9 elements of The Future Of Work

6-Apr-2015

Erik Korsvik Østergaard, Partner, Bloch&Østergaard I/S

Because going to work should be nice, great, and awesome

Smallerteams

Relationsbeat skills

Intense sprints

Everyone is a leader

Listen, then decide

Sense-making

Step down from the Ivory

Tower

Follower-ship beats

leadership

Not more,but better

Organizations are changing

Now, as the digital disruption is approaching the plateau of productivity, the next disruption is emerging, namely how we organize us.

Focus is going to be onorganizing, not organizations

© Erik Korsvik Østergaard 2015, but please distribute and reuseAll pictures are from Unsplash

1: Smaller teams

Team size is going down.

We'll see more and more teams with 5 or fewer members. The reasons for this is agility, less time spent

on misunderstandings, and personal closeness/intimacy.

Relations are important!

2: Relations beat skillsIn the old world we focused on skills and price.

Now we focus on relations and effect.

It's thoroughly documented (e.g. by MIT), that teams that are established based on their internal relations perform better than

teams that are established based on skills.

Also, social selling and social business is build on relations.

3: Intense sprintsAgile and SCRUM is winning ground.

We'll see even more of that, even where the sprint length is as short as days or hours. There is a reason for the power of the

Pomodoro Technique and the efficiency of the modern workshop techniques.

It works, it's fun, and highly productive.

4: Everyone is a leaderIn the future, everyone can be a leader - and wants to be. Surely the leadership shifts based on the task at hand, but everyone will have the intention to lead and make a difference.

There will be three roles in teams going forward:

• The manager, who gets things done, cleans up, finalizes, makes sure we stick to the plan.

• The leader, who makes sure that we go in the right direction, and that everyone follows.

• The entrepreneur, who challenges the status quo and introduces new ways of solving the problems or providing the delivery.

Each employee will surely have a preference to one of the roles, but based on both the actual task/action, the specific team, and the impact of the delivery, you have the role that fits the situation. The team and your leader will support and coach/mentor you on daily basis.

Note how the three roles match Gartner's model for strategic actions: Run the business - grow the business - transform the business.

5: Listen, then decideEveryone can make decisions.

This is a natural consequence of the drive to push the mandate down in the organization. Since everyone knows WHY we do what

we do, everyone is equipped to make decisions.

Sure, you should seek advisory and counseling in the organization, and then you can make the decision. The larger impact of the

decision, the more advisory you should seek.

6: Sense-making

It has to make sense.

Going to work must make sense to you, to the team, and to the receiver of the product/service.

When the management team says "jump", you don't ask "how high?", but "why, and who will it benefit?"

7: Step down from the Ivory Tower

Going forward you don't get respect from sitting in the Ivory Tower, thinking big thoughts and laying five-year

plans.

Step down. Write some code. Open PowerPoint or Photoshop. Take part in the actual work in the team.

Contribute.

8: Follower-ship beats leadership

It's important that you know how to make people follow you, not just be a beacon

and an inspiration. You must know how to motivate people, also the millennials.

Relations beat skills.

9: Not more, but better

In a fully globalized world, size doesn't matter. Effect does.

Don't build more, but better things.

Bloch&Østergaard I/S

Because going to work should be nice, great, and awesome

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Erik Korsvik Østergaard, Partner, Bloch&Østergaard I/S

@ErikQstergaard

erik@blochoestergaard.dk