Lynda Gratton - The Future of Work

When Time Fragments

In last week’s blog I rallied against the 40% of time at work that seems to be spent "working on projects that had no significance, going to meetings that had no outcomes" and made some suggestions for solving the paradox at the heart of work.

My question about what to do was answered in part by Kevin Ball. His experience makes him wonder if this is a problem that needs to be solved; if there is not some universal truth about people in all this ‘wasted’ effort.

"The knowledge that some part of your day can be spent in pointless activity is really rather relaxing and it can be accomplished guilt-free if you can explain it as ‘necessary’ to comply, conform and cooperate with the organisation around you. For the early days of my working in the spare bedroom, this meant suppressing the protestant work-ethic and doing some housework in the ‘working’ day; it meant measuring the output rather than the hours spent on input and it meant wrestling myself into a position of accepting that it was OK to be unproductive sometimes."

He has been influenced by Oliver Burkeman’s piece in the Guardian about the extent to which busyness is good. Oliver quotes economist Todd Buchholz: "What you really want is to chase your tail, even if you never catch it". His view is that alternative theory: that calm is the enemy of happiness, and that it's busyness on which we thrive. Railing at the calm advocates he calls "Edenists", he proposes that striving keeps us neurologically fit: "The people who sit back and relax… those are the people who become truly miserable." Research, he notes, suggests that retirement prompts a reduction in cognitive abilities. "What you really want," he insists, "is to chase your tail, even if you never catch it."

He quotes the physicist Richard Feynman who experienced the logical consequence of the dominance of productivity over all other concerns. Feynman found he didn’t envy the geniuses at Princeton who occupied a clutter-free environment where they were allowed to think without interruption: "These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves. So they don’t get any ideas for a while… a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you… and nothing happens."

But it seems to me that the choice is not between mindless busyness and tranquil edium – but rather about the extent to which we can focus and concentrate. It’s a process that is central to my new book The Shift: How The Future of Work is Already Here – the idea that what’s really crucial is that we are prepared to concentrate, focus and, from this, to master something – that could be a skill, a knowledge area, an understanding of a particular network. It’s this focus and concentration that will be increasingly crucial for the future. Focus does not need tranquility – but it does need long periods of undisturbed time – when concentration is possible. What is tough about busyness is not that it stops tranquility – but rather that it fragments work into such tiny slithers that the concentration needed to learn something deeply is gone. 

My guess is that Richard Feynman was wrong about the geniuses at Princeton when he saw "those poor bastards" sitting on their own. What they were actually experiencing was the marvelous luxury of undisturbed time, unbroken into fragments, providing them with an opportunity to develop deep mastery.

Busyness is fine - it’s the three-minute fragments that so often comes with busyness that is the curse of modern work.

When Generations Fight

I have a fascinating insight into the future of work through the 45 corporations across the world we are studying as part of the Future of Work Research Consortium. Last month we asked 2,500 executives from these companies to rate the areas they believed would  be critical for the future, together with the extent to which they believed their company was currently competent. We gave them a list of 20 areas that an earlier study had shown would be important for the future. This list included for example ecosystems, open innovation, flexible working and networked leaders.

What was extraordinary is that almost a quarter rated ‘intergenerational cohesion’ as the most significant risk their company faced, and many more rated it as one of the top three risks. This was not an isolated area of risk, but rather was seen to be a risk by executives in both West and Asia companies, and indeed across all industrial sectors. Their concern was that the potential differences and conflicts between the generations could lead to poor cooperation and knowledge sharing, but might also flare into more open sources of conflict and dissatisfaction.

Five Unique Generations at Work. 

The potential opportunities and conflicts that are arising between generations are a recent phenomena and are a factor of both demographic changes (particularly around reducing birthrates and enhanced longevity) and accelerating technological and societal trends (particularly around the use of social media and family experiences). Over the next two decades, many companies will have potentially five distinct generations in the workforce: The Traditionalists (born around 1928 to 1945); the Baby Boomers (born around 1945 to 1964); Generation X (born around 1965 to 1979); Gen Y (born around 1980 to 1995); and Gen Z (born after 1995).

Generations fight for a number of reason. They don’t understand each other, they have differential access to resources and power, their working style and use of technology is in conflict, or they are not really sharing knowledge and experience with each other.

Of course generational conflict could also be great – really create innovation, remove some old style thinking, bring creative tension. However, if companies are to move to creative rather than destructive tension, it seems to me they have to ask themselves three key questions:

1. Does technology favour one generation? The generations communicate with each other differently and one potential source of tension is that corporate communication typically favours the Baby Boomers’ preferred mode of communication rather than the younger generations. Typically, Gen Z and Y use social media such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Ning to access information instantly, to multi-task, and to build valuable networks and stay connected; typically Gen X use portals; whilst Baby Boomers are most comfortable with e-mail as their primary technological communication tool. Yet many companies have banned Facebook and social media, which is the lifeblood for the youngest generations and by doing so have inadvertently favoured one generation over another.  

2. Has flexibility become embedded? Each generation would value greater flexibility. Gen Y would like greater work/life balance in jobs that can be overwhelming; younger Gen X’s would like maternity and paternity leave and time off to spend with their young children, the possibilities of sabbaticals, and to temporarily step away from frontline into less demanding roles, and older Gen X’s can find themselves with ageing parents who need care; whilst Baby Boomers would like sabbatical breaks and the opportunities to work more flexibly nearer the time of their retirement through part-time and reduced hours. What is clear is that the inflexibility of work will create ever greater conflict across the generations as those that need it most (typically Gen X) are denied it. There are many reasons why the rhetoric of organizational flexibility has rarely been delivered in practice: a focus on being present rather than making results, few if any senior role models prepared to work flexibly, and under- designed and over complicated jobs. But if generations are to work together, flexibility has to be a reality.

3. Is cross-generational mentoring taking place?  There are important exchanges to be made between generations; Gen Y in particular are keen to build strong functional skills and industry knowledge and insights that those more experienced can help develop and yearn for feedback; whilst Baby Boomers want to develop their expertise in the use of social media and newly developed technology. These can be crucial issues as Baby Boomer retire taking with them valuable knowledge, insights and connections. However, too often mentoring does not take place because executives are too busy, too stressed and feel overwhelmed and under skilled. Yet the generations have so much to teach each other if only the time and resources could be focused on this.

It seems to me that the creative tensions between the generations can be a real source of innovation and excitement. Have you experienced tensions between generations – and what do you think can be done to ensure these tensions are creative rather than destructive?

 

 

 

One of those weeks when the world accelerated

It has been a fascinating week. Sometimes the world seems to stand still – whilst other times it lurches forward at alarming speed. This has been a week when the world seems to have accelerated as we saw four of the trends we are watching in the Future of Work Research Consortium lurch forward. They are part of the portfolio of 32 trends we are tracking, and which we believe have the potential to significantly shape the world of work over the next two decades.

Two of the accelerating trends are clear from the joint agreement announced this week between Nokia and Microsoft. In this agreement we can see one of our trends, the development of ecosystems really moving forward. These ecosystems are the complex array of joint ventures and partnerships that increasingly define an industry sector. The agreement between these two giants is seen to be the basis for the emergence of a new ecosystem capable of creating the sort of value that has become so much part of the ecosystem surrounding Apple and its partners. The Nokia and Microsoft agreement also shows a second trend we are watching carefully – the emergence of mega-companies at the same time as the creation of ever wider clusters of micro-entrepreneurs who have the skills and knowledge to serve these entities. The agreement highlights the speed at which these future trends are re-shaping the business and work environment. They also show the challenges and opportunities they create.

From an internal perspective, the mega-company and ecosystem that will develop from the Nokia/Microsoft relationship will bring great opportunities to leverage complementary assets. But they also bring to the fore one of the areas of internal future proofed competency we have been studying – the capacity to work in a complex multi-cultural environment and to successfully build project teams capable of spanning functional and business boundaries. If the employees of these two companies fail to build these competencies, then the opportunities the new relationship creates will fail to materialise.

These are big challenges – in fact when we recently asked over 3,000 executives from around the world to rate 20 internal capabilities with regard to the risk they posed to the future of their business – many ranked ‘working across boundaries’ as the number one area of risk. So we can predict right now that the relationship will require a great deal of skill. 

What the Nokia/Microsoft relationship shows is the speed at which future trends are shaping our world of work right now. It also highlights that as the business world is re-shaped, the competencies that may have worked in the past look woefully inadequate for the future. Leading teams with a similar cultural background takes a fraction of the skills needed to lead a team made up of more than one dominant mindset. We will be watching the executives from Microsoft and Nokia with great interest – they have found their world rapidly re-shaped by the future trends that will have an impact on many others. Let’s see what we can learn from them.

And the other future trends we have seen played out this week? Well, readers of my blog know that one of the trends I am fascinated with is ever increasing connectivity and the impact it will have on work and social life. In Tahrir Square this week, we saw first hand the impact that connectivity from social media such as Twitter and Facebook had on the enthusiasm, courage and direction of people right across Egypt. It also shows another future trend we are following with interest – the rise of Gen Y and the extent of intergenerational-cohesion with Baby Boomers and Traditionalists. What is clear from Egypt is that when one generation is so far removed from another, and so unable to imagine their aspirations and hopes – then cohesion will ebb away.

It has been a momentous week for the 32 future-trends we are watching. I cannot wait to see what next week will bring.