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The Future of Work

What does the future of work look like? Successful businesses in the future will share a common characteristic: a cooperative approach to employee engagement, morale, and gratification.

Stowe Boyd is a super-smart researcher and someone we’ve followed for years. Stowe is also an author who focuses on the future of work. He believes the tectonic forces pushing business into an unclear and accelerating future.

Stowe has made the following observation:

“In the collaborative business, people affiliate with coworkers around shared business culture and an approved strategic plan to which they subordinate their personal aims.

“But in a cooperative business, people affiliate with coworkers around a shared business ethos, and each is pursuing their own personal aims to which they subordinate business strategy.”

An Important Distinction

The future is about more humanized business. That means workplaces in which employees can “pursue their own personal aims”. Guided by what Stowe calls a “business ethos,” the employees thrive. At the same time, they put themselves ahead of the “business strategy”.

This is not “business as usual”. But these are not “ordinary times”. We are living in a time when employees (being the humans they are) are seeking to create more meaning in their lives. In a business sense, this means creating meaning through how they spend their money (as customers) and how they invest their time (as workers).

A Human-Centric, Meaningful Workplace

For employees, meaning comes from doing work that matters (a meaningful business ethos), in a way that increases the feeling that their efforts are helping others (including both the business’s customers as well as their fellow employees). So, rather than subordinating the personal aims of employees, successful businesses promote a cooperative work style.

The result? Employees become more involved. As a result, they contribute more ideas. Also, they are more open with others. They help each other out. So every interaction with fellow employees – coupled with the power of the meaningful business ethos driving the team – fills the employee with a sense of purpose and meaning that is absent in a collaborative approach.

We have outlined how we see the future of work in a white paper “The Meaningful Workplace.” Download it and let us know what you think.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco Brand Strategy firm

Third in our Meaningful Workplace series.

Disillusioned by the age of conspicuous consumption, worried by the state of the planet and its people, rocked by war, corruption, and financial crises, and immersed in a swirl of information, news, opinion, and gossip, people are searching for meaning in their lives.

Today they feel a need to align with people, ideas, and companies that make them feel they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

People are seeking a sense of purpose, a reason for being, and the answer to the question, “Why is this good?” Today their idea of good is shaped by an increased awareness of their own needs, beliefs, interests, and aspirations – and a heightened concern for the planet and empathy for its people.

Wanting to feel good about what they are doing

These factors have made people more discerning than ever.

They no longer simply accept slick marketing messages. They scrutinize the products they buy, the companies they buy from, and the employers they consider. They reject products, companies, and employers that don’t share their values, mutual ambitions, or offer the opportunity for a meaningful connection.

We believe people seek out employers that clearly state – and live out – their meaningful ambition for the greater good. They don’t simply want to feel good, they want to feel their jobs are creating good for themselves, for the company, and for the world.

Ambivalence at work

“Where do you find people, our most important asset, on a balance sheet? Under expenses.” –Paul Herman, HIP investor

Business has long been focused on producing widgets, growing market share, managing costs, and delivering shareholder value. And, while employees are a very costly factor, both in terms of monetary and management time, the process-driven, measurement-hungry, and org chart world of business has been lacking in human respect, empathy, and meaning.

As such, businesses have been far more focused on the “what” and “how” of their enterprise — and have played scant regard to the “why.”

Lacking a compelling reason for being, it’s not unreasonable that employees might feel ambivalent about their work and their employer.

Emotionally neutral to employees

Also, most businesses haven’t yet figured out how to evoke positive emotions in a credible and meaningful way. They may know how to stage a glitzy motivation campaign that cause short-term bumps in performance, but they don’t realize the value in consistently and subtly evoking a set of positive feelings through their attitudes, behavior, and actions.

As such, most workplaces feel pointless and emotionally neutral to employees, hence the litany of employee-related problems and challenges facing today’s business leaders. To thrive in a hyper-competitive, fast-accelerating, and harder- to-differentiate-within world, businesses need to rethink how they reach out to employees.

It’s time for businesses to make their workplaces more meaningful.

Did you miss Part 1 and 2 of this series?

Read Being Meaningful: It’s the Key to Better Engaging Your Employees and Getting Employees to Respond Positively.

This series is excerpted from a white paper titled The Meaningful Workplace that was first published at Emotive Brand.

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Tag: future of work

The Future of Work Is More About Cooperation Than Collaboration