(Due to the holiday on Monday and the time-sensitive info here, I thought I’d post this a few days early. I hope you’ll join us for the important discussion on July 13.)
Just beyond our sight, bubbling beneath the waves and simmering behind the scenes, there is a silent revolution happening. This is not a movement of guns and knives, but of goodness and creativity. It is a complete “turn around” (i.e. “revolution”) in mindset — a new way to think about how work intersects with our lives.
Most of us spend more of our lives “at work” than we do with our families, relaxing on beaches, or anywhere else. This isn’t inherently a problem — good work is something humans need.
The problem is that the great majority of us don’t have “good work.” Instead, we exist somewhere on the continuum between abject hatred for our job and a mild ambivalence which allows us to stay just engaged enough to collect a paycheck. This is to say nothing about actually being able to LOVE what we do at work (currently, 77% of people working for companies are not passionate about what they do).
This tragic situation is a waste of our collective resources, a waste of our individual talents, and a waste of our lives. It cannot be allowed to continue.
We are the tribe of revolutionaries who will end the reign of miserable work.
The Work Revolution is a movement committed to fundamentally reinventing business to help everyone (and we do mean everyone) have an opportunity to enjoy life-giving, meaningful work.
As individuals, we are passionate about different components of this process (and this is how it must be, for the task at hand is rather large). We are leaders of companies, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and employees. We know that change happens faster when it comes from all directions.
Together, we are passionate about helping our businesses become more sustainable, more human, and more meaningful.
Every tribe has core values: those things which float like a conscience in the background and guide its decisions. Here, we call them virtues. Using this word reminds us that everything we do should be somehow pushing humanity in a positive direction. Our work must always be for the common good.
There are plenty of places for great idea exchange (this one comes to mind). But we are about ideas with clothes on – until our ideas start tangibly helping people, they aren’t realizing their potential. We’re the people who make cool sh*t happen.
We are interdisciplinary, holistic, and obsessed with letting people do more of what they’re good at. We deliberately seek out different perspectives because we know that we’ve all got blind spots. We’re the people who know that we don’t know everything.
All our decisions will be guided by these principles. (Full disclosure: this list is likely to grow and change as the movement evolves.)
You are a critical part of this campaign. I cannot fix this problem alone, and, frankly, neither can you. But together, WE can change the world.
And we will.
The short answer to the question of where you fit is: “wherever your strengths and passions intersect with the mission of the tribe.” We need you exactly in the place where you are most alive.
(If by chance you forgot our mission, it’s this: To fundamentally reinvent business so everyone can enjoy life-giving, meaningful work.)
By joining this group, you’re committing to two things: 1) adopting a habit of continual learning about how the world is changing and 2) doing something to push work in a more positive direction.
First, it gathers revolutionaries. There are way more of us out there than any one of us knows about. (You may have felt alone in your quest… I know I have — but we are not!) The Work Revolution will create ways to connect amazing, action-oriented people to each other, in the knowledge that we can do so much more together than we ever could alone. These connections will happen in a virtual space and (hopefully soon) in physical meetups.
Second, it helps support revolutionaries. The Work Revolution will spread new ideas, great frameworks and models, and helpful tools to the people who are doing great work to disrupt the status quo (that’d be you).
Third, it spreads the good word about a new way to work. There are many people out there who do not believe there is a better way to work, simply because they have never seen any evidence of it. The Work Revolution will tell the stories of work revolutionaries to the rest of the world.
If you haven’t already, please join the tribe. (I know this isn’t a very sexy entrance; we’ll have a better one soon!)
Also, I would like to invite you to join in an important discussion about where The Work Revolution is headed. We will be partnering with the phenomenal “Four Years. Go.” movement in a Collaborative Café event, which is a dialogue that happens virtually (call in with phone or Skype). The purpose of these events is to offer our collective intelligence and resources to support and refine a new idea/concept/movement. In this case, the idea is The Work Revolution, and we will be brainstorming ways to move it forward!
This call will happen on Wednesday, July 13 at 10:30am PDT / 1:30pm EDT. It’s open to any and all current or would-be revolutionaries.
It’s totally free, and you can click here to register.
I hope you’ll join us. ¡Viva la Revolution!
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When we think about the notion of “talent” — all the thousands of things that human beings do well — and how our personal talents interact with what we do at work, we often discover a few gaps.
And by “a few gaps,” I really mean “A HUGE GAPING HOLE.”
Most organizations are built for the 19th Century, not the 21st. We’ve gotten rid of almost all the assembly lines (at least here in the US) but we’ve clung tightly to the mindset that powered them.
This is a problem because today, in order to achieve the outcomes desired of us at work, we can’t do things in task-driven, predictable, or linear ways. Unfortunately, though, because of that lingering old-world mindset, this is the only kind of work that “fits” into how our companies are structured. So, work that is inherently creative, unpredictable, and holistic gets sequestered into functional “departments” and stuffed into a “job description.”
Do you see the dissonance?
…If you don’t see it, can you feel it?
There is much dissatisfaction at work, and this is the reason why: the work is shifting, but the way we’re doing it is not. And no amount of “change management” can fix the problem, because we’re not changing the right things.
For all the innovation that’s currently happening in the world, where’s the innovation in our organization design? Why do we keep defaulting back to the old structures? Do we really think we can generate new life-giving work in old soul-sucking environments? (I even seem to recall a parable which might have some relevance here.)
I think there’s a lack of innovation simply because there haven’t been enough new ideas in this sphere. To an extent, it’s easy to see why: structures and systems aren’t very sexy. But I’ll tell you what is: environment design and ecosystem creation — and that is precisely what this is actually about.
This is the future of would-be company builders, leaders, and entrepreneurs: to become environment architects who deliberately fashion environments which bring life to the people who give so much of their time and energy to work there.* Leaders of these tribes aren’t the greedy, CEO-turned-despots of the (recent) past, but instead are the kind of person who gives you the credit for their success, and sees their job as helping you be a better person by fashioning a vibrant, healthy workplace.
Sexy enough? (I’d work there.)
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*NOTE: Despite the incredibly sexy office picture above, I’m not just talking about updated office furniture. Is that stuff important? Hell yes (and check out this amazing post for some great examples). But while a lack of focus on workplace design is a huge lost opportunity, if your org design ends with a trip to IKEA, you’ve (almost) entirely missed the point of this article.
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I have a few thoughts I want to share with you today, and I promise they’re all related. The big umbrella idea is this:
Science knows an awful lot about human behavior.
Business ignores almost all of it.
Now, before you send me emails, I’m well aware of the amount of discussion about latest scientific theories around management that occur in training sessions, leadership magazines, and executive meetings. That’s not the problem — the problem is: most of this talk never translates into action.
I want to talk about WHY it never changes.
As an example, let’s discuss recruiting. When done internally or externally, this process is mostly terrible. And it’s not because of the recruiters, many of whom are amazing people (I know quite a few). The problem is the process itself. And I am talking about the entire process here — the big picture of how we find great people and then put them in the right places.
There’s a popular theory in talent management that says past performance is the best way to indicate future success. This is outdated science. Believe me, if a person is stuck in the wrong role, their failures in that position have absolutely no bearing on their ability to be successful in a spot that truly fits them.
What dictates that we must search/filter this way? It’s easier, sure, but it hurts us all in the long run.
In recruiting, we also often fall back on things like “years of experience.” But this is dangerous — and to be honest, pretty lazy. Why? Because the amount of years someone has done something says virtually nothing about how much they’ve learned doing it. As one of my invisible mentors has said, “Nine years of experience is very different from one year of experience, nine times.” Most times, “the process” doesn’t allow us to be very concerned with telling the difference.
Why do we continue doing things this way when we clearly know better?
If we’re being really honest, the reason WHY is that many of our companies have “policies” and “procedures” that actually inhibit us from treating people like human beings.
In that case, perhaps we should spend more time on working to change the policies.
I’m not placing the blame on any individual in particular here (other than the people who read this and continue to be blinded to it… I feel pretty good about blaming them). In many cases, it’s the way we’ve designed our organizations that’s the real culprit here.
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Additional reading: Korn/Ferry has done some great work around “Agile Learning” that provides some insightful clues on how to reinvent recruiting. Check it out here.
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Copyright © 2005-2012 Josh Allan Dykstra
