Rishad Tobaccowala's Blog, page 8

Exercising Belief.

Photography by Sho Hoshino

In today’s changing world amidst chaos and conflict there is a break down in trust, an increase in polarization and a rise in rage.

We all have a list of bad actors, things that we oppose, ideas that we reject and views that we abhor.

It may be worth the while to also make a list of what we believe to be true.

Ideas or insights gleaned from experience, or from our elders and inspirational people or from our own experience that provide the wisdom to steer our lives by.

A focus on what we running towards and what keeps us running, rather than what we are running from or believe are running things down.

Here are a list of five beliefs to drive a life operating system:

Photography by Sho Hoshino

1. Life is how one deals with loss, connects with love and grows through learning.

Loss: Loss is central to the human experience in three ways:

First, is we often lose in our attempts to succeed. We lose promotions, jobs and opportunities. We lose money and valuable assets.

Many times, we also win.

Some people win a little and others win a lot.

But we all lose.

But these losses however daunting and disappointing are not the big ones.

The second set of losses are the losses we will face of loved ones and friends either because relationships end, or death comes.

And our final loss is that of ourselves.

Our health.

And then our lives.

Franz Kafka wrote that “the meaning of life is that it ends”

How we live amidst these losses defines a large part of life.

To learn to practice “personal resurrections” after setbacks and to endure and keep on growing and going.

Love: A big part of what makes life worth living despite the guarantee of loss is love.

Love of people, of work, of art, of culture, of craft and of things and hobbies.

It is in fact this love and attachment that is deeply intertwined with the feelings of loss

Love does not compute; and computers though they are getting increasingly advanced into deluding us that they love us since they ingest all our stories and then customize their reaction to be our “personalized” friends cannot love us.

In part that is because they cannot feel.

And therefore cannot feel loss.

And with love comes loss and love is an anti-dote to loss.

Learning: Today we have large language models that learn by ingesting, sorting, parsing, co-relating, re-combining and digesting all they can eat.

It is clearly a form of learning and the machines are getting “smarter”

Thus while machines may not know about love and loss they definitely can learn.

But do they feel joy as they learn?

Without the reality of loss or the feeling of love can they turn information into insight into wisdom?

Love, loss and learning are intertwined with each one feeding and influencing and resonating with each other.

Photography by Sho Hoshino

2. Success is being able to spend your time in the way that creates joy.

Success is sought by all but what is being sought?

For some it is making a mark in their field or leaving some enduring work. For others it is seeking financial wealth or creating and nurturing a family. For some it is helping others.

For most people success also means a measure of happiness.

In the end if time is all that one has than success probably has to do with how one uses time.

Ann Dillard wrote that “the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives”

When one is financially constrained one’s mind and time are colonized by making ends meet.

When one is physically in pain or suffering from ill health it is often hard to be happy.

So, if happiness is the ability to not spend time thinking all the time about ones financial or physical situation it means a certain amount of financial and physical well-being is key to being happy and possibly successful.

Sooner or later once these basics of not having to worry about the next rent check or waking up the next day are overcome the words and emotions that link the happy and successful are those of purpose, meaning, connection, flow, recognition and growth.

And these can change over time and are different for different people.

But it all comes down to having the freedom to allocate one’s time the way one does.

How can we spend your time, that increasingly gets to a place where we spend more of it in ways that give us joy?

Photography by Sho Hoshino

3. Do not live in other people’s minds.

It has been written that “comparison is the thief of joy” but so is living one’s life to score points in somebody’s else’s scoreboard of what success is.

The rise in mental anguish among teenagers is in part how social media has accentuated the need to look good in somebody else’s eyes.

But it is not just teenagers who live in other people’s minds versus theirs.

Caring what other people think is human and often learning and getting feedback on how one can improve is key to success so not living in other people’s minds does not mean not listening to or caring what other people say or think.

It means stopping using their metrics and their rulers of success to rule the way we live our life.

If nobody was looking and we do not have to preen and strut would we live differently?

Living in other peoples minds is like giving somebody else a remote control to direct your life.

Photography by Sho Hoshino

4. There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.

While one may not agree with Hamlets’ statement that “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so”, our mindsets matter a lot in how we perceive life, how we are perceived and the degree of success we may have in our varied endeavors.

In rapidly changing and chaotic times an agile mindset can be critical to success.

How we react to a thing or event is often what determines the impact of the thing or the event.

While there are many personal trainers to help sculpt our bodies into somewhat supple forms, there is a scarcity in those who can show us how to exercise our minds to be as flexible as they need to be.

Mindsets matter.

Growth mindsets. Learning mindsets. Optimistic mindsets. Realistic mindsets.

Optimism matters.

In the novel “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon a character is described as one whose “mood collapsed the room”.

While misery may love company, nobody likes being in the company of miserable people. Optimism is not just an essential component of innovators but a trait that you must have if you wish to inspire folks to follow you. “Woe is me, doomed are us” works for a few drinks in a bar, but at the workplace it saps energy, hurts culture and is just a plain downer. Pessimism is something we all wallow in, but it fails to show the way out.

A way to get optimistic is to forget all the legacy nonsense we may have to grapple with and ask that if we had a fresh sheet of paper and no constraints except those of the law, science and the need to become/remain economically viable what would we do?

Can we reframe, rethink and reinvent?

Every day is a new career beginning.

Tomorrow is where we will spend the rest of our lives.

Photography by Sho Hoshino

5. Practice Compound Improvement.

The single most powerful concept in finance is that of compounding.

Compounding interest and compounding returns can over time create wealth or lead one to bankruptcy depending on whether you owe or own capital.

In a world of change we all may want to consider another way compounding can help us grow in changing times and drive mental, emotional, and even financial wealth which is compounding improvement.

There is so much we cannot control in a world driven by global, demographic, social and technological change but instead of being buffeted about helplessly in a sea of chaos maybe we can try to control and build our ourselves to be better.

Three learnings about compound improvement.

a) Discipline equals Freedom: This is the title of a book by Jocko Willink, a Navy Seal. Basically, if we want to get a grip on the world get a grip on ourselves. Things are more up to us than we think if we are willing to work at it.

b) Never graduate from school: The world is changing so fast that many of our skills and expertise and mindsets need continuous upgrading. While many of us set aside time to exercise to maintain our physical operating system we need to also feed and exercise our minds. The power of this habit is that at the end of a year one will have spent 365 hours learning new things by just doing one hour a day. The day we start dying is the day we stop learning.

c) Deliberate Practice:  Anders Ericcson wrote a book called “Peak” which is the best study of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice involves three components

1) immediate feedback, 2) clear goals and 3) a focus on technique. According to his research, the lack of deliberate practice explained why so many people reach only basic proficiency at something, whether it be a sport, pastime, or profession, without ever attaining elite status.

To become great become great at something. It may be art, business, fishing, caring for somebody. All of us have some great expertise and things we can give the world.

We just need to architect, hone and sculpt with deliberate practice to unleash our skill on the world just as Michelangelo revealed “David” by removing all the marble that was not him.

Try an exercise of listing a few beliefs that drive your life or ask others to do so.

It is likely to help one grow and connect better with others.

Small Things.

Visual Art by Susan Swinand

Every six months for over three decades I receive an updated insurance card from State Farm.

Over the years the quality of the card has deteriorated in every single way.

The card used to be plastic and then became a thick removable card and then it was something that had perforations on a larger size of paper that you had to tear and now it is as thin as it can get with scissor marks where you need to cut it.

The quality of the card plunges in inverse proportion to the increase in premiums (no accident or any reason to justify the increases in premium).

It is a small thing.

But it is the only time the brand and I interact (assuming that I remain lucky enough not to have to file a claim). Its their twice annual contact point. And every time I open their mail I see a cheaper card some confabulation of consultants, accountants and financial operators have optimized to reduce costs along with a standard completely non customized come on to buy more insurance along with the gift of a higher premium.

Maybe the masters of optimization may want to consider a little less media spend on Jake from State Farm commercials to help fund a better existing customer interaction in the twice annual touch points?

It is a small thing.

But small things matter.

Visual Art by Susan Swinand

Recently I flew to Singapore. Outbound on Singapore airlines. Return on United.

I have no status on Singapore. Highest status on United.

Same aircraft and with no significant difference in interior.

Same catering service so the food was not really different.

Dramatically different experiences.

United was acceptable. Singapore was outstanding.

It was the small things.

On Singapore the stewards and stewards knew your name and looked at the passengers and smiled. The hot towels were hot. The utensils, napkin and the crockery may have been the same material but one just felt much more special. The contents of the vanity bag, the quality of the eye mask were all an edge above.

On one airline they asked how much cost can we remove and on another they think about how a few more dollars on a multiple thousand dollar ticket can make a difference so lets not be penny wise and pound foolish.

And smiles they are free.

Such small things made the difference.

Because small things matter.

Visual Art by Susan Swinand

Over the years many people have called me or reached out to me when in transition between jobs or when they are out of work or when they need a boost.

Almost every time I have responded and often met with or spoken to or written back to each of these people.

They no longer had power. They no longer had the big brand name. In some cases they were a confused hot mess because they had got laid off, their company had tanked or something dramatic had changed the trajectory of their career.

Many were surprised (especially when I had a big job in a big company ) that I made it a priority to find time to get back.

Almost every one of them in time got back on their feet or found their way and often soared to amazing career and vocational success.

Now once again they were in demand and everyone called back.

But they were different because of what they had experienced.

They no longer equated themselves with their positions and their big company brand names and they now called people back who needed help even if they might not have before.

Because it is when few people are willing to speak to somebody is exactly when we need to speak to them and pay attention.

It is a small thing.

But people remember.

Forever.

Because small things matter.

Visual Art by Susan Swinand

Small things and marketing.

For decades marketers have found certain stages in a person’s life where they are more susceptible to messaging and marketing.

Whether it is the impending birth of a child to a physical re-location there are times where people are more open to change or to paying attention.

Marketers also recognize that there are moments of interaction where up-selling or cross-selling is likely to be more successful, such as when someone is opening an account or when one is about to pay for items in one’s real or digital shopping cart.

Basically, marketers look for moments of greatest attention and interest.

The challenge is that everybody knows these rituals and some combination of high costs and fees to show up at these moments or a certain weariness and understanding by people of what is happening, makes these less differentiable.

If instead of thinking only about where someone is on a customer/purchase journey we think about where we can surprise them positively the most, or turn a negative to a positive, we find compelling moments.

For instance, if we want to get people to speak well about our product or service instead of advertising to them or desperately try to get likes or influencer mentions, why not give them a sample of the product for free? Why not re-allocate a portion of the communication budget to enhance the quality of the product or service which will then speak for itself and get its satisfied users to speak about it. In today’s world brands are more likely to scale through people if they have a superior product or service rather than just telling people they have a superior product or service.

Imagine if you were a cable company or publisher and re-allocate the “stop them from unsubscribing” budget where you slash prices, increase channels in a bundle or enhance broadband speeds to people who are quitting, to instead reward the most loyal customers by going to them and cutting their fees and/or upgrading their services to simply say thank you.

When someone least expects an act of generosity it has a tattoo like impact.

It means they are special, and they are not being taken for granted.

It is just a special small thing.

So many marketers promise to “surprise and delight” customers but do we really?

One or two small “surprise and delights” might be worth a year of messaging

Less is more. The rare is meaningful. The special resonates.

Traffic in scarcity to stand out in a world of abundance, sameness, and noise.

Thing about the small things, the moments that you can tattoo so by asking “what can we do and where can we do something that will make someone come away different”?

It may be small things.

But small things matter.

8 Perspectives on What Next?

We all wonder “what next?” since we will spend the rest of our lives in the future.

How can we best understand key trends and the opportunities and challenges tomorrow will bring?

What can and should we do to position ourselves, our teams and our businesses in a way that allows us to thrive?

One way is to ask a range of world class individuals who marry expertise, craft, bravery, risk-taking, passion and a track record of pioneering across a wide spectrum of subjects and areas, about what they believe is next in their fields.

Over the past four years I have spoken to over 100 talented people across the world who have made their mark in the arts, business, culture, science, technology and much more asking them for the three biggest things they see coming next that everyone should pay attention to.

These conversations are professionally recorded, distilled, edited and supported by a world class team working across three continents at the Publicis Groupe which then make it available completely free (no subscription fee and no advertising or promotion) on every major podcasting platform across the globe (and to all 106,000+ Publicis Groupe employees via the internal Marcel platform.)

You can find the conversations on Apple here:

You can find the conversations on Spotify here:

8 Perspectives from Season 5.

We record 24 shows each year in three seasonal bursts of 8 episodes.

This season of 8 shows reflects the range of guests and subjects which makes this show unique in that it does not focus on a subject, a country, an ideology or a technology.

We do not even have a well-defined “target audience”!

Just humans who want to learn and grow and ensure a better future.

So the conversations focus on helping people see, feel and think differently about how they can grow themselves, their teams and their business.

The goal is to have the listener come away with accelerated insights, actionable inspiration and a feeling that the guest helped them augment intelligence.

AI’s of a different type than the AI we are all preparing for.

Here is a very small sampling of perspectives from each of the 8 people we were privileged to speak with this season ( You can find all these 8 episodes plus the first 2 of the next season and dozens of other conversations on your choice of a podcast platform by typing in “What Next? Publicis Groupe”).

Listen to any one and it will open your mind. Listen to all eight and you will be significantly better off as a person and a professional. Your “what next” will likely be an upgraded version of you before you heard “What Next?”

1. John Kosner on the Future of Sports

John Kosner is the President of Kosner Media, a digital media and sports consultancy and an investment advisor to sports tech startups on the future of sports.

His four decades of expertise include building ESPN into the world's leading digital sports destination; he also struck ESPN's original streaming deal with Bamtech, which led to Disney's acquisition of Major League baseball's technology firm in 2016.

In a world where sports is dominating media and fusing with gaming anybody interested in business should listen to it (even if you are the rare bird who does not follow sports.)

John argues that sports will follow gaming into the interactive world building communities around sports players online and offline as younger fans look for new ways to engage.

He advises us to follow his old Disney colleague, Steve Jobs’ mantra: “beware the status quo” in a world where everything including sports is being re-imagined.

John explains why integrity and trust will be key in a world of sports as AI and sports betting scale.

2. Rudina Seseri on AI Language Models

Long before AI was cool Rudina Seseri, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures was investing in the space. Amidst the hysteria about AI it is great to hear a deeper, more reasoned and seasoned perspective on AI from someone with 19 years of investing and operational experience in high-growth AI and Frontier Technology companies.

Rudina argues that large language models will become smaller, more distilled, more refined, and therefore more powerful, while the transparency of the open-source and open model landscape will enable companies to control their own destinies.

Rudina also believes that the Coming Wave, predicted by author Mustafa Suleyman, will strip the paint off some AI companies to reveal the true AI-Natives set to thrive.

3. Richard Townsend on The Future of Work

Richard Townsend is CEO Workforce Learning at QA which delivers learning programs to some of the greatest companies in the world shares insights on how Al is going to create better humans.

He shared how the key is to get companies to adapt work and organization to AI versus just adding skills and expertise.

How a growth mindset and learning organization will combine AI, data and the cloud in new ways to augment humans.

Augmented Humans is a profound idea.

And ultimately that is where real productivity starts to happen.

4. Lisa McCarthy on Up-skilling.

Lisa McCarthy is the CEO and co-founder of The Fast Forward Group, a training and executive coaching company that gives people a proven approach to think big, manage stress and achieve success and fulfillment in their whole life.

Prior to starting Fast Forward, Lisa spent 25 years at prominent media companies Univision, Viacom and CBS leading sales organizations responsible for billions in revenue. 

Lisa shares how to help teams overcome the toll of high-pressure, always-on workplaces where people feel professional success requires personal sacrifice.

Lisa explains that there will continue to be a significant war for talent and leaders are already learning that they will benefit more from up-skilling the people they have versus trying to get external talent that may or not make it in terms of onboarding.

5. Lou Paskalis on the Role of Advertising on News.

Lou Paskalis is Chief Strategy Officer of Ad Fontes Media, CEO and founder of AJL Advisory. Lou is a former president and chief operating officer of MMA Global and was a senior marketer at Gallo, American Express and Bank of America.

Lou frames and explains the business opportunity that the return to News represents for marketers which also has the added benefit of bolstering our society. He discusses why the unfounded fears of becoming collateral damage in the culture wars has sidelined many advertisers and deprived news publishers of a valuable source of advertising revenue at a time when they are actively combating disinformation and misinformation in a growing war on truth.
Lou notes that as AI becomes mainstream, the proliferation of misinformation it could create will exacerbate what we are already seeing today. Some bad actors will introduce "deep-fakes" that will be harder for consumers to discern and technology to detect. These ultimately threaten everything from the way business gets done to our society and indeed, democracy itself.

But at the same time, AI will help news publishers hone the appeal of their core product by helping them easily and efficiently tailor their offerings to disparate audiences.

There are big opportunities for savvy marketers to partner with news publishers by investing in news advertising and enabling new technologies to bring both news and their messages forward to grow their business.

6. Mark Grether on Mobility Media.

Mark Grether today runs Uber's advertising business in over 30 markets. He also sold Sizmek to Amazon and was the one of the architects of WPP's Xaxis.

Mark explains why we are in the renaissance of marketing and it is not that CMO's are being eliminated but rather they are being elevated as marketing becomes the growth driver in this new age.

Mark predicts there will be many more platforms ( Like Uber, Walmart Connect and much more) as companies realize they are in a B To C business ( products and services to consumers) and a B to B ( data monetization for partners and companies) business.

How mobility media is joining mobile media to create a new palette of opportunities, businesses and experiences for people because knowing where someone is and where they are going is as important as who they are. And why soon the car may be another living room and the auto companies will be huge ad sellers at Cannes selling their connected (tv and other) experiences.

How online and offline, above the line and below the line and much more are fusing and why fusion is the path forward from confusion.
Why businesses have always used machine learning in media to find the right person at the right place and the right time but AI will allow one to craft the right creative.

7. Joey Hubbard on Wellbeing.

Joey Hubbard has worked with Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant and many leaders before becoming the Chief Training Officer at Thrive Global which he co-founded with Arianna Huffington.

Joey believes a key to the future is to be resilient and understand why looking after your and your team's well-being is critical.

One has to be well. To lead well.
Joey shares provocative insights into how to thrive given the pressures of today including

a) why workplaces mandating RTO need to offer something to “earn the commute”.

b) taking care of yourself is the least selfish thing you can do!

c) the power of tiny habits which we can leverage right away.

8. Kirthiga Reddy on Blockchain.

Kirthiga Reddy was the first employee of Facebook in India. She is a transformative leader, pioneering engineer, advocate for fairness/opportunity and also a hugely successful leader at Meta/Facebook, first female investment partner of Softbank, co-founder of Liftery and now the CEO and Co-Founder of Generative AI and Blockchain start up Virtualness.
In this conversation, Kirthiga discusses the enabling opportunities provided by Blockchain, Generative AI, and the rise of India.
Kirthiga argues that in the world of Gen AI, blockchain is going to become even more important for creators, brands, sports media, and entertainment.
Kirthiga believes that the read-write-own era that blockchain ushers will give individuals including many who have never had the ability to leverage their talent new ways to monetize their side hustles (and also main hustles) and help bring forth a fairer and more creative world.

She envisions a future where all moments that matter — including awards, certificates, memorabilia -- will be on blockchain.

And if these are not enough you can hear the first two episodes of Season 6 where Sophie Williams a former leader at Netflix speaks about the need for more senior women and John Winsor an executive in residence at Harvard Business School shares thinking about being open and about talent in the cloud.

Or hear episodes about Managing Gen Z from author Heather McGowan or how to best give and receive feedback from executive coach Kim Scott. Or hear about about risk taking, failure, trust and continuous re invention from the legendary Maurice Levy.

Coming soon the future of law, cancer care, and much much more.

All subscription and commercial free and accessible on every major platform in the world.

Click here for access to all the episodes of “What Next?”on Spotify

And here for access to all the episodes of “What Next?” on on Apple

The Age of De-Bossification.

Illustrations by Ralph Steadman

In many industries particularly “White-collar” ones the era of “bosses” is in decline.

There is a rise in the need for leaders, guides, coaches, mentors, role-models, creators, and builders.

Less of a clamoring for bosses, managers, controllers, monitors, evaluators, and paper pushers.

This shift has been driven by changing demographics, the spread of technology, the rise of unbundled and distributed work, new behavior expectations, and a re-definition of what “work” is including the rise of fractionalized and free-agent talent who work for themselves or at multiple jobs and are expected to comprise most of the work force in the US by the end of the decade.

How to a “de-bossify “ourselves or help others do so and therefore adapt from being a “boss” to a “leader”?

Illustrations by Ralph Steadman

Step 1: Be Aware of Bossy Traits!

All of us have both worked for and in times of pressure we ourselves have displayed one or more of these “bossy” traits:

1. THE NARCISSISTIC GOD. These bosses believe that only they know the answer, only they are capable of handling the major meeting, and only they should get the credit for their teams’ success. They often believe they transcend the company. In many instances, they create a godlike cult that worships their every move, using public relations and social media to spread the word.

2. THE MICROMANAGING FIDDLER. These folks are terrific operators—they know how to get things done—but as managers, they retain their obsessive detail orientation. They tell their people what to do and insist they check in with them at every stage. They are insecure and can’t let go of anything. They often manage via spreadsheets or the need for slavish following of systematic procedures.

3. THE OSCAR ASPIRANT. These types emote, loudly and dramatically. Erratic and unpredictable, they are a roller coaster of emotions. They greet bad news with histrionics and good news with hyperbole.

4. THE SCHEMING SPHINX. This is the person who smiles, blows air-kisses and oozes charisma and friendship, says nor shares anything substantial, while sucking up as much information and probing for vulnerabilities. A blend of insecurity and bully juice wrapped in a blanket of charm while oozing calm and friendliness.

5. THE DOUBLE-CROSSING ASSASSIN. While the previous four types are expressive (or anti-expressive in the case of the Scheming Sphinx) in their terribleness, Assassins are soft-spoken, well-behaved, and self-controlled. Behind closed doors, however, they take credit for other people’s work, create animosity by speaking ill of people to others, and find ways to trip up others and make them fail.

Illustrations by Ralph Steadman

Step 2: Understand why the old model is collapsing.

Once upon a time a manager controlled the flow of information, access to opportunities and was a font of expertise and craft.

Today the half-life of knowledge is growing shorter and shorter and the “way of this is the way things were done” is often the opposite of what needs to be done as new competitors and customer expectations do not care a fig about the way it was or is.

AI will turbo-charge this change in ways deeper and faster than anyone of us can even comprehend as the cost of knowledge goes to zero and enables talented individuals to combine, re-combine, scale and re-invent in new ways.

Talent can find information, opportunity, and knowledge at a click of a mouse, a sharply written prompt or the pinch of a finger.

The unbundling and distribution of where and when we work has just begun and culture, teams and excellence will need to be cultivated across time and space with limited in-person interaction as the age of AI, Web 3, XR will make working anywhere and everywhere increasingly the default state in white collar industries making old-fashioned monitoring, controlling, and overseeing difficult.

Illustrations by Ralph Steadman

Step 3: Understand New Leadership.

Modern leadership is about zone of influence versus zone of control.

People follow people and not titles.

Leadership is a role and not a job title.

It is a way of being infused with a passion for excellence and a quest for middle to long term multi-stakeholder growth (company, community, employee, leader) versus a focus on the short term and emphasizing only investors/owners.

It is the ability to communicate and motivate in person and across space. To tattoo moments and make the most of every interaction. To inspire, guide, mentor, build, empathize and unleash.

Most importantly it is about the continuous feedback and learning of a growth mindset.

Illustrations by Ralph Steadman

Step 4: Transforming from boss/manager to leader/coach.

As times change the best managers adapt and learn and flex into new shapes and learn new skills. Transformation is possible for those who care to try.

Just because someone has bossy traits and was forged in a different era does not mean they cannot re-invent and re-wire their skills if they want to.

This transformation requires three conditions:

First it requires today’s bosses to accept that to grow and remain relevant they will have to change and while it may be difficult it is better than becoming irrelevant.

Second it requires their leaders to ensure that new incentive systems that are more about zone of influence, growth of craft and people versus zone of control of budgets and team size are put into place.

A new way requires new pay.

Third there is an urgent need for coaching and training and patience to help today’s managers become tomorrow’s leaders.

A personal hunger supported by new incentives and buttressed with training including the opportunity to self-learn is the formula.

Talent is short and it is a mistake to believe that seasoned employees cannot grow into new potential.

New brooms sweep clean but old brooms know the corners.

The 3 Relevances.

Photography by Felicia Perretti

Change sucks.

But irrelevance is even worse.

Today most firms, institutions and individuals are grappling with 3 levels of relevance.

Does my firm have a relevant business model for the future?

Does my company have the relevant organizational structure, talent mix and suppliers/partners to succeed tomorrow? 3.

Do we as leaders and practitioners have relevant skills and expertise to navigate the transformed world ?

Photography by Felicia Perretti

Relevant business models.

A case can be made that every company needs to interrogate its business model given the changes in technology, demographics and mindsets.

When a company finds itself in trouble it tends to be for two reasons:

Culture: A cultural breakdown due to some combination of a toxic environment, outmoded incentive models or inappropriate leadership. ( Boeing today, Wells-Fargo some time ago).

Competition: An existential crisis driven by a new different economic or distribution model that usually emerges from outside its category definition or usual competitors. ( Tesla and Uber challenges to established auto-makers, linear networks challenged by streaming.)

This culture and competitive soup is now being stirred robustly by AI, Block-chain and XR.

Today AI is driving the cost of knowledge to zero and changing the economics of everything from protein folding to content creation. It is also enabling individuals and small companies to gain scale and capabilities for a few hundred dollars a month that match those of many large companies in an increasing number of areas.

At the same time Blockchain is both creating new ledgers of trust but also allowing creators to own and watermark their work in a world where large tech companies have taken most of the profits and modern AI models are training on their IP.

Upcoming breakthroughs in XR ( Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Spatial Computing) will change communication, creativity and collaboration dramatically within the next three years or less. ( Apple Vision Pro is a threat to any TV manufacturer once its price declines in a few years.)

Smart companies and leaders are re-thinking their business model in various ways including:

a) Blank Sheet Approaches: Working with their internal teams and partners and consultants to re-imagine their business if they were starting today. If they were to begin our company today to satisfy the needs of their customers how would they do it?

b) Attack Mode: If they were to bring their company to its knees as a next age competitor with no legacy constraints but just legal and scientific constraints what would they do?

World class talent and companies never get defeated. They defeat themselves by placing constraints that only exist in their mind or culture or current business models.

Photography by Felicia Perretti

Relevant structures and systems.

The future does not fit in the containers of the past.

Most incentive plans are often optimized to deliver today rather than ensure tomorrow.

In a high velocity and fluid world, partnering and openness rather than control and closed systems are likely to thrive.

Three approaches are often used to re-think structures and systems:

a) Multiple Models: World class companies and leaders run schizophrenic models that have teams focussed on today as well as having teams focussed on tomorrow. These teams often with completely different structures, incentive plans and timelines. While major talent is focussed on today, quite a few world class players in the company are allocated to tomorrow and incentivized to deliver tomorrow’s vs legacy metrics.

b) New Incentive Systems: Firms that have incentives, talent and power structures focused primarily on current delivery while claiming to be future forward should not be taken seriously. Incentive plans, talent allocation and organizational structure drive tomorrow and not strategy decks, flurries of press releases or the announcement of future 20xx task forces.

c) Wider Eco-systems: The best leaders have also begun to re-design the eco-system and architectures of their companies. Many have started to partner aggressively to quickly scale talent while ensuring flexibility looking across wider horizons to ensure both relevance and access to technology. (Microsoft has embraced Linux, partnered with Open AI and long ago dropped the Windows operating division.)

Photography by Felicia Perretti

Are we still relevant?

Companies do not transform people do.

A company remains relevant if its people and leaders remain relevant.

Today anyone who began work less than five years ago needs to find a way to both learn new capabilities but also unlearn some old habits.

This is particularly true for senior leaders with many decades of experience.

The way it was is not the way it is and definitely not the way it will be.

Change is coming much faster than we can hope to retire.

These changes are not just technological, but need to incorporate new mindsets of talent, different economic models and an expectation for leaders and companies to deal with political and social agendas whether they wish to or not.

The key to remaining relevant in the future is to upgrading our mental operating systems.

Leaders everywhere are embracing the new way through a combination of experimenting and using modern technology, hiring coaches, being reverse mentored, partnering with academia and schools and connecting with other leaders to share best practices on learning.

The best companies are also re-allocating dollars to training and learning and mandating up-skilling.

Twisting ourselves into new shapes takes time and practice and can hurt.

It is like going to the gym. Initially difficult and painful.

Some keys to remaining relevant followed by world class talent and leaders.

a) Learning: Leaders today allocate 5 to 10 hours a week to learn and they allocate at least a fifth of their time to think about and re-imagine their firms for tomorrow. If leaders only spend their time on today they realize that their company will not be taken to tomorrow. It is no longer enough to be up to date. One must ensure our teams and skills are up to tomorrow.

b) Monitoring:Leaders watch where top talent from schools are going or where VC and PE money is being driven.

c) Stepping out of comfort zones and category definitions: Tomorrow has already happened elsewhere.

“The future is already here- its just not very evenly distributed” William Gibson

Too many people go to the same industry conferences which are often nothing but incestious gatherings that generate still-born ideas. Best to leave the rote and familiar that feels like Ground Hog day and go to conferences or events of other industries or in other countries.

Regardless of what each of us do we need to address the 3 relevances regarding the future since our firms, our teams, and ourselves are going to spend the rest of our lives there…

Being Better

Peuple basque, Bilbao. Pierre de Vallombreuse,

Often we are told that to succeed one has to be “hard core”.

To be “tough as nails” and be “messianic in mission”.

To strut and take a stance that projects “dominant presence.”

To show no weakness and to “go for the kill”

While sometimes these approaches may work there may be a better way.

To be generous. To be kind. To treat people with dignity.

Reflection. Jhu Ziabin.

Generosity as Strategy.

If strategy is future competitive advantage, generosity is smart for individual or company strategies.

Generosity builds good will which is both an asset and a moat.

It is an asset in that it can be tapped in the future.

It is a moat because when an individual or a company has been generous in times of trouble their employee or customer are less likely to switch to a different firm for a lower price or higher pay.

Generosity is also a key differentiator in that usually when a person or firm needs help there are few people willing to help someone out of power or in trouble. Those individuals and brands who do help stand out and their showing up and helping when others are not burns into the emotional and mental memory of the recipient.

Emotional connections are harder to sever or replace than financial connections.

A story shared with me:

“Long ago, must be 30 years ago or more, I went into Tiffany’s to purchase one cufflink.

 The night before I had attended a black-tie event and one cufflink must have worked itself free (it was the solid type, and was difficult to get on and off), and I lost it off my sleeve. Just wasn't there when I got home.

I said to the counter person that I just wanted to buy one cufflink to match the other one. 

She left. 

She returned with the typical Tiffany's blue box with the white ribbon. "Here you go...no charge," she said.

I couldn't believe it.

You must be -- at least -- the 400th person I have told this story to.”

Brands today cannot succeed unless their employees are happy. It is the employees who after all provide the service to customers and clients. It is the employees who generate the ideas and solve the problems. It is often the employees who are most believed and can be the greatest ambassadors and advocates of a brand. Often employees are far more authentic ambassadors than a celebrity that companies give tens of millions too. Why not be generous in care, money, and attention to employees?

Paper-cut Silhouette. Xinfeng Hu.

Kindness is Key.

One of the keys to a good life and possibly success at work is kindness.

This includes not just being kind to other people but kind to oneself.

Often we spend our time regretting, self-flagellating, doubting our decisions and wondering if we can ever measure up especially in a world filled with standards and measures that are unattainable.

In today’s competitive marketplace of rapidly transforming landscapes and constant benchmarking we often forget that we are dealing not just with buyers, sellers, users, members, competitors, analysts, scientists, management and employees but with analog, carbon based, feeling filled people.

Humans.

Messy and Moody. Dream filled and desire driven.. Anxiously ambitious. Undulating with uncertainty.

Kindness is a way to connect in a world where connections are key.

But it not easy to model in an Excel spreadsheet, display in a PowerPoint , or be described with any depth by GPT.

The machine will rapidly compute an answer, garland it with perspective, refine and correlate what has been fed into its innards, and then emit an output in a dazzling display of verbosity.

Answers that may awe us.

But rarely move us.

The author George Saunders gave a short and remarkable speech on the importance of kindness which everyone should listen to.

A key theme is “to err in the direction of kindness”

Some key passages of his talk to students

“When young, we’re anxious — understandably — to find out if we’ve got what it takes. Can we succeed? Can we build a viable life for ourselves? But you — in particular you, of this generation — may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition. You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can . . .

And this is actually O.K. If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously — as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.

Still, accomplishment is unreliable. “Succeeding,” whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there’s the very real danger that “succeeding” will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.

Do all the other things, the ambitious things — travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness.”

Later George was interviewed on this talk which went viral after it was posted in the New York Times on why kindness was important and here is what he said:

“Ninety-nine percent of the time if you just do your best to be kind, you’re better off. It’s the basic things, like trying to have good manners, keeping your assumptions about the other person a little open, being willing to revise your opinion.

NW Washington State Fair. Ryder Collins.

Dignity Matters.

Dignity  is the  right  of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in  morality ,  ethics ,  law  and  politics  as an extension of the  Enlightenment -era concepts of  inherent, inalienable rights . The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity" (Wikipedia)

Marcel Proust wrote that it is “not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes that is the only true voyage”.

In Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, a book combining essay and photographs, Chris Arande reminds Front Row America “that we have removed ourselves physically and in spirit from much of the country and when we look back, we do it through papers and books filled with data.”

He goes on to note that “we have implemented policies that focus narrowly on one value of meaning which is the material. We emphasize GDP and efficiency, those things that we can measure, leaving behind those that are harder to quantify-like community, happiness, friendship, pride, and integration.

And if economics and material goods are the primary form of valuation then education is the way out implying that those who do not make it are dumb, lazy, and stupid.” And education is harder to get , more expensive and the elite schools a luxury good that resemble “Hermes” bags.

He warns that “this has ensured that all those at the bottom, educationally and economically-black, white, gay, straight, men and women feel excluded, rejected and most of all humiliated”

We have denied many their dignity, leaving a vacuum easily filled by drugs, anger, and resentment.

Try generosity, kindness and dignity.

It is not easy.

But it may be the way to being better.

Squeezing Time.

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali.

This post was inspired by a conversation with and informed by content provided by Chris Outram, EVP, Head of Blockchain for Publicis Groupe Media ,who provides ongoing coaching and homework to keep me updated on Web 3 which Publicis defines as a constellation of AI, Blockchain, and XR (AR/VR/Spatial Compute).

1. Squeezing more into time.

Is time squeezing us or are we squeezing time?

Everything seems and feels faster and paying attention or slowing down makes us a) wonder whether we will fall behind, b) fear we are missing out (FOMO), or c) we find things too slow, non-stimulative and boring.

We want it faster. Sooner. Quicker. More. Multi!

Across many fields we find ourselves addicted to an increased metronome of living:

The Rise of Dopamine Culture by Ted Gioia

2. Squeezing Screens into the same Time.

For the past few weeks I have been using Apple’s Vision Pro which in addition to being the best video and image content consumption device ever invented ( yes it is very expensive too) which also has pulled off a break-through in human and computer interface.

It has also enabled a multi-screen sensory experience where one can be writing a presentation, scrolling a social feed, watching a stock ticker, enjoying a movie and much more without the need for multiple screens or a lot of space.

It takes multi-tasking to another level and it can be done anywhere!

As the technology improves, the weight is diminished and the price reduced one can imagine that in less than three years this may be a large part of our future.

3. Squeezed by being born at the wrong time.

In the first chapter of my forthcoming book “Rethinking Work” I reveal many generational shifts and demographic trends that will alter the future of work. It was in this context that I learned about “Financial Nihilism” as Gen-Z and Millennials have a starkly different outlook to capitalism, companies and the way world works .

Many of them believing that the odds are stacked against them.

From Financial Nihilism by Travis Kling

“Demetri Kofinas, the host of the Hidden Forces podcast coined the term “financial nihilism” – the idea that cost of living is strangling most Americans; that upward mobility opportunity is out of reach for increasingly more people; that the American Dream is mostly a thing of the past; and that median home prices divided by median income is at a completely untenable level.

Financial Nihilism goes hand in hand with Populism – a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.”

Here is a chart that shows how difficult it is to buy a home:

Source: longtermtrends.net . As of October 2023.

“You can see Boomers (and GenX) bought all the houses at about 4.5x annual income. Then subprime lending fueled the housing bubble and the bubble collapsed. Not long thereafter, Millennials entered the workforce and got to the point where they could start buying houses at ~5.5x annual income. Then Covid happened, the Fed printed $6 trillion, and now houses are 7.5x annual income, much higher than even the peak of the housing bubble. Simply out of reach for many millions of Americans under 40. The numbers just don’t add up.”

4. Squeezing returns in a faster time frame through massive risk.

While the equity markets have done well over time they are very expensive when compared to median income.

Below is the ratio of Median Household Income to the S&P 500. It calculates how many shares of the SPX index fund can one buy with a year’s worth of median income.

Source: FRED. As of Q3-23.

Back in the early 60’s you could get 94 shares of the SPX with the median household income. That peaked in the crash of 1982 at 219 shares and then structurally collapsed. The stock market is getting less and less affordable for the average American.

So what does one do?

Gamble and find ways to get massive returns in short time since the other options appear to be too slow, too expensive or too closed.

On sports. On meme stocks. On One Day Expiry Options.

Or how about meme coins like catwifhat

People who bought 1 million catwifhat meme coins on Feb 24 would pay a little less than 17 cents which if they had sold a week later on March 1 would have got $5.69 or a 33X (3300) percent return.

3300 percent in a week is mind blowing but is it really?

Lets look at recent price action on some of these coins below.

Yes, Mfer coin has gone up 1 million percent in the past 24 hours, 19.16 percent in the past hour and up 5.46 percent in the past five minutes. But if you had bought Fat Cat 6 hours ago you would be down 47.76 percent but if you had bought it five minutes ago you would be up 10.35 percent.

Hard to get excited about 10 percent return in a quarter for S&P 500 right?

Even though this stuff below will wipe most people out!

5. Short squeezing time?

This meme stuff is irrational one might say.

So lets look at the financials of a stock that is valued at 9 billion dollars and began trading this week.

Yes, you are reading this chart correctly. DJT stock is valued at 9 billion dollars and has revenue of 3.6 million dollars in nine months with a loss of 50 million.

It is selling for 2512 times its revenue compared to Meta at 9.3 times revenue and Reddit which at 11.7 times revenue.

One has an urge to short it.

But one could end up with nothing but ones shorts since shorting this will be taking on a movement and not a financial instrument.

We are not just living in “interesting times”.

We are squeezing time…

On Stuff.

Visual by Gemini Advanced

A colleague and friend recently asked a question:

Do we own stuff or does stuff own us?

His family was in the midst of a career driven move and a lot of the discussion had to do with stuff.

Does one sell or rent or keep a home empty.

If one sells it or rents it what to do with all the stuff inside. And the cars and …

This is a very Western and particularly American issue given that in many parts with hundreds of millions lacking basic necessities but a widespread issue.

The average American household contains 300,000 items; the U.S. has only 3.1% of the world’s children but 40% of the world’s toys; and Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on non-essential items — ie, items they don’t need.

According to the Organizer Chicks Blog:

“In 1960, the average family had 2.4 children, and the average home was around 1,100 square feet. By 2010, the average American family had only 0.9 children and 2,300 square feet. So, as a country, we have fewer people living in more square feet than ever before.”

There is a famous law called “Parkinsons Law” which states that the duration of tasks expand to fill their allotted time spans, regardless of the amount of work to be done.

Work expands to fit time available.

The same thing has happened with space. According to the National Association of Productivity and Organizing, 75% of American households can’t park even 1 car in their two-car garage.

This has made self-storage a huge industry in the US with 39 billion dollars of revenue and it is enjoying exploding growth:

In 2022 there were more self-storage facilities (52,786) than the combined locations of some of the largest restaurant chains in the United States. (This suggests a new chain should open with self-serve facilities in every storage facility and we may have the next McDonalds or Starbucks created in a hurry).

Unfortunately there is little co-relation between stuff and happiness. In fact there appears to be a negative co-relation as people a) compare their stuff with other peoples stuff, b) are tied down by their stuff..almost a legacy cost that keeps them rooted, c) have to pay a lot in increased rent or mortgage to house their stuff and d) apparently spend 17 minutes a day finding what they want among the stuff they have.

Thus the popularity of Marie Kondo and their ilk.

The irony is now we are surrounded by too much Marie Kondo and she also sells stuff!

Merchandise or “Merch” is the currency of the social media age.

Another Philosophy.

One of my favorite books is called Vagabonding and one of my most popular posts was on the philosophy of Vagabonding.

Vagabonding is an outlook on life.

Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions.

Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It’s an uncommon way of looking at life-a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And as much as anything, vagabonding is about time-our only real commodity-and how we choose to use it.

Among the best if not the single best book on wealth is Morgan Housel’s “Psychology of Wealth”. If you have not read it you are truly missing out on a combination of wealth and life wisdom written with such a fusion of intelligence, insight, illumination and inspiration that you are unlikely to look at money, finance and wealth in the same way ever again.

There are many many lessons and practical applications in the book but a key underlying message is simply one word.

Enough.

Here is one story:

“At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.” Enough. I was stunned by the simple eloquence of that word—stunned for two reasons: first, because I have been given so much in my own life and, second, because Joseph Heller couldn’t have been more accurate. For a critical element of our society, including many of the wealthiest and most powerful among us, there seems to be no limit today on what enough entails.”
― Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

Keys to Success: The 3 Dualities.

Painting by Rene Magritte

Successful leaders, teams and companies that endure over the long run seek to find ways to balance, unite and integrate opposing dualities into a harmonic and flexible approach that leverage opposing tendencies without merging or averaging them.

Here are three key dualities we should all become masters of managing whether it be personally or for our organizations.

Roots and Wings.

Story and Spreadsheet.

Centralized Control and Edge Power.

Painting by Rene Magritte

Roots and Wings

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.

Roots provide stability, a place to stand, a passed along tradition and a sense of history.

But roots alone which are important to ensure one does not get blown away by the winds of change might anchor one too much to the past and to a status quo which may no longer be relevant.

Thus, the importance of wings.

The ability to raise oneself and see above the horizon, to look down with new perspectives and to ensure that the roots which feed us do not wither by failing to adapt to a new world.

Roots nourish via what we were and where we came from and what we did.

Wings encourage us to go where we need to and to blaze new trails which will lay down tomorrows roots and are a highway to what we will accomplish. 

If every individual and company is a story with a place we came from, every individual and a firm is also about a place we are going to.

We all integrate the dualities of roots and wings.

Too rooted and we may wither way as changing times and climate bring drought to the place and way we were.

Too winged and we may be blown away in the gusts of change.

Too rooted and we may be seen as old school, hide bound to tradition and inflexible.

Too ready to fly with change may find us painted as unreliable, undisciplined, and short-term oriented.

Transformation is twisting ourselves and companies into new shapes with the clay of what we were and new skills and pieces we acquire.

Painting by Rene Magritte

Story and Spreadsheet.

Today we live in a data driven, silicon based, algorithmic powered world.

As we all fixate on forging things with the scalability, math and plumbing of data, a case may be made that true wealth and joy are being sculpted with the specialness, magic, and poetry of creativity.

A story is “data with a soul” and “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”

Humans seek the magical, choosing with our hearts and then using numbers to justify what we just did.

If humans made ROI decisions, we would not have children since on a financial and other numerical criteria they do not compute.

Disney has the “Magic Kingdom” and not the “Algorithmic Kingdom” and Disney+ invests in data and technological capital to ensure competitiveness but they differentiate using creative and intellectual capital.

Netflix stock price fluctuates on its ability to attract new subscribers which is directly co-related with its ability to launch new creative endeavors and its true difference today versus other competitors is not necessarily just it’s celebrated data but it’s ability to harness global creative talent versus most competitors who focus on creative national talent.  Eg. Squid Games.

Until Novo Nordisk (maker of Ozempic and Wegovy) the most valuable company in Europe was LMVH (now number 2) the owner of Louis Vuitton and Tiffany and the most valuable company in the world was Apple. Both found ways to be spreadsheet operators at the highest level while differentiating on story telling and creativity.

Both companies have amazing supply chains and foundries/technologies, but they differentiate versus competitors and have an ability to charge significant premiums (they manage to get their buyers to forgo data driven decision making that many marketers fixate on) by focusing on provenance, materials, design, innovation, and storytelling.

Wealth and Brands are created through combining story and spreadsheet. Today when a new dawn of creativity and making is being unleashed and data and tech is being commoditized and offered as ingredients and service, we need to make sure we are focusing on our ability to attract, retain, train, re-aggregate and unleash talented creators and makers. And to do so in a flexible way, in fear free innovative cultures that modern technology and the new unbundled distributed workspace of tomorrow are enabling.

Let us stop fixating on the Arrows (how they are made, how many big lakes full of them we have and how cheaply we can buy them) and instead let us focus on the Archers.

Getting the arrows is not too difficult but attracting and motivating the archers is.

Painting by Rene Magritte

Centralized Control and Edge Power.

If one studies the history of any firm you will find it oscillate from being centralized to decentralized every few years.

A firm may begin decentralized but then find some combination of issues with quality control, duplication of costs, complexity or a legal snafu results in a massive centralization drive.

Now centralized the company finds itself ossified and process driven. It is now too slow to move in a rapidly changing world with a one size fits all approach that is rejected by different types of firms that the company is comprised of or a lack of sensitivity to different geographies. The center is too far removed from the day to day reality of business trench warfare and and so the pendulum swings the other way.

Stay in a company for a decade or more and you will go on a round trip ride from one dogma to the the other.

The reality is that successful companies combine both of these tendencies at the same time rather than swinging wildly from one side to another.

There are significant advantages driven by the scale of spending ( combined they give a buyer leverage), quantity of data ( in a world of large language models one needs firm wide access to data) and emerging challenges (responsible AI) which require a centralized approach either at a country, regional or global level calling for a co-ordinated approach as a starting point for legal, data, account/client management and procurement services which are then adapted and tailored for local realities of culture and law.

On the other hand innovation and experimentation occurs on the edge and many accounts and clients are deeply idiosyncratic in the way they do business and expect to be serviced uniquely in customized ways. In these cases the edge drives the interaction and innovation which is then reported back to center who a)create new best practices by identifying patterns across markets and b) modify any central edicts in response to the twitchy signals from the edge.

World class technology that enables information to flow freely and a culture of open communication and collaboration with a focus on excellence are the key factors that allow the combination of center and edge.

If the tech and data enables but the teams are engaged in a civil ware it will not work.

If every body gets along but there is no data and tech sensitivity to calibrate and implement changes in real time will also fail.

The debate of center versus edge is so twentieth century.

It is now combining the duality of center and edge.

Roots and Wings. Story and Spreadsheet. Center and Edge.

Duality wins.

Fractionalized Employment Now!

Photography by Albrecht Voss

Most of us need to work and it is central to our identity.

Yet, even though work is important most of us do not define ourselves solely by work.

We have many other identities and responsibilities (parent, caregiver, sailor, artist…) that make us who we are or passions we wish to pursue.

To integrate and deal with the spectrum of what life brings we could work at a job with all its benefits but also constraints or be a free-lancer/independent worker with all its freedoms but uncertainties.

Today due to several forces there is the possibility of another way as we architect the future of work.

A way that benefits both the individual employee and the firm.

Photography by Albrecht Voss

Four Forces.

Four con-current forces are re-sculpting the nature of work and what constitutes a company in the most dramatic ways in over a century.

1. AI: AI will significantly enhance productivity. Companies will be be able to do more with less. While new types of jobs will be created and enhanced productivity can allow companies to invest in new areas so employment will grow, it is very likely that the need for employees in any existing knowledge role will decline.

People will either do higher level tasks or be trained for new tasks or see a demand for their existing skills diminished.

2. Declining populations combined with an explosion of older people: Except for the continent of Africa most countries particularly Europe, the US, China, and Japan which account for most of the global GDP are seeing shrinking populations.

At the same time all these countries are seeing rapidly aging populations with 10,000 people turning 60 every day in the US. Many of these aging folks have skills and expertise that will remain critical in an AI age ( perspective, mentoring people, expertise in craft) and are likely to want to or need to work for financial or other reasons but may not want to or be in a position to work full-time.

3. Covid-19: Unbundled and distributed work has changed people’s mindsets. Our minds are like champagne corks that once opened swell and do not fit back in the bottle. Everything is being questioned from the nature of work to the role of management.

People want to and need to work but many now no longer ask how do I find time for my life in a world of work but rather how does work fit in my life?

4. Generational Mindsets and the Side-Gig: Today’s reality is that 66 percent of Gen-Z with a full-time job in the US have a side gig or side hustle and 76 percent want to work for themselves. A plethora of new marketplaces from UpWork to Etsy to Shopify are enabling the feeding of passion projects, enhancing optionality and increasing income.

Photography by Albrecht Voss

The Fractionalized Employee.

Today most companies combine three types of work forces.

1)    A full-time employee,

2)    A full-time or part-time contracted employee from another firm (e.g., Wipro or Cap Gemini)

3)    Free-lancers (directly or via an intermediate firm)

Full-time employees are usually the backbone of any company and its culture with contracted and free-lancers being mixed in to expand expertise and manage oscillating workloads in a cost-effective manner.

We may now want to think of a fourth type of worker to reflect the forces of technology, shifting demographics and new mindsets: The Fractionalized Employee.

Imagine if one could get both the continuity and loyalty of a long-term employee with the flexibility of cost management of a part time employee and the expertise of a free-lancer and do so in a way that both grows employees and retains them in the long run.

This is the Fractionalized Employee.

Every employee in the company is given a choice to work 100%, 75% or 50% of their time.

They get to select this at the beginning of every year or can adjust to a different level when a life event occurs (health, birth of a child, need to take care of a parent, a passion that needs to be attended to or other life issues).

No longer does an employee have to choose between staying or going or being torn trying to do two things at one time. If they wish to try out a different type of non-competitive job (starting a gaming company –assuming they are not working at a gaming company--or being an artist or writing a book) it behooves their employer from letting them do so because retaining half or three quarters of a talented person is better than zero. As importantly these external skills or vocations will make the employee better rounded and probably more productive. And there will be cost savings from both reduced compensation but also eliminating the friction and cost of severance, re-hiring, and training.

And as AI makes companies realize they need to change, adapt and manage new talent mixes, fractionalized employment allows for a smart way to manage costs by dialing down employee cost while ensuring the dignity of continued employment, the security of continued health care and the enablement of those employees using the non-employment time to earn revenue or build new skills for an AI age or take care of personal needs.

And it will probably attract a lot of talent who may want to work 50 to 75 percent of their time.

Including the more seasoned who might only want to work half time. As countries grapple with aging and declining populations this is one way to address this issue.

For the employee they do not have to give up an income stream, health benefits or a part of their identity to build new skills, pursue new horizons or take care of life’s events. Over the course of a career, they can dial up and down the percentage they work.

The Fractionalized Employee model will allow companies to retain talent, grow talent, mix, and match talent in ways that are truly win-win.

Employees gain greater flexibility, optionality, opportunity for growth, managing life stages, and time to build additional expertise.

Employers can attract new types of talent, retain starts, elongate the careers of seasoned experts and long time employees, calibrate costs in humane ways that do not negatively impact culture, and enhance adaptability to changing circumstances.

Photography by Albrecht Voss

Overcoming the hurdles to Fractionalized Employment.

The fact that outside Australia and some countries in Europe this is a very rare option is due to several concerns among employers which need to be addressed.

There are many concerns from it will be hard to implement to employees will use this to prepare for their next gig to customers and clients will find it un-acceptable.

We must lose these controlling mindsets, fear filled mindsets and lack of imagination mindsets.

Employee Flight: Talent is not owned by a company. They work for the company. Giving them more flexibility is likely to increase retention since talent can now do their side hustle or passion project openly and bring that expertise and credibility into the company. The time they have for themselves can help them look after their families or try new stuff without having to leave their company. They often can also discover that the the grass is greener on the other side because it is fertilized with bullshit. Trust talent and they will trust back.

Client/Customer Challenges: Clients and Customers are likely to embrace this for a variety of reasons. First they are likely in an AI age want to continue to access their key talent but given productivity increases not need as much. Second, if given a choice between not having access to the folks they want or less access they are likely to opt for limited access. Third coverage can be guaranteed because fractionalized employees can be 100 percent available during key periods and the savings from their compensation can be used to provide customers with a wider palette of talent or other coverage.

Most talent organizations are really good and can definitely incorporate this new type of worker by adopting the following process to make this manageable:

Limited Choices.  Employees who wish to work less than full time but get full health benefits and pro-rated financial benefits such as bonuses or equity should be given only two alternative levels--50 percent of full time or 75 percent of full time.  This limitation makes the program easier to administrate and manage.  If people were allowed to select any percentage, it would be a nightmare for payroll and to arrange coverage when they were off work.

Limited Sign Up/Change Periods. An employee can only decide to change their percentage once a year during a particular two-week period—perhaps in September of the previous year for the following year. The only exception would be a major life or health event.  This enables companies to forecast how many workers they will need and how work gets covered. It also enables far easier administration.

Limited Eligibility. Being selective helps funnel high performing candidates into the fractionalized program, a key measure since the program is designed for the company’s best talent and those who are well-versed in the company’s culture and processes.  To limit eligibility, the following criteria are useful:

a)Having a minimum number of years of service.  For example, one must have worked in the company for at least x years full time before being eligible.

b)Achieving a specific level of performance or a minimum rating level (only candidates with levels evaluation).

c)Restricting eligibility.  Certain roles which require full-time presence such as overseeing a large team or providing continuous service to a highly demanding customer.

Companies that allow for Fractionalized Employment are going to have a significant advantage in a world of AI, changing demographics, new mindsets and emerging marketplaces.