Sun, 9 October 2016
Tom Gilovich is a professor of Psychology at Cornell University with an interest in judgement and decision making. He is also the author of the book, The Wisest One in the Room: How You Can Benefit from Social Psychology’s Most Powerful Insights. He has studied many different facets of social psychology including sports decisions, political judgement and decision making, and relationship decision making. What is the difference between wisdom and intelligence? A lot of aspects go into defining wisdom, but in short intelligence is more about being book smart and wisdom is more about being people smart. To have wisdom you have to be knowledgeable about people; why they do what they do and think what they think. How can this be translated to the workplace? Gilovich discusses what managers normally do when employees are not performing as well as they should be. Most managers try to change the employee’s behaviors by pushing them in the direction the manager wants them to go. They push them with incentives, punishments, or motivation. But Gilovich says most of the time the poor performance isn’t due to a lack of motivation, it’s because the employee has a hard time “translating their good intentions into effective actions”. So instead of pushing, it is important for leaders in the workplace to understand their employees and to find ways to help their employees put their intentions into action. Another subject that deals with understanding how people think and act is discussed in an article where Gilovich talks about the difference between experiences and material things and how they impact our happiness. He found three things to be true. Experiences connect us to other people more than material goods do, we are less comparative with experiences than with material things, and experiences contribute more to our identity than material things. In the end he found that people get more enduring happiness from experiences than material things. Could this principle be used in organizations to make employees more happy and content with their jobs? We spend a majority of our time working, and yet it seems that most people become more and more dissatisfied with their jobs as time goes on. Perhaps if we could find a way to make work more of an experience people would enjoy their jobs and their satisfaction would grow over time. But who is responsible for this change, the employee or the employer? Perhaps a little bit of both. It is important for both parties to be a part of this change. Employers should focus on creating a better employee experience, however up to this point the responsibility has been put on the employer alone. It is also up to the employees to change their outlook. Gilovich gave an example of two janitors working at Nasa, when asked what they do for a living one janitor said “I clean the floors and empty the trash” the other janitor said “I help put people on the moon”. Both janitors were correct, except one looked at the simplistic version of the job whereas the other one looked at the bigger picture. One of these two janitors is going to have a greater sense of purpose and a better employee experience based on their outlook. Another thing we have to understand is that there are times when we misevaluate things in our lives. Gilovich gives the example of riding a bike. When you are biking and you face the wind you cannot deny it is there; it is in your face and you feel it. However, when you turn around and have it at your back you are grateful for a minute but then you don’t even notice it after awhile. This demonstrates how the things we have to overcome are the things we pay attention to, because we have to. Those hard times in life or the barriers that stand in the way of our happiness, we have to focus and work hard to overcome them. But the things in life that give us “a boost”-- a pay raise or a new car, the good times--those are the things that are easy to forget. Because we easily forget the good, easy times we have the tendency to look at others (possibly co-workers) and feel that the other people have better lives. We have a tendency to claim life is “unfair” when we see others get raises, promotions, or good things in life. How can we be the wisest one in the room and put it into practice in the workplace? We spend about 30% of our lives in the workplace, so happiness and fulfillment at work are important. In order to improve the employee experience it is important for both employers and employees to focus on cultivating experience. How can employees have a sense of purpose at work, how can employees and employers connect and form relationships, and how can employees attain more freedom while still performing their job? All of these things play into the big picture of employee experience and how to be the wisest one in the room. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: The Wisest One In The Room on Amazon
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 3 October 2016
David Klein, CEO and Co-founder of CommonBond discusses the exciting work culture and hiring process his team uses to bring in the best talent. David Klein is the CEO and co-founder of CommonBond, an online lending company for student loans. It allows student to refinance their debt into a loan that consolidates several loans into one single loan and it provides a lower interest rate. David Klein co-founded CommonBond with two other MBA students whom he met in college when they realized there was a strong need for this type of service. CommonBond has around 80 employees and their corporate culture is very important to them. They were rated one of the 50 best work places by Inc Magazine. David Klein believes that creating a great workplace is largely dependent on employees and that is why hiring is so important to him. In the hiring process he looks for four qualities in every applicant. All new hires must have strategic acumen—really good business judgment and the ability to act independently—the ability to execute, internal drive, and good character. In creating the work culture, Klein and the rest of his team understand the importance of transparency. They hold weekly meetings on Fridays called Lunch and Learn where they spend the first 30 minutes listening to someone from the company talk about something new that is happening within the company and in the last 30 minutes they get to have a Q&A with Klein. During the Q&A session they can ask anything they want and Klein commits to giving them open and honest answers. They also have a social mission where they promise to give assistance to a student in need for every loan that they fund in the US. It is their way of giving back to the community and they are the first and only financial company to offer a one for one social mission. Some of the other unique things they are doing include a 12 week paid maternity leave and a 4 week paid paternity leave, unlimited vacation, catered lunches on Fridays, student loan assistance and monthly happy hours called Common Brews. All of this is planned by their culture team, which is a team of people that is randomly selected from their employees and rotates every quarter. Their workspace is also worth mentioning as it speaks to the importance of transparency in the company. It is an open floor plan with high ceilings and wood floors. All of the conference rooms have floor to ceiling windows on 3 sides and they have common spaces with couches and chairs. In order to work with CommonBond one must go through a unique hiring process. It starts off familiar with a resume drop, a phone screen and then an in person interview, but if you move past this part it becomes different. In the last step of the interview process every new hire has to do what is called a prompt. They are asked one big question or a few meaningful questions and they have to present their answer in some sort of presentation. The presentation could include a PowerPoint, an excel spreadsheet, or anything else the person can come up with. These prompts give CommonBond insight into the new hire’s personality. So why do they spend so much time and detail in the hiring process and in creating an exciting work culture? Well, as Klein discusses, the more they focus on hiring and retaining great employees the more it creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy” where new people come in and they want to work at CommonBond because of the people they meet in the interview process. They want to work with smart, kind, compassionate, hard working people. And with this hiring process and work culture, those are the types of employees they bring in and retain. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode:
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 25 September 2016
Ron Storn is the Vice President of the People department at Lyft. Lyft is a ride-sharing company based out of San Francisco, CA that unites technology and humans for more affordable rides. He has been with Lyft for 3 years and he is at the head of all of the recruiting and human resources for the company. Lyft has been around since 2007 and when they started they had 80 employees and now they have 1200. Over the past 20 years the function of HR within companies has really changed. Back in the 1990s the HR department was more about execution. The head of the company would tell you who to hire and when and HR would do it, no questions asked. Nowadays it is more about being an integral part of the business and the HR department is more involved in the whole process. It doesn’t matter how good your business plan is in theory if you don’t have the people to pull it off. With this shift in mindset about HR, companies have started spending more time figuring out how to attract and retain talent. The fast rate of growth at Lyft from 80 employees to 1200 in the last 10 years is a testament to their success with attracting and retaining employees. They are doing some really unique and effective things to get the best talent. One hot topic nowadays is figuring out what Millennials want in a workplace. Storn states that there are three things that Millennials really want; they want to work with top notch people who they can learn from, they want to work on interesting things, and they want to have a connection to the company’s mission. Storn believes that Millennials are enthusiastic and passionate and they really want to make a difference. One of the issues companies have with Millennials is that they want to make a difference very quickly and then move on to the next thing, but the process doesn’t always happen as quickly as they want it to. Lyft has some really unique internal programs that help create their corporate culture. One example is a tradition they have for new hires. Every two weeks they have an all hands meeting where the whole company comes together for a meeting. During this meeting they do a comedic roast of all of the new people. Another program they have for new hires is an incentive to get to know other people within the company. They give the new hires a coffee card and tell them to take another employee who is not in their department out for coffee. Storn says Lyft is set apart from their competition by their experience. They believe it is important to share stories with the employees to show that what they do affects their customers. One example of how a driver impacted a customer is shown in a story about a driver who was driving a passenger on Valentine’s Day. The driver handed the passenger a note that said Be My Valentine and the passenger started crying. The driver pulled over, turned off their meter and talked to the passenger for awhile. A few weeks later a friend of the passenger wrote a letter to Lyft thanking that driver for saving their friend as their friend had been contemplating suicide but felt touched by what the driver did. Lyft also puts a lot of effort into creating a unique working atmosphere. At one of their buildings they have a secret Willy Wonka room where you push a picture to open up a door into a secret room. Their new building in Seattle will have a secret coffee bar. They also have a mixture of open and closed working spaces that allow employees to work in a space that is conducive to what they are working on. They really encourage collaborative working, so no one has an assigned office. Lyft has four core values that they use to shape their corporate culture and employee experience. The four core values are be yourself, create fearlessly, uplift others, and make it happen. They want employees to come to work and be the same person as they are at home (they even allow dogs in the office). They encourage workers to feel empowered to fix problems on their own, focus on the team instead of I, and to do things instead of sitting back and waiting. When it comes to attracting and retaining the best talent Storn advises managers to change their mindset and meet employees where they are at. It is important to appeal to what the employees are looking for. Make them feel like they are adding value to your company. For employees who are looking to have a better work experience Storn says make your voice heard. If you are looking for a new job, don’t focus on the job alone look at the company as a whole. He says, “Pick the company, not the role. The role will follow”.
What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode:
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 18 September 2016
So in this EM world, what would EMs do? In Hanson’s view they would take over all of the work form the humans. Some EMs would do virtual jobs and some would do physical jobs, therefore they would be able to switch from a physical form to a virtual form in an instant as we are able to get in and out of our car to go somewhere. EMs would live mostly in city centers and interact with each other as humans do. And what would humans be doing during this time? Well, first they would all have to retire. After EMs are around humans wouldn’t be able to compete for jobs so they would retire to live off of their savings and live a life of leisure. Hanson believes some humans would have money from creating EMs, because in the beginning the people who are the best in their fields would be sought out to scan their brains for EMs earning big money. Later on younger people would most likely be sought out to create EMs as they would be able to learn new things the quickest. Some may also make money from investments or have money saved up. Those who don’t have money at this time probably wouldn’t survive, it would just depend on how areas would take care of each other, divide money, and provide for humans. EMs would most likely run 1,000 times faster than humans so they would evolve much more quickly than humans have. Therefore, the EM Age may only last 1-2 years so in that time humans probably won’t have time to change much. There are different views that people have when they read about EMs, either they think it is fun and exciting to learn and think about or they think it is crazy or scary or impossible. For people who think it is impossible, Hanson explains that we have had 3 major eras of humans; Foragers, Farmers, and Industry and in each era there has been a sudden change to bring about the next era. So the next era after ours could be the EM Age. People who lived 1,000 years ago would probably think that the innovations we have today are crazy or impossible. Regardless of what the future holds it will still be strange to those of us who are living in the current era. Hanson’s book touches on several aspects of the EM Age including the basics, organization, economics, sociology and physics. In the way of physics Hanson touches on things such as the relationship between the body size and mind speed of EMs as well as the energy and cooling usage that the EMs would need. In the section on economics Hanson discusses many things including the fact that EMs will happen when it is feasible to make them at a low cost. Even if we had the technology now to create them, it would be too expensive. It would have to cost as much as or less than it costs to pay humans to do those jobs now. When Hanson talks about organization he talks about how EMs will have similar units as we have among humans; cities, families, firms. However they will also have clans. Clans will be EMs that are copies of the same human and they will be more identical than twins. And in the section on sociology Hanson talks about how sex and mating will be different for the EMs. On the one hand they are a copy of humans and therefore it would be ingrained in them to have a need for love, sex and connection. However there would be factors that would make this difficult such as their work drive not allowing them to focus on anything else and the fact that the ratio between male and female probably wouldn’t be equal. Many people may ask how could we get a future that no one wants. It is hard to imagine anyone in today’s age that would want all humans to have their jobs taken over by machines and the possibility that humans would be without money and therefore not be able to survive. However, it would not be a result of what we all want together. No one is choosing technology collectively; it’s not something we vote on or agree on. It is done by individuals who are innovating things in order to move forward and make money. The EM Age could come as a result of decentralized competition. Each of us trying to individually get what we want could end in all of us together getting what we don’t want.
Link From The Episode:
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 12 September 2016
Arun Sundararajan is the author of The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism. He is a professor of business at the Stern School of Business at NYU. He is interested in researching how digital technology brings about change in our economy and he has published over 50 scientific papers and over 30 op-eds on subjects related to this research. The sharing economy is a very hot topic at the moment. How will the sharing economy evolve? How will it impact traditional jobs? How many vendors will succeed in this type of economy? Although we are still in the very beginning stages of this type of economy, Arun Sundararajan’s extensive research allows us to take a deeper look into what a sharing economy actually is and what the future of this space looks like. When asked what the sharing economy actually is, Sundararajan says he believes that a sharing economy has at least 5 characteristics. One of the characteristics is that a sharing economy takes an activity that was once provided by a large institution and takes it to a marketplace type environment. One example of this is shown in hotels vs. Airbnb. Not long ago if you were traveling out of town most likely you would stay at a large hotel chain such as Hilton or Holiday Inn. Nowadays Airbnb has become extremely popular. So instead of staying in a large hotel chain owned by a large corporation, people are using the marketplace type platform of Airbnb to stay in other people’s houses. Another characteristic is that there is a blurring of lines between personal and professional. Companies like Uber and Airbnb are a great example of this. We are using these professional platforms for things that we used to only do on a personal level with friends or family. We are getting a ride from a stranger or staying in a room in a stranger’s house. Some of the other characteristics he touches on are that we are using assets more efficiently and therefore there is an increase in impact in capital of labor of assets, there has been a shift in who is providing the services, meaning a job that used to be done by a group of highly trained professionals is now done by a distributed group of people who may not have had any specialized training, and there is a blurring of lines between professional full time work and casual freelance work. When talking about the sharing economy it is important to note the advances and innovations that have allowed us to get here. One of the important advances that is necessary for a sharing economy is a comfort with digital platforms. The fact that we have become so used to and dependent on digital platforms such as Ebay, Craigslist and Amazon has played into the growth of the sharing economy. We have become very comfortable with using technology in our everyday life. Another innovation that had to come about before we could have a sharing economy is the GPS. There are several platforms such as Uber that would not work without GPS. Which leads into another innovation that is essential to a sharing economy, and that is the Smartphone. The Smartphone makes it so easy and convenient for people to connect to platforms such as Uber, Upwork, Airbnb, etc… Another important aspect of our move towards a sharing economy was trust. Even 20 years ago we didn’t have the trust needed to allow a sharing economy to succeed. Platforms such as Ebay and Craigslist eased us into this trust several years ago. People were able to purchase items to be sent to them and the trust needed was fairly limited. You needed to trust that they would send the products on time and in good condition, but there really wasn’t much risk involved. Now, our trust level has gone up to the point where we are now allowing individuals to come into our home to paint or clean or we are putting ourselves into a stranger’s car. Even though it has taken a lot of innovation and forward moving to get where we are, Sundararajan feels that we are coming full circle back to the work model of the 18th century where transactions were peer to peer. The only difference is now we are putting platforms in between the individuals. The sharing economy is like a hybrid between the 18th century marketplace and the 20th century organization. Sundararajan hopes that people will see the move towards a sharing economy more as an opportunity then a threat. He feels that this shift in our economy will bring us back to genuine human contact in our everyday economic activities. In the next few years Sundararajan would like to see the sharing economy expand rapidly. However, to have this happen successfully there are two things that he believes are important to focus on. One is funding for things such as paid vacation, insurance, and other benefits. At this time these things are funded by a company or the government in exchange for full time employment, however if we move towards the crowd based capitalism it will be important to find another way to fund these types of benefits. Another thing that is important is getting past the “regulatory conflict” as quickly as possible. He believes that if we can get past both of these hurdles, then the future of crowd capitalism and a sharing economy is promising. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: The Sharing Economy On Amazon.com
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Tue, 6 September 2016
Thomas Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College in Massachusetts. He is an author, the co-founder of the International Institute for Analytics, a Fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and Senior Advisor to Deloitte Analytics. He has spent the last 30 years focused on the Sociology of Information, studying and teaching about how people and organizations use information. He currently teaches MBAs at Babson College about Analytics, Cognitive Technologies, Big Data, and Knowledge Management. Thomas is the co-author of the new book, Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines. In the book Thomas and co-author Julia Kirby discuss the rise of job automation and how humans can secure their place in the workplace in the midst of this shift by using the 5 alternative strategies they lay out. The move towards automation in the workplace, while not new, is a controversial subject that is becoming a large part of our current work economy. There are two camps of people today, those who are opposed to the move towards automation and those who are embracing it. The people who are opposed are scared about the implications of automating jobs. They feel that this shift in our economy will create chaos and wipe out jobs for humans. The camp of people who are embracing it feel that automating certain jobs could be a good thing and that we will always find a way to create new jobs for humans. Thomas talks about how reality is somewhere in the middle of the two camps. While automation could cause some jobs to be at risk, it may not be as perilous as some people may think. He talks about how most jobs have several tasks to them, some of them are automatable and some aren’t. In the podcast he gives an example explaining how automation could help lawyers cut down on the time they take to search through documents and contracts for items pertaining to a case. This process probably only takes up about 20% of what lawyers actually do, so as Thomas mentions, this automation wouldn’t completely replace lawyers, but perhaps in a law firm of 10 lawyers, the automation would relieve the workload to the point where they can do with 8 lawyers instead of 10. In an Oxford study done in 2013 they estimated that 47% of U.S. jobs are automatable. People such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have been very vocal about their concerns with the future of human jobs and our very existence in light of this rapid shift to automation. However, when you look at jobs that have already moved towards automation, such as bank tellers, it shows that the move may not be as rapid as they think. In the 1980s there were a half a million bank tellers, and today, there are still half a million bank tellers despite the invention and implementation of ATMs. While automation may not take over human jobs at an alarmingly quick rate, it is still something we need to be aware of. Automation, bots, and software are getting to the point now where they are becoming more capable of taking over knowledge jobs, whereas before they were only taking over labor intensive jobs such as manufacturing. Because of this, Thomas and Julia felt it was important to write their book that, first of all, encourages augmenting human labor with smart machines as opposed to completely replacing humans with machines and, secondly, shows people five ways to make themselves irreplaceable in the workplace. What you will learn in this episode:
Links From The Episode: Only Humans Need Apply On Amazon.com
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 28 August 2016
Jennie Carlson is the Executive and Chief Human Resource officer at US Bancorp. They are the 5th largest bank in the US, with 67,000 employees. Jennie has been with the company for 15 years and able to provide valuable insight in this week's podcast. The HR department has a pyramid of shared services. The normal HR functions such as payroll, employee relations, and recruiting are along the baseline. As the pyramid climbs higher, talent development, advancement opportunities are the focus. At the very top, the message of how US Bancorp can use people and talent to drive the strategy of the organization cascades down and drives the actions of the entire department. Other topics this can include are organizational design and fostering a great employee experience to lead to a great customer experience. The role of HR has evolved over the past few years. The department has seen a shift from an ‘order taker’ mode to become strategic partners that help set the corporate strategy and the organizational design. Employee experience is a huge focal point. This can include technology, flexible work arrangements, and employee engagement. Jennie shares how US Bancorp uses engagement surveys from their employees, which they use as a marker for continuous improvement. Traditional HR Metrics include employee engagement, as well as, other topics such as retention and exit interviews. Moving forward, US Bancorp is moving their analytics team from HR to strategy. This allows data to be pulled from the same sources, but it is being looked at differently, from the lens of the customer analytics department. Jennie believes that analytics should be deciphered in the best suited department. Companies that have larger marketing and customer analytics departments may be able to provide newer insights than smaller HR departments can. This can allow cornerstones of data, like the employee survey, to be drilled down as much as possible. Another area is making sure they are keeping in line with their ethical culture. The future of analytics also allows for characteristic and trend tracking in many employees. Keeping ahead of trends allows companies to gain a full picture of what is going on inside their company, allowing them to continuously improve to create a better organization. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode:
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 22 August 2016
Anka Wittenberg is the SVP and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at SAP, a software firm based in Walldorf, Germany. She holds master’s degrees in economics and international business and is a mother of three. That last note is what helped launch her career since holding two master’s degrees was not enough to get her an interview with the larger firms in Germany just because she also had small children. This one difference between Anka and the rest of the workforce is what opened her eyes and showed her the need for more diversity and inclusion in the workforce. This observation has helped Anka become a guest lecturer, author and advocate for true diversity and inclusion in the workforce.
Being the Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer for SAP means that Anka oversees the sustainability of people and the diversity and inclusion of everyone. What exactly does that mean? That it does not matter the sex, culture, ethnicity, age, or physical ability of a person but ALL types of people need to be included within the workforce. The uniqueness of your workforce begins to emerge when you include people from all walks of life you begin to see the diversity. SAP has a goal of having 25% of their leadership roles to be filled by females by the year 2017 and by the year 2020 their goal is to have 1% of their workforce positions filled by autistic people. Along with this diversity and inclusion you must work on the sustainability of the people within your organization.
One of the biggest changes that is happening today is the change within the corporate culture and thinking with regards to diversity & inclusion. Organizations are beginning to change their thinking on how they are training and sustaining their employees by focusing more on the holistic picture. Due to these changes organizations are beginning to see the business impact within employee engagement, improved customer satisfaction and innovation.
What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: Diversity And Inclusion At SAP (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 14 August 2016
Beth Taska is the EVP of Human Resources for 24 Hour Fitness, which was founded in 1979 and has over 400+ locations and over 23,000 employees serving 4 million club members. She has held the CHRO (Chief HR Officer) title and Senior HR positions for corporations such as Clearwire, Gap and Sears. Beth’s career path was not of the norm, she holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science and a graduate degree in Public Administration and worked for several municipalities around the Chicago area before beginning her career in the HR world. The CHRO role at 24 Hour Fitness includes onboarding over 17,000 people each year from the very inception when someone begins with 24 Hour Fitness and training these people. There is a duality with recruitment here because there is a large part of the 24 Hour Fitness workforce that uses their position as a stepping stone and part of the workforce includes people that want a longer tenure with the company. 24 Hour Fitness practices relationship based leadership and practices positivity and making a difference in some fashion with their members and their employees. In this episode Beth will discuss the differences that relationship based leadership can make within an organization and how that affects employees. What true leadership is and where it comes from, some of the simplest behaviors can make the largest impacts on an individual which in turn can make large impacts for an organization. How doing a 5 minute “Gratitude Circle” first thing each morning with everyone sets the positive tone for the work day ahead. What 24 Hour Fitness strives for each of their members with relationship based selling and how they turn that into a positive for their bottom line. How they deal with having mostly female members versus male employees. Beth discusses all of these things and explains the impact that being vulnerable makes for everyone within an organization and how to be vulnerable.
What you will learn in this episode:
Links from the episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 7 August 2016
Bask Iyer is the chief information officer of VMware and serves as the company’s senior vice president. Prior to VMware Bask was the chief information officer for Juniper Networks and held the same position at Honeywell and GlaxoSmithKline Beechcam. He is an industry veteran with more than 25 years experience within the Silicon Valley based technology firms and more traditional Fortune 100 manufacturing companies. VMware was founded in 1998 in Palo Alto and is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and virtualization software services with approximately 20,000 employees and 6 billion in annual revenues but they manage to retain that “start-up” feel. With that in mind VMware strives to stay on top of the latest technology “wave” and to do that you need talent, the right talent. More to the point with today’s technology and millennial talent: “Yesterday’s news wraps fish”, what you did last year doesn’t matter today. So VMware and Bask are constantly changing with the times and needs to recruit and retain great talent. The best talent asks “Why am I here?”, they don’t settle and they want to change the world. To keep this talent, you must have the assignments to capture their ambitions, you have to keep the organization’s innovation continuing to grow and change. Simple tricks such as a ping pong table, free food or a great cafeteria will not keep the talented millennials with your organization because they are not learning and growing with these “shiny perks”.
What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 1 August 2016
Andrew Wilson is the Chief Information Officer at Accenture. He leads the company’s global IT operations, where his work helps Accenture enable businesses with increasingly advanced technology. Andrew also aids all of Accenture’s 400,000 workers (this includes guest and contract workers) by making sure all of the technology is running, keeping them connected, productive, and happy as well. Post- Millennial digital services, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, has set the bar on what Enterprise services must deliver for their employees and customers. Legacy technologies, such as email, are still being used, but are not the focus as the digital experience grows. Accenture offers their own report on the state of technology industry and what it means for enterprises. This is released in an annual report called Technology Vision Report. Building and elaborating on prior year reports, new major themes and trends are brought to focus. Enterprises can navigate this report and apply new technologies to their businesses to get a leading edge in technologies ever changing landscape. The prospect of what can be accomplished digitally is changing because technology has a greater range into our lives than it ever has before. Digital is everywhere, it is pervasive. Andrew is working on creating platforms that mirror our current social media platforms, integrating new technologies such as adding holograms. There are new ways to train, deliver content, even finding your way around through an organization. Not adapting to these new ways of work can cause organizations to become irrelevant. What you will learn in this episode:
Links From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 24 July 2016
Frank Tucker is the Chief People Officer of Taco Bell. Working with the company for the last 23 years, Frank has made his way through the human resources department. He has worked in designing employee processes, methods, tools and technology, and has become the Chief People Officer in 2012. Taco Bell owns approximately 900 stores, which represents 40,000 employees. A huge part of their business is with their many franchisees. This adds another 6,000 stores, employing an additional 160,000 people. Because they are located in all 50 states, it is hard to imagine anyone not being familiar with Taco Bell. Taco Bell looks for really great people to start working with them. In some cases, they understand this may only be a stepping stone for certain employees in their careers. In other cases, there are many employees who want to grow and develop within the company. This includes employees who develop into managers and leaders who run their own franchise. Education is also a key component for many employees. Taco Bell has supported education efforts with their internal training programs, with many college credits being earned from Taco Bell as well as a tuition reimbursement program. Attracting and retaining top talent is a focus for many companies, especially Taco Bell. They believe investing in team members will give them a competitive advantage, no matter how long the employee’s career will remain in the company. This speaks to their broader mission, the future of America is with its youth. Not only is investing in team members the right thing to do, it resonates with Millennials and Generation Z. Empowering employees to reach their dreams aids in employee engagement and the quality is raised for the customer experience. What You Will Learn In This Episode:
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 18 July 2016
Mihir Shukla is the CEO of Automation Anywhere, an enterprise software company. They are redefining how work gets done by introducing the idea of a digital workforce platform and digital workers that work alongside human employees. This combination is designed to help the human employee accomplish more than they ever could alone. Automation Anywhere has 300 hundred employees in 10 offices worldwide. Mihir’s goal is to become one the world’s largest employer without having any employees. How will they accomplish this? Projections show in the next four years, Automation Anywhere will reach 3 Million software bots worldwide which are producing at the capacity of 3 Million people. While they are a software company, the production levels are so high that they are the world’s largest employer in the digital age. Software bots are digital workers. They can complete mundane tasks, and also tackle more complicated problems as well. Many employers want their workers to complete today’s problems and tomorrow’s challenges. However, we still have yesterday’s job to do as well. Processing invoices, verifying documents, generating reports, data entry, and other tasks still need to be completed. The workforce has been spread very far and work/life balance is not yet where it should be. Introducing mundane and complex tasks to the digital workforce allows the human employees to think, create, discover, and innovate. The man and machine partnership isn’t new, and has allowed the world to advance in countless ways. This concept has now trickled down to our offices, and the outcome can be nothing short of spectacular. Many people cannot tell the difference between if a bot or a human completed a task. Automation Anywhere provides learning bots that learn from human behavior. There are many industries that use bots, and people interact with them on a daily basis without ever knowing. Airline processes, car production, even a pen sitting on your desk could have been created using a software bot. The addition to these bots have allowed workers to have less stress while doing their jobs, provide better service and even reclaim work/life balance in some cases. The bots have allowed human workers to be less of a robot themselves at work and reclaim their humanity while preforming their jobs.
What You Will Learn In This Episode: What Is A Software Bot? Software Deployment What Do Bots Do? What A Human Robot Relationship Entails What Types Of Skills are Needed For The Future Of Work Should Robots In The Workplace Be Feared Or Embraced?
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 11 July 2016
Francine Katsoudas is the Chief People Officer of Cisco, one of the most forward thinking organizations on the planet when it comes to designing employee experience and thinking about the future of talent. Cisco was started in 1983, and now has 70,000 employees in over 170 countries. It began as a networking company and moved into collaboration/video. They are a very philanthropic organization... one of the current projects in Francine's sector is called Corporate Social Responsibility. It offers networking academies around the globe that help students learn technology. In the last year, they trained a million students! Francine has been with Cisco for 20 years, the first half of that being in the business field. She was always fascinated with human resources and finally made the move for a few different reasons, including the fact that HR at that time had a wonderful team that she wanted to work with. Francine has been CPO at Cisco for almost 2 years now. The role was originally CHRO until they developed a plan to build a new HR infrastructure. The history of HR was more about risk and compliance, while the new digital world necessitated anchoring on people, culture, and experience instead. With the title change, Francine's duties and Cisco's focuses evolved as well. Cisco now focuses on special experiences and moments that matter. Focus groups help identify which experiences could be better for employees by asking questions like "What is a good day at Cisco?" Cisco has also made performance management much more inclusive and stopped moving from system to system. Francine believes the future of work is all about people. As technology continues to scale and the world becomes more agile, people are at the heart of work learning how to work in different ways. An organization can have the best technology but if their employees' behaviors and attitudes aren't aligned, you just have problems. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 3 July 2016
Kathrin Winkler is the Chief Sustainability Officer at EMC, a massive global organization that offers products that enable customers to store, manage, protect, and analyze data. EMC started with helping businesses store data but evolved as the economy has transformed into the digitization of everything. It is a $25 billion company with 70,000 employees all over the world. Kathrin is a self-proclaimed geek with a pre-med background that ended up in the technology industry. She started in hardware, then worked her way into software, and eventually into networking. She joined EMC 13 years ago in the product management field. Kathrin helped create an informal sustainability program, working on how EMC could reduce its impact and make a more positive effect on the world. In early 2008, the CEO made the program official and established the position of Chief Sustainability Officer that Kathrin now holds.
Sustainability is more than just being green. It can mean many different things to different people but is basically a way of conducting business that serves the needs of the community of the planet, now and in the future. Kathrin believes that a sustainable organization looks at the world as a system to ensure that their business isn't coming at the expense of our children. Sustainability is important to customers and Kathrin has found that EMC's revenue through companies that care about sustainability increases year after year. It is also proven that organizations that invest in sustainability do better financially in general. But it is equally important to employees. People care about their legacy and want to know that their work makes a positive impact. They want to work for companies whose values align with their own. Sustainability creates a common ground that brings employees together and establishes connections, which is especially important for a company that has employees all around the globe. It boosts innovation and employee engagement. Employees that are proud of their company are more productive and engaged. A result of engaged employees is creativity which continues to benefit sustainability. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 26 June 2016
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is one of world's top business and leadership experts. He is the author of 35 books, including the most recent bestseller Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be. This and another of Marshall's books were ranked by Amazon as two of the top 100 leadership and success books of all times. In fact, he is the number one leadership thinker in the world! Around 1,500 people around the globe are certified in the process he uses for leadership coaching, and tens of thousands use the process. Marshall has flown 13 million miles and been to 92 countries on his journey as an executive coach. He got his PhD at UCLA in organizational behavior and accidentally fell into his field of executive coaching while working as a college professor. He is generally hired by the current CEO to coach the future CEO, by the board to coach the current CEO, or by the CEO to coach themselves. He offers a guarantee that if his client's behavior isn't changed after an agreed to period of time, he doesn't get paid. The coaching process begins with Marshall interviewing everyone around the client, which can include direct reports, peers, and board members. He then develops a profile about the client's performance and reviews it with them. The client is required to follow-up with people around them and with Marshall. He has found that there are certain behaviors that coaching cannot fix such as someone that isn't motivated or has already been written off by their company. Also, he will not deal with integrity problems or functional issues. Marshall is in the business of helping winners, not fixing losers. Along with executive coaching, Marshall spends his time writing, speaking, and recording videos for YouTube. He gives away all of his material... people can download and share any way they wish. He believes it is the kind thing to do as he has plenty of money, but it also saves him a lot of trouble since he doesn't have to worry about anyone stealing his material. What You Will Learn In This Episode:
Links From The Episode: Marshall Goldsmith on LinkedIn (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Mon, 20 June 2016
Jessica Mah is the founder and CEO of inDinero, one of the bay area's hottest companies. We met in Israel in 2009 when Jessica was just getting started building the company's software with her computer science background. Today, inDinero has 200 employees across 5 locations. Their purpose is to help businesses with accounting and taxes, like an outsourced finance department. One of Jessica's goals for her organization as it expands is to handle growth gracefully and retain culture along the way. One thing that sets inDinero apart from other companies is their interesting and unique talent practices. Jessica coined ABF talent as a way of rating team members and their performance. A employees are ones that she would enthusiastically rehire given what she knows about them today. B employees are ones that she might rehire but need to show improvement. These team members are put on a program to enhance their performance. Then at the end of the quarter, they will either be fixed or be fired. Jessica is a firm believer that harboring mediocrity is not conducive to good results. Her ranking system has proven very successful in transforming B players into A players. Another unique practice at inDinero is that they do not use e-mail internally. Instead, they converse via group chat rooms and messengers. This prevents employees from being held hostage in group email threads that unnecessarily fill up their mental bandwidth. All of the executives also use a special calendar grid that is tailored to the way that they want to spend their work week. This helps reduce stress and increase productivity. inDinero has a distinct hiring process to improve the odds of successful hiring and they also have high employee referrals. Jessica attributes much of the organization's growth and triumph to their values, such as radical candor and transparency. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Sun, 12 June 2016
Miguel Gamino is a self-proclaimed "accidental public servant" now working as the Chief Information Officer for the city and county of San Francisco. He was on a little break after starting a couple of tech companies in his hometown in Texas when he was approached by the city manager. Even though it was not an intentional career path, Miguel was convinced to do his civic duty by helping to reshape the technical organization for that city government. He stayed for over two years before being recruited by San Francisco. As the CIO of what is thought to be the center of the tech universe, there are major expectations for Miguel but he believes it is a good challenge. Miguel was appointed by the mayor to lead the tech strategy for the city and county. He is responsible for leveraging technology to improve the government and how it delivers services, and then advising the mayor and other departments. Miguel is also the department head of San Francisco's central IT department so he really gets to roll up his sleeves and make sure they are delivering daily. On top of those responsibilities, IT is now becoming a direct service provider to the public for many things. I can't think of anyone more appropriate than Miguel to enlighten us on the 5 pillars of a connected city. First, connectivity is the foundation. We have to make sure that people across all communities and lifestyles are connected. San Francisco is now offering free WiFi access with top speeds in a number of public spaces. They also want to offer a choice of connectivity at home that is equitable and accessible. The other pillars are digital service, delivering technology as a service, talent, and cybersecurity. When Miguel thinks of living and working in a connected world, he thinks of the unimaginable. The investments and decisions we are making today around the value and impact of connectivity will have a chain effect that we can't expect to fathom. What you will learn in this episode:
Links From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 5 June 2016
Dr. Christine Geith is the CEO at eXtension, which is part of the Cooperative Extension System. She has worked in higher education at two universities, including Michigan State most recently. Her specialty is online learning. About three years ago, Christine got involved in refreshing the conversation about the Cooperative Extension System's digital strategy and knowledge dissemination to the public,. Her goal is to help the system's professionals increase their measurable local impact. The Cooperative Extension System was founded 100 years ago and includes 120 institutions that have different types of funding from the federal government. It is basically a network of people in every county across the United States that is responsible for spreading research based science and innovation to families, communities, and farmers. They share information about food systems, production, family nutrition, solutions for obesity and chronic disease, community prosperity, starting small businesses, protecting and managing natural resources, extreme climate and weather change responses, and more! Christine believes that the system is America's best kept secret. It was created by the people, for the people and is the largest informal learning network across the country. There are at least 15,000 people involved in the extension offices that are spread over the US. Different states have different priorities so the role of extension in economic development will be different depending on the goals of each state. The programs that emerge from the Cooperate Extension System create opportunities and evolve as the needs of communities change. Cooperate extension helps people adopt new ways of living, working, and creating livelihood so prosperity and health are increased across the country. Even after 100 years, the system continues to be a priority funded by the USDA and the states. Agriculture is the root of the system, but not the limit of its scope. Due to the incredible variety of resources that it offers, it remains resilient and adaptable. What you will learn in this episode:
Links In the Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Mon, 30 May 2016
Matt Perez has been in the technology industry for a very long time, working in both small and large companies. Almost 10 years ago he co-founded Nearsoft with partner Roberto Martinez. Nearsoft helps their software development company clients grow development teams with engineers in Mexico. Clients can then reap the benefits of a team that speaks the same language and works in the same time zone. Currently, Nearsoft has around 200 employees and 3 offices in Mexico. Even more unique than their strong presence in Mexico is the fact that there are no managers or titles at Nearsoft… it is completely self-managed! According to Matt when people start working at Nearsoft it takes them a while to really believe that they don’t have a boss. They have an onboarding process that is currently being expanded from 2 to 6 weeks to help deal with that. The process highlights how to work with clients and communicate within the organization. New hires are assigned a mentor for any questions they may have. Everything, such as philosophy and values, is written so employees have context and know the appropriate things to do. It isn’t so detailed as step by step instructions but includes the necessary materials for employees to accomplish their goals. Nearsoft also encourages leadership teams as part of a decision matrix that spells out the types of decisions that are made around the company. Anyone can start a leadership team on any topic, from trivial to profound. Others can choose to sign up, and the only rules are to keep minutes and post them for transparency. Even if a decision is made that Matt and Roberto don’t agree with, they will do what the employees feel is in their best interest. Without a manager, employees remain accountable for their own work by using OKRs, or objective key results. They define personal and work-related goals that they want to accomplish for the quarter. Nearsoft has a very well defined governance framework. So employees should explore what they are doing to contribute to the company’s vision and purpose for the next 5 years.
What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 23 May 2016
Lindsay McGregor is the co-founder and CEO at Vega Factor, a company that helps organizations build high-performing, adaptive cultures. She is also the co-author of a New York Times Best Seller, Primed to Perform: How to Build the Highest Performing Cultures Through the Science of Total Motivation. Lindsay received her B.A. from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard, and has worked with Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and universities. She started her career working in strategy and found that one question often popped up.. "Do we have the culture to pull off the strategy?" Many companies would chose small, incremental improvements in their culture. She found that it was difficult to convince companies that big culture changes could really impact their performance and bottom line. Lindsay teamed up with Neel Doshi to research what is a great culture. They tested dozens of theories through research around the world, from 50 major companies and 20,000 people. They found that one truly predicted performance and that is total motivation. Total motivation, or ToMo, is the simple theory that why people work determines how well they work. There are six reasons why people work - three lead to higher performance and three lead to lower performance. They range from play, which is working because you love the work itself, to inertia, which is showing up today simply because you showed up yesterday. Many factors influence an employee's ToMo score like performance reviews, pay, and design. Organizations can measure employees' individual ToMo scores and then use them to measure the organization's ToMo score as a whole. Not many companies have a high ToMo score... most are pretty low. A common misconception that can fuel this is that leaders have to be tough dictators to get high performance. However, happy employees and high performing organizations are not competing things. Investing in one leads to the other. Organizations should create a balance of play, purpose, and potential to combat low performance and increase their bottom line! Things you will learn in this episode:
Links From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 15 May 2016
The way that cities evolve impacts our lives, personally and professionally. Jonathan Reichental works as the Chief Information Officer for the city of Palo Alto, reinventing sectors of the government that are struggling. Cities need a CIO because technology is the center of operations and almost all projects have a technical aspect. Not every city currently has a CIO but we are seeing the shift and demand to take IT to the center of delivering better services to citizens. Jonathan's office is in the city hall of Palo Alto. They built a civic tech center that looks like a start up, offering on-site training and team building. His team consists of 32 full time staff, plus temporary staff related to different companies like contractors and employees from vendors. Relative to cities of its size, Palo Alto has a large IT group. The city delivers all of its own utilities which generates half of its revenue. The population of less than 100,000 people doubles during the day with workers and students commuting in. The area has a huge appetite for technology! Jonathan is in a position to really observe and influence The City of the Future. So what does that look like? If the current trend continues, the vast major majority of the future will be in an urban setting instead of rural. Cities aren't currently ready for that. Our commutes are horrendous and we have crumbling infrastructures. The climate change and its effects need to be addressed. Our energy systems need to advance. Cities are typically inefficient and each part doesn't communicate. Many sectors of city government need new innovation and ideas. The Internet of Things will make the City of the Future possible... we can connect traffic signals to software for maximum efficiency and better traffic flow. We will be able to do the dreaded activities like renewing a driver's license and acquiring permits on a phone or computer, instead of spending the whole day at a government office. The parts of our daily lives that are still trapped in the past will catch up to the present. The software to facilitate The City of the Future exists, we just have to take a risk! What you will learn in this episode: Technology and people components of The City of the Future Big data Transportation Education Community versus Organization involvement Sustainability and going green Smart cities Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 8 May 2016
Mark Curtis started his career in the marketing and digital field, and is now the co-founder and Chief Client Officer at Fjord. Fjord is the design and innovation part of Accenture Interactive that employs 750 people in 18 cities... mainly designers spread across the world! The company is growing rapidly due to the increasing demand for service design and the delivery of end design digital products. Mark and his team are responsible for inventing services and laying out the design. Fjord's recent report, The Era of Living Services, describes how data analytics will be combined with the Internet of Things to create services that come to life! It is based on the thought that we are currently experiencing the third era of digital that adds complexity on top of the previous eras - desktop web and smart phones. These services are described as living because they will change in real time, be all around us, and effect our lives in really profound ways. The Era of Living Services will be very impactful at work, at home, and in our education, health, and shopping! This will introduce a whole new level of individualized digital experiences. The Era of Living Services has arrived due to several trends. For one, the price point is at the right place. Technology is becoming more affordable than ever. Also, the expectations of consumers are raised. Millennials in the workforce have a completely different attitude to this kind of progress. They accept and encourage it. And technology, such as AI and robotics, is advancing at an exponential rate that will fuel the Era of Living Services!
Things you will learn in this episode: What is living service? Concepts of liquid experiences Why living services are starting to happen How this impacts how we work and live What this means for privacy, security, and ethics Challenges this will create How liquid consumer expectations spill over into workplace Employee experience Links From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Sun, 1 May 2016
Marco Annuziata is the Chief Economist and Executive Director of Global Market Insights at General Electric. He is relatively new in the company, only having been there for 5 years in a newly created position. Marco is tasked with studying what is happening around the world and how it will affect employment, economies, and growth. He looks at the long term geopolitical, economic, social, and technological trends, then maps that to the risks and opportunities for GE's different businesses around the world. GE uses the Global Innovation Barometer to learn how people feel about innovation. It is a survey of business executives and the informed public across 26 countries that identifies the implications, obstacles, advantages of innovation. Marco's team uses the barometer to get a sense of what is happening globally and in each country. One of the key findings is surprising... people are generally optimistic about the 4th industrial revolution's affect on economic growth and living standards. Marco's team essentially tries to predict the future based on the data from the Global Innovation Barometer. They build their own forecasts of growths, investment outlooks, and more. They can then bring insights to management and the rest of GE. It is a very demanding and fallible process, but extremely fascinating! What you will learn in this episode: What is the Global Innovation Barometer Key findings of the Barometer Marco's outlook for the U.S. economy Automation 4th Industrial Revolution Startup mentality Talent acquisition Links From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 24 April 2016
Joe Burton comes from a corporate background, working in high stress situations with long hours and constant travel. His career was on an uphill track but his personal life and health started to decline. He even developed insomnia and asthma around the age of 40. Up until then, he would have laughed if someone suggested mindfulness as a way to alleviate his stress. Joe realized that mindfulness training helped him be more present and aware. He developed a deeper relationship with his emotions and central nervous system. It changed the way he is with his family and as a leader. Now Joe is the founder and CEO of Whil, a mindfulness training company that offers three digital programs that work on any computer or mobile device. Mindfulness and Yoga for Adults which is all about stress reduction and improving performance. Grow is for helping teenagers deal with being a teen in today's world. Search Inside Yourself is focused on leadership, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and collaboration skills. Whil is primarily focused on serving corporations, healthcare systems, and universities but can be used by anyone that is looking for a way to help calm their life down. It now has 350,000 users and for every product sold, Whil gives one away. The average person spends almost half of their time with their mind wandering, usually worrying. We are living in an age that has our brains trained for activity. Mindfulness trains our brain to go to a place of calm and focus so we can be more present in our lives. Just 5-10 minutes of practice a day on bringing our attention back to a focal point can help us be able to maintain sustained attention for longer periods of time. It is like going to the gym for your brain..not easy but very rewarding! "Having the awareness to understand when to act and when not, and being able to act out of choice instead of compulsion is a big part of mindfulness." - Joe Burton Mindfulness training is becoming more common on the workplace because there are now thousands of studies in the field of neuroscience that correlate it with improved health and performance. It is linked to improved cardiovascular health, immune systems, healing time, memory, and focus. Studies even show a link to reducing chronic pain and PTSD. Of course this is important to employees but it also benefits companies that want to reduce absenteeism and health care costs. In this on demand world, it is important to be equipped with ways to relieve stress and mindfulness training is the perfect tool. What you will learn in this episode:
Link From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Sun, 17 April 2016
The workplace of the past is gone... We are now talking about homing from work, not working from home. Tim Oldman uses his background in interior design and architecture, along with his fascination in merging diagnostic tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to get a better understanding of employee spaces. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Leesman, famous for the Leesman Index, which is an independent auditor of the relationship between employees and the space that is provided for them. Tim compares Leesman to the radiographers of the corporate workplace and that couldn't be more appropriate! Leesman releases a variety of reports on ideas like cost of occupancy and employee retention. They adhere to the concept of open source knowledge so anyone can view the reports on their website.The Leesman Index looks at the impact of work spaces on employees and identifies the most effective spaces. Tim is clear that it isn't about how pretty, or how large, or how expensive a space is designed. The key is knowledge transfer. A successful organization must capitalize on knowledge existing within so they should create an environment that better facilitates knowledge transfer. The most recent Leesman Index was released in November 2015 and shredded many myths about the physical work space. It found that there is no difference on how work spaces impact gender and that age does have an impact but it is not generational. The report also shows that natural lighting is preferred over artificial, informal areas are more effective, and other important factors. However, one-dimensionally planned spaces never work. The highest performing workplaces take all factors into account. They have flexibility and variety which increases employee production and pride. What you will learn in this episode: What is the Leesman Index Who is the company that has the highest LMI Differences in high performance and low performance work spaces Shredding work space myths Work-life balance How the leading organizations are already way ahead Links From The Episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 10 April 2016
We are currently in the midst of an industrial revolution with an exponential pace of change and it is disrupting industry in every country. This revolution is different from the past three in terms of velocity, scope, and impact. It is a digital revolution, characterized by a fusion of technology that is impacting every aspect of how we work and how we live, creating threats and opportunities. Skills that we learned in formal education are now becoming irrelevant. Employees should be prepared to completely reskill themselves. I recently spoke with Sandeep Dadlani, the Executive Vice President and Head of Americas for Infosys, on what is going to be required from employees of the future to succeed and thrive. Infosys is a massive, quick growing global consulting firm. Sandeep has been with them for over 15 years in a variety of roles. They have studied the 4th industrial revolution and the impact it is going to have thoroughly. Infosys believes the answer to the challenges we face in this revolution is education. With technology evolving so quickly, corporate training programs are behind the times and desperately need to be updated. We should focus on education in areas like computers, data, artificial intelligence, and designed thinking to enable consistent training for the workforce. Learning should be a creative, clever environment that allows employees to prove that they are innovators. Managers just need to listen to the future... youth already has a good idea about what they want to be trained on. What You Will Learn In This Episode:
Links From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 3 April 2016
Lately, I've been surrounded by the theme of management and leadership, and the role of each in the future of work. Today, we are chatting with Sydney Finkelstein to discuss what makes some leaders truly exceptional. Sydney is the Steven Roth Professor of Management and faculty director of the Tuck Executive Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He is also the author of the phenomenal new book Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent. The idea for Sydney's book and the Superboss title arose from a pattern that he noticed in the food industry where sous-chefs at a particular restaurant were moving on to new restaurants and becoming executive chefs. Sydney began to research if the pattern was present in other industries and found that in many fields, one person has immense influence in the development of talent in that field. The book took 10 years to write... the more time Sydney spent on it, the more fascinated he became! So what exactly is a Superboss? While a leader is someone that creates other leaders, a Superboss is even more than that. A Superboss is a leader that helps other people accomplish more than they ever thought possible. He or she really makes it their business to turbocharge their employees' careers. While most bosses are narrowly focused on performance, command, and control, a Superboss has an invested interest in employees succeeding. Sydney shares some examples of Superbosses ranging from Ralph Lauren of fashion to Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle. He has found that there are 3 types of Superboss: Iconoclasts that tend to be creative and need to learn, Glorious Bastards who are tough and may even lead with ridicule, and Nurturers that truly care about the success of their protégés. We discuss how to spot a Superboss and how to interview a prospective employer to learn if they are a Superboss. "Anyone in an organization can become a Superboss." - Sydney Finkelstein We all have the potential to be a Superboss. The traits are completely learnable and teachable but one must be willing to make the commitment. Instead of solely thinking about development of talent and retention, consider the outflow. The best talent most likely sees themselves moving on to bigger and better things so enable that idea. Continue to interact with your team members after they leave your nest. Always be on the look out for talent, inspire your team, instill confidence in others, delegate tasks but don't be afraid to get your hands dirty, as well! What you will learn in this episode:
Links From The Episode:
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Sun, 27 March 2016
A few months back while I was doing a keynote in Mumbai, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. N.S. Rajan. Dr. Rajan is the author of a new book, Quote Me if You Can, as well as Group Chief Human Resources Officer and a member of the Group Executive Council of Tata. The Tata group is comprised of 100 companies with over 600,000 employees globally. It is one of the largest organizations in the world with companies offering a broad range of services and commodities. Each company has body and mind of its own, with Tata being the soul.
As Group CHRO, Dr. Rajan works with the CHRO in every company in the Tata group, providing critical leadership and spearheading diversity initiatives. He believes in putting the effort forth to create more effective and better leaders with a concept similar to servant based leadership. While managers focus on the task to be completed, the process to complete it, and supervising a set of people to get there, the leaders role is more ambiguous. They must envision, set new directions, and inspire and value their team. To be a leader, it is absolutely essential to listen to people and understand their needs.
“The secret of leadership: Those who rule must serve, those who serve will rule.” – Dr. N. S. Rajan
Leaders at Tata follow a parenting model. They aren’t intrusive but rather lend a helping hand in a positive way. Leaders have to learn to exercise power prudently, and to combine passion and compassion. Leadership is evolving due to the changes of the world, such as downturns in economy and technological advances. Organizations must continue to adhere to their values as leadership evolves - considering ethics when promoting or creating leaders, as well as experience and competence.
What you will learn in this episode:
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Sun, 20 March 2016
When you are leading one of the world's largest organizations with hundreds of thousands of employees you need a unique vision to succeed. Jeff Smith, the Chief Intelligence Officer at IBM, has two major missions as CIO. First, to enable a productive work environment and second, to lead the deployment of an agile culture throughout the company. Jeff recently filled me in on the concept of an agile enterprise and how it is shaping the way we work. With the world changing at such a fast pace, organizations and employees must be agile by continuously adapting to situations, addressing problems, and reevaulating progress. This is important for leadership, collaboration, and delivery practices to allow organizations in any industry and of any size to be more successful. Non-agile enterprises run with a fixed plan as though things won't change when we all know that there is no certainty in life! So when a problem arises, the plan is ruined versus an agile enterprise that can adjust the sails to go with the flow. The main benefits to creating an agile enterprise are broader based skills and increased engagement. Employees have more autonomy and purpose which drives engagement. It is necessary to have a supportive mechanism to transform into an agile enterprise. At IBM, they have an academy with 30 courses that are individual and team based. They also have agile coaches that help put concepts into place. The role of technology is central in an agile enterprise. IBM has it's own social network and a strong search environment. Collective intelligence is valued as it will always outweigh individual insights. According to Jeff, a fundamental piece of creating a high performing culture is people learning from each other. It is time to consider what is working well in your organization. What methods can you put in place to develop an agile enterprise? What you will learn in this episode: What is an agile enterprise How to establish an agile enterprise Course correction Collective intelligence Simplification of IT Work environments Retrospective (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Sun, 13 March 2016
This week we are discussing the past and future of jobs and paychecks with Dr. Lawrence “Larry” Mishel. Larry has been a labor market economist for 30 years and is now the President of The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington based think tank. EPI is focusing on how our current economy is affecting low and middle income Americans, what policies are needed to restore the middle class, and how to generate robust wage growth for everyone so they experience a growing standard of living. With a PhD in economics, Larry is increasingly concerned with trends regarding wage stagnation – he believes the preeminent economic challenge of our time is to overcome wage stagnation. The wages and benefits of nearly all workers haven’t grown in 12 years! This affects all workers, even those that are highly skilled. The hourly wages and benefits of the median worker have only grown around 9% since 1979! Larry also disagrees with many articles that claim the freelancer economy is large and rapidly growing. Numbers actually show that the population of independent contractors is declining. Numbers also show that many freelancers are using their gigs as supplementary income because the wages from their primary job are not increasing relative to the cost of living. One of the notions of the Future of Work should be the ability to support one’s self with your regular job. It’s possible that a lot of the angst in the country comes from economic insecurity and we could help ease that problem with improved wage policies! What you will learn about in this episode:
Links From The Episode: (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 6 March 2016
Today, we welcome Julien Smith, cofounder and CEO of Breather, to discuss the factors that are disrupting the idea of traditional office spaces. Julien and I explore how trends, pricing, real estate, and technology are shaping the evolution of physical work places. Julien authored three books on marketing while working from the internet, without an office for about 10 years. As a freelancer with no place to go for work every day, he saw the potential for a totally separate, individualized work space that can be unlocked with your phone. Breather was born… a network of well designed, comfortable but professional small meeting rooms and office spaces. Now there are 100 units across 5 cities. These units generally reside in larger office buildings and can be rented daily, weekly, or just once! They serve as an effective space to be on your own or meet with a small group to brainstorm, rehearse, etc. Many people use Breather spaces when they are traveling or need the use of an outside office. Some users don’t have an office at all and prefer Breather spaces to working from home or from a coffee shop. With so many aspects of work rapidly changing, spaces must evolve as well. Physical space has a dramatic effect on employee experience. In this podcast, Julien and I discuss why the demand for this type of office space is increasing and how it will complement traditional work spaces, making experiences better. What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 29 February 2016
The future of recruiting and retaining top talent is changing. With new developments in employee engagement, the gig economy, and the rise of Millennials and Generation Z in the workforce, organizations are adapting their methods to find and maintain the best employees. Today, I speak with Mike Preston the Chief Talent Officer at Deloitte. Deloitte underwent a mass career customization framework, focused on strength based development. While Deloitte has never had a Chief Human Resources Officer by that name, the Talent Officer title reflects how their employees are viewed. The people who work for their company, the talent, are the most important component. While this title may have always been the standard at Deloitte, this just shows how they are ahead of the curve in regards to the future of work. Many other organizations are changing the title of their Human Resources departments to reflect the focus on employees themselves. Deloitte is the world’s largest professional services organization. Involved in traditional services such as accounting and tax services, an advisory and consultant component, they are also growing into areas such as digital and products. Globally, Deloitte has 225,000 employees. Mike is the Chief Talent Officer for the entire firm. Mike is responsible for driving the talent strategy for all of Deloitte’s employees and partners. This encompasses developing culture, compensation, recruiting, and all aspects of the life cycle of the employee. Mike describes in detail the trends in talent, how fast change happens with new developments in technology. Looking at talent as an ecosystem, it is fascinating to see how new ways engaging employees, such as incorporating an internal freelance economy, contribute to the future of talent. What you will learn in this episode What having a Chief Talent Officer means The Talent Landscape The Open Talent Economy What will the Future of Talent look like? Millennials and Management Flexible and Distributed Work Rating and Reviews Inclusion and Cognitive Diversity Advice for employees and managers in the future of talent Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 21 February 2016
If the last 20 years was all about digitization and the rise of the internet, what is next? This is the subject Alec Ross covers in his new book, The Industries of the Future. If you regularly listen to The Future of Work podcast, then you know what a huge topic the future is. Alec spent the last few years writing his book, drawing on his experience, and bringing in stories and background from all over the globe. Alec wanted to cover many topics, pulling them all together in the centralized theme. This leads to a thorough examination of the future of work that goes beyond the standard topics such as robots and automation. Alec is one of today’s leading experts on innovation and technology. He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at John Hopkins University. Previously, he was the Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the duration of her term as Secretary of State. Alec also advises startups, and is inspired by people who can imagine and invent the future. He is a big believer in what the entrepreneurs of today are doing. In the Podcast, Alec discusses what he is most optimistic for. He describes people being enslaved to an employer, while it works for some, sucks the independence out of people. Many people want more choice and independence, and he feels the recent work marketplaces and predisposition of millennials will change the future of work for the better. Topics covered in this podcast range from cybersecurity to big data, to the commercialization of genomics. Changes in the workplace will come rapidly, and adaptation is key. Lifelong learning and professional development, not only for leaders, but employees is necessary for thriving in the industries of the future. Alec shares his advice on the best way to push these types of programs in the workplace. Alec also has great advice for employees on becoming a global worker to advance in their professional careers. What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode Industries of the Future on Amazon (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 15 February 2016
Imagine waking up in the morning, and as your coffee is brewing, reflecting on the work that needs to be completed for the day. For many of us, this can include a long commute to an office, sitting down at a desk, and working within restrictions that is set by management or an organization. For some people, this mental image causes feelings such as dread, resentment and even depression. Those people need to find a solution, where they cannot just have a job, but a career that makes their daily lives much more enjoyable! For some, the result is working on a career where they are not tied down by limitations of working for someone else, but cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit inside themselves. With today’s technology advances, there are many options available for different types of freelance work. Sites like Upwork, and Fiverr, allow people to post and bid for tasks and jobs, Airbnb allows a homeowner to turn their spare bedroom into income, and an Uber driver can make a living while traveling all across their city. What if you want to tap into the freelancer economy, but not sure where to start? How does one use these new tools to their advantage to actually become successful? We look at cultivating entrepreneurship in the age of the freelancer economy, with my guest today, Doug DeVos, the President of Amway. Amway was founded on an entrepreneurial spirit principle. Starting in 1959, the founders, including Doug’s own father, believed in a business model that people could have an accessible business of their very own. With over 21,000 employees in over 100 countries and territories, Amway also has Independent Business Owners that can work full and part time inside their own enterprises. Amway is able to provide many things inside of their company, such as manufacturing, research and development, and forecasting. Doug describes his family’s background with Amway, and how the foundation of Amway applies to the future of work, now, more than ever. A very interesting part of this podcast describes Amway’s 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Report. In the report, it is evident that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well! Many times, starting a business, especially a small business, can be halted before it is even started. Fears and insecurities of failure, lack of support, and knowledge, can all be hurdles faced as a person starts working inside a freelancer economy. Sometimes, it can take some creativity to build the confidence needed to move forward. Amway is a great example of independent business owners, being able to use a large company as a backbone for their business. Sometimes having a safe place, to grown and learn, enables individuals to cultivate that spirit Amway was founded on, a necessity to survive and thrive. .
What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode Amway Global Entrepreneurship Report (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Sun, 7 February 2016
Today’s Future of Work podcast is with Anne Raimondi the SVP of Strategy at Zendesk. The topic today is a little different than most of the topics covered on the podcast. Anne speaks on rethinking our personal and professional relationships. Our relationships drive what we do in our personal lives, and how we interact inside our companies. They are changing right along with the future of work. With advances in technology, we are finding that work is spreading into every aspect of our lives. Anne describes how instead of focusing on work-life balance, the focus should be on work-life integration and how it effects the relationships we build and maintain. Working with Zendesk for over two years, Anne’s position could be described as, to make sure people are happy, work well together, and get things done. Zendesk provides a customer service platform and tools for companies to utilize in varies forms. Growing from around 400 employees, to around 1300 since Anne has been on board, Zendesk has maintained a focus on making sure they remain a great place to work. Anne shares her tips for creating technology boundaries at home and at the workplace. The thoughts shared in this podcast regarding Zendesk’s focus on building authentic relationships in the workplace can be utilized in any organization! What you will learn in this episode How the concept of relationships are changing Work-life Balance vs Work-life Integration Creating technology boundaries What it means to be a working Mom Millennials effect on employee engagement What Zendesk does internally to help drive positive relationships Women in leadership roles Accessible Leadership
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 31 January 2016
Today’s Future of Work Podcast is a very exciting topic! My guest is Mark Levy, the Global Head of Employee Experience at Airbnb. Airbnb has been making headlines lately, as they shifted their focus from a Human Resources Department to Employee Experience. Airbnb has core values that really put their employees first, and want them to feel like they belong with the company. During today’s podcast, I sit down at their main campus, and you can feel the energy of their open floor and hear new programs being implemented as the podcast is recording. Airbnb is an alternative accommodation site that connects hosts and guests all over the world. Mark has spent over 20 years in Human Resources roles spanning his career. When Mark joined Airbnb, the Human Resources functions were split into multiple groups, which included talent, recruiting, and a group called “ground control” which was responsible for the workplace culture. Talk of bringing the departments together occurred, and Mark questioned, if Airbnb had a Customer Experience Group, why not create an Employee Experience Group? The Employee Experience was then created with new specializations, such as comp and benefits, facilities, and a food program. Mark discusses Airbnb’s strategy for 2016, and how they plan on growing the company and their employee experience programs. What you will learn in this episode Is Employee Experience The Same As HR? Should All Organizations Have A Person In Charge Of Employee Experiences? What Does Airbnb Do To Create Employee Experiences? Why Is Employee Experience So Important? What Is It Like To Work At Airbnb? How Employee Experience Can Be Utilized In All Companies The Freedom In A Framework Structure Scaling Experiences Advice For Creating New Experiences In Any Workplace Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 24 January 2016
The role of IT inside of an organization is transforming. With all of the new technologies being created and utilized in today's workplace, there are a lot of discussions how best to expand the organizations technology infrastructure. Today’s guest on the Future of Work Podcast is Jim Fowler. Jim is the Chief Information Officer of General Electric. This podcast discusses how IT and the CIO role in particular, is now one of the most exciting departments of an organization. From device deployment, to production lines, and even keeping an organization secure by maintain badge security, IT touches many different activities within a company. Not only does IT touch employee facing functions, there is a lot of back end work, such as building new applications, technologies and analytics. Jim describes in detail how GE’s IT department has worked closely with other departments to create new technologies to advance the company for the future of work. Jim has been with GE for over 15 years. GE is a conglomerate touching many industries from power to aircraft engines to healthcare. With over 300,000 employees in over 150 countries, Jim and his team lead all of the technology initiatives for the entire company. Jim discusses how role of IT has changed throughout the years. The business of IT used to be all about cost, how a company could be frugal in regards to IT to get the job done. Now, technology is not only necessary to work, but a right for employees to have access to, Jim describes how IT how grown with its recognized value. What we are seeing around the world, is how products are becoming more software defined. This is especially true for GE. What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode
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Sun, 17 January 2016
Today on the Future of Work Podcast, my guest is Abhijit Bhaduri, the Chief Learning Officer of Wipro Group. Wipro has almost 170,000 employees around the world in IT services. Since Abhijit is the Chief Learning Officer, today’s topic is all around the future of learning and careers. In his role, he prepares all of the employees in the company for the future so they can be “future ready.” Abhijit’s background has prepared him for his current role in the IT space, as he has to be able work with clients in any field. As the Chief Learning Officer, he is able to gather information with Wipro’s customers, on where the future of work is going in their fields, and helps prepare their companies for the changes to come. Abhijit brings his insight to future learning. He speaks on how future learning will not be driving by others, but by what an individual wants to learn. Learning will come from our peers, as well as the accessibility of experts and leaders in the fields in which we want to acquire more knowledge from.
What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode
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Sun, 10 January 2016
Today’s Future of Work podcast guest is Ellyn Shook, the Chief Leadership and Human Resources Officer of Accenture. Accenture is a global professional services organization and has over 360,000 around the world. Their mission is to help improve the way the world works and lives, and lead the digital disruption on behalf of their clients. Ellyn is responsible for leading the global team of human resources experts, who aim to deliver exceptional employee experiences for Accenture’s people. Today, we speak on talent practices for the 21st century. Accenture believes that the growth of their people, leads to the growth of their business. Ellyn has been with Accenture since 1988 and became a partner in 2003. She is also on a number of boards including the advisory board of Women in Business at Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and the Women's Leadership Board of the Women and Public Policy program at Harvard's Kennedy School. Ellyn is helping lead how the workplace is changing, not just as Accenture, but around the world as well. What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 4 January 2016
For the first Future of Work Podcast for 2016, I speak with David Rodriguez the Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resource Officer of Marriott International. The topic of this podcast is all around the business impact of employee health and wellness. This is a huge theme that we will see and increase in investment for 2016 and beyond. David provides insight on why Marriott is investing in health and wellness promotions, and the benefits of healthy employees who participate in these programs. With over 400,000 employees in their managed locations, Marriott spans 31 brands, across 100 countries all over the world. They are the largest hotel company in the world, knitted together by their people centric culture. David has been with the company since 1998, holding the Global CHRO title since 2006. Marriot was founded on the principles that if you take care of employees, they will in turn, take care of customers; employees feeling good about themselves will be inspired to serve others. It is this belief that is utilized for business effectiveness. David shares what Marriott has implemented, and gets personal as he shares how their programs literally saved his life after his battle with leukemia. Tune in to hear that story and much more!
What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 28 December 2015
Today my guest for the Future of Work Podcast is Alexis Gonzales-Black. Alexis is the former organizational design lead for Zappos, and is currently the co-founder of Thoughtful Org Partners. Previously, I spoke with Brian J. Robertson, the creator of the concept of Holacracy. This concept received fame because of Zappos initiatives around Holacracy. Alexis is one of the people who helped lead the entire Holacracy transition there.
Alexis was a part if the pilot group at Zappos for Holacracy. She worked on the implementation team for over 2 years. Currently, Alexis works with Thoughtful Org, which she co-founded, to help companies explore what the future structure of their organizations look like. In Holacracy, as an operating system, individuals are not confined to one group or team. Reaching across the organization for opportunities is available and encouraged. Self-organization can be used as a diversity and inclusiveness tool as well. Alexis provides great insights to alternative organizational structures. This podcast is a must listen to anyone who wants to learn about alternative organizational structures and how they could work for your company. What you will learn in this episode
Link from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees)
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Sun, 20 December 2015
Today I bring to you a very special Future of Work Podcast. I speak with Dr. David Bray the Chief Information Officer of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is responsible for regulating interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across all 50 states. The FCC makes decisions on how industry relates to consumers, whether it be telecommunications, television stations, broadband connections and the internet. Any wired or wireless device will have a FCC logo on it. Industry standards are provided by the FCC so these devices will not interfere with each other so communication can be done in the United States. The theme of today’s podcast is how exponential technologies are shaping the future of work.
Dr. Bray is an Eisenhower Fellow. Each year the fellowship program sends 9 or 10 exceptional people to two countries of their choosing to meet with industry and government leaders. David had the opportunity to go to Taiwan and Australia to have conversations with leaders in those countries on how they are getting ready for the internet of everything, as well as, security, privacy and the changing nature of work. At the FCC, David has lead the transformation from legacy information technology to cloud based and commercial service providers. He speaks on the importance of doing this for all businesses for the future of work. What you will learn in this episode
Link form the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 13 December 2015
My guest this week for the Future of Work podcast is Hal Halladay, the Chief People Officer at Infusionsoft. Infusionsoft is a sales and marketing automation company, specifically focused on small businesses. They have around 700 employees and are headquartered in Chandler, Arizona. Infusionsoft stands out for having won many awards being a ‘Best Place to Work’ for different topics such as Women and Millennials, and received numerous awards for all around excellence. As the Chief People Officer, Hal speaks on why culture is the greatest competitive advantage in business today. Hal leads a team that helps design many of the things Infusionsoft is implementing to create a great corporate culture. Infusionsoft has intentionally tried to create a culture that engages people to do their best work. The company was founded on the principle that people come first. At Infusionsoft, Hal leads the people operations team. This team supports business leaders by providing resources they need. These resources include providing talent, training, as well as processes and systems needed to complete tasks. This is a different approach as operations is not usually paired with HR. Combining these departments enables more of these tasks to be provided with a service aspect toward the business leaders in the company, as well as, remove any negative connotations with the title Human Resources. Infusionsoft made the decision on what their company culture was going to be, they didn’t just let it happen. Having employees who are doing the work they love, engaged, and inspired, produces better work, which in turn, means happy customers. What you will learn in this episode Why Culture Is So important What is a Dream Manager? Flexible Work and the Freelancer Economy Millennials and Culture What is Native Genius? How Can an Organization Choose Their Corporate Culture? Building a Culture of Care and Connectiveness How to Know Your Company’s Culture is Working Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 6 December 2015
What this episode is about and why you should care My guest this week for the Future of Work Podcast is Dr. J.R. Reagan, the Global Chief Information Security Officer at Deloitte. We speak on the importance of being social inside and outside of a company. While Dr. Regan’s title alludes that he would not advocate for being social outside of a company, this is not the case. There are advantages to using multiple types of social media that can benefit a company and individual employees. While there are many traditional ways of completing tasks, working and doing the same tasks just because of tradition is not the most beneficial. Using internal social tools can assist in modernizing an organization and connecting with the emerging workforce. At Deloitte, Dr. Regan’s responsibilities are to protect the firm’s information across more than 150 countries, inside and outside of the company, for over 210,000 people. Dr. Regan reflects on the previous notion that being social at work is taboo, and would cause employees to become unproductive. Today, social assists in spreading ideas, and flattens our world. Many social platforms have become standard business tools. Dr. Regan highlights how using some of the social media platforms internally can be used as new communication devices in an organization. Using social media platforms externally, can bring networking opportunities and even help save time when communicating in our personal lives. Being social is now becoming a natural part of daily lives and embracing it, brings many benefits for our careers and the future of work.
What you will learn in this episode
Link from the episode https://twitter.com/ideaxplorer (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 29 November 2015
Today’s guest on the Future of Work podcast is Micha Kaufman, the CEO of Fiverr. Fiverr started as a website where you could get any digital task done for $5. Now, it is becoming a true freelance marketplace with bundled gigs. Organizations are flocking to the website, as well as, individuals who are looking to hire or become freelancers. With the popularity of websites like Fiverr, Micha and I discuss why the gig economy is the future of work. Micha describes Fiverr as the “Amazon for digital services.” It is a full digital marketplace with ‘sellers’ who are the freelancers and ‘buyers’ who are mostly small and medium sized businesses. Right now, 30% of the American workforce is involved in the gig economy. Trends are showing this number will only increase. The changing generational workforce is a major factor of the growing gig economy. Through technology, other types of work in the gig economy, such as driving for Uber, or listing a rental on Airbnb, has brought offline activity to online. As the old concepts of work are being challenged, the gig and freelance economy is being viewed as a legitimate option to participate in, and build a career. What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 22 November 2015
What this episode is about and why you should care This week’s episode of the Future of Work Podcast features two very special guests from Skillsoft. Skillsoft is a technology company that produces learning management systems and the content that goes with them. My two guests are Jerry Nine, the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Skillsoft, and John Ambrose, who is the Senior VP of Strategy and Corporate Development. We speak on self-developing organizations and individualized learning. Self developing organizations and focus on learning is a huge part of the future of work. Skillsoft was started with the vision to leverage the internet to scale. Meaning, previously many individualized learning opportunites had taken place through physical methods such as CD-ROM or VHS tapes. As technology evolved, individualized learning has grown to match. Starting in soft skills, Skillsoft has created many engaging learning opportunities that can be utilized for all learning styles. Technology can catapult the way organizations and people preform. Skillsoft has made it their personal mission to improve the performance of organizations by improving the performance of their employees. Self-developing organizations are able to make transformations from current internal education and training programs to more compelling and effective for platforms for employees and organizations.
What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode
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Sun, 15 November 2015
My guest for this week’s Future of Work podcast is Régis Mulot. Régis is the Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Staples. We speak on why every company should be a platform company. A platform company partners and incorporates technology from multiple corporations, partners, nonprofits, and educational institutions, to name a few. While this concept is not new, it is growing and evolving. Instead of only concentrating on what is going on inside a company, the focus is shifted to building networks outside of the organization. These networks assist in building a stronger, more profitable platform company. Staples is a very large organization, and the 4th largest online retailer in the United States. With over 74,000 employees, Staples has many different lines of business that each continue to grow in the ever changing market. Régis has over 25 years of HR experience, working all over the world. He has spent a lot of his time working to support integration of the corporations Staples has acquired, in the US and Europe. Régis shows how the idea of being a platform company can lead to success. Knowledge sharing, data, and technology, are all collaboration tools that will be very prominent for the success of platform companies and the future of work. What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 8 November 2015
The Chief Human Resource Officer of the AARP, John Sigmon, joins me today on the Future of Work Podcast. We talk about what it means to be an employee in the future of work. We discuss the very definition of what being an employee is, and how it is changing. John describes with personal detail, how an employee would view their career path when it comes to working for a company. The role of the employee is changing. Organizations need to think differently about the expectation of employees to settle at one company for a long amount of time. Most positions are changing into more dynamic and flexible roles. Many distinctions of employee types are becoming less defined as organizations are looking to the future, and changing as fast as the world around them. At AARP, one of their goals is to change the dialog regarding what it means to get older. In the HR department, John needs to ask if his department is changing as fast as the rest of AARP and other organizations. His own recruitment to AARP is a great example of how the role of the employee is changing in relation to the organization. When he joined AARP, he was brought on as an HR business partner. He was able to work on projects that allowed him to contribute to the success of the organization, thus increasing his own market value. He accomplished this by receiving more jobs that increased his capabilities. His own story illustrates how his relationship with the AARP has formed into an alliance. John speaks to how this model fits in with the future of work and pushes the innovation of the AARP.
What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 1 November 2015
This week on The Future of Work Podcast, my guest is Tara Sinclair. Tara is an Associate Professor of Economics and International Affairs at The George Washington University and Chief Economist at Indeed.com. Together, we look at the talent driven economy, which is the talent pool that is increasing and what that means for the future of work. The talent driven economy effects everyone, whether you have a job, or are looking for one. Tara shares her insights on what job seekers desire, and what opportunities and fields we are seeing growth in for available jobs. At George Washington University, Tara teaches courses in everything Econometrics to Macroeconomics, she also runs their research department that works on developing new forecasting models. Tara’s interest in forecasting for labor market applications lead her to Indeed. She is able to provide a picture of the current labor market, and how it effects the employers who are looking for applicants. Tara is also able to identify positive trends for the job seeker. Her fascinating field of study gives us a link between today’s job market and the future of work.
What you will learn in this episode
Links from the episode (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 25 October 2015
This week’s guest on the Future of Work Podcast is William Davies. William Davies is the author of a book called The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being. He is also the Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. This is a very interesting topic, as engagement, health, happiness, and wellness are all topics that many companies are discussing and investing millions of dollars in. In William Davies’ book, he argues that we should be cautious when putting all of our investments in happiness and engagement. His point of view will make you question if we are a bit carried away with this movement and focus on happiness. William Davies works on combining the history of ideas and a critical sociology of political and economic institutions. He is very interested in the way our economy is governed, and is shaped by theories of markets, individuals, and in the case of his book, theories of the mind. The ideas and methodologies used by experts, are used to correlate how we think and how it effects the economy, also how we run our organizations. His book is a critique of the way our vision of happiness is becoming more and more powerful in how we transform the workplace and govern our private lives. What you will learn in this episode:
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Sun, 18 October 2015
This week’s episode with Sree Sreenivansan, who is the Chief Digital Officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Digital transformation in the workplace is a massive topic, everyone from Chief Human Resource Officers, to people in Innovation and Technology are talking about it. Chief Digital Officers are emergent titles; they are springing up everywhere as we move forward in the new digital workplace. Sree shares what he is doing and thinking about when it comes to the Digital aspects of work.
Chief Digital Officer’s tasks can vary from company to company. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sree leads a team that produces all audience facing technologies. Emails, social media, videos, applications, and development are all part of accomplishing not only the daily tasks at hand, but the goal of his department. Sree looks at his position as helping to make connections between the physical and the digital content, as he describes, the “in person and online”. He believes that if you can do that, you will have a successful enterprise. The future of all business is making that connection between the physical and digital. It is important to build that virtuous circle. There is a powerful image that highlights this, this example is in regards to the Met. If you get people to follow your stuff online, and they love what they see, they can get inspired to visit the Met in person. After they visit in person they love what they see, and they are convinced to stay connected on social platforms. This can be applied to the digital goals of many companies, digital content provided by a business can inspire a visit or a purchase of a product. What you will learn in this episode:
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Sun, 11 October 2015
What this episode is about and why you should care My guest for this week’s episode of the Future of Work podcast is Sophie Vandebroek. Sophie is the CTO of Xerox and the President of Xerox Innovation Group, she also has her PHD in Electrical Engineering from Cornell. Sophie shares her extensive knowledge with us today, including her fascinating perspectives on Innovation. We dive in to her personal and corporate history, which is a very inspirational and relatable story. We look at the Five Best Practices for Innovation, focusing on who is going to be effected by the results of your company’s Innovation, the end user. We also go into great detail on how to establish an Innovation culture, providing the resources for the proper research and development, and allowing flexibility and freedom to test and try many different solutions for products and services that will fulfill the needs of the consumer. Xerox is a great example of a company who, is well known for some of their products. They are constantly looking at the future of work, and have grown and adapted themselves to encompass so much more. Included in their business, are their Innovation labs located around the world. Sophie explains how Innovation has changed in her tenure, the best practices she has acquired for successful Innovation research and forecasting. The acceleration of Innovation is great. We have advanced so far in technology, with the internet, mobile devices, big data analytics, the room for Innovation in the Future of Work is endless. What you will learn in this episode Innovation Best Practices How Innovation Has Changed Trends in Innovation How Millennials are Impacting Innovation How to Drive Innovation The Role of Robots and Automation The Scale of Innovation Implementation of Innovation
Links from the episode Xerox.com
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Sun, 4 October 2015
Today I sit down with James D. White, the CEO of Jamba Juice. We speak about what the culture is like at Jamba Juice, what the CEO values most at his company. Jamba Juice has spent a lot of time cultivating their corporate culture, and specifically focusing on heath and wellness. We look at the role of technology and trends that are shaping this shift towards organizations spending more time looking at health and wellness. The goal of this podcast is to look at how creating an effective corporate culture centered on a brand's key values is so important to organizations around the world. The corporate culture at Jamba Juice is centered on their core values. Health and Well-being runs through Jamba Juices's veins. If you can actively engage individuals inside of a company to build a culture they want to live in, you have a much higher chance of being successful. Personal investment of the individuals of your company, helps move the culture and performance of the company as a whole ahead. Many conventional businesses put on constraints, and its easy to stay inside these standards, even when moving from one company to another. It is really important to look at the company's mission, and create the culture rooted in it's own beliefs. What works for one, may not be what is best for another company. There is a large shift in people who want to work for a company that they feel connected to. Using feedback to source your information first hand, you can capture the spirit of each employee, creating the benefits that not only provide a passion to their work, but a corporate culture that drives a happy and productive workforce.
In this episode you will learn:
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Sun, 27 September 2015
What this episode is all about and why you should Listen Today I have an interview with Stephen Hoover, CEO of PARC a division of Xerox. PARC is the home of the Ethernet and many other Innovative tools that most people use every single day in the workplace. Stephen & I talk extensively about Open Innovation in the workplace. Open innovation is a very interesting topic and we get deep into what is going on, what is it, why it is happening, what are the trends that are driving it, what are the benefits of open innovation, the challenges, the impact & what organizations should be doing and what they should be thinking about. Stephen Hoover explains what PARC’s take on the Business of Breakthroughs is all about. Find out what they are working on for the future of work. Stephen’s perspective is very intriguing and spot on with exactly what a forward thinking company needs to be doing and implementing. Discover what his number one tip is when it comes to having a Grand Vision. Stephen really believes that innovation is a contact sport. Find out how he is assisting PARC and their employees with having a Vision beyond what is in the everyday workplace. We explore the problems that arise with people who have an “I can do it all” attitude, and why in the real world you need the assistance of many other smart people to be successful when it comes to open innovation. Stephen talks about how to go out and find those smart people and create partnerships to accomplish open innovation. This conversation is very interesting both from a personal approach and a business approach. What you will learn in this episode
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 21 September 2015
What this episode is all about and why you should Listen Today dive in with me as I sit down with Mary O’Hara, of Blue Cross Blue Shield of California on the topic of high performing teams and individuals in the future of work. Mary has a mass amount of insight when it comes to different techniques and everything that encompasses “touching the people” within an organization. She has great tips on Workplace Rewards and how to collaborate across an organization. Listen as Mary explains if she feels Employee Experience is more prominent now than it has ever been in the past. All things effect different aspects of having a high performing team and individual in the workplace. Talent is extremely important when finding individuals that are at the heart of specific innovation & strategies which leads to less supply. You need to have an employee experience that is reflective in your specific marketplace. Mary shares with me how different industries have different pressure points, and when you have quality leaders in your organization you will differentiate yourself from other companies. Find out what the Lead of Excellence program at Blue Cross Blue Shield is all about. Mary is very knowledgeable on how important it is to grow strong leaders and stay on top of the employee experience in the workplace. What you will learn in this episode
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Sun, 13 September 2015
What this episode is about and why you should care Today I sit down with Kristen Robinson, Chief HR at Pandora located in Oakland, CA. Kristen flourishes and has a phenomenal impact in the Human Resources department with a vast amount of insight on how to successfully operate in the HR arena with any corporation. Pandora for those of you who don’t know, is a free personalized internet radio service that consists of over 1750 employees. Kristen and I dive into why the Employee experience is crucial in any workplace and how it can benefit any business. The Employee experience is about happiness & helping employees fulfill happiness and accomplishment in their lives. Employees that are the happiest both at work and in their lives are the ones that are going to have a strategic advantage compared to other companies. Learn about what Pandora is doing to unleash the employee experience to make it a better work environment for everyone. Kristen shares with me how Pandora is hyper-focusing on integrating very powerful tools to improving the employee experience. Take some time in your day to be sure to listen to Kristen’s view on the overall employee experience. She truly knows what it’s all about and I’m certain you will enjoy and agree with everything she has to say! What you will learn in this episode • Learn about Kristen Robinson and Pandora • What Kristen is doing at Pandora to help make the employee experience better. • Learn about the Employee Experience at Pandora & why it is important. • Why should Managers and executives care about the Employee Experience? • How changing your space can affect the mindset of people in your work environment. • Giving back and how it can personally enhance one’s life. • What is PERG’s at Pandora? • Why Pandora has shifted to having an annual review process without employees having the fight or flight syndrome through Growth & Development. • Why they employee experience that is so becoming in the world today. • In your short time here what are the short phrases that the Pandora Road Crew uses to explain their experience. (Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Thu, 10 September 2015
Centro is a media managment software company with around 700 employees. They were ranked as the best place to work in Chicago for 4 years in a row by Crain's, the #1 best place to work by Fortune among all mid-size Ameican companies, and they have a 4.5 rating on Glassdoor. Clearly Centro is doing something right. At the helm of the company is their CEO Shawn Riegsecker. He has a very simple philosophy around work which is that happiness is the new ROI. In this episode of the future of work podcast Shawn and I explore some of the things he is doing over at Centro, how he defines happiness, the overall business impact of happiness on Centro employees, the role of corporate culture, and much more! Tune in and listen to this episode of the future of work podcast with the CEO of Centro, Shawn Riegsecker as explore why happiness is the new ROI! |
Mon, 31 August 2015
My guest for this week’s episode of the Future of Work podcast is Michael Karnjanaprakorn, CEO and Co-Founder of Skillshare. For those of you looking to adapt and learn new skills, you will find this conversation quite interesting. Skillshare is an on-line platform where you can learn almost anything you need to stay relevant in today’s workplace. Michael and I look at why the future of work is all about teaching yourself and not relying on education institutions or organizations to teach us the skills, information and knowledge that we might need to be successful in life.
Why is it that we should be teaching ourselves? Michael talks about the common problems with learning and acquiring skills today. We look at the skills gap, gamification in the workplace, how demographics are changing, and what the future of learning is going to look like. Michael shares his insights taking a look at why creativity is so crucial for the future of work and what learning is going to look like in the next couple of years. Take a moment and listen to Michael’s thought-provoking insights into the future of learning, which I’m sure you are going to enjoy!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees)
Direct download: Michael_Karnjanaprakorn_Podcast_DONE_WM.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 4:15pm PDT |
Sun, 23 August 2015
I believe you will find this week’s episode of the Future of Work Podcast to be extremely fascinating, insightful and exciting. My guest is Tim Mulligan, Chief Human Resources Officer of San Diego Zoo Global. Most of my guests have been from large brands in very traditional business areas, such as technology, finance, etc. with employees that are typically from a primary group of knowledge. But, Tim is directly responsible for managing a wide range of employees in very diverse areas such as horticulture, botany, zoology, catering, retail, and animal trainers, to name a few. When you think about the future of work in that context, it is very different from the future of work in a company like IBM, Coca-Cola or any other company you may be familiar with. And, one would not think of a zoo as being one of the most forward-thinking and progressive organizations that is also ranked as one of the best places to work in San Diego.
Tim and I have a very, very interesting conversation concentrating on redefining culture to focus on performance. Tim has been with the company for quite some time and he shares with us what it was like when he first started and what it is like now; and why he had to move the corporate culture at San Diego Zoo Global to be more focused on performance. We get an inside look at the initiatives and innovations he has implemented around performance and accountability; employee engagement; talent management; Millennials, Baby Boomers and everyone in-between; the role of technology; and the evolution of management and leadership practices at the company. Listen in to Tim’s very unique and diverse experience that you will definitely learn much from. Enjoy!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 17 August 2015
This week’s episode is with Eric Severson on work-life integration. Eric is the former Co-Chief Human Resource Officer at The Gap, and is now an Appointee to the U.S. Department of Commerce National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship as well as the director of the Felton Institute. Eric led most of The Gap’s talent initiatives including their move towards work-life integration and the creation of their results-oriented workplace (ROW). The debate around work-life balance versus work-life integration is a very hot topic. We explore Eric’s perspective on the “winning side,” which to him is work-life integration. And, I must confess that I completely agree with him. In this podcast Eric shares in-depth insights into his initiatives at The Gap to encourage work-life integration. We also talk about corporate culture, why work-life balance is no longer effective and why the shift to work-life integration is happening. Eric explains ROW whereby an organization is purely focused on what employees produce and not the hours they spend doing it. Eric also give us his insights and perspectives on Millennials and the different generations of employees, and the role technology management plays. And, Eric answers your questions posed to him on Facebook; and gives his advice to employees, managers and executives.
If you are interested in the work-life balance versus work-life integration debate, you won’t want to miss this podcast. Enjoy! |
Wed, 12 August 2015
I’m very excited about this week’s podcast because it is different any of my previous podcasts. My guest is Marcus Buckingham, the New York Times best-selling author of First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently; Now, Discover Your Strengths, and the recently released StandOut. Marcus is also the founder of The Marcus Buckingham Company, which is a human capital management software and education company. Marcus states that most organizations actually are not ready for the future of work. His rationale being that we still measure things in very antiquated ways, particularly around performance management and talent management. We spend an insightful and engaging conversation on this topic including the inner workings of how ratings and reviews work within organizations, the problems, challenges and solutions. We talk about the trends causing the need for change, why measurement is so ineffective today, competency models and more. Marcus shares the four key questions he believes organizations need to ask regarding evaluating performance, and explains why performance coaching and performance evaluation are two completely different processes. We also get Marcus’ insights about engagement and happiness, his advice to organizations on preparing for the future of work, and what employees can do. Don’t miss this fascinating and unique opportunity to listen to Marcus Buckingham on why most organizations are not ready for the future of work! |
Wed, 5 August 2015
My guest for this week’s Future of Work podcast is Maynard Webb, the former Chief Operating Officer at eBay; and currently Chairman of the Board at Yahoo!, and board member at Salesforce and Visa. Maynard is also the author of the recently released book, Rebooting Work: Transform How You Work in the Age of Entrepreneurship. This is a really fascinating discussion because Maynard is one of the most influential people in the worlds of business and technology, and is involved in so many amazing projects. We talk about the concepts from his book including the framework of employees, the employee experience, the role that Millennials play in the future of work, and the impact of technology. Maynard is really big on freelancing and I get his take on the future of this economy. Maynard also shares why people need to take professional and personal development into their own hands. We look at all sorts of fascinating topics. We also discuss where Maynard sees the future of work in the next five to ten years, and he shares his advice to management and employees. Maynard is definitely someone that you want to pay attention to. Enjoy this episode with Maynard Webb and let me know what you think!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 29 July 2015
This episode of the Future of Work podcast I have the pleasure of speaking with Adam Warby, CEO of Avanade. Avanade is a global technology solutions/cloud management service with over 20,000 employees worldwide. Our focus is exploring why the future of work is all about digital transformation. While there is a lot of discussion happening around digital transformation, there is still not that much clarity around what it actually is, how to do it, what it is going to look like, etc. Adam and I go in-depth around digital transformation, and he shares Avanade’s recent report that identifies four trends that they see as driving digital transformation going forward. We also look at how the workplace is evolving, trends that are shaping the future of work, Millennials, wearables and more. Adam also shares valuable insights for organizations and employees interested in embarking on this digital transformation journey. So, tune in to hear Adam Warby on digital transformation! |
Wed, 22 July 2015
This episode of the Future of Work podcast is with Dorie Clark is the author of a new book called Stand Out: How To Find Your Breakthrough Idea And Build a Following Around It. Dorie is also a marketing strategist, professional speaker and adjunct professor at Duke University. For anyone interested in personal branding, this is going to be a very, very interesting podcast. We look at everything ¾ why personal branding is for everyone, how to develop your own niche, how to deal with online trolls, how to grow your network, and more. Both Dorie and I share advice on consistency, frequency and visibility towards building your personal brand. For those of you interested, Dorie also has a great column on Forbes that you can also check out. This was a great conversation and lots of fun. Tune in and listen to Dorie Clark on personal branding!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 15 July 2015
This episode of the Future of Work podcast I speak with Nancy Duarte, Principal, and Patti Sanchez, Senior Vice President of Strategic Services, at Duarte. Duarte is known as “persuasive presentation experts,” and those of you who are interested in learning and improving your presentation and speaking skills may be familiar with them. In this podcast, we look at why storytelling is a big part of the future of work. Nancy and Patti have a new book being released early next year about leaders as strong, transformative communicators titled, “The Torchbearer Leader.” I had an opportunity to preview their book and found it very fascinating. We talk about some of the concepts in their book that they refer to as “the torchbearer’s toolkit” as well technology and globalization, technology in storytelling, and storytelling as personal branding. This is a very thought-provoking podcast that will resonate with everyone. So tune in and listen to Nancy Duarte and Patti Sanchez on why storytelling is crucial to the future of work!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 8 July 2015
On this week’s episode of the Future of Work podcast I’m speaking with Dana Bottenfield, VP of Human Resources at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. St. Jude is among one of the most famous research facilities known for the amazing work they do with kids. But, did you know St. Jude was voted as the No. 1 company to work for by Millennials? On Glassdoor, St. Jude received 4.5 stars, 100 percent of their employees recommend their CEO, and 93 percent state they would recommend the company to a friend. These are among the highest numbers I have ever seen for any company. In addition, for the past several years they have also been on Fortune’s Top 100 Companies to Work For. Earlier this year I had the honor of speaking at St. Jude at an internal conference on leadership and management. While there I found out they are an amazing place to work, and I wanted to find out what Dana and her team at St. Jude are doing to create such a desirable work environment. In this podcast, Dana and I explore topics such as driving employee engagement, low-cost initiatives, work-life balance, scaling HR, open and closed offices, and scaling HR. Dana shares her perspective on how the role of HR is evolving, how the workplace is changing, freelancers, and what challenges she faces. I always like to interview interesting organizations and the people running them from a people perspective. And, I think you’ll find this episode with Dana Bottenfield to be both inspirational and educational. Enjoy and let me know what you think!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 1 July 2015
My guest this week on the Future of Work podcast is Xavier Unkovic, Global President at Mars Drinks. Mars Drinks is a segment of the global Mars brand, which focuses specifically on drinks such as coffees, teas and the like. You may wonder why a beverage company is so interested in the future of work, but Mars Drinks is 100% focused on the workplace. Their products and solutions are for the workplace. Internally, Mars Drinks has been doing some very interesting things lately including the design of a brand new office space in Westchester, Pennsylvania. The focus of this podcast with Xavier is how to create a culture of innovation, and we take a closer look at what Mars Drinks is doing including the creation of “coffee shop culture.” Xavier also shares his insights on a host of topics such as how the workplace is changing, and management and leadership. We even cover the impact that food and drink might have on how we collaborate and get one’s job done. Xavier gives us his perspective on how innovation has changed over the years and shares some of the cool things he is doing at Mars Drinks. Xavier is clearly passionate about his work. Don’t miss this really great and interesting conversation with Xavier Unkovic on fostering innovation.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 24 June 2015
For anyone interested in getting a first-hand perspective on how an organization is actually transforming and thinking about the future of work, this is an especially exciting and fascinating episode of the Future of Work podcast. My guest is Ben Bratt, VP of HR, talent and Organizational Capabilities at T-Mobile. T-Mobile is undergoing a radical transformation. They are all over the news with their Uncarrier strategy, and their new CEO, John Legere, has a dynamic and unconventional personality in the media. The company is virtually unrecognizable from where it was five to ten years ago. Now, a lot of what consumers are seeing is the front-end transformation, but what most people don’t realize is there is actually quite a lot that T-Mobile is doing internally. In fact, T-Mobile has completely re-invented HR from the ground up. What it means to work at T-Mobile has been completely re-engineered and put together in a new way that is able to support this new Uncarrier strategy. I had the pleasure of talking with Ben and getting details of what that transformation looks like. We talk about how the role of HR is evolving and what T-Mobile is doing lately. We talk about some of the transformative principles that they have been applying, and how the workplace is changing. We talk about everything from diversity and inclusion to their performance and reward structure to what a T-Mobile office actually looks like. We also cover how they think of managers and organizational structure. It is rare to talk to such a large organization that has literally re-invented the HR function and what it means to work there. So take a moment to listen to this exciting podcast with Ben Bratt at T-Mobile.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 17 June 2015
I’m really excited about this episode of the Future of Work podcast. My guest is Brian J. Robertson who actually created Holacracy, a new management and organizational structure; and is the author of Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World. Holacracy has been in the news quite a bit as it pertains to Zappos’ radical shift to this new organizational structure. There has been quite a bit of confusion and discussion around Holacracy, so I thought this would be an ideal time to speak to its creator to find out what is Holacracy, how it works and why it should be considered. Brian dispels a lot of the myths and, overall, it is a very thought-provoking discussion. Brian is very passionate about the work he is doing and sheds light on exactly what Holacracy is. So tune in and enjoy this very fascinating discussion on Holacracy!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 10 June 2015
My guest for this episode of the Future of Work podcast is Jeroen Tas, CEO of Philips Informatics, Solutions and Services Business Group. Jeroen is also the former CIO of all of Philips. Healthcare is a very popular topic today affecting how we live and work. Jeroen gave me a crash course on what the future of healthcare will look like. We talk about a lot of fascinating concepts such as healthcare fragmentation and corporate culture. We look at wearables, big data, and the internet of things in healthcare. We also look at some of the cool things coming in the world of healthcare and what it will look like in five to ten years. Health and well-being play a major role in the future of work and our everyday lives. So, tune in for a fascinating look at the future of healthcare with Jeroen Tas!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees)
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 3 June 2015
This episode of the Future of Work podcast I had the pleasure to speak with Paul Green, Jr., co-founder of the Self-Management Institute at the Morning Star Company. Morning Star is an agri-business and processing company who is largest processor of tomatoes. Everyone in some way, shape or form has consumed products that have come from Morning Star. What is really fascinating about the Morning Star Company is that there are no managers, and is the reason why I was so interested in speaking with Paul. Paul and I address some of the principles of self-management and how Morning Star came to this process of self-management. Our discussion includes hiring, firing and problem resolution ─ all functions traditionally handled by managers. He also shares insights into something they created called CLOU - Colleague Letters of Understanding, which is essentially an agreement employees make with each other where they agree upon what type of work they will be doing, how they are going to do it, etc. We cover much more, and end with Paul’s advice to organizations and employees. This is an absolutely fascinating discussion ─ and one that is very timely given Zappos recent shift to holacracy and the recent discussions on new models and concepts for restructuring. I learned so much speaking with Paul and I think you will as well. Tune in for this fascinating conversation on self-management with Paul Green!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 27 May 2015
This episode of the Future of Work podcast I speak with Cheryl Kerrigan, Vice President of Employee Success at Achievers. Achievers is known for its employee recognition platform that you may have heard of and some of you may be using in your organization. Also, it should be noted that Achievers was recently ranked as one of the best places to work. Cheryl and I talk about how organizations can do a better job of recognizing and incentivizing their employees, how organizations can create a more engaged environment, and some of the tactics and strategies organizations can follow. We also cover what Achievers is doing internally with their own employees. Cheryl talks about the really cool programs Achievers has implemented designed to engage and get employees involved in what the organization is doing. She also covers how organizations can apply some of these concepts and ideas to help create a more engaged workforce and a solid corporate culture. One of the things that I always talk about is that organizations have to shift away from creating a place where they assume people need to work there to creating a place where people want to work there. And a big part of that is recognition, rewards, culture and engagement. Tune in for a great conversation with Cheryl Kerrigan on creating a more engaged environment through employee rewards and recognition!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 20 May 2015
In this episode of the Future of Work podcast my guest is Jeffrey Rodman, the co-founder of Polycom. Many of you are familiar with Polycom and, in fact, have used their products. They became famous for their speaker phones found in the conference rooms of most organizations. Jeff and I talk about the role of technology in collaboration. It’s no secret that technology is obviously one of the biggest driving factors that is enabling collaboration today. It’s a topic covered in my first book, The Collaborative Organization; and is also explored in my new book, The Future of Work. Collaboration is a huge theme ─ one that organizations are continuously spending more time and resources investing in. In this episode, Jeff and I explore many topics including differences in collaboration between smaller and larger organizations; and the concept of office space and do we still need offices. We cover Millennials, freelancers and the contingent workforce; and how collaboration plays a role in connecting these different types of employees. We also talk the about challenges associated with collaboration. And, Jeff takes us through some of the cool technologies that he’s working on at Polycom. We conclude with Jeff’s advice to organizations, managers and employees who are looking to improve collaboration within their organization. Tune in for a great discussion With Jeff Rodman on the role of technology in collaboration!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 13 May 2015
My guest for this episode of the Future of Work podcast is Ralph Loura, CIO at Hewlett-Packard’s Enterprise Group, and former CIO of the Clorox Company. We looked at technology as tools and not toys. Ralph also shared his perspective on how the role of IT is changing, how the role of the CIO is evolving, and what the future is going to look like. We covered technical issues like IT and business units working together, important skills IT professionals must possess in the new world of work, and technology and the business side. But we also explored some interesting topics such as women and technology, the culture of H-P, millennials, and much more. As with every podcast, Ralph ends with his advice for CIOs, organizations, and employees regarding technology. Tune in for a captivating discussion on technology as tools and not toys with Ralph Loura!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 6 May 2015
In this Future of Work podcast, I speak with Josh Bersin. Josh started a company called Bersin & Associates, which was acquired by Deloitte and is now known as Bersin by Deloitte. Since the acquisition, Josh has been working at Deloitte providing a lot of really interesting thought leadership around how the world of HR and talent is changing. Because Deloitte recently released a report called “Global Human Capital Trends 2015: Leading in the new world of work,” I reached out to Josh to talk about what some of these trends are and what that means for us. Josh gives a unique perspective from a “big picture” view as to how these trends are impacting the world of HR and talent. Our talk covers leadership, learning, culture, workforce in demand, performance management, and re-inventing HR. We also talk about analytics, the simplification of work, as well as machines as talent. While this podcast is especially relevant to you if you are a HR leader, it is just as relevant to you if you are just an employee that is trying to understand how your job is going to change or how your career might change in the future. Be sure to listen in to this fascinating discussion with Josh Bersin on the top human capital trends for 2015!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 29 April 2015
This week’s episode of the Future of Work podcast is with Harry Kraemer, the former CEO of Baxter and now professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where he teaches management and leadership. Many of you are familiar with Baxter, the large pharmaceutical company that today has just over 60,000 employees around the world. Harry does quite a number of things, one of which is that he is a best-selling author. His second book just came out titled, “Becoming the Best: Build a World-Class Organization Through Values-Based Leadership.” You will recall that in a recent podcast, I spoke with Herminia Ibarra who also wrote a book on leadership. This episode explores leadership from Harry’s perspective. I must say that it was interesting to compare and contrast these two different models and styles of leadership. Of course, Harry and I examine what makes a leader. One of the common themes in Harry’s book is all about “being yourself.” We discuss the four principles of values-based leadership that include humbleness and humility, which Harry believes are very important for leadership. We also talk about how he scales leadership and the importance of corporate culture on leadership. There is a fascinating discourse on employee engagement as well as Harry’s concept called “leading up.” Harry shares some interesting stories and anecdotes from his life and experience as CEO of such a large organization as Baxter. As with every episode of the podcast, we end with his advice for managers, employees and organizations around the world. This is a great podcast episode. I found Harry’s thoughts, views and perspectives quite interesting, and I think you will too. So tune in and listen to this fascinating discussion on values-based leadership!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 15 April 2015
In this podcast I continue my exploration of leadership with my interview with Herminia Ibarra. She is a professor at the INSEAD School of Business, one of the top business and management schools in the world, where she teaches leadership. Most of the people I talk to are all pretty much in agreement that there is a leadership crisis within our organizations. We are putting the wrong people in positions of power and we really need to re-think what it means to be a manager and a leader within our organizations. In previous podcasts, I spoke with Barry-Wehmiller CEO Bob Chapman and Rita McGrath, a professor at the Columbia School of Business, about leadership. In this podcast I talk with Herminia about her new book that just came out called “Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader.” This is a very fascinating book, and we talk about a lot of the different concepts contained in it. As you can tell by the title, it’s a bit counter-intuitive. She challenges the common assumption that you should think like a leader and then start to act like a leader. Herminia says you have to act like one first before you start to think like one. In the podcast, we talk about how people can actually become leaders. I get Herminia’s feedback about the concept of management versus leadership, using Whirlpool’s rebranding of their internal job titles to give everyone a leadership title as an example. We also touch on the importance of getting out of your comfort zone, the importance of becoming and building bridges within your organization, and other cool concepts from her book such as authenticity and employee engagement. We cover the idea of outsight instead of insight — basically, redefining your job and thinking about it from an outsider’s perspective. Herminia also touches on the importance of your network and the people you are connected with, which I think this is a huge factor when thinking about leadership. In conjunction, Herminia discusses another theme called the “innovators network dilemma” where she talks about how your network can basically impact a lot of roles and perceptions that you get. This is a must-listen to podcast for anyone thinking of advancing into leadership or management roles; or those looking to become a better, more relevant leader. Listen in and don’t forget to share your thoughts with me!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 8 April 2015
I’m very excited to share this week’s episode of The Future of Work podcast. I interview Rita McGrath, Professor at Columbia Business School, author, speaker and consultant. Rita has been featured in many business publications and is quoted frequently by the press. Her most recent book is “The End of Competitive Advantage – How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business.” I believe this podcast will prove to be a very good overview for people that are interested in management and innovation, and how they are evolving and changing. Rita is on the front line of these events because she not only teaches on this, but she works with a lot of organizations. We talk about venture capital and funding in the Bay Area and what is going on with what I like to call “Pinocchio’s Island,” and how innovation is changing. We look at the competitive advantage, which is particularly fascinating because it is something that has been and is still taught in many of our schools. And, it comes up time and again in conversations around management and leadership. Rita has a completely counter-intuitive approach, which is that competitive advantage is actually… dead. She introduces several new concepts and methods for organizations to sustain their strategy, and to scale and sustain innovation. Different aspects of the future of work also are explored including the freelancer economy and more. We wrap up with Rita sharing her advice to organizations— and individuals as well — who are looking to adapt to the changes that we are seeing. Tune in and don’t miss this Future of Work podcast.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Thu, 2 April 2015
In this week’s episode of The Future of Work podcast I talk with Pat Wadors, Senior Vice President of Global Talent Organization at LinkedIn. Pat runs all of talent and Human Resources (HR), and she is pretty much responsible for all of the cool things that you keep hearing about LinkedIn. It is no surprise that Pat was ranked as one of the 2015 top 50 women in technology by the National Diversity Council. And, I’m excited to say that Pat will be one of the speakers at our upcoming Future of Work Forum on April 29th in San Francisco. Pat and I talk about everything from Millenials and how HR is changing to what she is doing to leverage big data and analytics to drive HR decision-making. She also shares some great stories about vulnerability that I think will resonate with any senior leader. Considering that LinkedIn’s workforce has almost doubled during her tenure, you have to assume that Pat is doing some really interesting things to make sure that culture can scale, employee engagement stays high, and that LinkedIn as an organization can succeed. Pat walks us through how LinkedIn is transforming and the challenges she’s facing, and gives us a rare insight into some of the fascinating experiments she’s done and the results she’s seen. Pat shares her sagacious grasp of how to make corporate culture scale, how the role of HR is evolving, and how she sees her role, specifically. Tune in and listen to what has become one of my favorite episodes!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Tue, 24 March 2015
This episode continues my interview with Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc., a manufacturing company with over 8,000 employees. In the last episode we became familiar with Barry-Wehmiller; and how Bob feels personally responsible for every employee that works at his company, how this perspective came about, the justifications and metrics. In this episode we talk about leadership and management. In a very interesting discussion, Bob shares some of the creative and innovative things that he and his company are doing to really create a workplace where people feel fulfilled and engaged — and where they actually want to show up. It is all about his idea of “truly human leadership.” Tune in and listen to Part 2 of this lively discussion!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 18 March 2015
With the crisis in leadership and so many employees in the world disengaged, I’m always looking to find organizations that are doing things differently or thinking about leadership differently. This is Part 1 of the future of work podcast featuring Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc., a manufacturing company with over 8,000 employees that has shown a growth rate of 16 percent a year compounded over the past 25 years. Bob has a unique approach to leadership whereby he feels personally responsible for every employee that works at his company — a concept that he calls “truly human leadership.” When surveyed, employees described Barry-Wehmiller as “family.” We talk about this idea of truly human leadership, and what Bob and his company are doing differently as far as management and leadership are concerned. We have some very interesting debates and discussions around the concepts that he is implementing, the justifications and metrics he may be using, and more. Bob also shares many interesting and fascinating stories. Enjoy and make sure to tune in for Part 2!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 11 March 2015
The world as we know it is becoming more and more connected. But, what will a world look like when devices as small as your watch to as large as a jet engine are all connected to each other and to people? In this episode of the future of work podcast, I speak with Rich Carpenter who is the Chief of Strategy for GE in their Intelligent Platforms division. Rich shares fascinating insight around how connected machines (usually very large machines) and devices are going to impact our economy, our jobs, and our future. He shares several examples and provides some great advice for business leaders and employees alike. Rich also touches on the importance of creating more data scientist jobs at companies around the world. This is definitely an interesting look at what the "industrial internet" is going to look like, we even touch on the possibility of a Skynet-like scenario happening! Listen to learn more!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 4 March 2015
Toni Cusumano is a Principal and Technology Sector Human Capital Leader at PwC, and she and her team have been spending a lot of time exploring what the future of work is going to look like. They have created three scenarios or "worlds" that might play out: the orange world, the green world, and the blue world. In this episode of the future of work podcast, Toni shares what the difference between these worlds is and what organizations should be thinking about. We talk about everything from technology and Millennials to talent management and workplace trends. It's definitely an important episode to listen to if you want to know the direction that work is headed in. Tune in to learn more!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 25 February 2015
This week’s episode of the future of work podcast is one of my favorites. I talk with Salim Ismail, Founding Executive Director of Singularity University, and co-author of “Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it).” I had a fascinating conversation with Salim covering a lot of topics — jobs and technology to exponential organizations to employee tenure, and more. To sum it up, it’s all about disruption — how do you deal with disruption in this world that we are approaching? Salim describes it best as “you are either the disruptor or you are being disrupted.” Salim provides a very fascinating perspective on what the future of work is going to look like that I’m sure you’re going to enjoy. Listen in and tell me what you think!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 18 February 2015
Spiceworks is the world's largest community of global IT professionals that come together online and offline. Spiceworks was recently named by Glassdoor as one of the world's best companies to work for and they have received numerous other similar awards. In this episode of the future of work podcast I talk with Scott Abel, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer for Spiceworks. We explore some of the things that he does to create such a great place to work. From having "slices with Scott" where employees can ask Scott absolutely any question to having open-door meetings with venture capitalists, Scott may just be running one of the world's most open and transparent companies. According to Scott, being open and transparent is one of the best ways to build trust and engagement. Tune in to learn more!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Thu, 12 February 2015
MuleSoft is another organization that was recently ranked by Glassdoor as one of the best places to work in America and they have also won plenty of other awards for being a great place to work. According to Greg Schott, the CEO of MuleSoft, the key is creating a great corporate culture. I had the pleasure of visiting MuleSoft's offices in San Francisco to speak with Greg in person. In this episode of the future of work podcast Greg shares some of the things he does at his company to help make sure his employees are engaged, happy, and always doing their best. Greg is one of the few CEO's I know who personally interviews every new candidate that applies for a job. This means many hundreds of interviews a year. Listen in to learn what else Greg does to create a great corporate culture.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 4 February 2015
The "skills gap" is inarguably one of the biggest threats for modern day workplaces. Many employers say they can't fill open jobs and employees say that they aren't getting the proper education and training at their companies. So what's the solution? In this podcast, Udemy CEO Dennis Yang shares his perspective on mitigating the skills gap, and how his company is helping people learn and acquire new skills while preparing workers for a future that holds untold possibilities.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 28 January 2015
How does a nuclear submarine captain take one of the lowest performing vessels and make them one of the top performing ones? David Marquet did just that and he explains how he did it in his new book, "Turn the Ship Around." In this episode of the podcast David shares some of the ideas and insights from his book where he provides a contrarian model for leadership in the coportate environment called "leader-leader." Learn how David empowers his team and creates leaders out of everyone!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 21 January 2015
Many people are already using technology to track things in their personal lives such as food they eat, steps they take, sleeping patterns, and much more. However, what if we took this same approach of the "quantified self" and applied it to creating the "quantified workplace?" That is, using data and technology to measure and track how we work. In this podcast I talk with Kris Duggan the CEO of BetterWorks that allows organizations to do just that but setting and measuring their goals and objectives. Is the quantified workplace the future of work or is it a bit too much? Listen to find out!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 14 January 2015
F5 Networks recently made it to "Glassdoor's prestigious list of the Top 50 Places to Work in America" and was ranked #4 out of the "large companies" category. This podcast has Staffing Director, Richard James offering an insider view of F5 Networks–the company, core values, the work culture, people, and much more. Tune in to learn why F5 Networks is one of the best places to work in America!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 5 January 2015
In an effort to provide company and job transparency, Glassdoor stands out to be a popular name for employees and employers alike. Vested with tons of valuable information, including company salaries, work culture, open positions, employee reviews, Glassdoor is certainly making a foray into redefining the future of work. With their newly released list of "Top 50 Places to Work" (featuring the top 50 SMBs and top 50 large companies to work for in America), David Staney and Lisa Holden offer a glimpse inside the company and what goes on behind putting together the list for "Best places to work." They also talk about their recent findings, lessons learned, and tips for companies who wish to make it to the prestigious list.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Tue, 16 December 2014
Dan Keldsen is the author of the new book, The Gen Z Effect. In this episode of the podcast we explore who this new generation is and what their potential impact is going to be on the workplace. If you're thinking about how to adapt your organization to the future of work then Gen Z is definitely a group you need to pay attention to. Tune in to learn more!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 10 December 2014
Wearable devices are not only taking the consumer world by storm but they are also making their way inside of our organizations. To get a better sense of how wearable devices are impacting the future of work I spoke with the CTO of Accenture Paul Daugherty and Brent Blum who is the Wearable Technology Practice Lead. If you want to know what the future of wearable devices looks like then tune in!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Mon, 10 November 2014
Chris Yeh is one of the smartest people I've met and someone that I have known for several years. He just co-authored a book with Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman called The Alliance, about how to manage talent in a networked world. In this episode Chris and I talk about how many of the concepts in his book including what the alliance framework is, how it can be applied, the employment "tours of duty," and what the future of talent managment looks like.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 5 November 2014
This week we are talking about independent workers and freelancer economy which is a critical topic around the future of work. My guest this week is Gene Zaino who is the president and CEO of MPO Partners which provides support for these types of self-employed workers. In this episode we look at things such as the current state of the independent workforce, the future of employement, government rules and regulations, and the impact of the freelancer economy on how we work.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Thu, 30 October 2014
My guest this week is Aaron Taylor Harve who is the environments design lead at Air BnB. We explore the impact that workspaces have on engagement and culture and how Aaron and AirBnB go about creating amazing workspaces for employees. Aaron also gives vauable advice for employees and organizations looking to utilize their physical space to improve how employees work and how they feel about where they work.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Thu, 23 October 2014
What makes a company a great place to work? To learn how The Motley Fool became the #1 company in America to work for I spoke with their chief collaboration officer Todd Etter. We look at everything from their core values to their actual workplace setup. Enjoy!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 15 October 2014
You may have heard of the sharing or collaborative economy where consumers are getting what they want from each other isntead of through corporations. But what is driving this new model, how does it impact businesses, and what does the future of the sharing economy look like? These are some of the questions we explore with my guest this week, Jeremiah Owyang, the founder of Crowd Companies.
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Wed, 8 October 2014
This week I explore privacy and security and whether or not these things exist in today's digital world. My guest is Raj Samani, a CTO with McAfeee and Internet Security Advisor to the EURPOL Cybercrime Centre. We talk about everything from cloud computing the value of personal data and information. This is a must listen for anyone that is thinking about their personal or business privacy and security. I do my very best to get Raj to admit that privacy and security are completely and utterly dead, enjoy!
(Music by Ronald Jenkees) |
Great Leadership With Jacob Morgan
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