Patti Cotton

Executive Coach & Career Strategist

Patti Cotton

Man or Machine: Who Will Win in the Workplace of the Future?

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Man or Machine: Who Will Win in the Workplace of the Future?
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What’s smarter than a human being?

A group of human beings.

Putting our heads together to come up with brilliant ideas and implementation has been recognized for centuries as “brain-trusting,” and is well-known for the rich perspectives, problem-solving, and creativity it can generate.

But now that machines loom larger and smarter, will this mean that we lose brain trust to brawn?

The experts project a loss of 800 million jobs by 2030 to machines.

How will you remain viable and vibrant in the new age of artificial intelligence (AI)?

AI is currently viewed as both an exciting development and a terrible threat. The advances we are able to make today and tomorrow are critical to meet an ever-growing complex world. Yet, we also realize that what has previously been accomplished by humans can now be taken over, at least in part, by machines.

What does that mean for meaningful work for us and for those generations that succeed us?

Will we lose our workplace to the machine?

No.

In fact, work may become more meaningful than ever before – if you and your organization are prepared to meet it.

It is important to understand that we continue to design machines that can take over automated tasks and mundane, repetitive work. We are seeing this in the operation and support of factories and production lines, customer call operations, document classification, and other areas.

With this development, machines will indeed replace a large part of the workforce that has previously performed these tasks.

In addition, machines are now capable of performing other more complex activities such as those requiring the processing of data streams, real-time knowledge, etc. Again, machines will dominate in this particular arena.

Then what is left for us?

How can AI actually benefit and bring more meaningful work opportunities to the human part of the future workforce?

Here are three ways:

1. Opportunities for vertical development.

Instead of emphasizing hard skills and competencies, focus will be on vertical development: developing the ability to perform more complex and adaptive thinking and to “see” with a greater lens and make sense of a world growing in complexity.

Our charge will be oversight and management of machines, rather than performing the tasks.

Abilities required of us at greater levels will be adaptability, network thinking, judgment, and creativity. Acquiring these skills means more career opportunities and greater flexibility in work choices open to us.

The good news is that each of us has been given the seeds to develop vertically – and there are proven ways to develop it systematically.

2. Opportunities to support the need for belonging and growth.

Human beings seek to belong, and they seek growth.

The workplace plays a critical role in helping people to do this. Those organizations embodying a culture of collaboration and offering individual and group growth opportunities will support these needs.

Further, this will benefit the company by lowering employee turnover, and heightening engagement, satisfaction, and productivity. Machines cannot create and support this culture – it is the people alone who are empowered to do this.

What does your company need in order to support this need for belonging and growth?

3. Opportunities to tap into collective intelligence (CI) to become the organization of the future.

CI is shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and collective efforts of many. And it is key to moving an organization into the future.

Gone is the hierarchical business model of one “general” at the top, several “sergeants” at the next levels, and many “foot soldiers” carrying out the tasks.

Instead, teams are leading teams, from top to bottom – to sideways. As leaders now demand greater leadership at every level, their workforces demand to have more voice and participation in leading the company forward.

We recognize the power of this collective, and welcome the rich brain trust it provides.

As we incorporate greater vertical development, a sense of belonging, and collective intelligence, this means we will have the ability to operate at a higher level of intelligence and meaning than we have ever experienced. And that is pretty exciting!

So where do we go from here? What’s your burning question or concern about man and machine in the workplace?

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

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Jumpstart Company Performance with Trust

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Jumpstart Company Performance with Trust
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How high is the trust quotient in your company? If it’s low, you are among the 47% of American companies currently losing significant dollars and competitive edge.

How does trust affect company performance?

Well, compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report: *

  • 74% less stress
  • 106% more energy at work
  • 50% higher productivity
  • 13% fewer sick days
  • 76% more engagement
  • 29% more satisfaction with their lives
  • 40% less burnout

And those factors have everything to do with individual, team, and company performance.

So now what? How do you raise the trust quotient in your organization?

Here are some important steps to building greater trust.

1. Create shared agreement.

You’ve set company goals, but has your workforce integrated these to support them? When was the last time you had your executive team review their areas to ensure these are aligned with the company-wide goals? Do the metrics and milestones support the goals? Are there any conflicting processes or practices that might silo teams from one another?

If so, ferret these out ruthlessly. Otherwise, you are pitting teams against one another, thus causing mistrust to grow.

2. Respect shared accountability.

What are your practices for setting expectations, reporting on progress, and measuring against your projected success?

If any of these are missing, this will create questions and assumptions about the work of others. In the absence of information, people will create stories to make meaning. Unless you have a regular communication process that keeps everyone in the loop, someone may be assuming others are sleeping on the job – or worse. Assumptions are deadly because they erode trust.

3. Be honest.

Do you foresee you will be unable to deliver a product to a customer? Mentor honesty to your company. Make the difficult call to let the customer know as soon as you are aware. Your customer may not be pleased, but will appreciate your integrity.

Once this happens, re-examine your processes and practices to see what needs adjusting so that this is not a trend.

Are you in the planning stages of a downsizing or merger? Plan out your communication plan to your employees. Delivering tough messages is unpleasant, but saying nothing and surprising people is a trust-breaker.

4. Treat mistakes as points of learning.

Model this for your workforce.

Admitting you were wrong about something and sharing what you have learned from it shows others they can do so, as well.

The quickest way to cut creativity and innovation to the quick is to support a culture of perfection. If your employees get the message that perfection is king, they will play it safe by under-committing and performing at a safe, sub-par level because they don’t trust the company to regard them in the same light if they make a mistake.

Celebrate mistakes. It means you support learning, which is part of a successful future.

5. Facilitate “whole-person” growth.

Are you losing employees when they find promotion opportunities outside of your company?

It may be time to chart out the employee journey, with clear tracks, and supportive education and growth opportunities for both personal and professional development.

The organization of the future will keep learning and development as top priority, bringing meaning and fulfillment to its employee base. This creates a trust in them that you have their interests in mind.

When have you experienced a lack of trust at your company? How did you approach remedying this?

*Source: Zak, Paul. “The Neuroscience of Trust.” Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 2017.

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DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

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Three Ways Compassion Makes Your Business Better

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Three Ways Compassion Makes Your Business Better
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In a recent CBS This Morning interview, Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, expressed the importance of compassion in the workplace.

Regarding the organization of the future, Jeff said, “It’s about walking the walk… It’s about looking at different perspectives…it’s about those interpersonal or soft skills…that will set yourself, your team, and the organization up for success.”

To some people, this may sound like fluff.

After all, what’s love got to do with it?

How do you link compassion with success in a way that makes business sense?

First, let’s define what compassion is – and what it isn’t. A short definition of compassion is to have concern for the well-being of others. For more on this – and to learn what it isn’t – see my article on compassion and boundaries.

How does having concern for the well-being of others increase the bottom line?

Here are three ways compassion directly impacts your revenues.

1. Communication.

When compassion is absent from communication, it reflects a lack of willingness to walk in the other person’s shoes.

It is evidenced by little or no interest in hearing the perspectives of others, or in seeking to understand. It is also evidenced by a heightened tendency for reactive and judgmental thinking.

Poor communication can actually cost your company an average of $26,041 in productivity per employee per year. It can cost your managers the ability to perform the work and manage others; and it can cost you your leadership reputation.

2. Team and organizational alignment.

When compassion is absent from a company, teams and team members within teams work in silos.

Silos are responsible for missed deadlines, arguments over who is responsible for what, distrust, poor assumptions about others, conflict – the list goes on. The energy in such a business is negative and draining to the soul, and productivity is low as a result of it.

Do you consider yourself a compassionate leader? Be careful. Hubris Syndrome can creep up quickly, and you may discover you have actually compromised your leadership. For more on this, see my article: “Can You Lead with Heart and Get Results?”

3. Competitive advantage.

Caring for others gives you a corporate edge. But when compassion is absent, it has been proven to compromise your employees’ feelings of safety and loyalty.

They doubt that learning, collaboration, and innovation are possible at your company and can shut down, which impacts the bottom line. Service quality suffers without compassion, and the employee’s desire to empathize with others and move beyond personal bias to form a team suffers as well.

It is time to identify and take action on strategies for the workplace that ignite compassion, because, as you see, love and results do, indeed, go hand in hand.

Inspired by the book, Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power that Elevates People and Organizations (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2017, 272 pages)

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Has Your Leadership Expired?

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Has Your Leadership Expired?
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There is much buzz about “the organization of the future” as the top business focus around the globe. Indeed, in a world-wide survey conducted by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd, the focus takes first place among 11 other key issues facing executives today as they ask themselves how to keep their respective companies sustainable into the next generation and beyond.

This makes sense. What leader doesn’t want his or her company to move into the future successfully? Those leading realize that, as technology and shifting customer demands transform the business landscape, they will need to restructure the organization, including many processes, roles and responsibilities, and other moving parts in order to deliver services and products.

But leadership needs to change, too.

In order to lead the organization of the future, to support required new approaches, ways of thinking, doing, workforce shifts, and so much more, leaders will need to up their game.

Is your leadership up to it?

Or is it out of date?

Top tenets of the organization of the future include operating at a faster pace, adapting more quickly to market demands, acquiring new knowledge more rapidly, and embracing dynamic career demands.

What will the leaders of today need to do in order to prepare for this?

The answer lies beyond a traditional emphasis on horizontal development, which concentrates on acquiring additional information, skills and competencies.

Instead, leaders will also need to add a focus on their vertical development – developing more complex and sophisticated ways of thinking.

This only makes sense: a more complex world mean that the organization needs to respond in kind.

To do this, we need a more sophisticated way of seeing and making sense of things so that we can lead effectively.

Here are some highlights of vertical development. Do you reflect these in your leadership?

  • Strategic Thinking 2.0

Your strategic thinking sees many patterns and connections. Gone is the black and white thinking of the past. It’s time to become comfortable with uncertainty as the norm instead of having a high need for certainty.

  • Leading Change

Success is no longer defined as achievement of individuals and teams, but a realization of a shared vision. Change is embraced as a culture and is a collaborative, ongoing process.

  • Leading Across Boundaries

Are you focused on the success of your own area of responsibility? This will be termed “siloed thinking,” and replaced by working in partnership with other functions. Brain-trusting will become a regular way of thinking and doing.

How do you develop these traits and practices in yourself, your team, and your employee base?

Nick Petrie, author of “Vertical Leaders,” www.CCL.org, outlines a 3-pronged approach that can support your growth initiative:

  1. Intense stretch experiences

Provide periodic “bursts” of learning stimulation by providing a challenging work initiative or project that stretches current thinking and skills.

  1. New ways of thinking

Hold periodic meetings with an outside facilitator with the intent of challenging beliefs and behaviors to develop higher thinking. During these meetings, choose two to three difficult business issues to surface beliefs, biases, and mental models so that you can collectively challenge these and shift thinking.

  1. Strong developmental networks

Use peer coaching to see through the eyes of different stakeholders and learn how to work on real-life issues incorporating multiple considerations.

As you review the suggestions above, you no doubt recognize that these kinds of shifts require dedication and time. However, without this commitment, your enterprise will probably become a casualty of the coming changes. Making the effort to meet the future now is an investment that will surely pay off today, as well as tomorrow.

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DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

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Three Quick Ways to Recapture Your Executive Edge

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Three Quick Ways to Recapture Your Executive Edge
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Are you feeling a state of overwhelm, a loss of drive, or a chronic state of stress as you lead?

These are signs that your “executive edge” is slipping. Not only can this keep you from doing your best work, it can quickly demoralize you and throw you into a low-grade funk. In fact, if left unchecked, it can lead to burnout – a debilitating state. The loss to your company is great; the loss to you personally may be immeasurable.

When you are leading, you can’t afford this.

How can you quickly recapture your edge before you lose control?

Strengthen the foundation.

Your executive edge is built on a foundation of drive, focus, and energy. If one of these areas is not nurtured, your edge will become wobbly. In fact, you won’t notice at first – the process is insidious.

Early symptoms of edge loss can be detected if you find yourself in one of the following situations:

  • You find you are regularly pulled off “into the weeds” by other projects while you attempt to concentrate on what’s important.
  • Your desk is full of work that feels like a daily grind instead of a forward move to bigger goals.
  • You carry a low-grade source of tension that keeps your brow furrowed. (Hint: are your neck and shoulders perpetually knotted up? Your chest tight?)

If you identify with any of these situations, it is time to recapture your edge by strengthening its foundation.

Here are Three Ways to Recapture Your Edge

1. Refocus your efforts.

Have you been pulled off in directions that have taken you away from what is most important? Do you find it hard to get back on track?

A moderate loss of focus means you need to review your 90-day plan (your quarterly action plan supporting your yearly goals).

A severe loss of focus means revisiting your long-term and short-term goals supporting the company, outlining a new 90-day plan that supports this, and actually blocking off “closed door” time on your calendar to work on what is most important.

2. Revive your drive.

If you are feeling that work feels like drudgery or a bit of a grind, there is a good chance you have lost your drive.

If you want to test this out, go back to your “why” – the reason you do what you do.

What is the bigger picture? Why does the company exist? How does it make life better for the world? And how do you play a part in this?

Revisit the answers to these questions daily. Remember why you do what you do.

3. Eliminate hidden energy drains.

If you carry a low-grade source of tension, this indicates an unresolved conflict of some kind. Over time, this stress can cause a loss of energy, focus, drive, and actually develop a poor outlook and some significant health concerns.

Identify those sources of tension and conflict, and make a decision as to how to resolve these. As you let go of old baggage, you will find that your stress levels will diminish and you will feel much more energetic.

When you are leading a company or area of responsibility, your edge needs to be present so that you contribute your best. And of course, on a personal note, life is too short not to enjoy living and enjoying your best life.

HOW MUCH

DO OTHERS REALLY TRUST YOU?

​Learn the two vital parts to trust and how they can help you become a more highly effective leader.

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