New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World—and How to Make It Work for You

by Jeremy Heimans

“The euphoria faded, we failed to build consensus, and the political struggle led...

Social media only amplified ...

by facilitating the spread of misinformation, rumors, echo chambe...

What Podemos teaches us is how to avoid the ...

it began with the greatest ideological commitment to new power. Yet its success depend...

Of course, there are challenges inherent in the Podemos approach. We should always think twice when charismatic leaders claim to represent the voice of the people, and Podemos remains overly reliant on the force of Iglesias’s personality.

There is risk, too—which Podemos is well aware of—that idealism in campaign mode will turn to entitlement and cynicism when it governs.

Many of us understand how to speak old power—after all, that is the world we grew up in. Rising generations may have new power as their mother tongue.

But those who really change the world will become fluent in both.

Younger workers, and others as well, are increasingly pushing back against norms like hierarchy, loyalty, and the very idea of the specialized professional who stays in her lane.

Old power and new power are colliding in today’s workplace.

Many of our old power leaders grew out of a world that prized those who fit well into a set process and organizational structure.

Yet today, that exact skill can be seen as a major liability.

In the twenty-first century, managerialism as both ideology and practical reality is under assault. Our cultural heroes are increasingly scrappy...

efficiencies of managerialism are seen as sand in the wheels of innovation; decades-loyal “company men” are being replaced by contingent and on-demand workers; and an amorphous “maker culture”...

Old power managers are facing workplaces that can feel like they are full of wannabe Elon Musks, with vastly higher expectations and unending demands for feedback, with one eye on the...

Just imagine for a moment that your workplace functioned with the same dynamics and incentives as a social network like Instagram.

Throughout the day, you would enjoy a steady stream of praise,

It is both easy and common to cast a new generation of workers as narcissists:

whiny millennials desperate to spend every moment talking about themselves and their feelings, and expecting a medal for doing so.

But it is smarter to see these expectations as signals that the workplace has failed to create the satisfying feedback loops that have mu...

“more than half (53%) of respondents said having their passions and talents recognized and addressed is their top reason for remaining at their current company.”

There is a reason that feedback and recognition are so highly prized by the new power set. For most, their lives are punctuated (perhaps even defined) by the validation and engagement of others.

Every text, every image, every post is a call designed for a response: the drip-drip-drip of dopamine-reward they rec...

Being judged, in explicit and implicit ways, is part of their lives. It is how they navigate,

guided by a galaxy of digital North Stars that shape, encourage, and catalyze every move.

Their lives are rich in ...

They measure their steps, calories...

and s...

Indeed, in our digital lives, we are increasingly conditioned to get badges and status upgrades for doing little more than showing up.

Of course, for many young workers this is the story not just of their digital lives, but also of their childhoods.

The parenting philosophy that governed their early years—build self-esteem above all—conspires to deliver the same artificial feedback loops as most social networks: persuading the individual that the ordinary moments of their lives are actually of extraordinary value.

Those who enter the workplace with this mindset often find that reality bites hard. And so do their bosses.

Products like TINYPulse offer a hint of what is to come: managers receiving and delivering feedback to new power workers in a way they’re familiar with—drip-drip-drip style.

There is a big opportunity here. Having a workforce of people who want more feedback and agency is not something to be squandered.

Note the opposite challenge in the old power workplace:

employees—especially those who have been undermanaged for years—who can view any kind feedback as a criti...

In a new power world, where people are increasingly skeptical of traditional institutions,

the great professional myth of our time is of the disruptive founder who builds a vast unlikely empire from scratch.

Is it any surprise the founder myth has such appeal?

a generation of elites who would have previously coveted a partner-track job at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey are now fantasizing about launching their own machine-learning start-up called something like Splotchy.

More broadly, even if we don’t dream of becoming a tech billionaire, we are now operating in a world where, across most facets of our lives,

we’re having founder-like experiences.

As we are more and more the creators of our own myths, leaders of our own communities...

What does it mean to want to feel and act like founders,

Simply overseeing or improving someone else’s initiative is no prize.

Their validation comes from what they create.

when you’re a founder, no middle managers are there to scold or micromanage you.

This mirrors the increasing demands in today’s workplaces for people to play roles that go far beyond their more narrowly defined job descriptions—and to play across disciplines and skills.

It is the era of the “side hustle”—a recent survey showed that almost a third of millennials now have an extra job on the side.