Interviews

Leadership needs to adopt a truly holistic approach

Interview with Barry Winkless, CSO Cpl Group & Head of Future of Work Institute.

Wiktor Doktór, Pro Progressio: During your presentation at The BSS Forum in Warsaw in April you said that you “believe that the future of work offers a true collaborative advantage for those who truly embrace it”. Let’s begin with elaborating on what changes in your opinion will be necessary to help organizations adapt to the future of work.

Barry Winkless, Cpl Group: The biggest change is a mindset one. As leaders we often do not think about ourselves as strategic designers but that is absolutely what we are. We are ultimately designers of the future of work for ourselves, our teams, and our organizations. As designers we need to recognise that new knowledge sets are needed to help us design a future of work that is fundamentally better for our colleagues, our customers, our collaborators, and our communities. In the Future of Work Institute for example we are applying principles from theme park design to the employee experience as this knowledge set focuses on bringing stories to life and on creating memories at a very emotional level. The use of anthropological practices in a business context to more deeply understand cultural norms and drive human-centred change is another example of the ‘new’ knowledge sets needed to innovate in our workplaces.

As designers we also need to deeply harness the power of experimentation & true co-creation – to learn, unlearn and innovate for the future of work. In most organizations today the attention is very much on projects and initiatives with a focus on delivery as opposed to true learning and adaptation – which explains why many change programmes fail. Truly experimenting means being comfortable that 1) a pilot might fail and 2) regardless we will learn something from the process that increases out wisdom. I often highlight the future of work as the ‘next collaborative advantage’ as the focus must be on working and deeply collaborating with the diverse workforces and broader eco-systems organizations are fighting hard to create.

I love the Japanese concept of ‘Shoshin’ when it comes to work. Shoshin in very simple terms means adapting a beginner’s mindset regardless of how well you know something. It forces you to move away from preconceptions and pre-programmed biases. In times of change and evolution this is particularly important. If I was to ask most leaders how much they know about meta modernism they would most likely look at me with a blank stare but actually meta modernism is a key philosophical idea important to how we look at leadership and work.

The second change is a recognition that the future of work is actually a strategic opportunity and not narrowly related to “where we work/flexibility/four day weeks” etc. The future of work is about the purposeful design and generation of new value and innovation through 3 W’s – Workplace, Workforce and Worktask. Within these 3W’s there are several levers organizations can use to gain new collaborative advantages:

  • Workplace – Where the work takes place across physical and virtual space.
  • Workforce – How the overall workforce is designed and managed.
  • Worktask – The methods, tools and mindsets that deliver the work.

Equally the future of work is not something that is just owned by the people function of a business. It must be owned at a leadership level and C suite executives need to join the dots on the future of work and recognise the increasingly holistic nature of work.

How does leadership need to change and what practices must be implemented to inspire innovation, motivate teams, and build a community within an organization? How can leaders design the right future of work pathway for their organizations?

I think the first thing for leadership to understand is what the future of work is – it is a strategic opportunity and therefore we need a strategic definition that connects the dots. From our work over a 2.5 year period at the Future of Work Institute we developed the following definition: “The future of work is the integrated design and evolution of workplaces, workforces and worktasks across multiple time horizons in the context of business and society”. As I mentioned before the first thing is that the future of work is something we can design for and secondly it is an integrated endeavour. I often see organizations implementing various initiatives across the 3W’s but with no connective tissue between them. There is no system level thinking about how they all connect, interact and influence each other. For example Workforce Innovation – utilising new workforce models – is rarely discussed as part of an overall future of work strategy but as a procurement initiative to reduce costs.

So in essence leadership needs to adopt a more holistic approach. One of the key skills for leaders as a result is systems thinking. I would also say that based on our research leadership needs to become more ‘savvy’ across three core areas – in essence leaders need to be more Technological, Societal and Humane.

Let's focus for a moment on the topic of technology. How do you think businesses can best leverage technology to remain competitive and adapt to changing workforce demands?

Overall I believe most organizations need to build up greater technological know-how across leadership teams. Before we can truly harness all the magic of technology we must first arm ourselves with at least a reasonable knowledge of what’s possible. It was Arthur C. Clarke who said that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic’. This is such a great quote. From our own work we see that it is not the lack of great technology that’s an issue – it’s often the lack of leadership’s understanding that slows the integration of new technologies. And let’s be honest – it is easy to arm yourself with knowledge these days. To illustrate it took me 9 weeks to go from knowing very little about VR and AR to being able to build a basic story world in virtual space – thanks to the plethora of free and almost free tools out there coupled with multiple tutorials across social platforms.

Technology and strategy are now so interlinked in the business world that it is critical that businesses have an ultra- clear vision of where they are trying to go and what they are trying to achieve at a granular level. This in turn helps to properly explore where various technological solutions and platforms can drive efficiencies, innovation and healthy disruption. Within our own organization we are harnessing things like AI in areas that give us value but based on clear strategic goals. For example, one of our key goals within our marketing strategy is to be a leader in engaging B2B content and we utilise AI tools that increase the speed, consistency and reach of our content. Given our industry we are obviously working with leading partners in the space of predictive people analytics but again based on our clear strategic goal of enabling science-based talent attraction and retention.

There is no doubt that we are very much in the age of the Augmented Human – and depending on what sector you are looking at we are moving towards Manufacturing 4/5.0, Connected Services and beyond etc. I’m often surprised that organizations do not have a clear understanding of the extent at which they are going to augment their people with technology. I know this is a potentially contentious area – how much are we going to use technology to reshape versus replace human workforces – but it needs an ethical and transparent dialogue. If we are genuinely committed to a more humane workplace then this would put the balance towards real people but this is in the context of hyper efficient, technological businesses that are delivering ‘work’ with 10-12 times less people than equivalent organizations were doing 50 years ago.

Based on Future of Work Institute’s ongoing extensive research, what can you say about the features that the future organization will be defined by?

I think that future organizations over the next 5 years will be defined by their evolution across 3 main focus areas – Human, Societal, and Technological. For each area (based on our research) this means the following:

Technological

  • Technology that is fully integrated & frictionless
  • Automation increasing use – in ‘front and back office’
  • Self systems that do the mundane stuff
  • Platforms enabling connection to ‘all’ & new models of engagement
  • Multi-verse of physical, digital and virtual ‘anywhere work’
  • Democratising the tools of work and play
  • Infinite access to knowledge resources.

Human

  • Flatter Structures & Empowerment
  • Deeper understanding of the human experience
  • Crafting total experiences that matter
  • Evolved approach to leadership
  • Balance, inclusiveness & authenticity
  • Demystified & ethical use of technology
  • Personalisation of the developmental journey
  • Flexible as the norm.

Societal

  • 360 degree positive impact on society
  • Responsible & ethical business practices
  • Care as a key business asset
  • Stakeholder not just shareholder engagement & co-creation
  • Thrive through seeing human inclusiveness & diversity as a sustainability goal.

What are the biggest challenges that leaders and organizations will face on their future of work pathway?

I’m going to answer this question in a slightly strange way! Anyone who knows me or reads my social posts will know that I’m on a 1000 album creativity journey where I research the methods, the music and the musicians that made some of the greatest ever albums (including learning a song from each) and extract key creativity and leadership principles that one can apply to life and business. One of my favourite bands on that list is Radiohead and with the release of their Kid A album (released in 2000) they became the first ‘mainstream’ metamodern band. And meta modernism is a key concept when it comes to the defining the key challenges of leadership in what I see as an in between time – where we have one foot in the past and how we have always done things and one foot in the future where we don’t have as clear an understanding of what we need to do.

There are a number of key principles behind modernism, but I think the most relevant when it come to the future of work is the idea of Oscillating between Opposites. If you think about the modern workplace, a core challenge of leading is actually dealing with seemingly contradictory or opposite requirements – for example having control on one hand, but giving freedom on the other. Thinking Operationally and Strategically at the same time. Being Technological and Human. Leading and Being Led. The key mindset jump here is instead of thinking ‘we can only have one’, thinking about having both is a way of thinking differently.

In the example of ‘Control’, asking different questions – like ‘under what conditions do we need control’ or ‘under what conditions do we need freedom’ – offers a powerful third way of thinking differently. Therefore, this represents the biggest challenge for Leaders to think in a Meta, Hybrid way. Stop focusing on narrow concepts like hybrid working and start thinking Meta or Hybrid! I like to say that the story of the future of work is not yet written but there are enough broadly defined plotlines for a first draft. Like all innovative endeavours we need to recognise that mistakes will be made as we develop but we do seem to be moving to a more evolved view of what work is, what organizations need to be in order to create an inclusive working world that works for us all.

Thank you so much for this inspiring conversation.

This article comes from magazine:
FOCUS ON Business #10 May-June (3/2023)

FOCUS ON Business #10 May-June (3/2023) Check the issue