Work is fundamental to the human experience and identity. The degree of our engagement with it has measurable impacts on ourselves, our companies, our neighborhoods and our societies. I was incredibly fortunate last fall to be part of a small group retreat with people who care mightily about these issues, that came together in a cabin in the middle of everywhere to dream, imagine and rethink work.

The group assembled with no purpose beyond discovery, learning and connecting. But the conversation was too compelling and the ideas too powerful. So, a Manifesto was written (shared below). The Manifesto shares the collective thoughts and ideas of this tribe that had gathered: Joe Gerstandt, Charlie Judy, Jamie Notter, Jason Lauritsen, Janyne Peek Emsick, Jen Benz, Eric Winegardner, James Papiano, Stuart Chittenden, Mike Wagner, David Ballard, and Maddie Grant (the manifesto’s original author). It is not meant to be the finished answer, but to serve as a starting point for further discussion (and some comment streams appear in other places where this has been posted, as to which I invite you to see the blog links below). It is a bold suggestion that we humanize work.

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The future of work starts right here, right now.

This manifesto is about the future of work in a post-Cluetrain world. This manifesto is also about an emerging ideology of business, where people are at the center of a human ecosystem instead of boxed into a mechanical system.

If markets are conversations, then the people who are doing the talking and the listening and the sharing are the most important asset we have. The groundswell exists and is powerful—we’re part of the groundswell and we can make the future of work happen right now, in lots of little ways.

Heard the phrase, “the future is already here – it’s just unevenly distributed”? We all have the social capital to help fix that.

Let’s talk about the things that human beings bring to the table in a work environment. Let’s leverage our human attributes and make people and all of their whole selves the fuel that makes organizations and businesses grow and flourish. Let’s unleash our power as networked individuals. Let’s make Dilbert cartoons and The Office something we can enjoy as the relics of a past industrial, mechanical age. Let’s stop work from sucking. Let’s empower ourselves and each other to make our lives better, and thereby make our societies better.

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Some truths we hold to be self­-evident:

• Work matters. We want work to suck less – for everyone, not just the few lucky ones.

• The distinction between “work” and “life” is artificial and a barrier to leveraging both the power of the individual and that of the organization.

• Work is the expending of effort for the creation of value. If there’s no effort, but it’s still considered work, it should be automated; if there’s no value, the work is pointless and wasteful.

• Work is the process of creating something for the purpose of human flourishing. Let’s get rid of what doesn’t do that. Work has meaning for every individual. Work involves identity.

• Work involves a sense of belonging. Work has meaning for the networks each individual is connected to.  Work has meaning for the local community and for the global community. Work involves social responsibility.

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Therefore:

I.   Human beings are the most important asset we have.

1. We need to bring our whole true selves to work. Humanness has value for the organization.
2. Our best work is at the inter­section of what we like doing, what we are good at doing, and what we get paid for. Our goal is for those three things to blend more. Flow has value for the organization.
3. Work is about learning. Learning is never complete and we have a responsibility as individuals to makes sure we’re always learning. We also have a responsibility as organizations to provide resources and environments for learning. This is not a choice, it’s an imperative. Learning has value for the organization.
4. Work involves collaboration with others. Work doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Collaboration  both internal and external – has value for the organization.
5. We have a need to communicate and share what we do and how we each do it differently. We work better in the open. Transparency has value for the organization.
6. We are able to do more than one thing. Our individual skills, whatever they are, have value and that value is marketable.
7. The formula for marketability is the same for everyone but the weight of each component is different and may change over time. Agility, defined as the capability to evolve with our networks, has value for the organization.
8. We are connected and we bring networks with us to work. Our connectedness has value for the organization.
9. We will feel a sense of belonging and purpose if we’re involved in the direction and purpose of the system. Ownership has value for the organization.
10. We build relationships. Relationships  and the human emotions involved in nurturing them – have value for the organization.
11. We need to give as well as receive constructive feedback. Truth has value for the organization.
12. We will trust our employers if our employers trust us. Trust has value for the organization.
13. We have intuition as well as intellect. Intuition has value for the organization.
14. We all aspire to love what we do. To love where we work and who we work with. Love has value for the organization.

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II.  Organizations that flourish are systems that maximize the value of their human assets.

The blurring of bound­aries between the “I” (individual human beings) and the “we” (organizations and systems) creates value that is both shallow and deep.

1. Markets are conversations and organizations can harness conversations in order to create value.
2. The pace of change is accelerating. The only way an organization will keep up is through its people, who have a natural ability to pay attention.
3. Individuals represent nodes and networks. Organizations need to recognize the value of building relationships with networks.
4. Proximity is no longer a prerequisite for relationships and networks. Let’s make the technologies that enable virtual communication invisible and ubiquitous, so we can just get on with it.
5. Organizations need to better understand individual talent, and they need to better understand how to communicate the requirements for needs­based work.
6. Individual talent means individual customization; which means an exponentially longer tail of marketable and monetizable skills.
7. Individual talent means hyper­local talent; invisible technology means that hyper­local talent has global reach.
8. Individuals have a wealth of socalled “soft” attributes that provide organizational value and are therefore marketable and monetizable. Let’s start paying for skills like the ability to:
1. Build relationships
2. Act as a bridge
3. Distill information
4. Focus deeply
5. Debate
6. Influence
7. Facilitate
8. See the bigger picture
9. Tell a story
10. Manage complexity
11. Draw meaning
12. Write persuasively
13. Manage group dynamics
14. Solve open ended problems
9. Strategic transparency is the only way to achieve trust; trust is the only way to maximize the value of the people in a system.
10. Trust provides structure and predictability in a much more powerful way than hierarchies and organizational charts do.
11. Strategic transparency enables clarity over control, also known as scalable simplicity – the capacity for all parts of the system to work towards the common goal of the system.
12. Decentralized leadership requires less middle management, but more middle level thinking.
1. The role of management is to be the “keeper of the story.” To make sure there is transparency flowing from top echelon to front line.
2. The role of management is to facilitate difficult conversations and manage conflict.
3. The role of management is to facilitate the finding of solutions; not to dictate them.
4. The role of management is to be the “connector,” to match people with the right skills and abilities to projects where those skills are most needed.
5. The role of management is to be the “bridger,” to protect and ensure inclusion – to ensure that different voices and perspectives are heard and involved in the work of the organization at all levels.
6. The role of management is to eradicate the fallacy of “best practices” – to ensure there is constant learning and agility in business processes.
7. The role of management is to be the “spacemaker,” to ensure learning can happen on a continuous basis by providing containers where experimentation is encouraged.
8. The role of management is to remove hurdles to engagement.
9. The role of management is to release the flow of information and data and to get it to the right people at the right time. The new workplace is data­driven; but information is not wisdom. It’s the human analysis of the data that drives value.
10. Data is the start of experimentation and learning, not the end.
11. The role of management is to hire talent that is agile enough to shift and flow based on market need.
12. The role of management is to get out of the way.
13. Leadership is the systems’ capacity to shape its future. Leadership comes out of the group and participates at every level of the system.
14. The new human workplace has a responsibility for the sustainability of all the resources it uses, including human beings. The new human workplace therefore has a responsibility for social good…

The story doesn’t end here. Over to you. What say you about humanizing and the future of work?

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Other blog posts of this manifesto and comment streams:

Jason Lauritsen blog

Charlie Judy, HR Fishbowl blog

Maddie Grant, Social Fish blog

ASK Europe, review

Tags: Charlie Judy, David Ballard, Eric Winegardner, Future of Work Manifesto, James Papiano, Jamie Notter, Janyne Peek Emsick, Jason Lauritsen, Jen Benz, Joe Gerstandt, Maddie Grant, Mike Wagner, Stuart Chittenden

Written by Stuart
David Day | Associates
About the Author: Stuart is constantly curious and believes conversation matters, for business, people and community. Feel free to join in...

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2012 at 3:25 pm and is filed under HR & Talent Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.