Insights from Keith Ferazzi, Chairman and Founder of Ferrazzi Greenlight
I will admit that the subtitle of Ferrazzi’s new book, Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest, is what drew me to his session at SXSW. I’m also a fan of Ferrazzi’s previous two bestsellers, Who’s Got Your Back and Never Eat Alone. After what we’ve experienced in 2020, 2021 and now 2022, “radical adaptability” is definitely called for.
Instead of going back to work, shouldn’t we go forward? The pandemic forced organizations and teams to adapt to new, often better, ways of operating. So, why not skip returning to normal and redesign work based on what we learned in crisis?
Based on 2,000 interviews with leaders during the pandemic, Competing in the New World of Work: How Radical Adaptability Separates the Best from the Rest (February 15, 2022; Harvard Business Review Press) by Keith Ferrazzi, Kian Gohar and Noel Weyrich provides the blueprint we need now to capitalize on all we’ve learned during the pandemic, so we can stay competitive in the future. To future-proof teams against tomorrow’s inevitable shocks, they explore “radical adaptability,” an essential set of skills that includes collaboration, agility, and foresight.
Ferrazzi disputes the notion that the pandemic was responsible for the “great resignation” and instead says it is the “great reshuffle,” where a positive change is taking place. Workers are reevaluating their work/life balance, and companies and founders must be flexible, unobtrusive and consider ways to make work meaningful and purposeful to their employees. Especially if they are to adapt, grow and thrive.
This is also a time of “great exploration.” Social contracts at work must be renegotiated.
What’s working and what’s not based on the research:
- Remote work and hybrids of in office and remote are the most productive models.
- Workers want to be heard and will stick with a job and give it more if they feel valued and heard. Do this in meetings where candor is encouraged, check everyone’s energy level from 1-5 and pause to address concerns if it is a 2 or less. Invite members to invent and wander in these sessions. Pause frequently to ask, “What’s not being said that should be said about this topic?”
- Co-elevate interdependence so that everyone is committed to each other’s success. Ask team members to share personal connections. For example, ask, “What experience from your past has had the biggest influence on you today?”
- Make strategic decisions based on what the group has said. This reinforces the feeling of being included and heard. The most important outcome is action that is based on all ideas and one that has measurable traction.
- With the new remote and hybrid workplaces, it’s an excellent team building strategy to adopt a policy of meeting away from the workplace. For example: hosting long, slow dinners or taking teams to remote locations for a working vacation. Focus on the work while getting to know the team personally.
- Transform and reboot management objectives from in-person work and one-on-one overseeing to work practices that encourage team bonding and value. This encourages “agile thinking” and going beyond what was previously envisioned.
- Foster a culture of continuous learning and exploration. This will help teams develop “active foresight” and help future-proof your business.
- Test for outcome using data. Businesses will be presented with and rely on data and technology now more than ever, and this will continue to be a guiding factor.
“The coming years of recovery and renewal offer a historic opportunity to remake our organizations and our futures, but only if we accept this as an inflection point for true reinvention,” write the authors.
Six decisions from Competing in the New World of Work:
Ferrazzi believes that each company will need to make six decisions along the two main dimensions of workforce and workplace. The first three will focus on the idea of who does the work, and the second three focus on where the work is done.
6 Decision Dials to determine if tasks should be done remotely or in-person, and by whom:
Workforce decision dials:
- Augmentation. Human or algorithmic? With advances in AI, work in the future will likely be a balance of human interventions and automated technologies. The future of human work will rely on creativity not productivity. Work that requires higher-order creativity, complex problem-solving, collaboration, communication and emotional intelligence will be the domain of humans.
- Employment. Traditional or Gig? Connectivity will increase access to digital services for underserved populations and will reinforce the development of a fully digital labor market where any one can work anywhere, on any type of remote work, on any task. However, anyone who is a critical part of your businesses’ competitive advantage should be a full-time employee. Which roles can be performed by gig workers depends on the task.
- Ecosystem Internal or External. Do you hire a full-time or part-time employee to accomplish a task or do you outsource or partner with a specialized company to accomplish the task? It depends on the size and place your organization is in and where you are headed in the future.
Workplace decision dials:
- Presence. In-person or Remote. The authors believe that with new technologies such as augmented and virtual realities, fully remote or hybrid models are inevitable, so companies should consider ways to optimize for the future. Consciously choose your work environment based on the type of project you are staffing.
- Location. Onshore or Offshore. This largely depends on lowering labor costs and being able to have a work presence around the clock. The authors believe that offshoring is a trend that will stay around.
- Environment. Open or closed. Can the work of your company best be done in an open, collaborative environment or a closed, focused environment?
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