Tag: futureofwork

A Gift from Blog Secret Santa – The Head and the Heart

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

This post was anonymously written as part of Blog Secret Santa. There’s a list of all Secret Santa posts, including one written by Simon Terry, on Santa’s list of 2014 gift posts.

I grew up in a 2-parent household, and for many years my dad was the sole breadwinner. He was a truck driver. He worked long, hard hours. And as I started to get into computers and technology, I distinctly recall my dad telling me, “Don’t do what I do. Use your brain.” My parents wanted what was best for me and I took my dad’s words very seriously.

In addition to that advice, I learned over time that using one’s heart is also instrumental in being successful. The path to this point was challenging. During my career I was the person who could do it all, the manager who made mistakes, the glue holding a team together. In each and every case I found that understanding the emotions, needs, and desires of others – and, critically, myself – was instrumental in being successful.

So let’s talk about that all for a moment.

Your co-workers

Having empathy for co-workers is a well-worn path for me. Before I dedicated time to working on myself, I found selflessness to be rather simple; I viewed my role, no matter what it was, as to be a vessel for others. This meant I would quickly and efficiently do what I was asked or told to do. But soon I started asking, “Why?” a lot – not to be a stick in the mud, but to gain greater understanding. I was in positions where I’d ask about business development or technology although I was solidly in a creative, UX, or programming role. This made some people uncomfortable but I found more and more that people really enjoyed talking about their work and having someone listen, understand, and work alongside them.

In one of my prior positions, I was tasked with the redesign of a video streaming product. It was going to involve people from teams across the company. Initially this was scary to me. I wanted to go it alone and figure it out, and be viewed as the super genius. But other parts of me knew this wasn’t the way to get the best product, and get the best support. So I scheduled 30-minute meetings, brief and to-the-point, with the stakeholders to get a sense of what they needed.

But instead of straight-up stakeholder interviews, I approached these meetings as listening sessions. We started with small talk about the project and work, but that quickly gave way to a platform for these individuals to have someone hear them. I listened critically, took notes, and genuinely participated in the conversation. That was what they needed. I learned a lot from them for this project, and was proud to have them count as true collaborators from the start.

Working on yourself

In addition to having empathy for co-workers, it is absolutely critical to have empathy and compassion for yourself. This has been a much harder path for me. For years, I had taken up habits and rituals that put myself last and others first; I saw anything else as selfish or indulgent.

Let me indulge for a moment. You’ve been flying, yes? And you know the safety instructions at the start of every flight? When they get to the point about oxygen masks, a big point is made: take care of yours first before helping others. It’s an excellent analogy. I’ve found that if you have not worked on designing yourself, on observing and understanding your words and actions, it becomes much more difficult to help and serve other people.

I’m not admitting that I’m fully realized, or fully developed. I’m learning new things about myself and the world every moment of every day. But I have a much stronger picture of who I am, what I value, and what I believe. My intentions and goals have led me to find those same beliefs in my family, friends, co-workers, and my employers.

Companies have changed, too

Something I’ve distinctly noticed over my career is a shift in company attitudes towards people. Some organizations, to this day, treat people solely as resources. They even use the word “resources” in non-business speak contexts, which is very telling. More and more, I’ve been attracted to organizations that encourage individuals to be, well, realized. They welcome people with big ideas, a personal brand, and a point of view. And they aren’t looking to quash it; they’re looking to grow on it.

I once joined an organization while I was teaching web design part-time. I loved teaching, and I was good at it. This organization, however, expected me to stop teaching and work 90-100 hours per week. All of this while I was in the planning stages of my wedding! But my work didn’t support or know this, and did not work to understand who I was. My values weren’t aligned with those of the company. I did not listen to what the company was saying, even though it was all implicit. As a result, it was a bad fit.

More recently I’ve worked with organizations that have spoken about all of this right up front: We know you love public speaking. We know you love teaching. And we know you love UX work. We want you to bring that same passion and that same drive to our work for clients and each other. We won’t stop you from doing it. Do it. It makes us stronger. That’s a very, very different perspective, and a very empathetic one.

So when I think about the future of work, I see empathy as the path forward. It’s a prelude to compassion. All of this is very powerful. It begins with ourselves, extends out to our co-workers, and can all be supported by an encouraging workplace.

—

I took part in Blog Secret Santa this year and this was my awesome gift.  It was great to wake up on Christmas morning and find a blog post under the tree. Thanks anonymous Blog Secret Santa. I love my post and it fits perfectly. Just what I always wanted.

The Responsive Bank. Feature article in Q factor Oct 2014

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Feature Article on The Responsive Bank as published in Q Factor October 2014 issue by SQS.

Responding to a disruption and applying the Responsive Organisation principles to financial services

Note: the reference to an MBA in the bio at the end of the article is an error.

The Responsive Bank. Feature article in Q factor Oct 2014

To Shape Change, Start Leading Change

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

image

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” (spoken by Tancredi) from ‘The Leopard’ by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Times of disruptive change are difficult for those in power and those who benefit most from the current way of things. Many of these people prefer to ignore the rising changes in society. In effect, they abandon their leadership role in shaping change in the system.

Enduring disruptive change demands an engaged form of leadership. The future in disruption is not written. Leaders should seek to engage, lead and shape change to the benefit of their organisations. 

The Networked Economy is Here to Stay.

Many leaders of organisations have a lot of power, status and wealth tied up in the way things are now.  They are the masters of the current system, adept in its ways and confident in managing the current model of work and the organisation.  They have both personal and professional reasons for hoping that nothing changes.

Change doesn’t work that way. We are now part of a global ecosystem of actors connected in digital networks.  Access, visibility and transparency have increased driven by the new connectivity.  Change that enters this new system is magnified, spread and developed by the action of agents all around the world.

Lead or Let others Decide The Future

The connected digital networks of global actors means the future of work won’t be ignored, stopped or reversed. Others will go on to develop better ways of working whether you and your organisation participate or not. The less you participate, the more you appear a candidate for disruption by one of these actors.

Organisations face a leadership challenge in this environment.  Effective leadership, continuous learning and a vibrant culture is required to take effect of the advantages of the new approaches.  Senior managers need to play a critical role helping organisations adjust and maximise the benefits from these changes.

However, managers face changes in the future of work that change their power, status and potentially their financial position.  Networks can operate with less layers of management and roles that were once managements prerogative are being delegated to frontline employees or automated in systems. New two-way conversations with engaged and enabled employees, customers and other staked holders can require leaders to deal with new complexity. In this case, it can be tempting for a senior leader to sit on the sidelines hoping the changes are a fad or that they might pass over the organisation.

You Can’t Lead a Community if You are Not Engaged

A simple case study of this mindset comes when you consider the level of management attention to stakeholder activism in social and digital media. Because this activism is now more visible and empowered by digital and social networks, management can see resentment that once was hidden. Bear in mind the resentment is not new.  It just has a bigger audience and influence than before.

Many of these social activist activities have large impacts on organisations because the activist have a community and the organisation has only a network.  

The critical difference between a network and a community is how engaged the participants are. That engagement arises as a result of acts of leadership to create common purpose, to shape an agenda of action and to influence others to act. Leaders who ignore the burgeoning networks around the organisation allow others to shape the communities, their purposes and their influence.

Senior leaders of organisations need to engage with the networks around their organisation.  The opportunity to create productive communities far exceeds the risks. Listening and acting on feedback of networks of stakeholders is one of the better mitigants of risk. Failure to engage and to understand the needs of the networks creates an opportunity for others to lead. 

Every action writes your autobiography

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

image

I came across this quote today in an exhibition of the work of the photographer Sue Ford.

We can learn from artists

For an artist it is clear that each work even a representation of another is an expression of their own potential as an artist. To make a work is to put the best of your talents on display.

We can learn a much about the future of our work from the edges explored by artists.

One of the reasons art demands this challenge is the arts is an arena of the long tail. Harold Jarche has discussed the implications of the long-tail for the future of work. We are increasingly engaged in knowledge work in a networked economy as content creators, sharers or remixers and facing the same economic effects as artists.

Every action writes your autobiography

The insight from Sue Ford’s quote above is to recognise that every action we take is an opportunity to put the best of our talents on display. We express ourselves through the big and small actions we take every day. Often the actions we don’t take are even more important when we give up the opportunity to realise our potential or to learn and grow.

We will be judged by our actions. Networks are demanding and will route around the inactive, those who fail to lead or those who fail their potential. Our reputation will be built and quickly shared through our networks. We write an autobiography in action and we are judged not for our words but the actions we take.

What do you want your autobiography to say? What potential is yours to realise? Your next action will provide an answer.

Why not make your next action a work of art?

Shapes, Guides, Decides: on Structure

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

In leadership we are starting to see the need to pull apart our obsession with jobs. We are realising that what matters more than a job is the roles that leaders play and their authority to play them.

A similar need exists in the structures we form from those jobs. In organisational design, we have a tendency to focus overly on structure as if it is the determinant of how the organisation functions.
The structure of an organisation is important. However, we know that all structures perform in different ways because of the networks of relationships that weave through them and the resulting culture that is created.
A focus on structure can be of little value to a manager looking to respond practically to the challenges of a networked economy. That manager often well knows that while changing structure can require as little as a new powerpoint slide, but the way things get done changes far less frequently and with a great deal more difficulty
Why?
  • Structure: A collection of status relationships between individuals. Shapes
  • Decision Process: The commonly accepted series of stages by which decisions are made in the organisation, including what information is expected, who is aware, who participates and who is consulted. Guides
  • Decision Rights: Who & how the final call gets made on any decision. Decides 

Structure influences decision processes and decision rights. However structure does not determine them and at times can work at cross purposes to the intended goals of the organisation. You can have a hierarchy where decision rights are delegated and there is a high level of autonomy. You can have a network that is paralysed by an insistence on consensus before anyone acts on a decision. 

The process used for decisions and what exercise of decision rights are accepted in an organisation is a function of the network of relationships more than the structure. Control by structure is often an illusion.

We need to spend less time focused on our structures and spend more time on how our relationships work and how we make choices.

Networks Demand Leadership. Make Your Choice. Act.

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

image

Leadership in networks is less about the position you are assigned. The opportunity is the role you choose and the challenge is building authority. The job might be assigned, but the role is chosen and your authority is earned. The networks in and around your organisation are waiting for you to act. If you don’t act, they will move on without you.

Networks solve obstructions

Networks route around obstructions. One potential source of obstruction is the formal roles in an organisation, the hierarchy and the resulting silos.  What results is a wirearchy which Jon Husband has described as

a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology

Think about your organisation. There is a formal process to get a decision made, but everyone knows that the real decisions don’t follow the process. There is informal lobbying. Often someone who is not the decision maker is hugely influential. People chat casually testing positions. Additional information is shared. Deals are done. Trust and credibility play a key role in influencing the ultimate decision, often more than the facts on the table.

These actions are all examples of a network working around the potential obstruction of a hierarchical role or process. These conversations are all examples of how ‘two-way flow of power and authority’ is shaped by people’s actions to demonstrate ‘knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results’.

You are a potential obstruction

If you aren’t results focused, aren’t performing the roles required or the network doesn’t have confidence in your actions, a network of people working together will start to route around you.  Your failure to lead others becomes an obstruction. No matter how fancy your title or your place in the hierarchy the network will start solving for the obstruction that you represent. The network in and around every hierarchy is what makes the hierarchy functional.

To avoid being an obstruction, you need to focus on your authority and fulfilling the roles that advance the needs of the organisation and its networks. Your job won’t save you.

Authority takes Action

Leadership in networks is not an abstract and exalted status. Every person in a network is connected. Leadership is demonstrated when people take on needed roles and others move to action.

Leadership is the technology of realising human potential. Leadership is the technology that inspires and enables others to action. That takes a decision to embrace a role, action, influence and authority.  In networks, including the networks wrapped around your hierarchy, that authority comes from action, not position.

The differences in influence and ability to create value come through action.  Action is what builds authority.  The best way for someone to assess your ‘knowledge, trust, credibility and focus on results is to experience it’.  Authority grows influence with other people in the network and that accelerates further action. 

Networks and Network Leadership is not Bounded

If a network needs to go around or outside the hierarchy to solve a problem it does. All it takes is a connection for your network to extend further. Network leaders need to ensure that their leadership goes outside their hierarchies as well.

Customers, community, other stakeholders all influence your knowledge, credibility, trust and focus on results. Sharing the voice of the customer or the community can be a significant part of influencing change. Try to have influence internally without influence externally and you will find over time that your credibility erodes. Celine Schillinger has described how change agents can find that they need to build credibility externally to be more influential in their internal networks.

Leadership is a Choice. A Choice to Act.

Taking on a leadership role is a choice. It is a choice to help others make something happen and enable them to realise their potential. Whether you are in a hierarchy or a network matters little. The same rules apply. The choices that you make, the knowledge that you gather, the influence you build through credibility and trust determine your authority as a leader and whether others will follow.

Nobody has to follow you. Our hierarchies are a fiction that supports our need for status, order and clarity. The networks in and around your organisation know that and work around the hierarchy every day.  

That same network is waiting for your choices and the actions that follow.

SCNOW Webinar Series from Socialcast and Change Agents Worldwide

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Change Agents Worldwide and Socialcast have now completed four great webinars on the future of work, enterprise social networking and collaboration:

Recordings of these webinars are available at the Socialcast webinar centre.

Action Makes an Abstract Noun Concrete

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

One of the attractive features of the DoLectures Australia talks was that the speakers didn’t spend too much time throwing around abstract nouns. As a group of people who make change happen the conversation was about what they had done.

Abstraction is a usual feature of conversations about change. In conversations about change, in large organisations and especially at conferences, it can some times feel like every noun is a capitalised noun.

The Dangers of a Capital Letter

Often people speak in general terms about nouns with great big capital letters like Change, Engagement, Community, Empowerment, Innovation, Creativity, Hierarchy, Power, Organisation, etc. Politicians and the leaders of organisations specialise in sprinkling their speech with capitals.

It is important to remember that nobody acts in the abstract. Speaking in abstract terms is a substitute for doing anything. Drop the capital letter and the context is usually much more specific.

A conversation remote from the details of action also generates confusion. There are hundreds of subtle differences in definitions of a concept as simple as Collaboration. At times, this confusion prevents any progress as people debate the meaning of the abstraction and the relevance of any action to their own personal definition.

At other times, this kind of confusion can allow people to impose their own perspectives. In these high level conversations you hear disconcerting phrases like:

“Of course I value Engagement with my people. I send them a weekly email…”

“We are very focused on Community here. That’s why we have a Corporate Social Responsibility function…”

“All our managers create Empowerment in their teams. I have made sure of it…”

Capitalised nouns look great in powerpoint, but they don’t do the work needed.

Action Makes a Noun Concrete

Fixing the explosion of Capitalised nouns in our work and our life is simple.

Do something. Then tell me a story of why and how you did it.

You don’t need a capitalised noun to do. Soaring rhetoric is for eagles.

If you want to use big concepts, make them clear in the context of the story of action. Action makes any capitalised noun concrete. Action rips out the capital.  

Suddenly Empowerment means I specifically empowered this person in this way. if I don’t like your definition of Empowerment, the challenge is not to debate you. The challenge is to do better.

The Future of Work needs to be the future of work.

We have big opportunities to change the future of how we work, make decisions and organise ourselves.

Start engaging in a discussion of the Future of Work and capitalised nouns appear quickly. People can lose sight of the fact that collaboration occurs everywhere, decisions happen every minute of the day and that people are continuously learning, doing and changing the shape of their work and relationships.

As we race into a future of work, let’s remember to act and to keep our discussions grounded.