E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

The Future of Work by 2020

Fascinating topic, don’t you think? And here we are, still in 2013, and already thinking about what the workplace of the future would be like by 2020. Well, one thing for sure is that it won’t be anything like we have today or what we may have had over the course of the last 50 years. Even more, I am suspecting that over the course of time, if not happening already today, we are going to make a very healthy split between work and jobs. Because, you know, they are not the same, no matter what people keep telling you. They have never been the same. And, certainly, with the emergence of digital tools that split is even more natural and in full accordance with a new reality: work is you, you are the work.

So what is the future of You? What is the future of work then? It seems that lately there have been lots and lots of interesting and rather relevant insights shared across, i.e. blog posts, articles, mainstream news, insightful whitepapers and whatever else, shared across by folks who have embarked themselves into redefining how we should be looking at work from here onwards over the course of time and also from the perspective of how we are rethinking the role of jobs, even to the point of perhaps venturing whether it’s worth while quitting yours and move on to the next big adventure (Highly recommended and superb read by Irvin Wladawsky-Berger, by the way). Uncertainty will be there. Uncertainty is always there. But that’s perhaps a good thing, because it’s essentially what helps us progress further into the unknown while we keep rethinking what we will all want to be doing as work.

Long gone are the times where we were aiming for long term careers and their big aspirations, for loyalty to a specific business or company, for a long-term opportunity to have an impact over the course of decades. Long gone are the times where knowledge workers were aiming at fitting in within a working environment for which they were perhaps not ready for it, while carrying on their work, with very little motivation, waiting for the payslip at the end of the month. Hummm, well, maybe this one is not gone just yet. But perhaps it is a clear indication already as to why certain jobs need to be questioned and redefined in the context of whether they are still purposeful or meaningful altogether. After all, and this is what I keep telling people all around, we only have got one single life, so it is probably a fair game we all try to make the most out of it, don’t you think? 

Lou Adler has also got a rather thought-provoking article on a similar topic under the suggesting heading of “There Are Only Four Jobs in the Whole World – Are You in the Right One?” where he proposes how those four jobs are the following ones: Producers, Improvers, Builders and Thinkers. Go ahead and read it through, as it will certainly be rather helpful in understanding what your current job may well be about and it will confirm whether you might be on the right one, or not. Interestingly enough, while I read it myself, I just couldn’t help thinking how in today’s more complex than ever working environment each and everyone of us may eventually be doing the four jobs at the same time depending on the context of the task at hand, which is essentially what keeps driving us all into achieving our goals: that purpose and meaning I mentioned above, along with the right context in such a hyperconnected, networked (business) world. 

And to that effect, while I keep reflecting myself on the future of work, I thought I would point you to a recent article that my good friend Jemima Gibbons worked on over at “What will “work” look like in 2020?” where she gathered a good bunch of folks sharing their insights on how they see themselves the workplace of the future. Some pretty interesting insights with key concepts like Intrapreneurship and its impact behind the corporate firewall (By William Higham); or the redefinition of work from a physical space / office into a state of mind where work life integration play a rather key, paramount role (By Karen Mattison) towards sustainable growth; or how the convergence of cloud, mobile and social (Along with the “Internet of Things”) will inspire more contractual / freelance work helping organisations become more liquid, hybrid while knowledge workers become freer and more autonomous around their work, owning it and co-sharing that responsibility (By David Terrar); or how knowledge workers will no longer be talking about adoption of new technologies, but more a key concept that I have become rather fond of myself over time and which I find also rather descriptive in terms of where I feel the key is of how we redefine work, that is, how do we adapt to this new digital work environment to make the best out of it, as in how well do we adapt to change (By Helen Keegan).

Like I said, lots of great, relevant insights and plenty of key pointers that surely highlight where we may be heading to over the course of time. Jemima asked me as well whether I would be able to contribute with my ¢2 and, of course, I couldn’t reject such generous offer so I added a short paragraph that explains what’s been in my mind for a while in terms of what I sense the future of work would be like in the not so distant future … So I thought I would go ahead and finish off this article by taking the liberty of quoting it across: 

“In the future, work will be more distributed and remote – technology means that people will be able to work from wherever they want to. Work processes will be driven by interactions from workers through networks and communities rather than traditional company hierarchies. Large enterprises will no longer need to exist, because of the nature of the hyper-connected and networked workforce. Trust between workers will be more essential than ever – and critical for success. People will find new meaning and purpose through building strong personal business relationships: the key objective for everyone will be sustainable growth.“

So what will “work” look like in 2020 for you? Care to venture and share a comment or two on what it may well be like? Perhaps in a few years we can come back to this blog post and see how accurate our perceptions were after all. Or not. Something tells me the journey is going to be just as fascinating, inspiring and refreshing as the final destination, if not more altogether! Why? Well, because for the first time in decades it will be us, knowledge (Web) workers, the ones who can choose what we would want it it to be.

And that’s a good thing. After all, work is us, we are the work.

The Cultural Impact of The Future of You

Over at Harvard Business Review Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic has put together, just recently, a rather interesting and relevant article on The Future of You that clearly highlights three rather intriguing career suggestions for knowledge workers out there for the new year to carry out, if they would want to raise their visibility, demonstrate their subject matter expertise and build their social eminence effectively in a social world infested with perhaps far too much noise. The article itself is worth while reading on its own, for sure, as it highlights some of the challenges, but plenty of the advantages of what it is like having a powerful personal brand, as a knowledge worker. But I would think there is something missing on the article itself that makes me a bit too uncomfortable: the enterprisey touch. 

I am sure you may be wondering what do I mean with regards to that enterprisey touch, right? Well, if you take a look into the article you would see how Dr. Chamorro celebrates three suggestions he thinks are going to work really well for knowledge workers, but perhaps he forgets how the whole thing changes as soon as you enter the corporate world. Here is an example. In that article he quotes the need for more self-branding, along with plenty of entrepreneurship, as two key traits to succeed in the business world. Part of me would definitely agree with those two traits big time, specially, in the context of the Social Web and pure knowledge Web work, but then again, if I look into the corporate world itself, and judging from both first hand experiences while interacting with customers and other thought leaders in this space, self-branding, a.k.a. personal brand, would only work out just right IF (And that’s a *big* IF) the corporate brand doesn’t decide to kill it in the process. 

Essentially, the corporate brand needs to evolve and both embrace and celebrate the richness of powerful employee brands, because, if anything, they surely help amplify and augment the overall corporate one; yet, what you see on a rather regular basis is how businesses ensure that the personal brand remains subjugated to the corporate brand’s needs and wants, resulting in turning off completely the motivation from employees to even look after their own. They just don’t see the value of being just one more voice adding to the noise, which is essentially what most companies want (mistakenly). There are better ways. Never mind that thought from companies that employees with powerful brands could become a threat to the  business or they could just be snatched away by talent hunters. Well, not really. It just depends on how hard, you, as a business, would work your magic to engage, from the knowledge worker perspective, those employees to augment AND increase both the visibility and mindshare of the overall corporate brand. Right now, that hard work is just not happening. It’s non-existent. The easy way out has always been undermining or terminating the employee brand, as soon as it is considered far too powerful or a threat to the business. 

This is certainly an area where I would expect HR to take a much more active role in helping knowledge workers develop the right skills set, as much as corporations to learn how to live with that personal branding trend for their own employees, because it’s only going to become more and more relevant over time. Remember? People do business with people, not with brands. People, after all, like to talk to other people when doing business. It’s just that simple. So the sooner HR can dive into the conversations and act as referees defending with good counter-arguments the opportunity for knowledge workers to develop their brand as part of their key, essential personal development opportunities, the better off we would all become, because it will help address part of that business problem I keep referencing time and time again: employee engagement. 

With regards to Entrepreneurship, we have seen that for enterprise knowledge workers it’s slightly different. Over here, in this blog, I have been talking time and time again about it referencing it as Intrapreneurship with perhaps this specific article as the most relevant one to the context of what Dr. Chamorro talks about on the HBR article. I would love to know in the comments how you folks feel about Intrapreneurs, because, somehow, I suspect we are going to start talking more and more about them as Trust Agents, Wild Ducks, Liquid Freelancers, become more and more prevalent of the new Workplace of the Future that we are currently shaping up!

And, finally, the one other suggestion that Dr. Chamorro mentions in that article and which I think is perhaps the most exciting in the context of Open Business altogether: Hyperconnectivity. That is, the ability of you, as a knowledge Web worker, to act both as a powerful connector, as well as that empowered node to find what you need, which, in most cases, it’s not going to be down to you, but down to how well you have nurtured, cultivated and looked after your own social network(s). 

It’s in this context that I thought I would finish off this blog post referencing a webinar presentation that I hosted way back in November 2012 for IBM’s Academy of Technology on trying to define what that hyperconnectivity would be like in the context of defining the significant impact social networking tools can have in helping redefine the workplace of the future with some essential critical traits. In “Cultural Impact of Social Networking in Defining the Workplace of the Future” you would be able to see my attempt of describing the new kind of skills set that knowledge Web workers would need to excel at if they would want to thrive in an Open Business environment. Here’s the embedded code of the presentation, so folks interested in it could have a look and see what you think: 

My good friend, and fellow colleague, Brian Cragun, host of that IBM Academy of Technology event, arranged to have the session audio recorded, as well as a transcript of my speech, along with the live chat transcript and I thought it would be a good idea as well to share that across over here, so that if you would be interested in spending a bit over an hour listening to it, while flipping through the charts, you would be able to do so accordingly. I have zipped all three files into a single one and you would be able to download it all from this link.

Dr. Chamorro’s conclusion of the article highlights the need for employees to become a brand, their own personal brand, to transform the way they work and become powerful change agents with an opportunity to keep challenging the status quo of how certain things happen while at work and with an innate ability to link to useful information scattered around your various social networks. Somehow I suspect that the hardest part of making all this a reality is not just going to be down to the employees themselves, but more down to HR, Open HR, that is, as an opportunity to help prepare for those upcoming talent wars and personal development initiatives that will help define the workplace of the future in the Knowledge / Open Economy. Somehow, something tells me that this is one of the main reasons as to why HR will cease to operate, or be perceived to operate, around the edges and become *the* central hub that makes that business transformation of the employee workforce a reality. 

The challenge is on though. Will HR be capable of transforming itself into Open HR, as part of Open Business? I surely hope so. After all, we don’t have much of an option nowadays anymore, I am afraid.

Do we?

Social Business – Where Ideas Keep Fighting Hierarchy

If you have been reading this blog for a while now, you would know how one of my favourite terms / concepts around Social Business that I have grown to become rather fond of over time, to the point where not only do I talk about it on a regular basis, but I also wear it extensively, is that one of Wirearchy (“Redarquía” in Spanish, for those who may be wondering…), that my good friend Jon Husband coined a few years back and that, still today, in 2012, is now more accurate than ever. In case you may not have heard about that concept just yet, allow me to offer over here Jon’s description of it, as an introduction of what the workplace of the future will be all about… starting today: networks and communities, vs. traditional hierarchies and rigid structures, getting work done.

Indeed, as Jon himself wrote over 13 years ago: “In an increasingly interconnected world, a new organising principle is emerging…“

“Wirearchy is a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on:

• Knowledge
• Trust
• Credibility
• A focus on results

enabled by interconnected people and technology“

I am not sure what you would think, but those are some very powerful messages that surely have got enough traction to provoke a change of our mindsets and a shift of habits of how we have conducted business over the last 40 to 50 years, towards a working environment based on merit, trust, confidence, honesty, values, openness, transparency, authenticity, agile, reputation, effectiveness, efficiency, learning, empathy, etc. etc. A shift that, if you notice, has got very little to do with technology, specially, social networking tools, since they are just that, enablers to help you achieve certain tasks and eventually it’s all about that cultural mayhem that happens when ideas take over hierarchies.

Fascinating stuff, if you come to think about how wirearchy is slowly, but steadily, challenging AND changing the way we do work, questioning even whether we do eventually need managers after all or, perhaps, we should start embracing the move towards nurturing and cultivating the next generation of Leaders, as I have recently blogged about over at “Social Business – Where Bosses and Managers Become Servant Leaders“, who will master wirearchy vs. hierarchy alone. And this is where ideas kick in… 

But instead of me explaining how critical and paramount ideas, and sharing of ideas, is in this whole concept of Wirearchy, as an integral part of Social Business, I’m going to take the liberty of pointing you folks to a video clip that I bumped into from a recent tweet from Vala Afshar, that will be worth your time watching it through altogether: 

Steve Jobs talks about managing people [video] youtu.be/f60dheI4ARg @allthingsd #leadership #management

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) July 23, 2012

Indeed, in a little bit over two minutes, here’s a rather short, sharp, but superb interview snippet with Steve Jobs (Yes, I, too, miss him more than whatever I ever thought I would!!) where he shares that absolutely inspiring epiphany of how ideas will keep fighting the hierarchy till they eventually overcome it to establish a new status quo of how organizations get work done in the 21st century and how, inevitably, we no longer even have a choice, regardless of what some other groups out there may be stating as otherwise. If not, judge for yourselves, here’s the embedded code from the interview, so you can play it right away: 

Yes, I know and do fully realise how Steve doesn’t mention the concept of Wirearchy per se, but after you watch it you will see how close he gets to it when he explains fully a good number of its key concepts: like collaboration, like startup mentality (Disruptive not only bottom up, but top down alike, too!), like teamwork, like trust in those who you work with to deliver their part, like autonomy, like intrapreneurship, like problem solving, like lowering the centre of gravity and decision power, like, essentially, that wirearchy that runs through the veins and the DNA of any  business as part of that soft and hard tissue that makes a whole unit: The Brand. The People. No longer a hierarchy on its own, because as Steve himself quotes, ”You have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy” and that’s probably as essential as it would get for all of those businesses out there currently embarking on that so-called journey of becoming a Socially Integrated Enterprise, i.e. a successful Social Business. 

Who would have thought that one of the most perceived risk averse companies towards the whole concept of Living Social has been driving such social business transformation deep at its roots for themselves and for a good few years already without relying too much on social technologies to make it work? I am not sure what you would think, but I bet that from here onwards we are going to start questioning, and rightly so!, the status quo of how much hierarchy should be trumping ideas overall to the point of drowning them altogether vs. giving them a fair chance, through Wirearchy, to keep up a good fight and help redefine the workplace of the future according to how work gets done nowadays… through networks and communities, of course. Where else?