COVID Lessons & The Future of Work

I stumbled across a great article today from Steven Sinofsky of a16z about how organisations can move from trauma to opportunity in creating the future of work.

You can find the full article here.

It's a long piece - more essay than article - but I felt drawn to it and persevered.

I have a big interest in the future of work and what it means for employers and workforces.

I've been working in technology with companies of varying sizes since the early 2000s and doing so remotely since 2017. Its been interesting to see how organisations have adjusted to the sudden impact of COVID 19 and how things are managed as we edge out of the pandemic.

If you don't have the 32 mins to read Steven's essay (I suggest it's time well spent), here are a few snippets which jumped out as being insights worth considering as all of us - business leaders, managers and workers plan our paths forward post pandemic.

On post Second World War corporate culture:

The lessons from the [Second World] War applied to companies was to define the opposition, develop a strategy, build a plan, and execute. This entire model came to define a waterfall approach — the centralized campaign.

On start-ups vs incumbents:

when a startup wins it so often does at the expense of an incumbent

On home / office work models and recovering from trauma:

In the coming months, many will claim to offer the best solution to managing the tension between returning to the old normal and adopting some new approaches to appease those wanting more. Some corporations will work hard to snap back to the pre-pandemic world as quickly as they can. Some will stridently try to find a compromise approach, the hybrid work environment or dual headquarters and so on. In great numbers, startups and newer companies have all been adopting far more aggressive approaches to the future, with fully distributed teams. These are not solutions but tactics. One does not recover from a significant trauma by making one change or one compromise.

On winners and losers during disruption:

Responding to a giant shock or significant new insight by finding a specific tactic or making one change on the side has proven to be the recipe for being disrupted, not taking advantage of disruption. Seeing the big picture and developing a new world view is how one needs to consider what is going to happen. The one thing we know is that those that believe things will return to normal except maybe for that one thing, or that we’ll do what we always did just with this one extra step, will be the ones that are ultimately disrupted. That’s how it always happens. 

On creating new product vs strategy:

First and foremost, no one ever won by a better strategy — strategy is the narrative that comes after the thousands of choices made by whole companies leading to a win. Winners win because of the best product (and by product, I mean best iteration of the marketing mix, not just the technology or features, but the product, price, place, and promotion).

On how companies have flourished by using APIs and not reinventing the wheel:

The other key innovation was the use of APIs. Once viewed with skepticism as a form of “outsourcing”, companies found themselves in a situation where they could use a third-party API or simply fail... from text messaging, to payments, even to audio/video, adding capabilities by using consumption-based APIs became the norm (and a huge opportunity for new companies). And in the blink of an eye, the idea of a major corporation providing a consumer or customer-facing experience that used third-party APIs became normal.

On the value of making things over simply finding faults:

The real point as an individual is to just spend your energy on making things, not being critical. Making can take on many forms, from writing, to synthesizing, to analysis, to code. Simply using energy to be critical of alternatives proposed by others has proven less than helpful.

On the need for bold change not just reacting to your competition:

Whatever you do next make sure to change a lot because employees, customers, and shareholders are all changing.

So, all in all some useful insights to think about. What big changes do you think will help you over the next 12 months bounce back from the pandemic and take a leap forward into the future of work?

#futureOfWork #covid #pandemic #recovery #greenShoots #remoteWorking #a16z