Future of Work: Building a new future for the “company”
Originally published on Medium
A new perspective on what role companies should play in the future for employees, society, people, the earth, etc.
A lot of ideas follow! Please click on the heart to the left if you found this post helpful, interesting or inspiring. Thanks!
Today the success of big companies is built upon the sacrifice of people:
Employees who work endless hours and sacrifice their lives, relationships, passions and potential in order to earn a living wage in search of a “career”
Customers who receive ever poorer service and lower quality goods
Communities who bear the blight of big box retailers and their underpaid service jobs
Small businesses who struggle to keep afloat amidst the market transformation and customer desire for low prices and convenience
Blue collar workers whose jobs are given to those willing to earn less for the same work
Third world workers who are taken advantage of while simply trying to feed their children
Developed societies who continue to struggle with an underpaid lower class, causing a variety of issues and leaving an entire segment of the population feeling lost, dehumanized, unheard and forgotten (insert Trump voters here)
Undeveloped countries whose natural resources are exploited and whose people are turned against one another so that a small few can hold more wealth and power than they deserve
The ecology of our planet, which has been raped and pillaged for far too long without concern of the long-term repercussions
I could go on, but it’s starting to get a bit depressing, right?
It is time to reverse this relationship, this situation.
Instead of people existing to serve companies, companies must exist to serve people.
We need to view people as humans, not as employees or customers or users or stakeholders or investors or shareholders or CEOs or products or human capital or human resources or talent. Humans.
HUMANS!
Changing the dynamic between companies and humans will require creating a harmony of mutual benefit. If companies deliver on a promise of truly serving humans, then it is more likely that humans will better serve their companies, other people and the world.
This change requires that companies play a new role in the future for their employees, stakeholders, communities, and the world.
But what does that new role look like? How might we design companies that exist to serve humans and the earth?
Here are a few ideas…
Companies should lead the charge in solving for social issues.
Companies need to recognize that the actions they take have an impact on the world socially, culturally and economically. In the future, companies should exist to solve relevant problems in a sustainable way.
By relevant problems I mean real, pressing issues that actually make a difference to people if solved.
We need to stop inventing problems to solve with new shiny bits and bobs sold at Bed Bath and Beyond, and instead go to work on problems that make peoples lives fundamentally better (not simply perceived as being more convenient).
Tech companies and startups need to realize that the problems they are solving for, like making your dry cleaning or grocery pickup or transportation easier, are small problems of convenience that only a tiny part of the entire earth’s population seems to suffer from. So much time, energy, money and potential is used to solve the wrong types of problems.
“As for the ‘things your mom won’t do for you anymore’ startups, what problem are they trying to solve? What friction are they reducing? It’s really not much trouble to drop off your laundry or dry-cleaning at the place down the street, and then pick it up yourself.”
The Internet of “Stuff Your Mom Won’t Do for You Anymore” via HBR by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan
We cannot rely on governments and underfunded nonprofits to solve our societal issues.
Why shouldn’t companies take responsibility for solving issues like homelessness, food deserts or lack of education? How could companies collaborate with their competition or nonprofit organizations for the greater good? Why have many different trickling streams trying to reach the ocean when they could combine into one powerful river?
Another social issue to be tackled is waste, the destruction of natural resources and the health of our planet.
Companies should design waste out of their work, development and manufacturing.
We cannot rely on a few goodhearted companies, like Patagonia, to proactively make changes to their supply chain to benefit the earth. Every company should have to design waste out of their way of working and delivering products and services to people as an entry point to doing business.
Companies should recognize people as complex, unique and sovereign beings.
Stop reducing people to job descriptions, titles, departments. Stop expecting people to segment their persona into a “work” self and a “life” or “home” self.
If companies support people in being their whole, entire self at work (and in life), people can bring so much more depth, emotion (yes, emotion!) and strength to their contribution.
This means supporting an end-to-end ecosystem from recruitment to exit that empowers people to utilize every facet of themselves in their work…warts and all. All the curves and edges.
Companies should hire differently.
Many companies complain that they can’t find people with the skills they need, yet they keep hiring the same old way — resumes, online applications and keyword sorting bots. “There is a skill gap,” we keep hearing. Really, there is a perception gap.
Companies can barely articulate the types of skills they need, let alone create a role and design an organization in support of fostering and encouraging employees with those skills.
Companies must stop pursuing insanity (doing the same thing any expecting a different result) and instead hire differently and design unique, evolving roles and opportunities for growth and development for individuals, not entire employee populations.
Companies should operate thoughtfully.
Design thinking as a concept must become integrated into how companies create strategy, products and the employee experience. Companies should constantly be defining the problems they solve by using “how might we…” questions.
We need to realize that we have power over how companies are designed.
Once companies are “created” they tend to take on a presence of their own — it seems like they operate as autonomous beings. This is ridiculous. People need to re-establish power over the design of companies in order to create a better environment for doing purposeful work and having extraordinary lives.
Operating thoughtfully also requires that decisions are made to achieve long-term goals over short term gains.
Companies should use a core set of guiding principles (or even over statements, or values, whatever you’d prefer to call them) in order to decentralize decision making while keeping everyone rowing in the same direction.
Racing to the bottom is the opposite of thoughtful operation.
Companies are notorious for focusing on their competition — what are they doing? how can we get in front of them? how can we be faster, cheaper, etc.? Instead of worrying about what others are doing, companies should put their energy toward creating value for their people, customers and the earth.
Companies should provide people with meaningful, purposeful work.
This one feels like a “duh,” huh?
Unfortunately, even though we probably all agree on this one, companies and work haven’t caught up with what feels like a basic human need: the creation of purposeful work for everyone.
Maybe this is because we don’t know how to create purposeful work for others. Individuals struggle with doing this for themselves, so how can we expect companies to do it on a large scale for everyone?
Without knowing how to solve this enormous issue, I’d like to suggest a few ways in which we can work on a small scale to increase the connection to existing work within companies today.
Companies should have a focused, unchanging reason for existence.
People naturally rally around causes, common goals and shared enemies. Businesses can use this phenomenon to create movement and engagement around delivering on their PURPOSE. A purpose for existing might solve for one of the relevant, pressing problems I mentioned earlier. It should be built around the desire to change something or to have the world look different as a result of achieving it.
My favorite way to uncover purpose is to ask the questions: “what pisses you off?” and, “what are you willing to struggle for in order to change in the world?”
Jordan Ladikos via Unsplash
Companies should have a shared VISION (clarity on what the future looks like) and STRATEGY (alignment on how to reach this future) for how they are going to achieve their purpose.
While the purpose should remain unchanging, the vision might shift every few years, and the strategy for achieving that vision (and purpose) should be quite agile.
Companies should build capacity, not dependency.
For employees, customers and people of the world, companies should focus on creating capacity in humans, not dependency.
For employees, companies should view and design work as a part of a greater whole: life.
As such, they should build employees’ capacity to have fantastic, thriving lives. This is a departure from the view that we companies should focus on employee performance, productivity and engagement in their work, and not focus at all on their lives outside of work.
Companies need to design opportunities for continued growth and development for their people, including on topics that have no direct connection to their work. They should empower moments of self-expression inside and outside of work. They should support creativity and passion projects, and education outside of the traditional Master’s degree or MBA.
Companies should be designed to help people get the most out of their lives, not work most of their lives. Right now, many companies believe they are helping people by giving them benefits of convenience, like dry cleaning, a gym at work, massages in the office, catered lunch, etc.
I believe they are actually creating a type of dependency, and they are subconsciously communicating to employees things like: “this office is so good, you never have to leave” and “don’t worry about knowing how to take care of yourself, we’ll take care of you” and “this is the best place to work because we give you all of these things, so you don’t need to work anywhere else.”
Why not help people create great lives outside of work? Give them a stipend to use on well-being, buying organic veggies or taking a pottery class — outside of work. Require that they take a disconnected, decent-length vacation.
For customers and the world, companies must deliver on their purpose and reason for existing — and that reason for existing must have a positive impact on humans and the earth.
We should use the principles of permaculture for designing our companies.
The following is sourced from permacultureprinciples.com:
Three ethics of permaculture: Earth Care, People Care + Fair Share.
Rebuild natural capital: The Earth is a living, breathing entity. Without ongoing care and nurturing there will be consequences too big to ignore.
Look after self, kin and community: If people’s needs are met in compassionate and simple ways, the environment surrounding them will prosper.
Set limits and redistribute surplus: We are provided with times of abundance which enables us to share with others.
Twelve design principles of permaculture:
Observe and interact: By taking the time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation.
Catch and store energy: By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need.
Obtain a yield: Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing.
Apply self-regulation and accept feedback: We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well.
Use and value renewable resources and services: Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources.
Produce no waste: By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.
Design from patterns to details: By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go.
Integrate rather than segregate: By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between them and they support each other.
Use slow and small solutions: Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and produce more sustainable outcomes.
Use and value diversity: Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides.
Use edges and value the marginal: The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.
Creatively use and respond to change: We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.
