LEADERSHIP STRATEGY: MASTER THE ABCs OF A CHANGING WORKPLACE

career effectiveness in the shift age

Today’s workplace doesn’t look like it did just a few years ago — yet many people are operating from an industrial-age mindset that is no longer reality based. Instead of looking at their job as a business relationship, they view coworkers as family. Instead of questioning their company’s direction and assessing the capability of its leadership, they blindly trust the viability of the company’s strategic decisions—forgetting that their own economic security is at stake.

Assumptions like these put your future at risk.　Looking at our changing world through a perceptual screen of outdated beliefs, will make you feel like Alice in Wonderland.  If  the ghost of  industrial-age attitudes and habits is haunting the workplace, you’ll be vulnerable and you will  miss opportunities to advance your career. By not adapting as circumstances change you will find it increasingly difficult to relate to managers, coworkers, friends and even your family.  The “shift-age” is heralding a new world.

Let’s take a look at how the workplace is evolving. The first step is to accept what’s happening. Then from a reality-based, solid foundation, learn to adapt and thrive. You’ll discover that the emerging world is more different than it is bad.

A

Always be reinventing yourself:

In today’s fast-paced world, you must constantly reinvent yourself and redefine working relationships. Think of yourself as owning your own corporation and working under contract to a paying customer. As long as the customer (your employer) has work, and pays adequately for your service, the partnership is viable. But your job, just like customer relationships, is not an entitlement: either party can exit without warning — and it’s happening more frequently these days. To avoid losing your “customer”, routinely assess your employer’s short and long-term needs for the work you do and evaluate their ongoing capacity to pay. If your analysis identifies an unacceptable risk level, change yourself (by learning skills that are in demand) or find a new employer.

Your company,　”Me, Inc.,” has only two strategies from which to choose:

1. To provide services by negotiating a contract with a single company. Under this scenario, it is your responsibility to ensure that the contract evolves and keeps you “right priced” (in line with what workers get for similar jobs in other companies).　

2. Develop multiple markets for what you offer.　Make sure your skill set stays in demand. Negotiate short-term contracts, perhaps with several employers as an independent contractor. Don’t leave all your eggs in one basket—be ready to move as opportunities or problems present themselves.

B

Be respectful rather than loyal:

Gone are the days when employees would spend their entire careers with one company.　Your employer’s intent may be honorable, but as IBM learned　in the 70s, their tradition of offering continuous employment was unsustainable. In a rapidly changing world companies can no longer guarantee perpetual employment. It’s healthier to view your employment as a reality-based partnership — an agreement that will remain intact only when both parties are profiting from the relationship.　 In the emerging workplace employers and employees will continue to care about each other, but everybody will realize that they are in a business relationship —not part of an extended family. To survive in “wonderland”, you’d be well advised to accept personal responsibility for the security of your career, investments, and a retirement plan. It is self-defeating to depend on entitlements.

C

Can-do means being prepared and flexible:

Inside companies permanent teams are giving way to ad hoc groups that form and disband as required by changing demands.”Transient teaming” is a new watchword for how people will be organized for work. Team members may be fellow employees, external contractors, or a mix of each. Transient teaming will stimulate intense competition for jobs—including yours. Spoils will go to those who are prepared, skilled, and flexible.

To survive and prosper learn how to:

• start, maintain and end a project.
• embrace new concepts, people and ways of doing things.
• choose how and when to effectively confront others.　
• take the initiative to resolve conflicts.
• trust others and earn their respect by having high integrity.
• not be afraid to ask for help.　
• maintain your “perceived value” in a competitive environment.

The bottom line:

Leadership has become everybody’s business.　Those choosing to lead in the post-industrial age must make a 180° shift from a mindset of knowing, to an attitude of not knowing. They must learn to replace their trust in knowledge and experience with processes for finding out and taking action faster than the competition.

This post is sponsored by a rewrite of the bestselling classic,  “I” of the Hurricane: How to Generate and Focus Corporate Energy