the future of work - 2001 presentation
DESCRIPTION
A presentation offered to the BC Human Resources Management Association and its US equivalent, World At Work, in 2001TRANSCRIPT
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Overview
• Who I am
• Objectives
• Approach
• Desired outcomes
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Objectives
• Stimulate and provoke thought
• Destroy any remaining illusions about “going back to normal”
• Introduce three overarching principles for the new world of work
• Explore approaches based on these principles
• “Check out” the principles in action - understand why and how they will become primary tools
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Agenda
• Introduction & Basic Assumptions– Theory Burst, 5 Key Drivers
• Tapping the Collective Wisdom - What Do You Think
• Decoding the Future – What Does This Mean To You?
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Desired Outcomes
• Deliver some core messages:– An unpredictable future– Rapidly increasing complexity– No one-stop solutions; customization is the
key– Principles work, prescriptions don’t
• Clarify the challenges ahead
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The Changing Nature of Change
“In the past, change was a periodic event in organizations, and now…
organization is a periodic event.”
Student in eMBA class
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5 Key Drivers of Ongoing Change
• Demographics
• Service/Stakeholder Expectations
• Values
• Technology
• Pace of Change
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Demographics Change• Obvious Issues
– Baby Boomers still in place & in charge– Aging workforce, looming retirements– Shortages and increased competition for people (the war for
talent)– “Lag” effects of plateauing– Increasing workforce diversity
• Less Obvious Issues– Changed & changing nature of work– Emergence of generation D (for digital)– It takes a long time for change to happen quickly– Values shift ??
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Service/Stakeholder Expectations Increase
• “I’m the customer, “dammit” !!!
• “Raising the Bar” – cumulative effect of TQM/drive for excellence, global competition, trade liberalization, increased mobility, and so on)
• More people, diverse needs, do more with less
• Informed and demanding customers
• Accountability issues
• Social/environmental awareness and responsibility
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Values Shift• Multiple sources and symptoms of massive values shift
• Amongst others:
– Increasingly strident demands for: flexibility, personal freedom and choice, involvement, consultation
– Changing social fabric: blended families, same-sex marriages and rights, “singlehood”, ethnic/cultural diversity
– A fundamental “New Deal” at work
– Cumulative effect - 30 years of McLuhan, Warhol, the Beatles, the birth-control pill, the Vietnam War, cheap travel around the world
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Technology Evolves
• PC’s to LAN’s to WAN’s to Internet
• Internet, Intranet, Extranet, Metanet, social nets, etc.net
• Remote devices, handhelds, wireless
• Biotechnology
• Artificial Intelligence
• New materials
• Synthesis of intelligence and materials – new characteristics
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Pace of Change
• Accelerates
• Creates complexity
• Enhances uncertainty
• Increases in intensity
• Cycles more frequent
• Sharper, harder impacts
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Change Ain’t What It Used To Be
From:• Discrete events
• Time to adjust & absorb
• Relatively predictable outcomes
• Sense of the future as a continuation of the present (orderly)
To:• Continuous process
• Adjust “on the fly”
• Almost impossible to predict outcomes
• The future as highly complex and uncertain (chaotic)
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What Do You Think?
“Everybody Knows”
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A Systems Approach
What I Think It Means – The Principles
1. Increasing Complexity & Uncertainty 2. Mass Customization of Work3. Wirearchy
Or … What’s Happening Because of All That Change We Just Looked At ?
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Increasing Complexity and Uncertainty = Turbulence
Turbulent Environments
• Uncertainty• Complexity• Unintended
consequences• Unexpected changes
Active Adaptation Principles
• Flexibility• Innovation/creativity• Social responsibility• Participation and
collaboration
Weisbord 1993
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Mass Customization of Work
• Mass Customization
– Adapting to custom specifications products, services or activities that are used or carried out by large numbers of people
– A necessary response to environment & changing conditions (values, demographics, technology, expectations)
• Concept popularized by Pine & Gilmour and Stan Davis
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Mass Customization of Work“from the outside-in”
The “Job”
20 yrs. of “diversity”Social Values
LegislationLifestyles
DemographicsEducation
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Mass Customization of Work“from the inside-out”
The Person My “style” of
working
The other things I want to do
The other things I need to do
Who I
really am
Long-
term
goals
My short-term goals
The choices available to meMy rights
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Mass Customization of Work
• Two basic types of work
– Work that completes a step in a process, or– Work that involves/completes a transaction(will be standardized and/or codified, throughout the 1st World)
– Work that synthesizes, or – Work that generates ideas, additional knowledge(involves proactive, transformative skills such as thinking, writing,
imagining, and communication
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Mass Customization of Work
In the 2nd type, pressure for performance has led to people insisting on “personalizing” the work - doing it their way
This is a broad underlying - and enduring - trend
The pressures, and the overall trend, are only likely to increase in scope and intensity
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Wirearchy
• “Archy” – Greek root meaning “First Principle”
• Other types of “archy”:• Monarchy (single owner/source of power)
• Hierarchy (vertical ascending power)
• Anarchy (no central source of power, random distribution)
• Patriarchy (Governed by father archetype)
• Matriarchy (Governed by mother archetype)
• Oligarchy (rule of the powerful few)
• Archy - the source of organization, the rules, the “first principle”
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Wirearchy
• Today, “archy” refers to responsibility for or sources of power such as:
– Vision and Values
– Chain of decision-making command
– Ability to mobilize
– Seniority
In the Industrial Age, Hierarchy is / was the rule
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Wirearchy
• Now, It’s an Information/Knowledge Age
– A new set of conditions
– New (emerging) interactional dynamics between people and organizations, based on interrelationships in networks
– “If Knowledge is Power, then…”
– Knowledge is distributed in both diffuse & precise ways, thus it requires context
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Wirearchy
Software – smarter &
smarter
Internet – Interconnectivity everywhere – more & more, cheaper & cheaper
Everyone connected to everyone else – multiple cyber-citizenships:
With corporate chieftains
With customers
With colleagues
With competitors
Hierarchy is a prosthesis for Trust
(Wirearchy) is a rich, mysterious “Okefenokee” of every-which-way communications
Warren Bennis, Fortune
W
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Wirearchy
• Business strategy is the core and the centrifugal force
• Information and knowledge are bundled and strung together in meaningful ways in order to synthesize/generate value…
• Decision-making & control, stretched out along the value-chain, creates centripetal force
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Wirearchy
• Many responses to the ways “work” has been structured and managed, e.g.
– Employee Portals
– Team and Project-based work
– Emotional Intelligence
– Coaching
– Integrated “Smartware” tools
– And so on….
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Wirearchy
A Polarity: Very hi-tech, very hi-touch
“Wirearchy” – or interaction supported by technology & based on trust, meaning and
credibility - rather than on traditional methods of direction and control
• Represents a significant change in human interactions
• Observable emerging in new social dynamics of work - otherwise called collaboration
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From Hierarchy to Wirearchy
Power & Control based on:
– Size – Stability – Functional specialization– Position & role clarity– Status– Prescribed authority
Power & Control based on:
– Speed– Flexibility– Innovation– Integration– Expertise & knowledge– Intuitive authority
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Why You’ll Need to Understand Mass Customization & Wirearchy
“… even now, organization is a periodic event….”
“In the future….
“You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet !”
Alvin & Heidi Toffler
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The 90s Are Gone - Get Over It
• We cannot afford to keep thinking of technology as just a tool for us to use
• Each new medium has been additive - Print, electronic, multimedia
- Communication theories stayed the same
• Technology is not a new medium - It’s a new age, a new paradigm
- Agrarian --> Industrial --> Information
- Communication theories must change
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The Web:From Novelty to Fad to Essential Tool
• Five years of explosive growth & change
• Just the beginning….
• Integration into every organization & activity
• Not about “web-sites” (or the web) anymore
• Transforming entire sectors
• Requires new thinking, new structures
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The Web - A Symbol of the Age
• Interaction among workers replaces command and control from managers
• Direction from the top gives way to collaborative teams for innovation
• The “chain of command” will be a web of peers and customers
• Executives and communicators will fail if they ignore what it means to live and work in a web environment ... life just not the same
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What the “Near” Future Holds
• More (many more) people on-line
• Faster connections
• More convergence
• More smart tools
• More interwoven interconnectedness
• More computer-savvy people
• More competitive pressures
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And…”So What…..?”
Really “getting it” means understanding that we are moving from organizing by Hierarchy ... to organizing by Wirearchy
“A dynamic flow of power, authority and decision-making authority based on trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people, information and knowledge”
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Don TapscottCyber-Dad
• “For the first time in human history, children are an authority on the big revolution that is changing every institution in society”
• “We are at the dawn of an Age of Networked Intelligence - an age that is giving birth to a new economy, a new politics, and a new society”
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Design Principles – Creating the Workplace of the Future
• Focus on a preferred future
• Empowerment, participation & inclusion
• Create common strategic information
• Create community (mutual awareness, ownership, interest in success)
• Seek common ground (shared vision & values)
• Make things happen in “Real Time” (speed)