The non-real-time and non-liner fused business
(Something like that!)
Some ramblings about some of the big next steps from my PoV.
Lots of people are starting to write, discuss and pontificate about what the post pandemic world will bring us. So I am joining in with this 5 mins splurge of a blog post. I've found most of this narrative comes from a personal perspective so you end up with a rich tapestry of differing views. If you are a young person who lives in an urban environment strapped for cash or struggling for some reason your views will be different to an older person living in a remote countryside manor house and so on. Ever has it been thus. When we talk specifically about how this will affect work or how we should work then I think we all just need to accept that the way people will work best "depends". For me it depends on the topic, team, client, situation I am in etc. For others it depends on their own personal circumstances as well, and frankly a more limited set of choices than I have. And so on. So what this really is, is a chance to work out how we make work better for everyone. The winners in the race to "the best working environment in the world" will work in a truly fused way, blending virtual and real forms and shaping these and the tools & support that wrap their people. Because whatever happens one size has never worked for all, and it hasn't brought out the best in everyone, and never will.
This has made me think about the journey we were already on. The reality is most businesses are striving for the same ecosystem as everyone else and were on the journey of multi-located, multi-disciplinary teams, increasingly collaborative, increasingly insight driven and learning based (lean, agile blah blah blah). What this meant is that a lot of technology needed to support people in computer based roles was already in place. We just hadn't driven the culture change to achieve truly fused organisations and ways of working yet. We either needed a context shock or some other over-riding imperative. And we got one we really could have done without. This pushed these functions to "remote" working fast and meant we skipped a step. We missed the bigger question - how could we make work better?
This pushed these functions to "remote" working and meant we skipped a step. We missed the bigger question - how could we make work better?
The first thing I think we have entered into is what I am calling the non-real-time and non-linear world. In the past we used to operate through known paths driving us to theoretically certain successful outcomes (mostly myth) and we did this mostly together and in real-time. But because technology has finally put us in the place of un-nerving endless possibility (feasibility and viability constraints to one-side) - we are now finally seeing a dramatic rise in the adoption of design thinking at the heart of progressive organisations business models. This has not fully permeated, or settled well yet in most cases. However, this journey is here to stay IMO, and I see signs of strong organisational change looking to embed this in a way I haven't before.
Lets face it, too many businesses lack true differentiation, distinguished brand values, intimate customer relationships, unparalleled experiences and product & service innovation that changes people's lives. That and the fact that we have a new planet first imperative finally driving most organisations in the world today. Ambitious plans with no real paths to success defined. The drive to move from "innovation" hub'ed and separate is therefore strong, this has been a failed and challenged approach over the past 5 years any way. The two big challenges most businesses are suffering with is a huge relative drop in R&D spend, and no clear model to redirect or raise investment funds into. The start-up world is still rising and capital and venturing generally is rising in corporates. In many ways I see some industries, like financial services, looking at the start-up world as their R&D. Played right this is a lower risk capital play, so it's understandable. This of course would change dramatically if the true ecosystem driver bank were to emerge, but for now - why not! However, even for those models to work the company still needs to have some foresight into the market, customer and technology trends and how it would look to respond in order to rationalise those ventures. So it still needs to create a new way of thinking about how it understands the world. A world of non-linear and endless possibility!
Lets face it, too many businesses lack true differentiation, distinguished brand values, intimate customer relationships, unparalleled experiences and product & service innovation that changes people's lives.
The other part to this is a slightly different one, but on a day-to-day basis does change the way we work. It certainly changes the way we need to see, consume and understand information. And it also changes communication generally. The world no longer needs to be real-time all the time. We can work in different time-zones. Collaboration can be out of time if needed. Information can be transferred and consumed later. Insights can be recorded, but their use or understanding can come at another time. And as people weave their lives around the virtual and physical worlds and the work life balance means time is often distorted again. You can catch-up or participate and continue the required engagement indirectly. I think we still need to learn how to use this new secret weapon on our way to better working for all (there is an "i" in working, efficiency, partnership, collaboration etc.).
The second thing is "fused" organisations. For me these are businesses who have seamless capability between what generates an intimate and foresightful view of the customer and how the business can respond to this, in real-time sometimes, especially where the response can be entirely automated by the machine e.g. brand new requests for information when a pandemic hits or the need to provide a personalisation outcome in a customer experience.
This is a big area, and the likes of David Cushman and HFS Research with their one office concept, or our own team in Employee experience and Workplace with the likes of Daren Hughes and team etc. all talk to this. There's certainly an emerging frame for the technology ecosystem for this. To realise that model of course there needs to be a matched understanding of the way businesses could operate.
Do they understand how much automation could change the way they do business, serve their customers and even build future products and so on?
Do they have a way of using an elastic workforce capacity that comes with this?
Have they grasped the future of work sufficiently now to be able to lay down these plans for a true ecosystem based business model and exercise their capital power to achieve this?
I think the C-suite is getting there in some cases. I think, being glass half full about this, there's a new competitive paradigm emerging. Value first businesses, with open and fused ecosystems, huge efficiency gains (in ops and innovation to market) and massively freed human capital. Businesses that better service customers, employees and the planet. After-all we desperately need this if we are to answer the challenge being presented by the climate crisis, changes in humanity generally and of course if we answer the original skipped question posed in this blog - how do we make work better for everyone.
I am an optimist!
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