The New World of Work | The Cultural Opportunity

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It´s 12 years ago that Bill Gates posited the New World of Work, where collaboration, business intelligence and prioritizing scarce time and attention are critical factors for success. It´s time to look into the progress we made on software enabled business productivity because it impacts each and everyone.

The innovation journey continues at amazing speed of technological progress but also adds new complexity for people who already feel the pressure of an "always-on" world and ever-rising expectations for productivity.

The need for change is even more pressing: Neuroscience found evidence why our good old flexible office work environment is not productive.

No matter where you start doing things differently it will be a journey without final state of perfection. My personal experience in software industry started with empowerment, trust, investment and an innovative environment - all invaluable assets to be successful and certainly something to secure to back your own digital transformation!

The New World of Work offers more than saving commute time and a better CO2 footprint for the individual. It´s certainly more than saving office space, reducing travel cost and increasing employer attractiveness scores. Optimizing work and life for more productivity means a  fundamental change of habits - professionally and privately.

The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem - Do you understand me?
Captain Jack Sparrow

Let´s not confuse, the digital transformation of our work- and lifestyle remains a cultural challenge, a social responsibility and it mandates innovation in leadership approaches. What may work on an individual- or team level requires a more systematic effort to organizational structures. Conventional Change Management is not sufficient to address the topic says Barbara Josef, Partner at 5to9. ​It requires general management attention to orchestrate the cultural transformation and realize the productivity potential. All functions from IT, Finance, HR and the Line Organizations need to be onboard and synchronized. Make sure, you keep it simple and rational in your approach to policies.

Transforming the organization means dealing with complexity in:

• how to articulate business requirements and the definition of success?
• how to become explicit on expectations?
• how to renegotiate work contracts and revisit mutual agreements?
• how to work inside and outside the office?
• how to prioritize professional and private life?
• how to individually and collectively organize collaboration?
• how to interact online, offline and across desks, sites, cities, regions and time zones?

The World Economic Forum has provided a navigation system on the global transformation agenda to become systematic with Workforce and Employment of the future. You may also find some interesting perspectives there.

Source: World Economic Forum, "Workforce and Employment"

"Now that it's definitely not cool anymore, it feels safe for me to start tweeting as well ..."
​Posted by my old friend, Prof. Ulle Endriss, 2017 ... or 25 years after we learned about Quantum Computing at University

During my career, I had the pleasure to work in mobile workplaces, use flexible- and drop-in offices, collaborate during intense travel, perform in international roles, manage remote teams, lead business in distributed environments and experience diverse cultures. Still, I keep exploring, learning, optimizing and innovating my environment - always aware that there will be no perfect time to try new things.

The next big transformation in sales is within reach. Therefore, I dive deep into Artificial Intelligence to further benefit Business Insight and, I look into seamless channel integration to imagine teamwork with our future colleagues, the AI Bots. If sales can add value to customers through well articulated procedures, repetitive activities and standardized offerings, than the combination of new technology with experienced sellers will lead to new exciting ways of customer experience.

Finally, I enjoy working in remote teams, managing distributed organizations but, I also learned that even the most sophisticated technology can´t do what a good cup of coffee can do - stimulate the creation of inspiring ideas when sitting together in person.​​

Technology can help you learn and follow-up on things in a structured way but it will not help you in cases where you even don´t know what you don´t know.