The Future of Work Begins with a Renaissance in Digital Philosophy

Earlier this year, I received a wonderful email from Paul Miller and Elizabeth Marsh who shared the good news announcing their next book, The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future. I was of course happy for them. I was also surprised and delighted to learn that they were hoping I would share my thoughts on the future of work as the foreword.

How could I say no?

The only condition was that I would be allowed to publish it upon release of the book. They agreed, the book is now available in the US and UK, and I can now proudly share the foreword with you here. What follows is the unabridged version of my contribution...

The Future of Work Begins with a Renaissance in Digital Philosophy

The future of work is an increasingly popular discussion among technologists, executives and those managing human capital. When attempting to peer into the future or even predict it, entirely new worlds of possibilities emerge. That may sound promising, but it also presents decision-makers with a dilemma. Each vision of the future is influenced by an interpretation of current trends. How we perceive these trends of course are based on our individual experiences, intuition and also aspirations for what could happen and also what we hope happens.

But for all of the talk about the future, the vision of many for what’s possible is unfortunately anchored in the past. And without understanding the disconnect between the past and the future, we cannot build a functional bridge to the promises ahead. I believe that what lies before us begins with a renaissance in not only how we work but in how we think about work. And that’s why The Digital Renaissance of Work by Paul Miller and Elizabeth Marsh explores the digital and physical aspects of work with an emphasis on the people and technology bringing about change.

Change either happens to us or because of us.

With this book, together we can help usher in a future driven by the latter because of what we see that will work for us not work as it’s dictated to us. But, let me be clear…change starts with us.

The Digital Renaissance is a Revival of Basic Human Principles

The mistake most futurists make is attempting to predict the future because of technology rather than seeing the affect of technology on behavior. More so, without the understanding of societal factors that are also impacting preferences, expectations, and values, attempting to build bridges to the future misses the connection between aspiration and realization.

Technology is indeed connecting us in ways that improve communication, discovery and connectivity. The world is becoming a much smaller place as a result. Chances are that you are connected in one network or another to people in at least 12 other countries. Although social networking and smartphones are relatively new as a staple in the everyday life of adults and kids, how we as consumers use these networks and devices is outpacing how we as employees use technology in the workplace.

Over time, how we make decisions as consumers, what we come to expect from the companies that we do business with, and simply how we want to work with them is bringing about an end to business as usual and pushing those who cherish normalcy outside of their comfort zones. In this post-normal world, power is shifting away from today’s business practices and the models that support them toward freethinking, democratized markets where information and people are equally connected.

How and why people use technology is evolving.

Society is evolving.

If technology and society continue to evolve faster than the ability of a business to adapt, the stage is set for digital Darwinism.

The real challenge is that companies are anchored by decades or years of technology investments and the existing philosophies and processes that govern and support them today. But it doesn’t stop there. Today’s connected customers driving change in connected markets aren’t the only ones we need to understand, they also represent a growing percentage of our workforce. And with this rise of connected employees, a divide materializes between connected and the less connected and the principles, expectations, and aspirations associated with each faction

The Great Divide: Intellectual Property is Aging While New IP is Under Capitalized

As a result technology’s impact on society, people have become more informed. Information often leads to empowerment. And, empowerment leads people to become more aware and more demanding. Add to that, connectedness makes us not only connected, but also it has created an always-on society that lives in real-time where the line between the real and virtual worlds blur to the point of oneness.

Now, there’s a striking gap, and it’s only widening, in how we sell versus how people want to buy and also in how we manage employees versus how they work or want to work. Organizations are now standing at a critical inflection point where one path continues along a comfortable path of business as usual and the other unpaved, without way points requires those who traverse it to pave the way ahead of them.

Digital renaissance takes a revival in assessing the value of human capital your businesses possesses to compete for today versus the capital required to compete for the future…today.

Everyone has something to learn.

When we think we know enough, we stop learning. Yet, the world continues to evolve with or without us.

Fighting Fire with Fire Will Only Burn Everything to the Ground

In my research, I’ve found that many executives are well aware of the onslaught of new technology. Most already feel the pain of trying to manage the differences between aging and younger workforces while leading both toward productivity and success. At the same time, many are unsure of how to solve the problem or even address what the problem really is between the future of work compared to the present situation.

There are those in IT who are drafting new plans that alter long-established roadmaps to evaluate emergent social and mobile technologies. Some are bolting-on trendy technologies onto legacy systems to apply what will only prove to be a temporary fix. As my friend Stowe Boyd, a web anthropologist and futurist often says, “You can’t teach old tech new tricks.”

Either way, social and mobile threw a curve ball. It wasn’t just because the technology overtook the world in a matter of a few short years, it’s that social media and mobile apps changed the behavior of people who use them. Suddenly businesses have to rethink…everything. Yet, how they’re structure today symbolizes an old guard of command and control approaches where employees use technology bestowed upon them because it was gospel. In today’s world though, all I can say is “good luck with that strategy.” More often than not, the technology we force onto people forces them to conform to a way of work dictated by technology and those who govern it within the organization rather than use technology as a seamless enabler to get work done, individually or collectively, the way that people organically use technology in their personal life.

Throwing technology at the problem isn’t the answer to enlivening the future or embracing a renaissance. Technology is an enabler and we must see it for what it unlocks or facilitates. But that comes down to us not as information architects but as architects of collaboration and work to do something greater than what we accomplish today. With all of the hype, and fatigue, around new tech, it’s easy to get caught up in what’s hot and what’s next.

Technology is Part of the Solution but It’s Also Part of the Problem.

As a digital analyst and anthropologist, I explore the dynamics of human behavior from a bottom-up or escalation perspective. The conundrum facing IT and businesses overall, is that the philosophies and systems governing the way we work are traditionally designed from that of a top-down approach.

As technology was introduced into our work, it did so usually from a centralized process, typically to control purchase and management costs and contain rogue installations within departments. With the best intentions I’m sure, technology was meant to increase efficiencies, reduce long-term costs, and improve the dynamics for working, collaborating, and learning. Organizations were initially responsible for how we were introduced to technology and therefore how we used it. This process largely governs how we learn today.

The More Things Change, the Less They Stay the Same

As cost and adoption barriers fell, technology worked its way into consumer homes. With the rise of social and mobile, technology is now part of our everyday lifestyle. The result however, is that consumer familiarity with technology and how quickly they adopt and incorporate it into all they do has outpaced that of companies and institutions. The impact is profound.

People are learning, communicating and collaborating differently in their personal life. Yet elsewhere, they’re expected to follow dated protocol that is at best counter-intuitive. This is causing a revolt, which is only going to become increasingly dire as time and technology progress. As a result, connected employees are fueling an escalation of expectations and demands to do things differently. At the same time, decision-makers are struggling to figure out why investments don’t pan out according to plan. Older workforces are wondering why younger counterparts just can’t follow the rules. They still see how people use technology now as novelty and even frustrating because it’s always compared to the way the world was and not the world as it’s changing.

It’s almost as if protestors expect the world to regress rather than progress.

The only way to take a meaningful step forward is to understand how to adapt legacy investments, systems and processes to pave the way for a more engaging and productive future for all.

Right now, we take new technology and give it to an architect who already sees the world differently, the way it’s always been. Therefore they take something that’s native to a new world and forces it to comply within a legacy paradigm defined by dated philosophies, systems, and reward systems. But, how we use technology in our real life is completely different than what we use or how we are use it to get the job done There’s an incredible disconnect between personal and professional productivity and not only is the gap getting wider, employee impatience and morale is sinking in the process.

Managers Manage Employees Against the Past, Not the Future

Every year, Gallop publishes a comprehensive study that measures the state of employee happiness. In 2013, the study revealed abysmal results. Employee morale, Gallop found, is at an “all-time low.” Only 13 percent of today’s workers feel engaged by their jobs. An astounding 24 percent though are “actively disengaged,” meaning they show up to work to get a paycheck but they could care less about the company or their managers and co-workers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, ~50 percent are “disengaged,” because they are not “inspired by their managers.”

Most interestingly, Gallup found that those allowed to work remotely were more engaged - a finding that goes contrary to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Meyer's recent ordinance to stop all telecommuting of employers.

Jim Clifton, Gallup's chairman and CEO, said in a statement that poor management was one of the leading causes for employee disengagement.

Managers are managing against a set of rules and processes that symbolize the way the world worked. They do not mirror the freedom and empowerment that was unlocked because of the democracy of social technology.

Technology is Most Effective When It is Invisible.

No matter how innovative the technology, it doesn’t matter. Without defining a vision of what we are trying to do, something that will matter to people, we are just operating under business as usual…the way we always have. We are taking something new and forcing it into a system that strips away the very essence of what makes it revolutionary. Thus, we are not really moving in any new or meaningful direction until we change our philosophy and governance around technology and what the future of work actually means, what it offers, and what we can actually do with it…together.

What’s key to understand is how people are using technology and how their behaviors, values, and expectations have evolved. Once you do, you’ll see that technology becomes an enabler for something more natural.

The point is that technology can’t solve the problems created by dated systems and processes that govern technology selection, deployment, and management today. This is as much a human matter as it is one of technology. You have to first see people not through a lens of skepticism but instead a lens of possibility. You’ll find that the very essence of social and mobile is tied less to tech and more to the lack of hierarchies and the absence of command and control dictatorships. They’re democratized, designed by “the people for the people.” They’re SOCIAL. They’re equalized for those who use them. They’re flat in how people connect and share. That’s the real driver for social and mobile today. And as such, systems architects and managers need to understand behavior and empathize with it to be inspired to lead it in meaningful ways.

We Need Leaders, Not Managers

This is a time for leadership…not the conventional management systems as we know them. Change doesn’t have to come from today’s executives or managers however. What’s important to understand is that change can come from anywhere within the organization. Anyone can assume the role of leader as long as they have vision for what’s possible, courage to break what isn’t yet fully broken, and passion to mobilize people to unite in transformation. This sense of conviction is contagious and when approached with a human and business focus, even executives can’t help but listen…and learn. I guess that’s what this is about. We have to learn to learn again and that will only help us lead.

The digital renaissance begins with you….and, is because of you.

Brian Solis, Digital Analyst and Anthropologist, Futurist, Author, Human Being
@briansolis, www.briansolis.com

Book Overview

The world of work is experiencing an unprecedented transformation driven by technology. The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future will immerse the reader in the trends and themes that characterize this extraordinary period in the evolution of work.

A unique combination of thought leadership and practical advice, this book will bring the reader up-to-date with the latest developments, such as: no jobs but lots of work; the new digital work ethic; why“teamwork”needs a makeover; the human-centred digital workplace; what this means for physical workplaces; and why the revolution starts with education.

It also provides essential guidance on how to deliver a productive and engaging digital workplace in your organization, explaining how to: assess maturity; make the business case; set up the programme; and measure progress.

The book draws on case studies from pioneers in the digital workplace such as Barclays, Cisco,Microsoft, PwC, the United States Patent & Trademark Office and Virgin Media.

In this follow-up to his critically acclaimed book, The Digital Workplace: How technology is liberating work, Paul Miller, CEO and founder of the Digital Workplace Group (DWG), is joined by co-author Elizabeth Marsh to pick up the story and help organizations create digital workplaces fit for the future. The insights offered by this book are underpinned by DWG’s extensive benchmarking and research knowledge base