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This Month's HeadlinesClick on any Headline to go to the full story. From Jim and CharlieThis is our personal note welcoming you to the March 2005 issue of Future of Work Agenda and setting our theme for the month. This issue is all about all kinds of stuff - because there's a lot going on. Read our note first to get an overview, and then dig in. World Congress NewsIt's that time of year - the World Congress is less than two months away. And we are very pleased to announce that Spherion has just signed on as a Silver Sponsor. Check out this section to read about the event itself, three accompanying workshops, four Town Hall meetings, five Delegate teleconferences, and the growing list of world-class thought leaders and practitioners who will be there. And sign up yourself - it's easy, quick, and will make you feel good. Feature Article: The Three D's of CreativityI've been examining creativity in three organizations that people might see as quite different - a regional Shakespeare theater, a global business analysis software firm, and a state university football program.... Despite their different industries, goals, and some approaches, these three businesses have three things in common... Book Review: The Wisdom of CrowdsSeveral Future of Work community members recommended this book to us. Well, nice try, but we don't hit a home run every time. Author James Surowiecki's main thesis is that groups of people (the larger the better) often make better decisions than individual "experts." Well, it's hard to argue with that idea, but... Research NotesHere's a big surprise (not): workers report that the biggest barrier to their personal productivity is "poor management." We report on a recent study by SHRM focused on the factors that drive productivity down. The Future of Work Is Already Here; It Just Isn't Evenly DistributedIn one form or another, the future of work is already here. This periodic section provides you with notes from all over the world - stories about what's happening somewhere today that provides clues to what will be happening everywhere tomorrow. In Our Humble Opinion: The Search for the Holy GrailWe end each issue of Future of Work Agenda with a personal perspective - our chance to comment on issues and developments in the world of work that we find important and interesting. This is our "editorial" page, where we enjoy offering our opinions and predictions about what's happening (or should be happening) in the world of work. |
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From Jim and CharlieWhew! We got tired just putting everything together this month. There's a whole lotta shakin' going on! Fortunately, it's all good stuff - really good. We're deep into planning the details of our World Congress on the Future of Work in Philadelphia at the end of April. We've got a whole section of World Congress news here this month - just below. Check it out - and register now while there's still room. We know the World Congress will be the event this year where you will meet more interesting people and engage in more stimulating conversation than anywhere else on the planet. What are you waiting for? And we're pleased to offer you a very interesting and somewhat unusual perspective on creativity this month - written by our friend and colleague and Future of Work member Nancy Napier, Professor par excellence at Boise State University. Nancy was one of our "Trend Scouts" at the workshop on Creativity and Office Design that we held in San Francisco recently in conjunction with the project we're co-leading with the Interactive Institute's Sense Studio in Ĺre, Sweden. Pfizer and Herman Miller are project sponsors here in the United States. Read Nancy's article for a creative look at the discipline behind the creative process. Our book review this month is a little out of character for us - for once we're not raving about something. The Wisdom of Crowds has gotten a lot of press lately, but Charlie's view is that much of that attention is misplaced. The author virtually ignores the revolution in information technology and accessibility that makes every individual part of a global "crowd" all the time. Read the review and see if you agree (if you don't, or even if you do, send us a note about your own take on the book and we'll publish it in April). And after all that you'll find our regular sections Research Notes, The Future is Already Here, and of course our monthly rant, In Our Humble Opinion, which this month focuses on something that's becoming incredibly important not just to us but to many of you as well - how in heck to link workplace design and cost factors to actual, bottom-line business performance. It's what we call The Search for the Holy Grail. Finally, we're also getting ready for our corporate members' semi-annual Roundtable, this time hosted by Hewlett Packard (thanks Reneé Leach and Karen Lee!). We'll report out what we can in the April newsletter. And while we can't say anything publicly yet, we're also deeply involved in a couple of new business ventures that are sucking up a lot of our time but promise to produce big returns - not just for us but for everyone who's interested in actually creating the future of work. So stay tuned - we'll let you in on the big secrets as soon as we can. (we gotta keep you guessing and coming back every month to read the next installment…). So, on to the rest of the newsletter. Enjoy! And please let us know what you think. - Jim Ware and Charlie Gratham
World Congress NewsSpherion Becomes a Silver Sponsor of the World CongressWe are extremely pleased to announce that Spherion will be a Silver Sponsor of the World Congress. Special thanks go to Vice Presidents Eileen Buzzanco and Kip Havel for championing the Future of Work program and the World Congress within Spherion, and to Robert Morgan, President of the Solutions Design and Product Development Group, who will be a featured speaker at the World Congress. Robert will also be our special guest at the World Congress Delegates teleconference on March 17. He will be sharing with Delegates the important findings and insights growing out of Spherion's multi-year research program on emergent workers and emergent companies. We're looking forward to some great conversation with Robert. It's Time for YOU to Register for the 2005 World Congress on the Future of WorkThe 2005 World Congress will be held April 26 - 28, 2005, at the Independence Visitor Center in Philadelphia, hosted and co-sponsored by the General Services Administration. Herman Miller, Spherion, and Francis Cauffman Foley Hoffman are also World Congress sponsors. Please visit the website for a detailed schedule of events, including a series of five Delegates-only teleconferences that began in mid-February. This incomparable, invitation-only executive forum will bring together more than 120 director and C-level decision-makers in the fields of human resources, IT, and operations/facilities management from the world's leading organizations, all joining together to craft a set of design principles that will enable organizations to make the vision of the future of work real in their organizations. All Delegates attending the World Congress will participate actively in a series of roundtable conversations and will receive a special Implementation Toolkit that will support the introduction of positive change in their own organizations. We look forward to an historic meeting venue in our nation's first capital, in the shadow of Independence Hall, and including a tour of one of the GSA's innovative new facilities that make the future come alive right now. Visit the website now and register to attend: http://www.futureofworkcongress.net Register as a Delegate and Come to Philadelphia for a Stimulating and Provocative Two Days of Serious Conversation About the Future of WorkThe list of Delegates to the 2005 World Congress is growing by the day. Don't miss the chance to become part of this impressive roster of world-class thought leaders and practitioners:
You can read more about each of them and their interests at the World Congress website. Just check out the Delegates Directory at: http://www.futureofworkcongress.net/directory.php And as soon as you register you'll be able to participate in our Delegates' teleconferences on March 3, March 17, March 31, and April 14. See the Major Events schedule on the website for more information about the individual calls: http://www.futureofworkcongress.net/congress_events.php World Congress "Town Hall" Meetings Will Offer Lively Roundtable Discussion on Important IssuesAn important innovation at this year's World Congress will be a set of four simultaneous Town Hall meetings led by world-class thought leaders. The Town Hall topics and discussion leaders are: People and Organization Community Development Technology Place and Space: Working at Home and Telecommuting Each of these four Town Halls will use our World Café model to enable panelists and participants to engage actively and directly with each other around their "Big Questions" about the future of work in each of these important domain areas. This is your chance to explore a topic of personal interest in real depth and to hear about real-world success stories from the people who made them happen. Register now to attend: http://www.futureofworkcongress.net 2005 World Congress to Include Three Special Workshops and Two ToursThe World Congress will also include three pre-event workshops aimed at helping Delegates focus in on specific interests and concerns. The three workshops will be held on Tuesday, April 26, at the Sheraton Society Hill hotel in downtown Philadelphia, the official hotel of the 2005 World Congress. The three half-day workshops, which cost $195 each ($150 for registered World Congress Delegates), are as follows: Aikido, Leadership, and Conflict Resolution How to Build Social Networks Using New Communications Tools Becoming a Next Generation Company For detailed workshop descriptions and information on registering, please go to the World Congress website, at http://www.futureofworkcongress.net/congress_workshops.php In addition, our sponsor Francis Cauffman Foley Hoffman Architects is organizing a complementary tour of several of their innovative office designs. Stay tuned for more details, but arrange your travel to arrive before Noon on April 26 so you can participate. And the GSA will host Delegates at one of their Office 2020 demonstration facilities on the afternoon of April 28, following the close of the World Congress. It's going to be a very full week! We're still seeking Sponsors for the 2005 World Congress on the Future of WorkWe invite you and your organization to participate as a select partner in the presentation of the second annual World Congress on the Future of Work. If you are interested in becoming a Sponsor partner of Future of Work for the World Congress please download the 2005 Sponsorship Prospectus from our website: 2005 World Congress on the Future of Work Prospectus We offer several different levels of sponsorship opportunity. Please direct inquiries about Sponsorship of the World Congress to: Jennifer McClure
The Feature Article: The Three D's of CreativityBy Nancy Napier Creativity is the ability to come up with an original idea that is appropriate for the time and place. Leonardo Da Vinci's flying machine was original but it wasn't appropriate for his context. A child's Lego palace is appropriate for his time and place, but likely is not original. Innovation is the realization of that original idea, appropriate for the context, as something of value - particularly economic value. Many scholars and practitioners have noted that creativity is the resource of the future - it cannot be hoarded and is available to any country, community, or organization willing to nurture it. For centuries we've thought of "creativity" as something that individuals do - the mad scientist working alone in a lab, the eccentric composer scribbling his (yes, the well-known creative individuals have almost always been "he's") latest brilliance onto paper. Yet lots of examples of creative collaboration - among teams or groups of people - exist as well. Think of Crick and Watson, the Manhattan Project, or Apple's early Skunkworks. I've been examining creativity in three organizations that people might see as quite different - a regional Shakespeare theater, a global business analysis software firm, and a state university football program. Each is, in its own industry, seen as a high performer (e.g., the football program finished in the top dozen teams in the U.S. during the 2004 season) and is also viewed as creative - doing things differently from its peers. Despite their different industries, goals, and some approaches, these three businesses have three things in common:
But "discipline" here is different in each case. Let me explain. #1 - Out of Discipline"Out of discipline" refers to the perspective the leaders in each of these organizations take when doing their own jobs as well as the encouragement they give others to do the same. The Shakespeare theater director looks to sports for marketing ideas…."how can we turn this actor into a star that some company would want to endorse?" The head football coach looks to Chinese philosophers like Sun Tzu for ideas on how to approach a competitor on the playing field. The software firm CEO uses ideas from film production to run his company - from how to "capture" the emotions of a customer in using software to managing diverse project teams. These leaders read widely, scan their environments broadly for any ideas that might fit their organizations, and test those ideas on people in and outside the organizations. #2 -- Within disciplineEach organization hires people who are experts in their disciplines. Actors know their craft, software user interface people know how customers interact with software, and football coaches understand plays as well as strategies. Each discipline, then, has a "language" for thinking and talking with people in the field. The discipline's language saves lots of time (people come up to speed quickly on a given project), provides shortcuts in the way people think and talk, and gives people a sense of membership to the discipline, which often brings pride of belonging. As one group of actors put it, "we have a craft that we all understand. That means we can move easily from play to play, work with people we don't know, and understand what a director means, without having to take much time to get to know each other." Of course, focusing too much on the discipline, its language, and its membership can be dangerous if members don't remember principle number 1 (out of discipline thinking). #3 -- "DisciplinED"Finally, each organization sees creativity as fitting within an order or structure. In all three cases, there is a general pattern of allocating time for creativity and then time for "practice" or "rehearsal" or "testing." Following that, as one leader said, "it's just a matter of execution." For example, in play production, the director and the designers (e.g., set, costumes, music/sound) create the "world" or context in which the play will take place. That may be Julius Caesar in the middle ages or in the 21st century. Once agreement of the "world" happens, other decisions fall into place, such as what costumes will look like or what sort of music will fit. When the actors arrive, their creativity emerges in the process of developing the characters they play. Rehearsal time is usually four-six weeks, after which the final "tech week" (or days) occurs for what the software world might call "beta testing." They run through the play to be sure people stand and move in the right ways and that the set works. A last "preview" night(s) offers a last chance to tweak or make changes. Once Opening Night happens, though, nothing major can change - movement, line delivery, costumes. At that point, "it's all execution." In software, creativity happens during the development and user experience interaction, with final "rehearsal" or testing in the weeks and months before release. The goal, as in play production, is to have a final product that is set and ready to be released to the world, with no "bugs" or mistakes. Likewise, football begins its creative phase within moments following the end of a game. Coaches - offensive and defensive - study the just-completed game plays, examine the upcoming opponents' games, talk with other coaches who have played the next opponent, and within 48 hours have the bulk of a "game plan" for the following week. The "rehearsal" begins when the players begin drills in their own teams and two days before the game, as a full group. In each case, several common threads hold:
Nancy K. Napier (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) is Professor of International Business and Executive Director of the Global Business Consortium at Boise State University. She is a former Associate Dean of the College of Business and Economies and Chairman of the Management Department. She also managed Boise State's nine-year involvement in an $8.5 million Swedish- and USAID-funded capacity building project at the National Economics University in Hanoi, Vietnam. Her most recent book is Managing Relationships in Transition Economies (with D. Thomas), published by Praeger.
Book Review: The Wisdom of Crowdsby James Surowiecki (Doubleday, 2004) Reviewed by Charlie Grantham Several Future of Work community members recommended this book to us. Well, nice try but we don't hit a home run every time. Author James Surowiecki's main thesis is that groups of people (the larger the better) often make better decisions than individual "experts." Well, it's hard to argue with that idea, especially in many of the situations he mentions, such as judging the weight of livestock, coaching football, or seeking the right answer on TV quiz shows. The book is well-researched, well-documented, and even craftily written. But I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop (metaphorically speaking). I was looking for some prescriptions of how to use all these great social psychology insights in everyday business and life. And that's where the book comes up short. The book is an everyday language equivalent of a graduate course in social psychology. It's really nothing new to students in that field, but it probably does provide the general business reader with some benefit. The book is actually an interesting read for those who ponder over how crowds operate, often seemingly against common rationality. And for God's sake, how do stock markets really operate, especially since our recent experience with "irrational exuberance"? I guess some of my bias in this review stems from a basic assumption I hold that Surowiecki doesn't even get close to. That is, that the basic social psychology of the Western world is changing. The norms of group behavior, which Surowiecki so eloquently documents, are changing in very fundamental ways. So I am concerned that studying historical examples of the "wisdom of crowds" may not be as useful in today's world, let alone the future, as Surowiecki would have us believe. Technically, the main points of the book center around situations where individuals are acting as independent agents and making what appears to be group decisions in aggregate (for example, patrons at restaurants). One of the things are changing (and this should have been the last chapter of the book) is that the costs of coordination and collaboration are falling rapidly with the advent of the Internet and the spread of broadband access. In the future, crowds, groups (or, dare we suggest, teams) of people will coordinate their actions more closely, based on actual interactions with others. Opinions will be sought out, facts checked, and numerous experts will be consulted before individuals make a decision. Think of group decision making as Consumer Reports on steroids. Mass markets used to be driven by group behavior, a phenomenon that is well-illustrated in this book. But those mass markets are gone! It's hard to imagine anyone with access to a computer making a significant purchase of any durable good, or fashion item, without consulting hundreds of easily accessible resources before making that decision. Well, before this review turns into a rant, let's just say The Wisdom of Crowds is in fact a good read. But don't expect it to help you understand the accelerating world of the future. The Wisdom of Crowds is available online at Amazon.com
Research NotesSHRM Study Identifies Poor Management as Leading Cause of Low ProductivityA couple of weeks ago our good friend Candace Fitzpatrick pointed us to a recent survey conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). The survey asked both HR professionals and front line workers "Which of the following factors negatively impact productivity at work?" Responses were as follows:
While some may detect a bit of "not my fault" in the focus on poor managers, we aren't the least bit surprised by these findings. Note that "poor management" isn't the only barrier to productivity that lies squarely in the lap of management to fix; in fact, in our humble opinion just about every factor in that list can (and should) be addressed by management (even the readiness of employees to leave the organization is no doubt a response to the way they feel they've been managed). The story was reported by Chief Learning Officer Magazine. For the full article, go to: http://www.clomedia.com/common/newscenter/newsdisplay.cfm?id=3641
The Future Of Work Is Already HereThe Young Professionals are Taking ChargeOur good friend and Future of Work member Rebecca Ryan continually presents us with new and powerful insights into the workforce of tomorrow - because Rebecca is so in touch with what's going on today. In her latest newsletter she writes about the emergence of an entirely new force in many local communities across the country - young professionals. The article, entitled "Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way," describes the birth of the Young Professionals Organizations (YPO's) in Charlotte, North Carolina, and elsewhere. Young professionals are getting tired of waiting for the established powers that be to take action; they want to turn their communities into vibrant, exciting places to live and work, and they're starting to take action on their own. Read Rebecca's article on her "Hot Jobs, Cool Communities" website, subscribe to her newsletter, and wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. Rebecca's own coffee mug, by the way, reads "Well behaved women rarely make history." She'll be at our World Congress in April, leading a Town Hall meeting conversation on Managing People and Organizations. We hope to see you there too.
In Our Humble Opinion: The Search for the Holy GrailCommentary by Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware (With apologies to Monty Python) We really should have called this little rant, "What does your workplace have to do with your performance?" Or even better, "To dream the impossible dream." See, we have this silly notion that workplaces actually have on impact on the work that takes place within them. But hardly anyone seems to know how to think about that, let alone measure it. What we talking about, of course, is what everyone we know is looking for - the linkage between workplace attributes (size, cost, physical design, use) and ultimate business performance (that's the fancy-schmancy way of talking about it. We actually prefer to just ask, "So, how does your workplace affect your performance? And if it doesn't, could you please explain why you're spending any time worrying about it at all?) Everywhere we go these days someone is talking about workplace productivity, or - more often - workplace costs. That's somewhat understandable, given all the excess space that the business world is trying to get rid of, or outgrow, or lay off on some poor unsuspecting lunkhead. But think about the impact of that space, and how it's designed, on business performance? Oh no, that seems to be a different story altogether. We can't quite figure out why all those hard-nosed CFO types don't demand the same kind of productivity and effectiveness metrics for office buildings that they do for hard goods manufacturing plants. Especially given the reality that an incredible amount of that office space is empty a good part of every day. Would you buy a six-bedroom house when you only had one kid and a small dog? Don't think so. Someone once described his own executive office as a "very large storage space for my overcoat, my suit coat, my briefcase, my paper files, and my personal coffee pot." He of course was almost never there, instead spending his days in conference rooms, other executives' offices, or out of town altogether. So even when an office has actual human beings assigned to it (and it's therefore doesn't count as "empty" in the official stats), most of the time no one is actually there. On the other side of ridiculousness would be those aircraft carriers where every bunk (except the officers of course) has three people assigned to it. Go figure - it's one thing to argue in favor of sharing workspaces, but even we aren't ready to share a bed! As our good friend Bill Agnello put it a couple of years ago, if a manufacturing VP presented a capital request to the Board for a factory three times the capacity the company would ever use, he (or she) would be laughed out of the room. But we build offices like that all the time. And no one ever asks, what kind of return are we getting on our investment? That is, everyone except the brokers - because they know exactly what their return is, and it ain't necessarily linked to their clients' return. That may be something for us to chew in another rant. Maybe senior execs don't ask that question because they don't know how to answer it. That's where improving our understanding of the link between workspace design and business performance comes in. And over the years there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of research projects aimed at measuring the costs, efficiencies, and various physical attributes of different workplace designs. Everything has been put under the microscope: the amount and color of the lighting, the best temperature to work in, the ergonomics of the chairs, the desktop size, shape, color, and surface material, window placements, file storage, and even - we suspect - the right number of coffee mugs to store on the credenza. In most cases the questions being asked are about how all those variables affect worker comfort, worker satisfaction, hours of use, and - once in a while - worker productivity. By the way, we actually cracked this "how do we measure productivity" nut about eight years ago. It can be done, but it's a real pain in the patooti. And as it turns out there are a number of very significant organizational issues that surface in the process. So a lot of folks in our experience had rather just "let that sleeping dog lie still." Now we aren't for a minute suggesting those studies aren't important. Workplaces today are a whole lot more pleasant, attractive, and comfortable than they used to be, thanks to thousands of dedicated architects, interior designers, lighting engineers, and other specialists. But when we look for data on how all those improvements translate into bottom line business performance, the search for meaning takes a whole lot less time. Why is it so difficult to make that linkage? Well, for one thing there are a lot of factors that affect business performance. It helps, for example, to have a good product, to have good customer relationships, to recruit and retain talented workers, to have great business processes, and to be able to make things for less than you sell them for (duh!). So how does workplace design contribute to, or enhance, those factors? Well, In Our Humble Opinion, maybe, just maybe, the right product design lab will help your product developers work more efficiently and collaborate more frequently (and more productively). Maybe if your workforce has easy and efficient access to the tools and the information they need, just maybe they will bring your products to market faster and more cheaply than your competitors. And maybe your configuration of conference rooms, private offices, and public spaces actually helps make your workers feel good about the company and reluctant to go anywhere else - hence, lower workforce turnover and lower recruiting costs. And maybe the design of your facilities fosters creativity and innovation (we're working on that hypothesis right now with our friends in Sweden). So how should you link workplace design (and costs - they're still important, just not the be all and end all) to business performance? In Our Humble Opinion the missing link in the middle is worker behavior. That is, the chain of questions to ask goes something like this:
Now, we know full well those questions are a whole lot easier to ask than to answer in a given business situation. But let's at least ask them. We are actually about to launch a formal research project aimed at developing very specific measures for each of those three levels of analysis. Our goal is develop and test a "Workplace Effectiveness Scorecard" inspired in part by Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard approach. We believe this is something that really hasn't been done comprehensively anywhere else. But we also, humbly, know there are many of you out there who wrestle with these questions every day. We'd welcome your ideas, suggestions, and contributions to this inquiry. If we are just reinventing the wheel, please tell us. And if you know of some innovative and useful measures that are already in use, please tell us that too. But please don't come back with something like "at the end of the day we'll have to move the needle so we can focus on our core competency and increase the quality of our customer experience." We're trying to be serious here, not add more drivel to the consultant lexicon. Please direct your comments to comments@thefutureofwork.net. We'd love to publish your reactions and suggestions. And thanks for listening.
This issue of Future of Work Agenda was produced by Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham of the Work Design Collaborative. We encourage your comments, suggestions, and submission of materials for possible future publication. Please contact us at: Charlie Grantham, charlie@thefutureofwork.net, +1 928 771 9138 To subscribe to Future of Work Agenda, register on our web site. Please pass this newsletter on to other interested individuals and encourage them to subscribe as well. The newsletter is free, and will remain free as long as possible. To end your subscription, send a message to newsletter@thefutureofwork.net and write Unsubscribe in the Subject line. For republication rights, contact Jim Ware at jim@thefutureofwork.net.
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