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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 2006 issue of Future of Work Agenda and setting our theme for the month. This month we're focused yet again on education and fixing the mess we're in. And we welcome guest author Bill Jensen who has some great ideas about how to simplify your life. AnnouncementsJim will be keynote speaker at the new HR Leadership Program being presented by Santa Clara University. And Future of Work continues to seek new members. Feature Article: Searching For A Simpler WayWe're very pleased to bring you these suggestions for simplifying your life and work from Bill Jensen, author of The Simplicity Survival Handbook and a leading expert on work complexity and how to cut through it. This advice will benefit every single one of us. Reader Response To Our "Edumacation" RantOur February rant, "It's Time to Start Over," generated more comments - and more intense emotions - from you, our dear readers, than anything we've ever written. Clearly, we touched a raw nerve or two. We heard from frustrated parents, frustrated teachers, and frustrated employers. In short, we get the strong sense that the predominant view of the U.S. education system is (we're taking a wild guess here): Frustration. Best of the BlogThis section provides you with brief summaries of several recent notes we've already posted on the Future of Work weblog. In each case we also include a live link to the original post on the blog. And we encourage you to become a regular reader of the blog, where we are posting notes, case studies, and links to other important websites almost every day. In Our Humble Opinion: Starting Over - AgainWe 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 and beyond. |
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From Jim and CharlieLike many of you we've been watching the Torino Winter Olympics the last two weeks with a combination of fascination and frustration. Fascination with the dedication and energy of young people from all over the world. Fascination (and awe) at the way competitive sports call forth genuine sportsmanship and almost erase national boundaries. Fascination with what the human body can accomplish when it's trained, rested and ready. Fascination with our ability to view events halfway around the world as if they were right next door. But we're also frustrated. We're frustrated with announcers who can't seem to stop talking long enough for us to just admire the pure athleticism and grace of snowboarders, slalom skiers, and figure skaters. We're frustrated with camera angles that don't begin to capture the speed or the drama of a bobsled run or rigor of a 20KM cross-country ski race. We're frustrated with the continuing emphasis on national medal counts, as if that somehow mattered. And we're frustrated with TV coverage that jumps back and forth between figure skating rinks and downhill racers and bobsled runs, as if no one wants to see a single event from beginning to end. With all those cable channels out there, why can't we pick a sport and stay with it? So, what does any of that have to do with the future of work? Maybe nothing. But we think there may be some metaphors and lessons in the Olympics for the way we carry out our work and produce our own "gold medals" on a daily basis. First, it's certainly clear that hard work, focus, and commitment do make a difference. Every one of those Olympic athletes is intensely focused on a clear goal, and has spent years of dedicated, focused effort to get there. Winning obviously means a lot, and the "agony of defeat" can be devastating. At the same time, however, achieving a "personal best" is just as important as winning a medal, and can be enormously satisfying. But in spite of that generally wholesome view of work and careers, too many of us (including Yours Truly) all too often let our work lives get chopped up, overcomplicated, and misunderstood. Our guest author this month, Bill Jensen, has dedicated his life's work to simplification. We think you'll find his ideas and recommendations in "Searching for a Simpler Way" refreshing and insightful. Which brings us to one critical topic that is anything but simple - education (or, as we called it last month, "edumacation"). Our February rant "It's Time to Start Over" generated incredible emotions, more letters to the editor than we've ever received, and some genuinely useful suggestions. We've reprinted the best of the best in our Reader Response section, in the hopes of continuing - and elevating - the conversation. And we've done something new too - a second month of ranting on the same topic ("Starting Over - Again"). We hope you'll enjoy our latest thoughts on what we - each of us - can do to improve the state of education in this country. If even one of you follows our advice and gets actively involved with your local schools, we'll feel really good, and the country will be better off. If you do, please tell us about your experience. And as always, of course, we're pleased to bring you our regular Announcements and Best of the Blog sections. We continue to believe that you'll find ideas and information here that you just can't get anywhere else. So, on to the rest of the newsletter. Enjoy! And please let us know what you think.
AnnouncementsJim Ware to be Keynote Speaker at HR Leadership ProgramJim has been invited to kick off the second day of the new Human Resources Leadership Program being offered by The Executive Development Center at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business on March 29-31. The program is an ambitious effort by organizers Helen Peters and Deborah Saks to "transform" the HR profession. Other featured speakers include Mary O'Hara Devereaux, CEO of Global Foresight, who will discuss "Eight Global Trends Shaping Your Future," Deborah Barber, Principal at The Jackson Hole Group, on "Driving Human Capital Strategy from the Business Strategy," and Dr. Jac Fitz-Enz, founder of the Workforce Intelligence Institute, on "The Power to Predict: Applying Decision Sciences to Human Capital Management." There will also be several panel discussions featuring practicing HR executives and thought leaders. All in all, it promises to be an engaging and important opportunity for serious conversation about a number of very significant challenges facing HR executives. You can register for the program at: http://lsb.scu.edu/edc/programs/hrleadership.htm Future of Work Continues to Seek New MembersFuture of Work offers several levels of membership that depend on your status and needs: Individual and Small Business, Corporate, and Implementation Partners. We also offer special discounts to nonprofit, educational, and public sector organizations. These membership programs are described in more detail on the Future of Work website, or feel free to contact us directly for more information about fees and benefits. All Future of Work members are now listed on the Future of Work website, in the About Us/Members section. We encourage all our readers to consider joining the community. Please visit our website and apply for membership today.
Feature Article: Searching For A Simpler WayBy Bill Jensen Our hosts, Charlie and Jim, believe we are on the cusp of a major transformation in how we work. I couldn't agree more! For fifteen years I've been studying how work gets done. From seismic shifts that can only been seen by pulling waaayyy back, to how each individual is thrashing, transforming, coping, or even joy-riding through those shifts. (For more, see Search for a Simpler Way study) Here's a quick zoom through the revolution you are experiencing first-hand, concluding with the one thing you can do to ensure your success. The Coming New Work ContractEmployee working capital gets stuff done. Companies use employee assets - time, attention, ideas, knowledge, passion, energy, and networks - to make the company go. The evolving new work contract is about how to leverage that working capital - and how not to. Work is an investment. The time and attention of everyone who works are finite, and are becoming more valuable and sought-after with each tick of the clock. Every employer must answer this question: "Why should we invest these assets in you?"? Great places to work provide great returns on employee investments. If an hour invested in your firm could be invested in a competitor for greater return, employees will leave. Every company is actually a middleman between employees, their teammates, customers, and the marketplace. Great places to work will answer: "What value do you create for us as we try to get stuff done?" For every day spent with your company, it must get easier to do great work, make oneself better, and make the world a better place. Accountability is personal and two-way. In return for great places to work, employees will take on greater and greater accountability for performance, innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness. (Read the complete New Contract) Critical to Surviving and Thriving the TransitionNot everyone will reap the benefits of this new work contract. Some will glide into it naturally, some will be left behind, and some won't deserve it. Here's a clue to one of the most critical deciding factors: If you are like most who work today, you are ADD. Attention deficit is rampant in business! And it's getting worse! For years, I've been studying the biggest timewasters in everybody's day. Check out the top three:
Three of the biggest timewasters all relate to communication: how to quickly cut through clutter, then analyze, question, process, synthesize, clarify and share what matters. This is true for everyone throughout the organization - front-line clerk to commander in chief. Those who will survive and thrive the revolution's transition will be those who continually improve how they leverage their attention and how they communicate. They will guard who and what gets their attention, know how to quickly make sense of anything, and how to connect with others who are also guarding their attention, reserving it only for what truly matters. If you are over 40, beware! The Net Generation (25 year-olds and younger, 80 million strong in the US) is very practiced in the skills you are just beginning to master! To Be Strategic, Start Small and SimpleI recently conducted a leadership development course for the top 50 executives at a Fortune 50 company. The one topic they wanted the most: "How to delete 75% of your emails and not miss anything." From the research I've done, you are probably losing between two to four hours per day(!!!), trying to cut through clutter and make sense of everything coming at you. That's 30 to 60 days per year - lost! Go back to the big picture: Note that the new work contract counts your time and attention and ideas as assets to be leveraged. In the coming work environment, you need to know how to constantly get the best return on those assets. Start learning how to do that now by starting small: learn how to delete more emails; write better ones; run better meetings; be clearer with fewer words; ask better questions; and say "no" more often without jeopardizing your career. The future belongs to those who can compete on clarity! Some resources to help you get started: (Click on Free Membership, Access Code: Jensen) Bill Jensen is a leading expert on work complexity and cutting through clutter to what really matters. He's CEO of The Jensen Group, whose mission is: To make it easier to get stuff done. Bill is author of Simplicity Survival Handbook and What Is Your Life's Work? Email: bill@simplerwork.com Please direct your comments and questions either directly to Bill or to comments@thefutureofwork.net. We'd love to publish your reactions and suggestions.
Reader Response To Our "Edumacation" RantOur February rant, "It's Time to Start Over," generated more comments - and more intense emotions - from you, our dear readers, than anything we've ever written. Clearly, we touched a raw nerve or two. We heard from frustrated parents, frustrated teachers, and frustrated employers. In short, we get the strong sense that the predominant view of the U.S. education system is (we're taking a wild guess here): Frustration. We are pleased to reprint the most interesting and, In Our Humble Opinion, insightful comments here. While we don't agree with everything you've told us, we are humbled by how serious this issue is, thrilled to learn how deeply you all care about it, and grateful for all the references and ideas you've shared with us (If you want the full unadulterated flavor of this conversation, we recommend that you go back and read the original rant before perusing these comments). From Karen Olesen:I am a Career Counselor/Professor at one of those "public failing institutions" you believe should be restructured. What gives me great delight in responding to your recent article is that I am also on the Executive Committee for Local AFT #1493 (and, dare I say, proud of it). Item 1 Curriculum: Are you familiar with the SCANS Competencies, and if you are, what is your opinion? (http://wdr.doleta.gov/SCANS/teaching/) Item 3. Parents: I so agree with your suggestion. However, so far our society does not value "social capital," nor do we seem to care about other families' problems. There is no money available for parenting classes and it seems to me that the only place it would be appropriate is in PUBLIC secondary education. I saved the hot item to last - Teachers: Why not attempt to have administrators and supervisors actually READ their faculty contracts and follow the guidelines. I have not had an evaluation in over 6 years; it states in my contract that I should have one more often. Granted, the previous evaluations have all been great but that has no bearing on this issue. It seems in my experience that often if there is a low performing faculty individual the administrator did not follow the procedures to assist [that] individual make improvements and then if still performing poorly to dismiss. Rather, they have a tenured individual and either blame it on the union for not being able to get rid of them rather than follow the procedures for attempting to correct what was obviously a good teacher at the point of tenure. From Patricia Hine:This was a really interesting rant for me. I am the mother of a 7 year old and I am struggling with the whole concept of "no child left behind." I work very hard to support my daughter at school. Unfortunately, they have changed the way things are taught so much, I need to go back to second grade in order to help her with her homework. They have changed the methods used for addition, subtraction, etc, so that I can't help her. I tried to teach her to "carry over" in order to add double digit numbers. Her answers were marked incorrect because she didn't use the method taught by the curriculum, even though she got the correct answers. I couldn't even understand what they were talking about, never mind explain it to a 7 year old. The other difficult thing is that teachers no longer have time to work with kids who are struggling. They have so much to cram into an academic year, that going over the same thing more than once is impossible. Kids fall behind because the teacher isn't given a choice based on the performance standards they are given. In kindergarten, my daughter was required to read over 100 complex words by the end of the year. She wasn't even 5 yet! And all because of what is included in the NCLB mastery tests, that aren't being passed anyway. I agree that things are broken. I just wonder why we can't teach 1+1 the way I learned it 40 years ago. My vote is to scrap all the testing and just concentrate on teaching, and like you say, repeat it until you get it right. From David McCarty:OK wise guys, your rant about the state of public education has finally struck a nerve. Since when did you two join the bourgeois and blame the plight of the worker on his own misfortune? What set of facts can you be misreading that says 2600 jobs head to Mexico because the labor force there is better educated? If 600 of those workers were illiterate in the U.S., you can bet 2500 in Mexico can't read. Please, if we can learn only one thing from our esteemed Liar-in-Chief it should be to make sure your lies are good ones and can't be verified. Your most egregious lie is that jobs are leaving the U.S. because there are better qualified workers elsewhere. While some of America's knowledge workers are now competing in a global marketplace for jobs, it is a relatively fair and open system. Our beloved distributed work models and next generation work environments have given motivated professionals access to jobs around the world, often without the need to relocate. Your second lie is less flagrant, but more surprising given your academic backgrounds. Is there a problem with education in America today? You bet! Is it the fault of teachers, administrators or the processes? Not by the wildest flight of your right wing fantasy! The problem of course is money. Not how much money, but where the money comes from and where it goes. My children go to public schools that spend in excess of $5000 per year per student. Within 10 miles are schools charged with the same "no child left behind" mission that must do it with less than 1/3 that amount. The system requires a complete overhaul, but the required overhaul is in how we fund education, not in how we educate. Until we redistribute the learning wealth the gap between rich and poor will grow, the number of our unemployable uneducated will grow, and "enrollment" in our prison systems will grow. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for jumping on the beat-up-the-teachers bandwagon. The future of work must be about strengthening the place of workers in the world. Free access to fair job markets that provide a living wage is a key to leveling the field and minimizing the wealth gap around the world. Equal access to quality education opportunities in the U.S. is the key to a stronger, more competitive labor force. Most importantly, facing our problems honestly and working together to fix them is the way to keep everyone moving forward.
Best of the BlogHere's a small sampling of excerpts/lead-ins from our recent weblog posts. Please get in the habit of reading the Future of Work weblog regularly – bookmark it, or if you have an RSS news reader, subscribe to it. And please contribute as well. We're more than happy to reprint your stories, or to consider featuring you as a Guest Writer. We believe we're creating a unique knowledge base of what's going on out there today, and what's going to be going on tomorrow. If you want to learn about the future of work, our blog is the place to go (along with this very newsletter, of course). Just click on each headline below to visit the full original blog post. The Internet Builds Social Capital (February 6)As followers of this blog know, [we] are big believers in the power of social capital. The strengths of relationships make a huge difference in how effectively an organization operates, as well as how desirable a community is for living and working. So I lit up a bit when I came across a new piece of research published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. 21st Century Recruiting - and Retention (February 8)I had the pleasure the other day of participating as a speaker in a webinar on "The Future of Recruiting" sponsored by Execuserve. I kicked things off with a high-level and very brief overview of some of the key drivers of change that impacting work - including where, when, how, and even why work gets done these days (a pdf version of my slides is available here). Nothing is for Sure (February 9)Just after posting the note about recruiting and retention (February 8), I came across this article from today's New York Times about the withering away of employee benefits at General Motors and elsewhere ("Benefits Go the Way of Pensions"). I believe it just hastens the day when we all realize, as some wags have said, that the "Ownership Society" being touted by some (unnamed, but you know who I mean) politicians really means "You're on your own." Business Continuity and Distributed Work (February 15)We're all a lot more sensitive to the potential for a natural disaster to affect our businesses these days. Whether it's an earthquake, a hurricane, a tsunami, a wildfire, a snowstorm, or a pandemic like avian flu, we all know that keeping the business up and running under extraordinary circumstances can be extremely difficult. Recently our Future of Work members participated in a roundtable teleconference on these issues. We were pleased to have Joe Roitz, Director of Telework for AT&T, and Richard Cooper, Vice President at Business Protection Systems International (BPSI), as special guests.
In Our Humble Opinion: Starting Over - AgainCommentary by Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware Boy, howdy, did we ever light a fire with our "edumacation" rant last month. We gotta teach Buford to stop whackin' that hornet's nest. You know that sometimes we say some pretty outrageous things to see if you folks out there are still breathin'. Well, thank the lord, you are, so what the hey, here we go again. First off, thanks to all of you who wrote in to scream at us - and at your local school board, those Washington buro-o-crats, and even at some of the teachers. We heard one story where some whack-doodle actually took our rant and read it at a local school board meeting. Sheesh! We're a wondering what town it was so we can make sure that Shirley (note: in the interests of our flat world we only use "on-shore" workers with Oklahoma accents) doesn't book us in there for some speechifying. We've never done this before (but that ain't stoppin' us, either), but we're going to take a crack at responding to your responses. Sort of like we're going to play the White House Press guy (pity the poor soul) and you're the reporters. After all, we've been saying for years that we want this newsletter to be a conversation, not a one-way broadcast. So now, as they say down on the farm, "Let's talk a bit"). First, let's be real clear: we are not blaming the victims of our so-called "education system" for the system's failure to educate them properly. Far from it: our students deserve a whole lot better than they've been getting. They're going to the dance but the band ain't playin'. Our fear is that, like it or not, the good ol' U. S. and ever-loving A. just might not be the hotbed of thinking and learning leadership that too many of us still think it is. Maybe things aren't perfect in Mexico either, but it's a plain old verifiable fact that Mexico is now graduating more engineers every year than the entire United States. Take that and chew on it a while. Doesn't taste too good, does it? Think we're nuts? (Well, actually that's beside the point.) Take a looky at these little ditties: http://enzi.senate.gov/educationcompete.htm http://www.sourceesb.com/configurable/article20050629.html We're especially proud to bring you that first little rant from the great State of Wyoming - where the state rock is a buffalo chip, not a computer chip. (Sorry, had to say that it; was just toooo easy a cheap shot.) More to the point, the real challenges to our thought leadership and creativity are coming from -and will from now on - those familiar demons, India and China. Along with a bunch of other Asian countries and some in South America. Don't even try to get us started on the African continent; that's another whole story we'll save for right after our elucidation on "bird flu." Watch this space. Look, that old devil Bill Gates himself has said he sees more creativity and quality coming out of Beijing than he does anywhere else in the world. Hello! You mean the cursed blue screen of death is a Chinese Manchurian kind of thing? Holy diddly squat, we just can't sit on our proverbial butts and think the world is going to keep on depending on "Made in the United States." Ain't gonna happen, bunky. The horse is out of the barn. The question is, can it (or will it) come back? There are better odds in some funky old casinos we've been sighted in as of late. So back to education. Truth is, our dear prezzi-dent got it backwards: our children isn't learning. But we agree completely with most of you who wrote to us: it's hardly their fault. Our big concern, besides the health and welfare of the next generation, is that this screwed-up system just might take the U.S. out of global competition for good. We don't need to win all the gold medals, but we sure as heck do want to stay in the race. What we've got here is a gang who can't shot straight. (We know, we know, there we go again. But somehow we just went from bird brain to bird shot and, oh well, it slipped out.) And just to prove that we can learn, here's some new "should's," given the benefit of your thoughtful cards and letters (see Reader Response, above, for some genu-wine wisdom). Okay, okay, maybe literally starting over like we suggested last month is a wee bit extreme (and, we admit in an occasional sober moment, a bit unrealistic, but fun to think about). But isn't it interesting that every single reader response we received was more critical than we were about the current system? What does that tell you? If fact, it just keeps getting better and better. We recently ran into an elected school board member who was scandalized by what she found when she looked under the tent. It's even worse than we thought. Kids aren't just being "left behind," they're being thrown off the bus (just kidding, it's a metaphor; please don't call the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Small People and turn us in). False hopes, false dreams, no direction. What was it that French lady said? "Let them eat cake!" Or was it, "Let them graduate"? So the real question is, what in the Sam Hill can we (all of us, together, as citizens and parents and future employers of all those students) do to make things better? Here, In Our Humble Opinion, are five "no-brainers" you can do almost immediately (no-brainers being a specialty of the house, for obvious reasons - beat ya to it, ha!):
Well, how do you like that Emily? That's a pretty serious couple hundred words. Yes, we do listen, and so do you. Let's keep up the conversation. Next month we're going to bring back a few old characters to tackle the next burning issue affecting the future: energy. Yes siree, old Earl Pitts will hold forth on global lukewarming, liquefied dinosaur poop, price supports, and whatever else it takes to keep people moving around while the work sits still. We bet you just can't wait, dear hearts. We expect to get a lot of mail from Texas on this one. 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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