotional support.

[32:05] Many existing articles about GenAI contain factual inaccuracies.

[33:19] Training to understand applied technologies is becoming much more important.

[34:40] In a time of exponential curves, doom predictions are imprudent and never verified.

[35:18] What Elias is most excited about—especially leveling up the playing field.

[36:30] Likely effects: huge productivity improvements depending on the country’s social contract and a reduction in work time.

[37:40] Elias explains why timelines relating to GenAI are difficult to circumscribe and more than five years is now considered “long-term”.

[38:50] How Elias anticipates the dynamics of change over time due to GenAI.

[39:39] Why the “truth function” matters.

[40:26] AI may be capable of a kind of informed creativity, as humans do.

[40:44] The beneficial mix of technology, regulation, and internal company rules and the emerging need for a Chief AI Ethics Officer role.

[44:01] Misinformation is a major concern for Elias.

[45:22] The possible negative impact of generative AI on kids.

[47:02] We need a definition of what it means to be “human” and “intelligent”—remembering the movie “Her”.

[48:06] Comments on the open letter written by Musk, Wozniak, Harari, and others.

[49:47] What Geoff Hinton has achieved and what he has to say about GenAI.

[51:33] Fellow Turing Award winner Yann LeCun has a very different opinion about the potential impact of GenAI.

[52:25] Discussion on GenAI is something that will change at a fast pace: Elias will be back!

[54:04] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Leaders must drive the change—identifying what impact gen AI will have at their company and articulating the vision of what the changes will look like--for change processes, teams, and more. Leaders must make it real with a roadmap and commitment to new behaviors, new skills and making them stick.

[55:08] As at other critical juncture points when so much is changing, many companies will need to rethink what they are doing and how they are doing it.

RESOURCES

Elias Baltassis on LinkedIn

Boston Consulting Group’s website

Boston Consulting Group newsletters including the one specifically on AI

Geoffrey Hinton

Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

“HER” the movie

QUOTES (edited)

“People are often confused by the word language. They think only speech or text, but actually everything is language—code is language, music is language under certain constraints, an image is language.”

“If you’re talking about scientific questions, under the assumption that science is “true”, it’s very easy to say “Yes, this is true”. But when you arrive at political or, tomorrow, ethical questions, who determines what is true?

“What will remain, especially for client-facing professions, at the highest intellectual level or a lower intellectual level, will be how you interact with your client, with your customer. How do you show empathy and real interest, and how do you offer him or her emotional support?

“We live in an era of exponential curves. Everything evolves so rapidly that it's very difficult to predict when, how, and what the time horizons are. I’ve read some things about what AI will do in the next five years that I’m ready to bet will not happen.”

“If you ask an AI something about Galileo you can check in books if the answer is correct. But if you try to do prospective science, if you try to say “Build me a molecule that has these characteristics” and it comes out with a molecule, you will need to test if this is a real molecule.”

“Now, it’s another of those occasions. So many companies will need to rethink “What are we really doing? How are we doing it?”

Trond Undheim, futurist, speaker, entrepreneur, venture partner, and author of a new book “Augmented Lean”. Trond draws on his technology-focused background across public, academic, and private sectors to discuss the need and solutions for workplace flexibility for frontline manufacturing workers. Acknowledging the paradigm shift to employ a human-centric approach, integrating employees’ inputs, Trond highlights sophisticated new software which improve frontline experiences and overall results. These solutions optimize processes and augment workers rather than emphasize machine automation. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[03:19] Trond’s path starts in a random manner when he notices a poster!

[04:55] How Trond canceled Christmas to write his Ph.D. proposal in two weeks.

[06:02] Norway’s phone company is exploring the nomadic workplace in 1998.

[07:44] Trond does fieldwork in Silicon Valley that is selling “placelessness”.

[09:18] Trond becomes sought after for technology policy decision-making, government thinktanks, energy policy, and eventually economics at the E.U..

[12:19] Standardization: Trond explains how fascinating and essential it is—eg the Apple charger.

[14:54] How interoperability and openness have been important new developments.

[16:19] Trond equates learning standards and standardization like foreign languages.

[19:22] Trond’s work at MIT on no-code language and the impact it can have on the workplace.

[20:42] Advanced efforts to transform the factory floor with productivity tools for frontline workers.

[22:08] The tech user interface is finally simple enough to get out of the way.

[22:49] Was the emphasis on automation was the wrong path to take—being technology deterministic?

[23:00] When it comes to manufacturing, why has the focus historically been on automation and efficiency?

[24:49] The question is NOT “Are the robots going to take over?” That has been a distraction.

[26:10] How can we think about the “how” of work differently to get on the right track? Trond offers a fundamental to ask question first. 

[27:20] The role of business schools in producing leaders who think they know best!

[28:20] Changing the paradigm from a quest for lifelong specialization in one domain to multiple specializations over time with general systems knowledge.

[31:40] How a human-centric manufacturing approach gathers and benefits from front-line workers’ and middle managers’ years of expertise.

[34:17] Why “cobots” are an important reframing of machines as “robots” are defined as “dangerous”.

[36:52] Bridging the digital/physical divide through augmentation to transform frontline workers toward knowledge work—Trond explains why this is a good thing.

[40:45] How greater advances now can be made augmenting how frontline workers work rather than automating machines.

[42:30] The potential for renewed glory in manufacturing by augmenting the entire workforce. Tune in for Part 2 – the practical “how” to make it happen.

RESOURCES

Trond Undheim on LinkedIn

Trond on Twitter

Futurized & Augmented podcasts

Augmented Lean book by Trond Arne Undheim

Tulip.co

QUOTES 

“It sounds extremely dry, but standardization is super interesting. It’s the driver of the economy: it builds markets.”

“Markets are built: they are very purposely constructed architectures of rules, regulations, and standards.”

“Multiple specialities consecutively throughout your career has to be the target.”

“In a true human centric vision of manufacturing, the humans are always at the center---the whole idea is manufacturing has always been about innovation.”

“The overall perspective that ‘management knows best’ is detrimental to a true understanding of human work.”

“To make progress, the smart thing is to augment your workforce more than you automate your machines.”

Corinne Murray is Chief Strategist and Founder of Agate, an organizational transformation and workplace strategy consultancy. Corinne brings her formative experiences in commercial real estate, workplace strategy, and pre-pandemic implementations of remote and hybrid work models. She shares the benefits of empathizing with employees’ and executives’ different work experiences and explains how experiences inform culture. Corinne advocates for incremental, measurable steps to reduce workplace friction, improve performance, shift mindsets, and build momentum to effect change.

TAKEAWAYS

[02:18] Corinne studies religious studies and philosophy learning about different cultures.

[03:31] Leaving college at the end of the Great Recession, Corinne starts in real estate.

[03:53] Corinne focuses on market research and repositioning older buildings at CBRE.

[05:22] It’s déjà vu with real estate trends!

[05:34] Moving to American Express, Corinne shifts to workplace strategy and culture change.

[06:37] Amex facilitates workplace flexibility and remote working in 2013-2014.

[08:14] Corinne help employees transition to remote work addressing home setup challenges.

[10:22] The Blue Work program aims to create consistent brand experiences in all Amex offices.

[12:09] Post 2008, real estate strategy focuses on efficiency and densification.

[13:32] Workplace design and environments are adapted to different teams’ needs.

[14:10] Desk booking capabilities are implemented to reduce friction and improve flexibility.

[15:12] Reinstituting Blue Work with user-friendly changes and active listening.

[16:16] Desk booking is eliminated having caused—rather than eliminated—friction.

[17:39] Neighborhood seating naturally supports teams and flexible desk usage.

[19:15] Corinne join Gensler to explore the external advisory role.

[20:48] How UX/UI is applicable to workplace strategy.

[21:31] Joining WeWork, Corinne helps prepare the company for the Future of Work.

[24:16] The holistic employee experience extends beyond the physical space.

[25:07] The importance of good employee experiences to increase productivity.

[26:32] Frameworks for improving workplace environments through UX principles.

[28:23] Ensured basic workplace needs are met to reduce mental load and enhance productivity.

[29:58] Joining RXR Realty in February 2020, the pandemic impacts Corinne’s intended work.

[31:42] How Activity-Based Working supports different work activities.

[33:06] Corinne’s understanding of city dynamics changes her view of Central Business Districts’ viability.

[36:24] How reduced foot traffic affects commercial real estate.

[38:02] Corinne recognizes the shift in employee sentiments and work-life balance priorities.

[41:55] Executives different work experiences lead to their challenges with hybrid models.

[45:06] Millennials are driving change because of where they are in their careers and need for balance.

[52:02] Executive resistance to hybrid work can be reduced emphasizing data and gradual change.

[55:36] Corinne encourages an incremental approach to effect organizational change.

[56:20] “Hybrid work is broken” — what does Corinne mean by that?

[58:03] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Consider the dynamics of hybrid work and why it happens rather than just where it happens. Sequence and shuffle the puzzle pieces to figure out what needs to be decided first.