10 Ideas for the Future of Work

Hybrid. Return to work. The office. Three two. Two three. Collaboration. Innovation. Culture and Community. Togetherness. The paroxysms of a system in transition. Trying to win yesterdays race.

The Pandemic Lockdowns and shift to remote first provided an unparalleled and unplanned disruption of dogma and destiny. Enforced dispersal challenged individuals and Organisations to find new ways of working, which many did with remarkable success, although sometimes at great personal cost. 

Today we appear to be seeking industrial scale normalisation, a reimposition of order, and a return to the familiar. Organisations that were unwired are now busy rewiring, but typically to the legacy diagrams. So what are we missing, what are we giving away? What are the opportunities yet unexplored, some of which may challenge the conception of what work ‘is’, and how it sits in our broader perspective of ‘society’.

The Social Age shows us that our built environment, structures of power, and rituals and beliefs around work, are simply stories that we choose to keep. There are other ways, other models, and to ignore them is to throw away the chance to do different, and do better.

Here are ten ideas. Each tries to question one aspect of dogma.

[1] Not working 9-5, Monday to Friday. There are seven days in a week, and twenty four hours in a day. Just how synchronous does work need to be? Scheduling tools, social collaboration technologies, and shared workspaces: just how much of our working needs to be in a day? Or in the working week? I spoke to someone yesterday who commutes 13.5 hours of rush hour per week. Surely there’s a better way. Oh, yes, wait… there is. The historic structure of the working week ties into religious rituals and an age of infrastructure. You cannot operate a mill without everyone on site. But we are not operating mills most of the time. We only have rush hours because we all rush at the same time. So just how much of the time do we need to be ‘together’ in time and place?

[2] Not the tools that you knew. There are a wealth of highly innovative technologies of connection, productivity and sharing, most of which you do not need to own or control. Unless you think ownership and control make you stronger or safer. Which may be a mistake, as most likely culture is what makes you stronger than policies and rules. Not sure what to do? Dedicate time to learning them. The answer will not be given, it will be made. Infrastructure used to be central, owned, and important. Perhaps, today, it is not.

[3] Trapped by familiarity. Just because it doesn’t work once, don’t generalise from the specific. What new ways of working have you not yet tried? What’s the cost, risk, or opportunity? How are you measuring? And what are you measuring? And how do you know it’s the right thing to measure. Two years is a long time, and yet not much time at all. Perhaps all we have so far is the disruption: making it safe, fast, may feel like a win, but actually be folly. Are you actually mitigating risk, or just chasing back to the familiar? Why not map what is familiar, map what you tried, and see the overlay. Then see the gaps. Small and large. Different contracting models, different approaches to knowledge management and the creation of value, different mechanisms of developing talent, of allocating work, of reward, of contextual leadership, or fluid power. There are very few boundaries you cannot challenge.

[4] Buildings matter. They don’t. The built environment should reflect social need, not constrain it. Commercial property? Should service a market, not dictate it. High streets and suburbs? Repurpose, redesign, reconfigure. Distribute co-working, rewire transport schedules, distribute infrastructure investment. Maybe the future is more about many spaces than one. Perhaps you need a vanity office, but maybe that’s more like a theatre, a sculpture, or a park. Perhaps it’s designed around walking and play, not separation and segregation of space. Perhaps the most powerful people get to sit under the broadest tree. Use water, use space, use air, use hills, make the things that were solid to be reconfigured. Maintain a light grasp on property, but a dynamic relationship with space. The ‘office’ is a utilitarian contract. Being together is a social one. Play to find what you need.

[5] And shared: not just shared workspaces for workers, but shared offices for Organisations: competitors, collaborators. Divorce infrastructure from Organisations; build Villages of Work. Shared, community held, collaborative space. Intertwined. Dispersed.

[6] Family first: why not rewire an Organisation to operate family first? Make childcare a feature of work, not a headache of it. I mean, literally everyone was a child once. Why have we made life so hard? Maybe we already did the hard part when we were schooling and working from home: does the answer have to be ‘back to school’ and ‘back to work’, or could it be something else? Could offices have schools, or simply make holidays easier and better? Are we really winning when we make life so difficult? And what have we won? Move to maximum flexibility: devolve permission to job share, collaborate, allocate tasks. Employ at family level, not individual. Employ at team level. Employ at outcome level. Give people tools to protect time: lead with flexibility. Put family first.

[7] Re-render oversight: a big challenge of ‘remote’ was that managers lost the ability to look over your shoulder. And they feared a loss of control. But control is not simply a matter of oversight. It relates to investment of self, of belief, of belonging. And trust. Much of the conversation about ‘return to the office’ is really a conversation about a return to control that is familiar. Map your mechanisms of control, and consider how many are based on oversight. And what that gives you. And what you lose. And what you could have. And what it would cost. And what is your risk. And how could you try.

[8] Never Settle: the Socially Dynamic Organisation will be rapidly reconfigurable because it never fully settles into structure. Many of our Organisations are busy ‘transforming’, as a one time hit. Until three years time when they will transform again. We have allowed ‘transformation’ to become dynastic, expected, and brutal. Whilst it can be evolutionary in nature, responsive to environmental pressure, and constant. 

[9] Human – AI Organisations: amidst the hype, it’s clear that AI will change everything. But possibly in unexpected ways. Waiting for an ‘answer’ may be the surefire way to be outcompeted. So rapidly prototype now. Key elements to explore are to do with pattern recognition to reorganise structure – to work on AI applications to define problem spaces, to use narrative engines to rapidly analyse and iterate competing narratives, to disrupt the definition and allocation aspects of management with AI, and to experiment with AI applications around culture (current approaches to which should frankly be buried behind the bike sheds). Humans are very very fallible, but also very very confident that we are brilliant. Use AI to disrupt this fallacy. And remember, you do not need to get it right. You just need to know that you are not brilliant and have not got it right first time.

[10] Contextually structured Organisation: remove fixed structure in favour of project based and contextual. Operate on a bid system for projects and support. Instead of anchoring people into jobs, anchor them into profiles, validation, calibration, and pattern matching. Use technology, but also culture. Create an Organisation of opportunity, agency, and flexibility. Make space democratised and fluid. Devolve resource, but create global frameworks of measurement, accountability, reputation, and opportunity. Not sure how? Well no problem: remember everything we have is just made up. So make up something new, but in the sure knowledge you are learning to be great. Probably not great straight away. And note how legacy thinking permeates and compromises your efforts, as we see in the vast majority of conversations today. We know what we know. It’s hard to escape it.

Here’s a bonus one. It’s not as good as the rest, because it have an overlay of value judgement and idealism. But you never know.

[11] Build with Kindness: build lenses through which to analyse and judge decision making, and to build organisations that are kind to employees, to their communities, to the environment. Make this the primary lens. Not sure what kindness means? Then start there.