Category: Life & Career

Relationship Proxies

Posted on by simongterry in Future of Work, Life & Career

Humans are social animals. We seek relationships and we invest them with enduring meaning. We need to be alert to those who exploit this social urge and watch out for relationship proxies that drain us.

Wistfully, I play my lute
Long and deep into the night,
For my heart is shy
Of the empty chamber.

Wang Wei, Lonely (tr. Moon Kwan)
Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

Lonely in a Crowd

We are surrounded by more ways to connect to others than ever. These means of connection have been our saviour in a pandemic, enabling us to work, to stay in touch with family and to connect with friends. At the same time, we can be left feeling isolated and alone.

In 2018, well before the current epidemic, the Australian Psychological Society issued a report on Loneliness for Psychology Week that called out that one in four Australian adults are lonely. Our rich array of options for connection might enable us to be in touch, but they don’t always meet our needs for human connection

Many of us will have experienced the sensation of feeling alone in a large crowd. The presence of or ability to engage other people isn’t the issue. The challenge is that we want to be specifically recognised, engaged for who we are and have our needs met in relationships. This can go wrong in the most intimate relationships, as divorce trends indicate, but is particularly true in our work relationships. At work, relationships can be transactional and formulaic, driven by roles, status, and not the individual. As we grapple more and more with distributed teams, we need to recognise the effort to recognise the individual and help build relationships that matter for each employee.

Relationship Proxies

Our desire for relationships and this growing sense of loneliness can be a source of manipulation. Beware the stranger offering a relationship. Many scams and hacks rely on people’s desire to engage in relationships, to invest them with meaning, and to trust others who offer the satisfaction of relationships. Extremist movements engage people at a relationship level offering comradeship, meaning and a sense of belonging to lure people to work for their cause. Social media and the profusion of communities on offer magnify the reach and the intensity of these manipulations.

When the reward of sweet foods was rare our bodies desired it. Now refined sugar is a commodity and added to every food and drink to tap into that human desire and push sales. We see the same issues with social media, offering human relationship proxies to drive engagement and push advertising. Follower counts, connections, likes and comments can feel like a relationship. So too can the rush of personalisation available in our ever data hungry world of marketing, emails, apps and websites. However, like a sugar rush, it is but a proxy for the sustenance for human connection. Worse still, the crash after these substitutes deepens the sense of isolation and loneliness, often deliberately so, with the end of driving yet more engagement.

A relationship proxy delivers a taste of human connection, but isn’t specific to you, your needs or your challenges. Real relationships take work. Relationship proxies aren’t that demanding, because they aren’t that concerned about you. Relationship proxies are playing a numbers game of conversion and hoping that their offers of relationship will convert just enough people to sustain sales. We should recognise that AI and automation are already accelerating the ability to create, improve the effectiveness of, and scale relationship proxies.

To end the loneliness epidemic, we need to head in a different direction. A proxy will not deliver the warmth and comfort of a human hug, however cleverly designed. We need to invest in the work of real relationships – relationships that aren’t driven by self-interest and are deeply specific to the other person. Whether at work, in communities or in the wider world these are the relationships that we need to build, to foster and to share. That’s the path to a more rewarding future with less loneliness.

For it is his to fill your need but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Kahlil Gibran, On Friendship

Notice

Posted on by simongterry in Change, Innovation, Life & Career
What do you notice?

There’s a big wide world out there. It is time to notice it and those living around us. The more we deal with the separation of hybrid work and hybrid lives the more important it is to notice others and react to what we are noticing.

Notice

Whether because of writing, consulting, my work in innovation or customer experience, I have learned the power of time paying attention to my environment and what is going on around me. When was the last time you looked up? Over the years, I realised that noticing is a habit. We need to step out of our self-absoption and pay attention to others, to our environment and to all the little things that might otherwise slip below our focused attention. Without the consistency of explicit attention, we will fail to notice.

Some times the clues that we need to notice are tiny – a person’s silence, an odd choice of words, the things that they are not saying or not doing. Because many of life’s issues, problems and challenges cause us to stop, withdraw or be silent, it can be harder for us to notice that people are depressed, fatigued or languishing. We can’t all retreat to the isolation of Walden pond even if it is tempting in our busy digital lives. In a world of exponential change curves, many changes start small until they are suddenly not. The sooner you notice, the sooner you can act.

Many times our busy rush means we don’t pick up on the clues or cries for help that others are offering. If we don’t notice, we can inadvertently brush away the first tentative reach out for help or for support. We can make it appear that others aren’t caring simply by not paying enough attention as we go about our lives.

A question I often ask myself “what story does this thing I notice tell me?’ Looking for a narrative, a pattern or a rationale behind the little things can help you to go beyond observation and develop ways that you might engage to learn more. Those narratives can help you pick up on incipient trends and inspire your own creative thinking about what is possible or what might be to come.

Engage

We are ever more dependent on our ability to notice when the bandwidth of our relationships is so reduced by hybrid working relationships. Checking-in, checking-up and reaching out become very important activities to support those who matter to us to continue with all their work and life activities. Related is the practice of thanking those who have helped and supported us. We need to notice those who are helping us to get by so that we can remember to encourage that activity and also to know who we need to call on in times of challenge.

Noticing is not enough. We may not perceive the situation correctly. We may not understand at all. We need to engage to better our understanding of what we see and also act to make change or help those who need it. Nobody who is struggling needs to be told that everyone notices that they are struggling and how tough that struggle may be. Much of the discussion around issues such as Black Lives Matter, Indigenous inequality, racism, gender equality or sexual harassment is a frustrating repeated pattern of the wider community saying ‘I noticed this (usually at last). It is bad’ and the directly affected individuals saying ‘I’m glad you noticed. I know it too well. What are you going to do?’

Challenging times increase our need to notice others, notice situations and notice changes. With a better habit of attention we can work to make life better for others through engagement and action.

So what do you notice and what will you do about it?

Portfolio of Purpose

Posted on by simongterry in Future of Work, Life & Career
A Portfolio of Purpose

All the talk about purpose can be confusing. In particular we can be vexed by the difference between personal purpose and organisational purpose. The high bar that purpose sets for work can also create the feeling that every single moment of our work life should contribute to personal purpose. As the outcomes of our efforts that benefit others, purpose is not required from one task or one job, the outcome flows from a whole life – all the ways we work, hobbies, volunteering, family and more. We need to manage our personal portfolio of purpose.

Discovering Purpose

Discussion of organisational purpose can make it feel like purpose can be imposed. It can also create the impression that anything not directly to that purpose is less valuable, even where it might matter greatly to you.

Purpose is the outcomes of our effort that benefit others. Organisational purpose is the shared outcomes of individual efforts. The organisation itself has no purpose that isn’t shared by the people who make it up. Both personal purpose and organisational purpose are discovered not imposed. If your organisational purpose was developed by consultants or around a board table, it likely misses some of the subtleties of the culture in practice of your organisation. At worst, that statement of purpose is irrelevant to how the organisation acts.

Engaging with others, it is helpful to have a sense of the positive outcomes that you want to contribute for others. If you aren’t clear going in, you can always discover purpose in the work and in the collaboration. The best way to discover individual or collective purpose is not by what people say but the choices that they have made to benefit others through work. The Purpose is in the Work.

A Portfolio of Purpose

Most of us struggle to make everything we do or every organisation we join, directly relevant to our personal purpose. Life just doesn’t work that way. There is always development work, preparation, administration and overhead in all parts of life. Both individuals and organisations need to do things for money, to learn and to grow. Often your personal purpose is met later along the path and not right now.

Two approaches can reduce the sense of disappointment we feel when we must tackle tasks away from our personal sense of purpose:

  • Recognise purpose comes from all of life: Work is not the be-all and end-all of purpose. For many work may actually be a means to an end to pursue social or artistic purposes that don’t fit well into traditional work roles. The richer and more diverse your life the more likely you are to find ways to express your contributions to others. That also means knowing when to stop the gradual encroaching of work into every aspect of our life and identity. You aren’t your job and don’t let it define you. If your job doesn’t quite fit your sense of self, then embrace the difference. Difference is OK and you only need change role when the difference becomes direct incompatability.
  • Manage a diverse portfolio of activity: Recognise that the perfect job is rare, will likely become the end of a long search and may even be fleeting. Putting all your effort in the job basket can ignore the myriad other ways that you can make a contribution. Look across all the domains of your life and build a portfolio of contributions to others – that portfolio of purpose will provide the greatest chance for you to experience the personal rewards and to discover more about how you can contribute. Like any portfolio, diversity of effort also helps mitigate against disappointment in any one part of your life. There will always be some part of your efforts that are rewarding.

I have been exploring the portfolio life for some time, combing work, running businesses, consulting, advisory relationships, board roles, volunteering and helping friends. Every one of those activities gives me new insight into my personal purpose and new chances to express my contributions to others. The breadth of activities reduces the need for any one activity to meet my highest expectations. I learn and grow as I work across the breadth of this portfolio of roles.

So what’s in your portfolio of purpose?

In the moment

Posted on by simongterry in Future of Work, Life & Career

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We can easily cloud our present decisions with issues we bring in from the past and concerns about the future. Realising our life and career opportunities requires us to be present here and now.

I see a very common situation in business. Before a conversation, a meeting or a presentation begins, the room is clouded by the history between the participants. The parties to the discussion aren’t really ready to listen and engage. They have come to filter the discussion through their expectations of the others. Nothing productive can come from a fixed mindset in a world of rapid change. I’ve seen opportunities thrown away because people couldn’t overcome their history.

At the other end of the spectrum, people often lose opportunities because they are a paralysed by choices in uncertainty. The future is unknowable. You can manage risks, but risk and uncertainty should not be an excuse for delay or inaction. We need to decide now based on what we know now. If the world reveals more later, then we adapt.

We are all more productive when we are truly in the moment examining each moment for what it is and what it offers. When we are present we can listen and explore what we are being offered. We can pick up the clues on what is not said. Most importantly we can make choices based on today, not yesterday or tomorrow.

We only get one chance to use each moment. If we use this moment to replay the past or foreshadow the future we lose our chance to interact, to learn and to adapt. The best future comes to those who use each moment as best they can.

The Convoluted Paths of the Greater Good of Working Out Loud

Posted on by simongterry in Future of Work, Life & Career, Working out loud

Helping doubters to see the value of working out loud involves not just enabling them to experience others differently but helping them to see the value of the greater good. A challenge we face is that the value that flows from giving of ourselves travels along a convoluted path.

Reciprocal Benefits: Stories of the Paths of Referrals

Almost all my consulting work comes through referrals. Working out loud is a key foundation for that flow of referrals. However, there’s no linear process, no response rate to track and no measure that can capture the paths through which these come. I don’t work out loud for referrals.

I don’t work out loud for referrals. I work out loud to better understand lessons from the work I have each day and to benefit from the insights of others on that work. I also enjoy that others can share these lessons. However, generating business value is a lovely side benefit.

That benefit is not predictable because it is a function of reputation, relationships and work that’s ongoing, not a transactional exchange. Here are some examples:

  • I post on Linkedin about working out loud week and the post is shared widely. The post reminds a former colleague of mine about me and some work we did together. My friend refers me to a friend of their as a potential solution for an unrelated topic.
  • I agree to have coffee with a friend of a friend who is running a small business to discuss a business challenge. After a number of conversations where I offer some advice, things go quiet as we both return to our work. Months later, the small business owner refers me to another friend of theirs. Eventually, a colleague of that person retains me for some work.
  • I collaborate with a small group of partners and competitors over four years. We share insights, ideas, and approaches even when we occasionally come up head to head competing against each other for work. After a number of years, there’s a flow of great referral opportunities between members of the network. We like working with each other. We understand each other’s relative expertise. We know we can’t do everything.

I see each of those examples of referrals to my consulting practice as an indirect outcome of reputation, relationships and work done out loud over many years. I have faith that if I continue to work in this way the benefits will keep flowing. Try explaining it to a doubter and they will explain it away as a result of hidden strategy, luck, reputation, or expertise.

The Greater Benefit of Altruism

Even harder for the doubter to grasp is that I would still work out loud, if none of these or other examples had happened. I enjoy helping others. Seeing others succeed in their work because you were able to assist is amazing. Having the ability to help others is a privilege.

I knew the power of help and generosity. However, I had not seen the specific power of working out loud until I started blogging consistently at work.  Each day I shared a post on some lesson from my work and career. The posts were short and the audience was small as they were shared only inside the organisation. I realised the value to others one day when walking into the building a stranger enthusiastically rushed up to me and thanked me for a recent post. Speaking like a close friend, they explained that the post had enabled them to solve a problem and they now used that technique consistently. One person’s work had been made easier by my blogpost and they were extraordinarily grateful. Even more remarkable, a person I had never met felt they knew me well enough to forget to even introduce themselves.

Work today is hard, competitive, and it can be alienating for people. Creating just one moment of human connection founded in generosity can make a wonderful difference to others. It can also be a great reminder that those who give receive the greatest rewards, even if nothing ever comes back but thanks.

Tall Poppy Podcast with Tathra Street

Posted on by simongterry in Change, Future of Work, Leadership, Learning, Life & Career, Working out loud

I recently did a podcast with Tathra Street on making leadership safe for humans.  Tathra has an series of interviews on the idea of Human Centred Leadership. In our 30 minute conversation, we discussed my leadership lessons, how work is changing, the demands of digital culture, working out loud and more.

The discussion was great but sadly the audio quality did not hold up to the content of the discussion.

So You Want to be an MVP: Do the Work

Posted on by simongterry in Collaboration, Learning, Life & Career

Almost twelve months ago, I discovered the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Program when I found out that I had been nominated for the award. That nomination was a first step for Microsoft to widen the program to encompass people who worked to foster adoption of its products.  The MVP Program has been longstanding as a way to connect Microsoft with the traditional IT pros who make up its base of customers, developers and partners. After a year of experience of the MVP program, I wish I had known about it a lot earlier. The benefits to me and to the organisations with which I work from the program have been fantastic.  Most importantly of all, the MVP program has strengthened my connections to a community of incredibly smart, committed and professional practitioners who have shown me new and better ways to do what I do.

So let’s look at what a year of being a Microsoft MVP means. The MVP program is a recognition of contribution to the Microsoft community. Microsoft itself says:

“The Microsoft MVP Award gives us the unique opportunity to celebrate, honor and say thank you to top-notch technology experts who make outstanding contributions to their communities. These technology experts have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies and love to share their knowledge.”

The award which is for one-year term is a recognition of the quality and amount of work done and the value created by each individual for Microsoft, for its customers and for the individual’s own organisation. It lasts for a year because it is a reward for the work and that level of effort must be sustained and grow.

If we want to examine what it means to be a MVP we are going to have to dive into understanding and exploring the impact of that work.  To save you the challenge of listening to me talk about myself, I asked a fellow MVP, Amy Dolzine of EY if I could feature her work and efforts this year. Amy works in knowledge management for EY where she is a Global Awareness Advisor and Enterprise Social Engagement, Research and Awareness Lead where she is responsible for designing, managing and continuously improving global initiatives that increase the firm’s adoption of collaboration and communication tools such as Yammer and SharePoint. By enabling real time collaboration and sharing of expertise her work at EY enables client service teams to deliver better client outcomes and create increased revenue opportunities for the firm. Amy’s work at EY and her past experience with other organisations leading Yammer implementations also makes her a global expert in social collaboration and someone that people around the world look to for expertise and insights on how best to develop the maturity of collaboration in their organisations.

Sharing

I first met Amy through her active participation as a leader in the Yammer Customer Network, which is now the Microsoft Tech Community.  Amy demonstrates her leadership and passion in this environment, by actively sharing insights, asking questions, identifying bugs to be resolved and providing feedback to other community members and the product teams. I’ve been lucky to be a member of a number of communities this year where I have been able to leverage Amy’s practical insights. Having such a professional expert available to help you unravel challenges or support your ongoing work is invaluable.  If she is able to provide this support to others, I can only imagine the value that she is delivering to EY client service teams as they go about the important knowledge work of collaboration that is critical to the client service of EY teams.

The ongoing sharing of her expertise extends beyond the tens of thousands of members of these communities as well. Amy is also active in blogging and sharing her insights in social media. Her blogposts on Linkedin throughout the year have always been insightful reflections of the opportunities of collaboration and experience she has learned working in the EY environment and beyond.

Speaking

An MVP is expected to be out and about sharing their expertise at events in their communities and events that that Microsoft runs. These speaking engagements are always learning opportunities. They refine insights, help make new connections and provide opportunities to listen to and engage other practitioners in the field. Personal and organisation brands grow due to the quality of these presentations and I have watched Amy continue to promote the leadership of EY in the social collaboration space at many events during the year:

  • YouToo Social Media Conference Kent State University, April 2016: External social media conference in its 9th year. Amy was the first speaker ever on the topic of internal social. As a result of sharing her work, Amy was able to create recognition for EY as a leader in the space.  Importantly Amy helped a number of people at existing or future EY clients realize the value of working collaboratively and how it could help them make their companies more productive and engaged.
  • JBoye: Philadelphia, PA May 2016: EY is a member of the JBoye organisation’s networks. They have 2 conferences a year, one in Philadelphia, one in Arhus Denmark. Because of her status as MVP and reputation, JBoye asked Amy to speak at an event about enterprise social. Events aren’t just about speaking. At this conference Amy developed industry connections by meeting John Stepper, author of Working out Loud and Susan Hanley, the author of many books on Knowledge Management and SharePoint. Amy has gone on to introduce these thought leaders to others in her network. Developing connections in the industry and bringing together people is a key part of the MVP opportunity.
  • Microsoft Ignite Atlanta, GA September 2016:  I facilitated this panel of 5 leading MVPs. The panel was a “from the front lines” kind of presentation about how to roll out enterprise social and received an enthusiastic reception with many questions and excellent feedback. What the audience valued was Amy’s ability, along with the other panellists, to bring practical examples and real world experience to the often daunting and abstract challenges of collaboration.  Showcasing the value that a leading organisation like EY can do in this way and highlighting the ability of a professional like Amy to share this expertise reflects well on the firm.
  • DogFoodCon Columbus, OH October 2016: At DogFood Con Amy presented two presentations on the business value of enterprise social and the value of building knowledge communities. Again these presentations showcased EY as a leader in social collaboration and shared practical techniques to advance other organisations work in these areas.  Feedback on these presentations showed the continued development of Amy’s influence and her reputation as a leader in the space.
  • Microsoft MVP Summit Seattle, WA November 2016: MVP Summit is the highlight of the MVP year with a week long summit with in-depth presentations about Office 365, Yammer and SharePoint. For MVPs this is a chance to get deep into the product roadmaps for key products, to learn about initiatives to come and to connect with each other.  Amy also got the opportunity during this week to interact as a subject matter expert with the Yammer Product team as they ran a product hackathon.  Taking her frontline expertise and sharing it directly with the product teams to shape their future roadmap is a key opportunity for an MVP and puts them in a great position to assist their organisation to optimise Microsoft’s product implementations.

Learning

Being an MVP gives you unique exposure to the work of other MVPs and also the Microsoft product teams. Throughout the year on a weekly and monthly basis there have been updates from the product teams and others in Microsoft on the roadmaps and other opportunities being considered and tackled. MVPs get privileged access to these conversations under NDA in exchange for their contribution to Microsoft’s thinking.  It is a rich and valuable mutual learning experience with early warning and an ability to influence future product development highly valuable to Amy in her work.

The global community of MVPs learn from each other. Everyone in that network is looking to push the implementation of the technology to greater levels of effectiveness for their organisations. Amy gets rich connections and early insight into that work is an incredible learning opportunity and a platform for future collaboration opportunities as well.

I asked a few fellow MVPs what they had learned from working with Amy during the year. Their answers reflected my own perceptions and the respect with which MVPs are held in the Microsoft customer base:

“Amy is by far the most practical, value-focused strategist that I’ve seen in social collaboration. She has a gift for inspiring people with the vision and then moving them to roll up their sleeves and get to work realizing the benefits.” – Melanie Hohertz, Cargill

“Through Amy’s insightful and honest public contributions, I learned that EY is a leader in the emerging science of social collaboration. Not only have I gained a better understanding of Enterprise Social Networking and how it can help organizations through Amy’s efforts, I’ve also gained a great deal of respect towards EY as a company on the leading edge of modern business progress.” – Tom Kretzmer, Lubrizol

“Just a few moments of conversation with Amy showed me the heights my own organization could achieve through Enterprise Social Networking; continuing the conversation through this past year showed me that she is a leader to keep an eye on.” Becky Benishek, Crisis Prevention Institute

Personal Connection 

When you spend a year working alongside someone through communities and events, you develop a strong sense of their values, their approach to others and the way that they approach their work. We all know that these values and approaches are the bedrock of excellence in performance and ability to contribute to others. What comes across to me from my year working closely alongside Amy is her passion for making work and technology solutions better for the people in EY, her deep commitment and energy to making a difference and her generosity in creating, building relationships and helping others. This work is not without its frustrations. What I love about Amy is that she keeps these values front and centre as she tackles the challenges and the successes. Most organisations barely recognise that their people are making contributions to others in this way well beyond the narrow descriptions of their jobs and KPIs. I am pleased to know that EY is different and Amy is recognised for her passion, her contributions and her generosity.

I am incredibly lucky to have got the chance to know Amy better through the MVP program. Because of the work of Microsoft to celebrate her work and her ongoing efforts to share and help others, you get the chance to know her better too. If you’d like to become an MVP, the challenge is to think how you can make this kind of a contribution to others through your work.

From Gigs to Purpose: The Purpose Economy & Portfolio Roles

Posted on by simongterry in Future of Work, Life & Career

Mindsets shape our perception. – A large sign that needs to be placed in all workplaces

The changing nature of work is growing greater attention in the business press and in the strategy teams of large and small organisations.  New ways of working and new platforms of work are gaining traction and much handwringing is going on about the potential “post-job” future of work.

Many organisations see the changing nature of work as an opportunity to use transactional platforms to lower employment costs and deliver a greater flexibility of resources. They see platforms that offer a highly competitive pool of temporary and flexible labour as solely an efficiency play. Much of the investment and energy behind these platforms have been driven by the idea that they can take advantage of a struggling and transforming post-crisis global economy, digital technology and new work patterns of work to deliver real cost savings to organisations. That focus on the transactional efficiency benefits of Gig Economy reflects the prevailing mindset on the purpose of work and organisations. These organisations often can’t see that there is another way.

I was recently asked why I wanted to work in the Gig Economy. My answer was that I don’t. I work in the Purpose Economy. A traditional organisation might see an opportunity for efficiency and flexibility through a pool of transactional gig workers. I am looking for flexibility, purpose, relationships, collaboration and learning through a diverse portfolio of rewarding work.

I don’t join large scale platforms that atomise participants, commoditise work, create competitive dynamics and are designed for value capture to the platform (for more read Harold Jarche’s excellent description) . The transactional efficiency mindset of business is strong and deeply embedded. For many people, this has become the only way of business. It is all that they can see. However, there are other more purposeful, more valuable and more human ways of working. Breaking this mindset and setting out in a different pattern can be richly rewarding.

What impressed me as an adviser to Sidekicker was the team’s focus on relationships with both their workforce and their clients. They are looking for skills, talents and a better way of working with benefits to both workers and clients in areas of the market like event management staff where that is a rare mindset. The mindset of doing repeatable high quality business in a relationship for mutual gain is a valuable proposition in a world of atomised marketplaces.

I recently blogged about becoming an adviser to Peer Academy. This platform focuses on helping participants to collaborate, work and learn as peers. The learning and collaboration focus of this platform makes it a far more valuable and purposeful solution for organisations and participants.

I am a participant in Change Agents Worldwide because first and foremost it is a network about relationships, collaboration and learning. Change Agents Worldwide seeks to create value through scaling the efforts of individual Change Agents, but it recognises that it must first deliver value to the individual, cannot compete with them and must allow them to shape their participation and their work. A true network needs remarkably few rules to help individuals pursue their purpose, learn from others and to deepen relationships.

Ultimately, my work is driven by my purpose of making work more human. I write, speak, consult and coach towards this end. The portfolio nature of my work enables me a diversity of projects that contribute to this goal. My future success depends on what work I do, what relationships I build and what I learn. I have an entrepreneurial drive to improve my proposition to better fulfil my purpose. I get to build relationships that shape what I work on, what I learn and with whom I work.

A purposeful portfolio also helps diversify my risk and ensures a more consistent flow of rewards. I’ve been subject to far greater income risk and far more atomisation as an employee than I have ever experienced as an independent worker. Critically the nature and amount of those rewards remain in my control and are agreed through relationship conversations, not market place bidding, bell-curve performance processes or restructures. Not all the rewards are cash, I shape the value that I share in my work.

Before your organisation considers a new model of work for its efficiency gains, consider whether there is a wider benefit in exploring the potential of deeper relationships, richer purpose and more responsive work. Leveraging these opportunities will require you to consider many new areas of organisational work in 2017, but particularly:

  • What do you offer the purposeful worker? Is your organisational purpose clear enough to shape your work?
  • Is your employee & worker experience good enough to attract, to retain and to leverage the contributions of those working in the purpose economy? Are you treating temporary labour as an equal member of your teams or as second class citizens?
  • How does your organisation onboard, collaborate and learn at scale, especially with those who may not care for your processes or be seeking a career in your organisation?
  • Are your team structures and work processes agile enough to incorporate and benefit from the inputs of your new workforce?
  • Can your management capabilities, models, policies and systems handle the networked organisation and a purposeful workforce?

 

PS: An example of the limiting power of mindsets is that we now need to clarify the meaning of ‘gig economy’.  Language that came out of the creative professions to reflect their flexibility in pursuit of purpose becomes redefined in a corporate mindset to transactional efficiency.