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The business world has massively changed and is disrupted. So should we be frightened or excited?
Jessica Symes, founder and CEO of learning and development company Symes Group, has spent a lot of time with a lot of businesses and she says a theme is emerging.
In order to stay relevant and ahead of the competition, organisations are striving for innovation, but many of them are going about it the wrong way, Jess explains. Many companies are afraid to let go of their hierarchical structures, policies and procedures that stifle the very creativity they need.
“Organisations are spending a little bit of time and money on trying to develop creativity in their people, but not connecting the dots into how that might apply in the employees' everyday lives."
“Time is not the currency of innovation. If you are still expecting people to work between certain hours, in a certain way and tie their hands with regard to their ability to make decisions, you will not be creating an environment that fosters creativity.
“Organisations might have an objective around creativity and innovation, but aren’t radically changing their conditions and working environments to promote it.
“The expectation on an employee today is to be creative and innovative, but the challenge is how do you achieve that within boundaries, when creativity is all about breaking the rules, failing, experimenting in a non-linear fashion and employers are still afraid of that. How can you measure that? And how does that not look like poor performance? How does that not look like wasting the organisation’s money?
“To produce the billion-dollar idea, you need to have your people producing a whole lot of ideas that go nowhere.”
Jess says businesses can take an academic approach – there are formulas and principles of how individuals and groups can think more creatively, laterally and outside of the box – but the standard day in the life of a worker in the future will look a lot different to what it is now.
“We are still only at the very early stages of really understanding the true essence of creativity – that has been in place for thousands of years – in a corporate setting; what the benefit would be and what organisations have to let go of to truly embrace it and allow it to foster.”
Jess says we may need to wait for certain generations to leave the workforce, those with fixed ideas around what a working day looks like. The radical change that’s needed won’t happen as long as that fixed mindset prevails.
Jess often encounters people unhappy in their careers and has some strong advice for anyone in that situation.
“Kylie Owen, who heads the people and culture department at Cisco, describes it as a two-way bargain – the employee needs to come to the party just as much as the employer, it’s not just take, take, take.”
Individuals, Jess says, really need to take responsibility for their experience at work.
“Most of us work in comfortable, motivating and stimulating environments, but it’s the individual’s choice to see it in a negative or positive light, and focus on what is going well.”
She also says it’s impossible for big companies to respond to changes in the economic environment as quickly as small start-ups can.
“Commonly, the gripes that I hear today are the same gripes that I heard a decade ago.”
People often complain about the technology.
“There needs to be a level of reality – to overhaul the technology system in an organisation that has 14,000 employees, is not as easy at it seems.
“Employees need to see themselves as one part of a huge system, and develop a more realistic view of what’s possible.
“You also need to understand where you fit.”
Some people are more suited to entrepreneurial roles, and some need structure, while others don’t.
“Most of our client base have education, opportunity and choice. If you’re not happy, find another opportunity that you are more suited to. It can be really affronting to have that presented as a possibility, but you don’t have to stay, you can leave.
“So it’s about taking ownership – of your experience at work and your career.
“There are no free lunches in this world, and no mind-reading boss that will know that you want more responsibility or opportunities if you’re busy complaining about the responsibilities you already have.
“The employee of the future requires a growth mindset, positivity, an understanding of teams and others, and be clear that it’s not all about you.”
And what do employers need to do to build the best possible relationships with their staff? Jess says organisations want their people to be loyal and engaged, but that may not be realistic.
“It’s going to look very different. My prediction is that we’re going to have a workforce where employees, contractors or consultants will be cross-pollinating across different organisations, not just for variety. You might have a management consultant that works for Deloitte and Tesla, and when those two companies collide, how beneficial would that be for business?
“Employees are going to demand autonomy – when they work, where they work, how they work, and that loyalty to one brand, I think that’s going to fade out.
“Employers also need to ensure nothing in their staff’s outside lives are being compromised by their work, if they want to get the best out of people. Flexibility is absolutely essential.
“Symes Group believes there is still a misery epidemic in Australia. For businesses to survive the next decade they will require enormous amounts of creativity and innovation. Their people need to happy and love their work. The organisations that get it will survive, the others won’t."
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“We’ll see radical change in the next decade; already we’re seeing brands drop at an alarming rate.
“At Symes Group we’re going to assist and support organisations to be able to be think more creatively, be more creative, and maintain and environment that fosters it.
It’s a slow process with a lot of obstacles.
“But most of all we’re passionate about – one person at at time – helping individuals to get in the driver’s seat and take ownership and control of their own careers. We’ll be launching a digital platform in 2019, continue our work in career confidence.
Dramatic changes can come from individuals taking control of their own learning, their own development so that they can contribute in a really positive, productive, creative, innovative and energetic way to any organisation that they choose to join.
“We want to see a future where we’re no longer having these conversations around poor engagement and unhappy workers, because everyone will self select where they want to go.
It’s about work-life integration.
“We believe in a really exciting future of work, and a positive one.
“The robots are coming and there’s a lot of fear surrounding the loss of jobs that technology and AI will bring, but I’m really excited to think about what will happen in the space of creation of jobs.
“The future is bright.”