Rishad Tobaccowala's Blog, page 21

Escape Velocity

Photograph by Anja Conrad 

In physics, escape velocity or escape speed is the minimum speed needed for a free, non-propelled object to escape from the gravitational influence of a primary body, thus reaching and infinite distance from it. Wikipedia

The dawn of a new mindset.

More than 4.4 million workers quit their jobs voluntarily in September, the Labor Department said Friday. That was up from 4.3 million in August and was the most in the two decades the government has been keeping track. New York Times

A May survey of 1,000 U.S. adults showed that 39% would consider quitting if their employers weren’t flexible about remote work. The generational difference is clear: Among millennials and Gen Z, that figure was 49%, according to the poll by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg News. Bloomberg News.

Web 3.0 will bring us a fairer internet by enabling the individual to be a sovereign. True sovereignty implies owning and being able to control who profits from one’s time and information. Web 3.0’s decentralized blockchain protocol will enable individuals to connect to an internet where they can own and be properly compensated for their time and data, eclipsing an exploitative and unjust web, where giant, centralized repositories are the only ones that own and profit from it. Forbes.

Photograph by Anja Conrad 

The future is escaping from the containers of the past.

The office and the nature of today’s firms are probably containers of the past as power moves to talent, the cloud and to the edge.

Mark Zuckerberg is aware that the Facebook of today is a container of the past as he seeks his own escape velocity into the metaverse.

Media companies and content owners are working to re-invent themselves not just because the content is now free from the physical distribution medium of compact disc, physical book, or newspaper and increasingly television networks, but the real challenge is now dawning on everybody…what happens if talent owns the rights and is increasingly empowered to be their own media companies?

From Taylor Swift re-recording her catalog as Taylor’s Versions to authors using Substack and self-publishing, Tik-Tok stars doing deals with Netflix without the need for CAA and artists using Non-Fungible Tokens to monetize their craft, the great escape of talent has just only begun.

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Photograph by Anja Conrad 

The waves of change enabling the great escape.

Three key shifts occurring over the past two years will drive the biggest revolution in power dynamics between individuals and the companies.

1. Covid 19: Covid accelerated the move to Cloud, distributed work and a new mindset about life and career balance that cannot be wished away.

The companies demanding people return to the cages of the office will find empty zoos. (Almost all the very important benefits of human interaction from training to collaboration to brainstorming can be done at events, educational institutions, restaurants, and bars.)

The issue is no longer the relevancy of huge offices but a far more seminal question which is how a firm should be organized and designed in a world where technology is enabling a reduction in external friction in connecting, combining, delivering, and servicing products and services.

There are many reasons for firms to exist from making long term investments, building supply chains, ensuring the promise of a Brand and much more but so few of these require people to cluster in offices for more than short bursts of time.

2. A Shift in Talent/Capital Dynamics: The term that is being used here is talent rather than labor. While there has been a shift in power to labor versus capital in many markets post Covid-19, it is still on balance much more tilted to capital. This is not true when it comes to knowledge workers and many white-collar workers who either through experience and/or education have built expertise, craft, intellectual capital, reputation, and methods.

Everywhere they understand that they are in short supply at the very same time that distributed work is no longer limiting the need for expertise to their local market but can be monetized across the globe!

The current constraint is less of demand and mindset but the lack of portable health care. Many entrepreneurs and financial technology companies will soon find ways to address this issue if governments do not.

3. Web 3.0: Imagine a world where one could code as easily as connecting Lego’s. A world which was open and one which was decentralized where every one of us owned our own data and gave people a look like through a window when we wanted to and under financial considerations that were mutually beneficial? This web of composability, openness and decentralization is upon us and enabling everything from crypto currencies to non-fungible tokens and much more. An underlying outcome of the new protocols is increased power to the individual.

Photograph by Anja Conrad 

Smart companies are preparing for a new atmosphere.

All over the world smart firms and leaders are preparing for the new world now versus dithering and delaying. They have either benefited or been hurt by their experience of being early or late to Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 that they realize that this wave of change is going to happen faster and with greater force than what came before and so they are asking and working to answer the three big questions.

a. Business Model Fit: As the first three decades of the Internet took away certain scale benefits in some industries ( scale of manufacturing, scale of spending, scale of resources) while enabling other scale ( scale of data, scale of networks, scale of ideas) and removed the benefits of time, distance and information arbitrage, leading firms are seeking  to understand the implications of the decline of the scale of centralized control and the rise of the scale of individual talent among other shifts on their business models.

b. Organizational Design: In a world of unbundled work, distributed talent, unprecedented edge computing power and new trust and identity currencies how must they shape shift their firm, their partners, and other parts of the eco-system to ensure they can make the most of the new opportunities on the horizon.

c. Talent Investment: The firms with the access to the best talent in ways that allow them variable access to brain power and skills combined with superb reputations, ecosystems and plug and play interfaces with other firms are likely to be the ones that thrive. The top companies are working to find ways to enable cultures and processes that allow talent expanded freedoms to practice their skills, to fit the companies into the story of the talent lives versus fit the talent into the story of the company’s life and to keep growing skills, assets, and reputation. Companies will work for talent and talent will not work for companies.

Photograph by Anja Conrad 

Smart talent is seizing control of their future.

Talent recognizes that the future of work will be one where everyone is increasingly a gig worker like those work in entertainment (movies, theatre, music) or consulting (move from project to project from city to city based on the need for their expertise) as companies seek to manage their variable costs.

A gig mindset does not preclude long term careers at a firm and in fact smart firms by enabling career shapeshifting, flexible hours and investment in training are likely to extend the tenure of their best talent.

Smart talent will invest in four core behaviors to ensure they can rocket into the future.

1. Continuous learning: The half-life of much expertise is shorter and shorter, and talent will insist on access and invest in their own training and skill upgrading.

2. Building stellar reputations for competency, trust, and collaboration: In a plug and play world those who are skilled, are trusted and known to collaborate will thrive. The future will treat empty branding, the self-obsessive, and the friction filled drama kings and queens as viruses and route around them.

3. Generosity and investment in their networks: An individual will scale across companies, industries, and the world not by themselves but through the power of Web 3.0 networks, alliances of talent and reputation. To feed oneself one will need to fit the network. Trust to be trusted. Give to get. Help to get help.

4. Balance, unite and integrate left brain and right brain skills: The future requires and understanding of the concepts of science, math, and technology. It does not require one to be good at mathematics or know how to code but there is an underlying truth, fabric, and design to the future, and we must all understand the concepts. Everyone can and must understand these key elements if they are to thrive. If one must align with the force, one must understand the force. But that alone will not be enough. Top talent will also hone their creativity, their ability to empathize and to be vulnerable. The best talent will integrate math and magic, plumbing and poetry and spreadsheet with story.

The future begins every day.

We are all on a rocket ship to a new world.

Prepare for escape velocity from the containers and mindsets of the past.

Photographs by Anja Conrad (daughter of a long-time mentor Michael Conrad the former Global Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett)

Balance. Unite. Integrate

Art by  Benjamin Shine 

Successful leaders, teams and companies that endure over the long run seek to find balance, unity, and integration.

They work to balance opposing dynamics and points of view from how they invest for today versus tomorrow and how they compose leadership teams with differing points of view.

They strive to unite their organizations to work collaboratively to achieve common goals.

They recognize that in diversity there is strength, and it is important to integrate several perspectives and skill sets to succeed in an increasingly fast moving and complex world.

To balance, to unite and to integrate is difficult because it requires nuance, trade-offs, empathy, and communication skills. It is recognizing that there is rarely a silver bullet answer or simple and easy solution.

Art by  Benjamin Shine 

Balance: The Mandalorian and Lawrence of Arabia.

Between 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia and 2020’s The Mandalorian there is much in common including each being an innovative use of a new film technology. It was 70 MM wide screen for Lawrence of Arabia and high-definition streaming for The Mandalorian which brought Disney into the future.

But in world view they are completely different.

In Mandalorian we sense a force and a code best captured in the line “This is the way” repeated throughout the series. There is a code of conduct almost religious. A way of doing things handed down over time. A deterministic march forward.

In Lawrence of Arabia a key theme is of old ways and traditions being challenged best captured by the line “ Nothing is written”. The desert is empty, and the sands are wiped clean with the winds of change. The past is not an anchor, and one must write, sculpt, and invent the future.

Most individuals and firms must balance both the roots (history, legacy, anchored costs, reputation, provenance, rule of law and expectations) of “this is the way” with the wings (leaps of faith, casting of on a new journey, challenging the status quo) of “nothing is written”. We must balance roots and wings.

 Portfolio managers need to balance safety with risk to reach for returns while working to preserve capital.

Balancing is difficult but a focus on one extreme versus the other rarely allows for long term success.

Art by  Benjamin Shine 

Unite: The lessons of sports teams.

Regardless of the sport, the teams that win titles tend to share two characteristics.

1)    Talent:  they have a disproportionate share of great talent

2)    Unity:  they are passionately aligned and united to achieve a common goal

Often it is not the team with the best talent that wins but the one where the talent are passionately aligned and united either due to culture or great management.

Teams are not collected they are built and forged.

It takes time but once finished in the furnace and foundry of time and experience they operate at levels of performance and delivery that create a unique competitive advantage.

Similarly, companies win contracts and retain clients and take on external challenges where there is a glue of culture, purpose and values that ensure a gestalt (1+1=3) which sets them apart. People choose their partners with their hearts while they use numbers to justify their choice.

A leader can get elected or selected by dividing and conquering for a short while, but sustained legacy and success is usually forged through uniting and uplifting.

Unity is hard and harder still in polarizing times, but a divided house will most likely fall.

Integration: Judicious surrender to the force of opposing tendencies.

Art by  Benjamin Shine 

If balance is often about allocating between today and tomorrow and unity about aligning different perspectives and people, integration is blending these opposing forces and personalities in a way that works and delivers.

While it may seem difficult, we all do so as individuals since each of us integrate many identities.

F Scott Fitzgerald wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”. When applied to companies we could write that first-rate companies are able to operate two business models at the same time, one optimized for today and one focused on creating tomorrow even if it eats today.

Today the big luxury brands are seeking to integrate aspiration ( specialness, history, limited quality, high price, cathedral like retail spaces) with access ( bringing in tomorrow’s buyers, reflect unique cultures, be available online)  and integrating them so the brand can combine these different product portfolios and go to market strategies without the underlying story and brand falling apart from its internal dichotomies.

The best always balance, unite and integrate.

Balance roots and wings.

Unite diverse talents and voices into a common culture.

Integrate multiple and often opposing approaches.

Benjamin Shine  art recommended by  Terri Bartlett

10 Forecasts for the Next Decade. Part 2: Looking Ahead

Illustration by  Olivia Waller

In 2010 the Economic Times of India published predictions for the next ten years.

Every one of them ended up being correct !

You can review them here: Ten Forecasts Part 1.

In this post a look ahead to the next 10 years.

Illustration by  Olivia Waller

The Four Forces.

There will be four critical unstoppable forces that will carve and sculpt the future.

1.Multi-Polar Globalization: Globalization is unstoppable (many of the big challenges are global from Climate Change, Covid-19, China, to Congestion of Supply Chain).  The hand wringing of some publications positing the decline of globalization are probably misguided. There is no doubt there are challenges to globalization and its flavor is changing from one that was dominated by the United States and Western Europe to one that will have many centers of influence including China and India and where strategic imperatives to ensure a steady supply of silicon chips and rare earths will impact the contours and landscape of how nations and companies navigate in the future.

2. Three Challenging Demographic Shifts: Three big demographic shifts of a) declining population, b) aging populations and c) significant differences in ethnic make-up and mindsets between young and old will challenge politicians and leaders of businesses. Most countries except for the continent of Africa have begun to go into population decline. And most Western countries and now China due to its one child policy are grappling with more and more seniors supported by fewer workers challenging everything from healthcare to financial support. In the US 10,000 people turn 65 every day and despite the fixation of marketers on the young the money is with those over 50. In the US next year, the country will turn multi-ethnic majority under 18 years old while those over 50 are dominantly Caucasian. It is not just the ethnic make-up but perspectives on social and economic issues are radically different than in past decades. And this generational gap is widespread across the world.

3.  The Third Connected Age: In 1993 we entered The First Connected Age with the advent of the World Wide Web where we all connected to discover (search) and transact (e-commerce). In 2007 we expanded into The Second Connected Age where we were connected all the time (mobile) and connected to everybody (social). This decade will be The Third Connected Age where data will connect to data (AI), we will connect in new ways (Voice, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality), we will have much faster connections (5G) and far more powerful computing (Next generation Cloud).

4. Covid-19 Shock: The fault lines of Covid-19 impact will have long lasting impact on the terrain of the future. When every single person in the entire world goes through a financial, health and social crisis that has already lasted for nearly two years and exposed new forms of fragility and resilience in everything from personal relationships to business operations to social structures many of its reverberations will cascade into the future.

Each of these forces individually are deep, wide and strong but together they will shape shift the next decade so that not only are we going to see change but a quantum rate of change!

Illustration by  Olivia Waller

Ten Predictions.

1. New models of governance emerge: Most institutions at the national and international level were designed over five decades ago post World-War 2.  The future will not fit in the organizations and governance of the past where we need to grapple with AI Ethics, Climate Change, Gene Technology, Data Privacy, an African-Asian future and Space Junk/Wars and much more. We needed new rules for an Industrial Age since the rules of an Agricultural Age were no longer relevant. Similarly, the legal and institutional frameworks of the past cannot get us into the future.

2. A workplace revolution: Even before Covid-19 the forces of technology, globalization and demographic shifts were challenging the ways companies were designed and run from the nature of work to the where and when work was done. The challenges that most managers face in getting people to return to the office is a symptom of a much deeper challenge which is their firms may not be designed for the reality of the future.  In a world of cloud-based computing, where companies are looking for agility, flexible costs and diverse talent and where most networking and relationship building and brainstorming takes place at off-sites, events and bars/restaurants which knowledge worker company starting in 2022 would ask people to return to offices x days a week?  Human interaction is often important but who said it must happen in the office? The office is going to be a museum where the artifacts of the company’s history, some senior curators and some training programs occur as part of a distributed unbundled workplace with most value and time being created in third places, events and in home offices.

Illustration by  Olivia Waller

3. Saving capitalism from the capitalists: Nearly twenty years ago in 2003 two University of Chicago Business School professors (the bastion of free markets)  wrote a prescient book with the title Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists where they noted:

a) The free market is the form of economic organization most beneficial to human society and for improving the human condition.

b) Free markets can flourish over the long run only when government plays a visible role in determining the rules that govern the market and supporting it with the proper infrastructure.

c) Government, however, is subject to influence by organized private interests

d) Incumbent private interests, therefore, may be able to leverage the power of governmental regulation to protect their own economic position at the expense of the public interest by repressing the same free market through which they originally achieved success.

e) Thus, society must act to "save capitalism from the capitalists"—i.e., take appropriate steps to protect the free market from powerful private interests who would seek to impede the efficient function of free markets, entrench themselves, and thereby reduce the overall level of economic opportunity in society.

Today everyone from the biggest investor in the world which is the Black Rock Group to CEO’s speak of purpose and multi-stakeholder capitalism. They do so because they realize that there is a growing backlash against the lobbying efforts of leading firms, the inability of society to reign in or understand the power of technology firms and many other factors leading to a questioning of the current system including a significant move towards socialism among youth.

Whether it be China’s dramatic moves against their billionaire class, a newly empowered and expert driven FTC and FCC in the Unites States or the fury of the disenfranchised indicates that a great re-setting will occur as we move into the future.

4. Gene therapy/bio-tech miracles: Today while we still grapple with Covid-19, life is much better for billions (almost 3 billion people have been vaccinated) because of break-through in vaccine development. The combination of the technologies of The Third Connected Age along with advances in gene-therapy and biotechnology is likely to lead to the greatest advances in health care which may not only be effective but increasingly efficient and therefore available to everyone in the world. There is a good likelihood that many types of cancers may become like AIDS which is not curable but controllable. These technologies might leap from the field of health care to also help in everything from food production to helping fight climate change.

Illustration by  Olivia Waller

5. A new financial/trading eco-system: Today Square, PayPal, Coinbase are but three of a myriad number of massively valuable and fast-growing companies putting pressure on the large banks, credit card and marketplaces. We are in the early innings of a de-centralized, democratized and destructive creation phase that is completely aligned with the four forces of multi-polar globalization, three demographic shifts, The Third Connected Age and a questioning of everything mindset post Covid-19. Combine this with new marketplaces from Shopify to Etsy to StockX and access ramps to monetize creativity from Tik-Tok to Substack and fewer and fewer people are looking to the leaders of Wall Street or the City for permission or access or direction on the future of finance.  

6. A renaissance in education: Learning has never been as important due to the massive increase in knowledge, the need for re-training in a world buffeted by change and the increased returns to talent when combined with technology. Covid-19 revealed both the positives and negatives of the current educational infrastructure often illustrating that education has become a luxury brand versus an empowering and enabling platform which in many ways now adds to versus eradicates inequality and where more is spent on administration and buildings and other cocktail party and “badging” puffery than on teaching. From online companies like Coursera, to Khan Academy, to companies like Google providing credentials and training to a Chinese crack down on expensive private tuition at companies like TAL and New Oriental Education there is a call for a renaissance in education especially continuing and constant training where careers last 50 years and companies last 15! Companies and countries will win on the software called the brains of their citizens. It will be key to ensure they are upgraded all the time!

Illustration by  Olivia Waller

7. The Automobile Industry will be at the vanguard of future and is an industry to watch: Along with healthcare, finance and education the auto industry looms large in most countries of the world and is one that we will see the future becoming tangible first. Already Uber and Tesla have re-invented mobility. China has become the world’s largest auto market and from impacting the future of how a Mercedes is designed is building cities optimized for self-driving cars.  Every major auto-company is sprinting into the future by re-tooling, re-thinking and re-imagining for an electric, semi-self-driving future as they become software companies and innovators in energy, safety and on the go entertainment and education. Terry Kawaja shared an incredible insight that the place the first true meta-verse will happen will be inside automobiles where we already have screens, voice, augmented reality, navigation and next generation entertainment systems. We do not have to put on a helmet or be isolated to live in a true blend of the real and augmented and virtual worlds.

8. Trust particularly in the areas of data, identity and privacy will become a key currency for the future of everything including Brands: Many of the big companies we rely on today for our communications and entertainment from Facebook to Google to Amazon to many others were built as Advertising Operating Systems (AOS) focused on consumers. However, because of their utility they become Society Operating Systems (SOS) but the companies were not set up to think about Citizens. Now as we enter the Third Connected Age in a world of AI, Voice, AR and VR these and other platforms could become Life Operating Systems (LOS) and we will wonder who we can trust. A company? The Government? A neutral third party? Or maybe nobody but ourselves. Many companies and leaders including Tim Berners Lee the founder of the World Wide Web who has set Inrupt, that will use PODS (personal online data stores) so we can control and monetize our own data. This is one of many companies and approaches using a wide range of technologies including the block chain to ensure that in our future lives we are not animals in a zoo of some walled garden where we are fed a medley of sugary or enraging distractions while our time and wealth are harvested and milked like cow udders.

Illustration by  Olivia Waller

9. Creativity will be the key differentiator and all of us can and will be creators: Today in the US, 50 million individuals call themselves creators and many of us want to make, to build, to express. We want to create and distribute and often monetize our work. Before Squid Games took over Netflix their most popular shows were by Tik-Tok stars who earned these breaks on the strength of their talent and followings. We are living a world where Kylie Jenner has more Instagram interactions than the total combined viewership for the Superbowl, the Oscars and the Emmy’s. Today we have a creative and distribution studio on our phones and a worldwide canvas to paint on amidst a plethora of platforms and niche sites. Each one of us are creators since as Joan Didion reminds us we tell ourselves stories in order to live. Some of us may create through code, others building companies, others creating art and stories, designing shoes, podcasting or building and creating our imagined lives. In the end the technology is the plumbing and the creativity the poetry of our lives and more people in more places will be more enabled to be themselves and grow than ever before.

10. Enlightenment and connection will have greater market share than enragement and polarization: This may be as much hope as prediction but while there are significant challenges and issues, let us not forget that despite what the television screens and our doom scrolling may want us to believe, globally a greater number of people are more healthy and better off today than every before. With new advances in every form of science, with lower cost technologies and tools that allow more and more people to get connected and learn and grow and question, leaders all over are increasingly aware that the drums of change are beating in the blood stream of society and they will need to adapt or be overcome by a new wave of talent, imagination and ideas.

Ten Forecasts for the Next Decade. Part 1: Looking Back

Artwork by  Gabriel Isak.

Next week’s post will attempt to identify the key trends for the decade ahead.

This week looks back at predictions made for this past decade.

In 2010 the Economic Times of India (India’s Wall Street Journal) asked me to look ahead the next decade and identify ten key trends.

This past week a decade and a year later I re-read the article and was surprised to find not only that many of the forecasts did occur but that most of them would be ones that one might predict for the future today.

So, is the world really changing fast or is it that it is moving slowly, and we humans and organizations are adapting even slower and therefore feel the speed of change?

Artwork by  Gabriel Isak.

Here are 10 predictions for the decade ahead written in January 2010…

Top 10 Consumer Trends for the Decade Ahead (The Economic Times of India)

1. Anxiety for Authenticity

If there is one overwhelming trend globally after the financial folks turned out to be wanting and everyone from Bernie Madoff to many others were found to be posers, there is a great deal of skepticism among consumers as to what is fake and what is real. In such a world marketers must ensure that they, their actions, and their spokespeople are the real deals. There is a huge premium for authentic, real, and dependable in a world gone crazy and fake.

2. Celebration of Caution

Risk is questionable. The days of spending more than one earns, and deep leverage seem to be behind us at least in an extreme form. The people with savings (China and India among others) now seem to have the high moral ground over those who have been prolific in spending.  Brands must recognize this resetting and be nuanced in their celebration of consumption.

Artwork by  Gabriel Isak.

3. Mobility

Finally, the platform of the future appears to be clear, and it will be mobility. With over 2 billion phones we are on the cusp of a dramatic change in communications. Due to the rising affordability of smart phones, we can anticipate that between Blackberry, Google Android, Nokia Ovi and Apple iPhone the smart phone revolution will really take off in 2010 and within three years most "phones" will be mobile computers that combine real time data, social network, and highly empowering and entertaining applications.

4. Real Time Social Platforms

SMS, which is still the worlds most used communication medium, is a social platform. But with 350 million Facebook Users, tens of millions Twitter users and a range of local and international innovations (Google real time search) that combine real time and social we are going to see an explosion in the impact of both word of mouth and real time information. For instance, in many ways the best way to keep abreast of the 11/9 terror in Mumbai was twitter and real time NDTV live streams. Expect every media company and consumer brand to invest in real time listening and response in 2010.

Artwork by  Gabriel Isak.

5. The Rise of The Post Digital World

The world is going increasingly digital but a) most media and marketing is analog and b) people are analog. Thus, it is wrong to become overly hysterical even in advanced digital penetration countries by screaming about "digital at the core"! What is important is people and their needs and passions at the core and most of us combine the real and virtual worlds in ways that allow us to connect, save money and time and pursue our passions. We use mobile tools to have real world meetings and we enhance real world occasions with digital augmentation. Just like Wal-Mart stores are paying a lot of attention to digital capabilities one can expect digital companies like Amazon to have analog or real-world presence. Today besides Kindle you will see Amazon stores and maybe even bookstores just like Apple has its online store and its real stores.

6. Youth Uprising

India is unique among major nations in having a demographic dividend with most of its population under 25. But we expect all over the world including in the nations that are aging fast (Japan and Western Europe and possibly China with it’s one child policy), a combination of technology, dismay with the world and inauthentic doings of the old and just plain "fed-upness" to see a generational shift. The times they are a changing as Bob Dylan sang. Marketers must take the rise of youth into account, but these are not the youth of yesteryear but people who are increasingly committed to a better world. They are folks that care about sustainability, community and leaving things better than they found it. This is not just about sex and money.

Artwork by  Gabriel Isak.

7. Purpose Driven Marketing

The hardest question a brand, a marketer and a person will have to answer is " What do you stand for?" or " What is your purpose"? My sister company Leo Burnett has a great insight which notes that the increasingly in the future you will be judged by what you do and not what you say or as Leo states "Acts not Ads".  We anticipate Brands and marketers will have to show and not tell and one of the filters they will be evaluated by are by their actions and how they improve society.

8. Environment

Sustainability and environment will become a key factor in how consumers evaluate brands and begin to calibrate their own behavior. Brands will need to understand their carbon footprints and be able to explain how they are being proactive about cleaning up. This will also be a "have" vs. "have-not" or rather a "why are you lecturing us you western folks?" emotion that will find itself into the nuance of marketing.

Artwork by  Gabriel Isak.

9. Mongrelization

Okay this is not a real word but more powerful than globalization, which has already happened, will be mongrelization where cultures and capabilities from different nations, expertise and industries will meld and blend. Part of this will be due to global companies like Google, Samsung, Infosys, Lever and Procter. It will also come about as Reliance invests in DreamWorks and Bollywood and Hollywood give birth to something new. A huge impact of technology is the ability to share ideas and create new value.

10. Surprise

Less than four years ago the following did not exist. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Kindle, Apple iPhone and App Store, Mumbai Terror, The Financial Meltdown, A Black American President... The most important thing about the future is to be nimble and flexible to react to the only thing that is certain among all my predictions.

The future will surprise!

Next week will share what may lie ahead…

Impact!

Roy Lichtenstein

Many want to have an impact, to make a difference, to be seen and to be heard.

One can have an impact and stand out in ways that generates attention but not admiration.

What can we learn from people who make an impact in ways that generate goodwill?

Outcomes. Scale. Iteration.

Three behaviors are commonly seen in impactful people we want to be like.

a) Outcomes: They focus. They focus on outcomes versus process. Deliverables vs drama.

b) Scale: They find ways to have a far greater radius of impact by projecting far and wide.

c) Iteration: They continuously improve and use time as an edge.

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Alexander Calder

Outcomes.

Spend time one focusing on one or more of three outcomes.

a) Help make someone or something better: Impactful people we admire tend to be generous and kind. They give, share, teach, share, show and help grow an idea, a person or firm.

b) Grow skills: Practice craft. Build muscle. Learn.

c) Create / Immerse themselves in tattoo experiences: If the core of existence is experiences, impactful people create, participate, and enable in experiences that give them or others joy and ideally create tattoos in the mind by being memorable.

If one is not growing others or oneself or having an experience that is joyful or pleasant, why are we doing what we do?

Clearly in many cases we spend time on things that are difficult and unpleasant because of illness, bad luck, a lack of opportunities, or the constraints of a job.

With a little luck and help over time we need to find time to grow from these challenges, find ways to help others and to lessen the negatives and look on the optimistic side of things to have an impact.

Alexander Calder

Scale.

Successful people find ways to scale in many ways of which the three most powerful levers are those of stories, talent, and technology.

a)  Stories: Stories scale. They pass from person to person. They echo across time and space. Learn to be a good storyteller and your ability to blend imagination, metaphor and insight will ripple and reverberate.

b) Talent: A powerful way to scale is through talent. By building teams and leveraging the impact of others and their skills. By teaching and growing talent, a person scales and grows through other people’s growth.

c) Technology: Today technology allows a professor teaching a class on Happiness at Yale or Justice at Harvard to share their knowledge with worldwide audiences. Modern platforms, cloud computing, powerful and democratized technologies like the mobile phone enables a person at home using Tik-Tok to end up with a top-rated television special on Netflix seen all around the world.

Embrace stories.

Surround yourself with and channel through talent.

Leverage technology.

Alexander Calder

Iteration.

The most impactful people use time as a weapon in three ways.

a)  Only Asset: They realize it is the only real asset since it the one they cannot make or buy more of. If someone is wasting their time or trying to buy it for cheap the realize they are paying with their lives and they walk away as soon as they can.

b) Continuous learning: They constantly learn by reflecting on what has gone before and their experiences to improve and grow. They realize it is not experiences themselves but reflecting on experience that one grows from. Many look back at each day, celebrating what worked and try to understand from the mistakes and missteps that were made.

c)  Sequencing: They sequence their days and schedule to do the things that matter the most first before they lose control of their calendars and fall into the pincers of the urgent or the cacophony of distractions and digital stream where activity is confused with productivity.

In the end there is only time and how we spend our days is how we spend our lives

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Solving Problems by Leveraging Photography

Many of the techniques used by the best photographers are the ones we can use to become great at problem-solving.

The essence of photography

At its essence photography is driven by three variables:

a) Framing:  What the photographer decides to focus on, how the camera is angled and positioned relative to the subject and what is left in and left out of the viewfinder.

b) Exposure/Lighting: This is a combination of aperture, shutter speed and how sensitive to light the film is (ISO speed)

c) Editing: Once upon a time with analog film only professionals had the tools of editing (darkrooms, chemicals, and papers) but today with digital capabilities of our phones we all can pre-edit by taking several test shots, give ourselves lots of editing options by taking a lot of pictures and then later with easy-to-use tools sculpt our pictures to our liking by cropping and filtering and more.

The essence of problem solving

The best problem solvers tend to be good at three factors:

a) Framing the problem by asking the right question: They want to know whether one is solving the right problem.

b) Getting the right input/data/facts so they can throw as much light on the problem: Can one get as much illumination as one can?

c) Interrogating and iterating the answer:  The first answers tend to be somewhat right and often lead to additional questions or additional fine tuning before one reaches a more robust solution.

Leveraging the principles of photography to improve decision making.

Framing the problem: Three simple questions to ask before you address a problem or challenge.

a) Focus on the right problem: Often organizations and teams spin their wheels on either the wrong problem or do not frame their problem in the right context, time- horizon or challenger set.

The US Auto Industry thought their problem was to enhance quality of their hardware against the Japanese or design their exteriors and interiors to drive desire for their product against the German luxury brands when the real existential challenge was to become adept at electric and software vs Tesla and address a decline in a desire for auto ownership due to rise of Uber and Lyft.

b) Ensure differing points of view: It is critical to look at a problem from the right angle and ensure different viewpoints are included in problem definition. One reason companies miss the forest for the trees is they fail to have diverse voices and backgrounds involved in strategic problem solving. Diversity is not just critical for ideation but to understand what the issues are.

Too many traditional publications failed to adapt to digital in part due to not having technical folks and younger folks who were comfortable using digital media having a voice in the room where decisions were framed. As Boards become more diverse it is critical that they ensure that there is diversity of voices and backgrounds and not only a diversity of faces.

c) Choosing what problems to look at and what not to tackle:  The best photographs often result from tight framing and often the best solutions come from the tight definition of the problem.

Many times, we might try to solve problems that are so broad that they are never solved because either it requires too many people or too many resources or too much time.

2. Ensuring the right exposure:  In the world of problem solving the aperture is how much data you decide to look at, shutter speed is how much time you allocate before a decision must be made and ISO is how much leeway (graininess) is acceptable.

a) Quantity and Quality of Data: If the inputs are not correct or valid then it is unlikely the outputs will be. After framing a problem correctly, it is key to ensure that as much valid data, input, and learning is brought to the solution.

One reason the original We Work imploded was that the key data they overlooked were from the industry they really were in (real-estate leasing) and rather they focused on the ones they were not relevant (software, luxury experiences) in how they valued themselves and raised money.

b) Speed of decision making: So often problems do not get solved since there is a demand for more information, more data, and more input. Delay and dithering should be avoided by putting tight deadlines on decision making.

Too many organizations spend time ingesting lots of inputs and look at their colon in many ways but end up with no real output.

In another vernacular to solve a problem one must sooner or later emit or get off the pot.

Sometime though one rushes too fast and hurried decisions to make deadlines can also hurt an organization.

c) Sensitivity of impact of solution: If one is not going to being blowing up a photograph one really does not care about graininess and can use high ISOs to capture night views. On the other hand, if one is planning to print something on a large wall at an exhibition one must ensure much less graininess and therefore much more time and care needs to be taken.

Jeff Bezos has often noted the difference between revolving door and shut door decisions. If a decision can be revoked or changed without significant  damage one needs less input and time but if a decision is difficult to undo and has long lasting or wide-ranging impact, then one must need to be more circumspect and speedier in decision making.

It is important before one begins to solve a problem one understands the sensitivity of the solution. How often have we procrastinated, and process driven a decision to death or run up huge costs in “studying a problem” when just saying yes or no quickly would have been smarter?

3. Editing the solution: The initial or first answers to a problem are not picture perfect and require three forms of editing.

a) Cropping: Sometimes the solution is correct for smaller subset of people or geography or clients and thus some honing and exceptions need to be made before announcing.

b) Filtering: This requires involving different people to look at the solution to get diversity of perspectives, interrogating the solution and particularly the inputs to ensure they were correct and interpolating with other wisdom and experience

c) Displaying and Sharing: How, when, and where one shares the solution will determine how it will be evaluated and accepted. Too often the best of solutions goes awry because the right folks were not brought into the loop before announcement, or the announcement was made without the right sensitivities or tone of voice.

Next time one solves a problem we may want to look at what makes a great photographer or a photograph and think about how we frame the problem, how we determine the process of how much data, how much time and how sensitive the impact of the solution will be and then be ready to edit and hone the solution to maximize the impact.

Photography from  Sony World Photography Awards 2021 Exhibit.

On Identity

Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

How do you take a measure of a person? Is it possible to understand a person?

Here are some lines from literature that say it is difficult and may be impossible

“You get them wrong before you meet them, while you’re anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you’re with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again.

The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that — well, lucky you.”

From American Pastoral by Philip Roth

Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

And let us say we get a person right which person of the many identities and moods of that person did we just get right?

“We cannot live with only one identity. We all have many identities, they are liquid”

Olga Tokarczuk. Polish Author and Nobel Prize Winner for Literature.

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Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

And as many writers state it is sometimes hard enough to know ourselves.

“Sometimes you don’t know who you are till you put on a mask”

Alexander Chee in the Short Story “Girl” written in 2015

Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

And do any of us want to be profiled and boxed and put into clusters? None of us wants to hear that somebody has our “number”. The poet TS Eliot best verbalizes this in a stanza from “The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock”

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin to spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

Emotional Intelligence can help in understand our selves and others. It can bring meaning to an age of math and reduce the “algos” which in Latin means “pain” in the algorithmically tuned streams that colonize our minds.

In the book “Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls through Seven transitions into Adulthood” is one of the best definitions of Emotional Intelligence I have come across:

“Seeing yourself from the outside and seeing others from the inside”

Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

“We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are” anonymous

In many ways what makes us “us”, in addition to our genetics and experiences, is what we put into our minds which include the books, movies, tv shows, music, social media streams, magazines and much more that we ingest as well as the people we meet and places we visit.

This means we are constantly changing and if it is difficult to understand ourselves, true empathy is understanding that we may never understand anyone else.

Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

Privacy and Identity

In 2014 at a TED Global Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the journalist Glenn Greenwald gave one of the finest talks on why privacy is important.

It is a must watch.

Privacy is important because we are not who we are when somebody is watching…

When someone negatively impacts our privacy, they might prevent us from being ourselves.

In a quest to identify and put us in a box they may impact the very identity they are trying to understand.

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Digital Art by  Marcel Caram

The private, the personal, data and true understanding.

David Orr is a poetry critic for the New York Times who a few years ago wrote a book called “Beautiful and Pointless”. In the opening chapter titled “the personal” he seeks to show how “private” and “personal” are two very different things.

David provides a list of sentences:

Bob Smith was born on November 9, 1971.

Bob Smith’s favorite password is “nutmeg456”

Bob Smith’s Social Security number is 987-65-4320

Bob Smith has a foot fetish.

As a child, Bob Smith had an imaginary friend named Mr. Pigwort.

Whenever Bob Smith hears a high wind, it makes him think of his wife, who died ten years earlier, and he hears her voice faintly calling, as if from a great distance.

He notes that the first three sentences contain deeply private information, but they don’t seem personal like the last three.

Mr. Orr then states:

“ The point here is that our conception of “the personal” has to do more than the data of our lives, no matter how sensitive. It has to do with how we see ourselves, how we see others, how we imagine others see us, how they actually see us, and the potential embarrassment, joy, and shame that occur at the intersection of these different perspectives”

In an age obsessed with data we often believe that data can explain, and data can convince.

To a point it might, but we should never forget that meaning lies within us and combines emotion and rational thinking.

We often barely know ourselves and can be two different people in two different moods.

Because we choose with our hearts and use numbers to justify what we just did.

And we need space and privacy to be who we are.

Should I Stay? Should I Go?

Houston.

And New York, London, Amsterdam, Mumbai, San Francisco, Chicago, Paris…

We have a problem.

Talent turnover.

Like none of us have ever seen before.

Regardless of the market, the industry, or the level of seniority.

Over the past two weeks having flown to five cities in the United States on both coasts, the South and the Midwest and virtually visiting seven countries in Europe, South America, and Asia to advise senior management or speak at team gatherings across a spectrum of industries from finance to consumer-packaged goods to technology, it is clear that the key challenge is no longer tech, data, capital, or business model.

It is people.

Turn over rates of 30%, 40% and 50%.

Hundreds and thousands of open jobs in each company.

The inability to fill roles with significant increases in compensation.

Whether it be two years of re-thinking one’s life post Covid, or the self-immolation of a management class that failed to understand that power has moved to talent and by not talking straight to them is losing them, or the freedom enabled by those lucky to have benefited from the significant rise in capital assets, everyone from someone with two years of experience to extremely wealthy entrepreneurs and leaders are asking…

Should I stay?

Or

Should I go?

Three FiltersEvery individual will need to make their own call. 

As someone who had stayed put for 38 years at one place my inherent bias is to stay since 1) the grass may be greener on the other side because it is fertilized by bullshit,  2) because with time one builds trust in a firm and trust is speed and is so critical today and 3) there is nothing as powerful as compounding returns whose benefits are easier to gain by staying and addressing issues at one place versus moving between places.

So, my inclination is wherever you are please first look to stay.

Roots matter.

And often you can find wings at the place you have roots.

Here are three questions you may want to ask yourself to help you decide whether you wish to stay or go.

Freedom: Can you be free to become who you are? Can you have autonomy in your work?

Story: If you shift how does it fit in the story arc of your career? How does it reflect in your legacy if you are senior?

Growth: Can you find ways to grow where you are, or do you have to leave?

You will notice that none of these questions use filters of money, power, fame, or many of the things we worry about.

Not because they do not matter.

But these are not core to how you determine how you spend your one precious life.

Look carefully at many of those who have money, fame and power and you will find amazingly talented people who scripted their story, continuously grew, and struck out freely in new frontiers.

They focus on the ball and not the scoreboard.

Freedom

One way to define success is to have the freedom to spend time in the way that gives one joy.

Every person has a combination of different elements that bring them joy from adventure to learning to practicing craft to helping others to building wealth to family to passions and hobbies.

This joy is often accompanied by a sense of flow when deeply immersed in doing, a feeling of grace and serenity when feeling as one with all around and often excitement and ecstasy of pleasurable pursuits.

When you do your job does it give you a sense of flow, a sense of being or a sense of excitement at least half the time (hey if your job sucks for a third or less you have a great job …but if there is very little flow, grace or serenity please look to change the situation since no job is worth your life…)

If you find limited freedom in your job does not mean you quit.

Rather go to your manager and insist on crafting a new role that ensures you get the freedom you deserve.

But please do realize you have a job, and you are not being treated at a spa and there is a lot of difficult stuff one must deal with.

Most managers and leaders are terrific once you speak with them as humans.

See if you can get more autonomy for yourself and craft a role more aligned to who you are while staying where you are.

If not leave.

Story.

Joan Didion wrote “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”.

We build identity via the narrative of our lives.

As you make you decisions look back from the end to the beginning and ask about your legacy.

In the short term it is to explain why you switched from one assignment to another that sounds strategic and smart.

In the longer run it is something more important.

Your story.

Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates and many others possibly would give up a lot of their fame and fortune if they could re-write their narrative as they enter their 70th and 90th year.

Only if we could learn what is important before it is too late.

What is the story you want your friends, colleagues, and children to share about you?

It will be the story and not the power, fame, money, or the Instagram post that will endure.

What you do is who you are.

Make sure that where you work, what you work at and your career legacy can tell a story that is how you took the road less traveled by, how you told truth to power, how you sang your song and became who you were and where you were sensitive to other people’s thinking but did not live your life to optimize your presence in their minds.

It is your life.

It is your story.

Do not let anybody but you define it.

T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) reminded us “nothing is written”

Till you write it.

Write your life. Write your career.

Be you. (Since as they say everyone else is taken…)

So, see if you can craft the next steps inside your company (every smart firm is far more open to what their talent wants than ever so do give your firm a chance to help you craft your story…but if they do not it is your story and do not ever let anybody, but you write it…)

Growth.

We all want to grow.

Grow our bank accounts, portfolios, the square feet we live in or own, our power and our reputations.

But in the end, we want to grow ourselves as people.

Our skills. We must be able to build and merchandise the skills for the  future.

Our humanness.

Our potential.

In the end the day we stop growing is when we start dying.

How can we all grow? Learn new skills? Expand our horizons?

Make no mistake most of us are going to have 50-year careers in a world where companies remain in the S&P 500 for less than 15 years, and the half-life of our skills will last less than a decade.

Can you grow your skills?

Can you grow your reputation?

In the end you are responsible for your future. Not your company. Not your HR or Talent Group. But if you can please do stay. But stay because you can become free to be who you are, because you can tell a story and because you can grow.

Too many people end up lost following the wrong star.

It is not fame, money, power or leaving.

It is freedom, story, growth and insisting on these from the places you want to stay at.

If they say no.

Then and only then.

Go…

And if you are management struggling to retain talent maybe it’s time to talk freedom, story and growth…

How to Thrive in the Modern Workspace

Cartoon by  Tom Fishburne

Work is central to the Human Experience.

It provides income, identity, community and meaning.

The trauma of a job loss is second only that to the death of a loved one.

Three inter-acting forces are sculpting a new terrain for the future of work.

1. Globalization which while creating wealth overall can be devastating for communities and industries in many regions. Both globalization itself and a backlash to it will shape the contours of opportunities (or their loss) for everyone

2. The three A’s of technology (automation, algorithms, artificial intelligence) which accelerate middle-class income job loss at speeds far greater than jobs they create. Another major factor will be how mobile devices and advanced measurement will change how work is compartmentalized and distributed.

3. Covid-shock driven behavioral and structural change: After nearly two years of dispersed work forces, plummeting travel replaced by Zoom/Teams, the expectations, and behaviors of bosses, employees, and clients are going to be dramatically different. Like a champagne cork that once opened never fits back so too there is no going back to December 2019 but imagining forward.

The nature of work, how it is done and where it is done will be dramatically different in the coming years.

Cartoon by  Tom Fishburne

Three shifts underway.

1. The “Office” as we knew it is over: Let us not kid ourselves or find succor in the belief that “hybrid” work will bring back the office.

Yes, if you are in dentistry, work on an assembly line or your work requires close physical proximity with your customer. Otherwise, we are likely to spend less than 20 percent of our time in the office as we knew it.

 In the “Jigsaw or Return” the concept of the “unbundled ”workplace was discussed where there are four places we work which include home (increasingly distant from our old offices and significantly upgraded for working), events/conferences, (where we go to network, learn and build relationships), third places (WeWork, Starbucks where we get out of our homes and collaborate with our colleagues) and the Museum (the old office filled with artifacts and history where senior management or curators of “culture” pass down learning and training and Clients are pitched.)

Let’s be real: how much time will we spend in Museums?

Despite what you may be hearing most smart companies are recognizing that to compete for top talent, retain flexibility and agility, and control costs they must significantly reduce their physical footprint. Even the big banks and old school investment firms that insisted everybody return all the time are working behind the scenes to align with the new reality.

2. We are all going to be gig workers: The reason for this is three-fold:

Making costs variable: First, companies in a world of change are beginning to see that making costs variable is a key to success. The ability to shed costs with changing demand is what makes an Uber (which owns no cars, and its drivers are not employees) does better than a Hertz (which owns the cars and has employees on its payroll).

The re-aggregated organization:  Increasingly in a world of change and zero-based budgeting and with new companies starting with a fresh sheet of paper the modern organization is re-aggregating skills at scale rather than hiring generalists and training them to be specialists. And based on demand it adds and subtracts what it needs.

One driving force of this are platforms. Not just the platforms that we are familiar with of Microsoft, Google and Amazon but also internal corporate platforms that allow a company to give employees everywhere training, connections and also importantly opportunities they may not have had in their market. Companies now can re-aggregate customized solutions by choosing individuals from everywhere.

The diminishing half-life of skills:  A company today remains in the S&P 500 for less than 14 years while many of us will work for 40 years. Someone perusing job descriptions today who was asleep for the past fifteen years would probably not understand many of the words in the job spec.

3. The future is fusion:  It is not man/woman versus Machine but man/woman working with machines.

Today we may be people using machines. Tomorrow we will be helpers attached to machines to do what we can do more cost effectively like pick produce and enter a building to drop things off or add a bit of empathy or experience so we can connect with other analog, carbon-based feeling appendages of digital, silicon-based, computing machines. The machines will advance at the rate of improvement in chips and machine learning which means getting twice as good every six months to eighteen months while we humans improve far slower.

Cartoon by  Tom Fishburne

How to thrive in the modern workspace.

While the Modern Workspace might sound dystopian it does not have to be so.

Having the option to work from anywhere on opportunities we did not have access to, with repetitive work delegated to machines is not an unpleasant scenario!

But it will require us to change, re-tool and grow by honing four skills :

1. Continuous learning: The day you stop learning and upgrading your skills is the day your future in the modern workspace begins to decay.

In today’s world where many smart companies are providing access to significant learning resources online and where between Coursera, You-Tube, and a multitude of free or low-cost training and credential program are available, there is no excuse not to learn.

Allocate an hour a day to learning regardless of your level in the organization. In many ways middle and senior management need to learn the most since our skills are probably the most rusty and irrelevant!

2. Upgrading our emotional operating system: While understanding data and technology and its implications will be necessary to succeed it will not be sufficient. If we are to work in a connected workplace where we add value to machines and quickly integrate with other people, we will need to ensure that our emotional operating systems are continuously refined since while we will be working with silicon based, data driven, computing machines we will be adding value and connecting with others as carbon based, story driven, feeling humans.

We will need to build our skills to empathize, our ability to listen, our ability to inspire with creativity, design and storytelling, and to earn and gain trust by doing what we say and building a long-term reputation.

The future of human careers in a distributed and technology driven world will be built with emotional TILE: Trust, Inspiration, Listening and Empathy.

3. Think like a “Company of One”: Even if you are working in a company of tens of thousands in the modern workplace your company will re-aggregate individual talents into teams that work on a client or project. In many cases you may find yourself working with different parts of your company or different regions who may not know about your skills, or you may find yourself working with several companies. You are now a company of one who needs to ensure that people within the company are aware of your skills, and you build skills in areas there is a need.

In addition to ensuring that databases and information about you on your company’s system are up to date it is also critical that you build out an external online presence. Your resume is not what is on your hard drive or LinkedIn it is a sum of your web presence, particularly the first page that people see on Google when they search for you. Go look at it today. Go look at news. Go look at pictures. Go look at videos. This is you as the future becomes more distributed and digital.

You would be surprised at how many Clients now check out the people that companies assign to them to see if they are any good.

To help create a better presence think of being active on Twitter and LinkedIn, develop a website (using Square Space or some other service), think of writing a blog on some passion or hobby or even start a newsletter.

4. Learn to “lead” and “do” since “managing” while important will increasingly play a smaller role.

When talent can take any assignment. When there is nobody to keep waiting outside your office since there is no office and you are a square in Zoom call whose big office building that was supposed to impress is in the Cloud, what is a manager to do? When “checking “work and on people is truly defined as what it is which is “increased friction” and “un-necessary control “it will be those who can lead (inspiring, teaching, listening, showing the way forward) and those who can do that will be followed.

People will follow people and not titles.

The modern workspace is real.

The future will not adapt to us.

We need to adapt if we are to have a thriving future.

Employee Joy!

The most important component of long-term sustainable advantage for any firm –regardless of its size--is its ability to attract, retain, inspire, and grow talent.

Talent is the sustainable advantage.

It is talent and only talent that creates and/or preserves every other form of sustainable advantage whether it be innovation, new ideas or superior service.

If a Brand is experience it is employees who ideate, create, design, and deliver the experience.

If cost management is a key goal, then focusing on a fewer better paid and trained employees working at their full potential with minimum external monitoring, but maximum internal motivation is likely to yield lower costs than hiring the cheapest labor.

Employees as advocates.

Today potential employees and customers have access online to a spectrum of resources to evaluate culture and advocacy of existing employees of a firm.

Employee advocates attract other employees and are the best salespeople to convince potential customers.

So maybe instead of focusing on customers or technology or shareholders we should focus on the key to everything.

Employee Joy.

Employee Joy.

Rather than Net Promoter Scores, ESG goals, ROI metrics we should better understand the people who drive the results we are monitoring.

Let us focus on the players rather than the equipment, the field, or the scoreboard.

There are several ways to evaluate employee joy from observed metrics such as average tenure, turn over, percent of offers accepted, the premium one has to offer to hire a person, to exit interviews, custom surveys, focus groups, town halls, and tracking comments on third party sites and more.

Regardless of how and what one measures what is key is that every manager up to the CEO recognize and be motivated so that a huge portion of their success and compensation is based on how they lead, nurture, and grow people.

Many studies of the best CEO’s show they tend to focus on three key areas which are strategy, capital allocation and people rather than operations, revenue generation, investor relations or customer management. And those who have been superb at strategy and capital allocation like a Jeff Bezos but did not pay enough attention to people have recognized that it is now key.

Why is the importance of employee joy growing?

Today regardless of the type of job one is trying to fill whether it be a cook for a restaurant or an engineer firms have open jobs they struggle to fill even with significant compensation increases.

Some of this may be attributed to government benefits that enable one to not work at least temporarily.

But the issue is far deeper as we approach the two-year anniversary of the Covid-19 Virus which has through a combination of separating an employee from their place of work, concentrating one’s mind on the fragility of life and breaking rote habits has made many people re-think their lives and careers.

According to a recent  Microsoft Survey 41% of employees globally are thinking of handing in their notice with that number soaring to 54% among generation Z ( 18 to 25 year olds).

And by companies insisting on a return to office when neither Covid is gone or talent are hankering for old ways gives further pause to the very people they are trying to cajole, threaten or implore back to containers and ways of the past.

What do employees want? How to ensure joy?

Regardless of industry, country or demographic group research conducted for Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data identified six components of joy:

Money: People expect to be paid fairly.

Fame (Recognition): We all want to be recognized and feted for what we do even if it is to be acknowledged for a well completed project

Power (Autonomy): For some people this is authority but increasingly it is autonomy to be able to get a job done in ways and places that fit versus being monitored and micro-managed.

Connectedness (to bosses/fellow workers/customers): While work is not family it is a part of one’s identity, a portion of one’s community and feeling connected in positive ways to a boss, fellow workers and clients/customers who are respectful versus treating one as servile.

Purpose (Values and Culture of company): Increasingly purpose drives a lot of career decisions especially among Millennials and Generation Z. Purpose is about a set of behaviors and not just words and Culture is what happens when nobody is looking rather than posters and chants!

Growth (including skills): Every few years the landscape of every industry is changing and in addition to career growth many individuals are looking to build skills that will keep them relevant and sought after so they do not find themselves unemployable. Training programs, opportunities to try new assignments or work in different markets are all critical to growth.

Companies that win in the long run tend to deliver on all six but are particularly good at connectedness, purpose, and growth since this retains and grows talent for the long run.

As technology expands and gets more powerful and cheaper more and more work done by carbon based analog feeling things (humans) will be replaced by silicon based digital computing objects (computers) and the companies that thrive will combine the best of technology with the best of talent working with joy.

Because low-cost talent with no joy is an unfeeling commodity that can be replaced by a machine or can be underbid by someone with cheaper FTE (a full-time equivalent which itself telegraphs we are all replaceable widgets!)

Employee joy is all!

Miniature Dioramas by  Tatsuya Tanaka from the Miniature Calendar Series.  (Thank you to  David Thurm  former Chief Operating Officer of the Art Institute of Chicago and a reader of this thought letter for pointing me to them as something to feature. Take a look, they are amazing.)