Title: The future of work and the impact of technology implications for leaders
1The future of work and the impact of technology
implications for leaders
- A presentation for the BCS, November 2006
- Dr. Gerry McSorley
- Centre for Health Improvement and Leadership
2What I dont want to do
- Bore you silly with a' off-the-head-brain-dump
- Hide behind futurology clichés
- Indebted to the work of John Knell, Michael
Moynagh and Richard Worsley
3What I do want to do
- Stress that as leaders doing the future better
is important - Particularly the future that has already happened
but is not here yet! - That getting much of the future wrong is
inevitable
4Getting the future right is a bit tricky
Anyone who thinks the ANC will rule South Africa
is living in cloud cuckoo land Thatcher, 1987
Crisis, what crisis Callaghan, 1979
Peace in our time Chamberlain, 1932
5- In preparing for battle I have always found that
plans are useless, but planning is indispensable
-
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
6What Im going to talk about in respect of
technology
- The rise of self-service and outsourcing
- Open source innovation and public value
- Technology networks
7The rise and rise of self-service
- First Direct
- Fifteen years ago only a telephone bank
- Now 70 of its customers operate their accounts
online or through text messages - Headcount stable whilst customer numbers have
risen 10 to 1.1 million in past year
8- Meet your airlines, your phone companys, and
your banks latest employee -
- You
- The Economist
9- Self-service automation offshoring a triple
whammy for low value work - Government is likely to begin offering a wide
range of financial incentives to encourage users
to carry out as many of their public service
transactions as possible online - Globalisation bites - from out-source to
off-shore call centres now professional
services next (Indian radiologists reading the
X-rays of American patients) - Innovation is therefore a necessary condition for
survival
10-
- A new vision of the customer Open source
innovation and public value
11A new vision of the customer?
- Customer as user, critic and partner
- A Customer Plus model if you like
- Choice, personalisation and support
- Advocates and joined up services
- Co-production
- Public value their control
12 13Technology, networks social capital
- Technology, and particularly new ICTs, really do
change everything - Pace of change is both incredibly rapid
(penetration of mobile phones) and slow
(everywhere wireless connectivity) - ICT creates new possibilities for the social
organisation of networks, for how work happens
and our conceptions of offices, cities, health
and social care - Technology changes the scope of personal networks
and the way we communicate
14- The 1990s were not spectacular low bandwidth,
low connectivity and little mobility but - The current and next phase of technological
development will deliver upon the promises made
in the last one (proper wireless internet,
always-on high bandwidth connections to the home,
different and better types of software,
particularly social networking software MySpace,
UTube)
15Mobile phones matter - pervasive wireless
connectivity is coming next
- Mobile phones have become a truly pervasive
technology - From status symbol to ubiquitous necessity
- A fashion accessory
- As the motorcar was to the boomer generation, so
the mobile phone is to current teenagers and
tweenies we need to understand current and
future generations who are growing up digital - Were becoming accustomed to screen mediated
living
16- All this new technology is giving us unheard of
abilities to multitask and micro-manage - For the 40 of workers work use ICT, this is a
big story - However, most of us arent that enthusiastic
about it - If new ICT is creating a new work future, we are
embracing it very tentatively
17Labour saving devices that dont save us
- ICT seen as cranking up the pressure eroding
the divide between work / home / life - Both hero and villain in the contemporary work
story - From Blackberry to Crackberry
18Key execution challenge getting ICT to deliver
- Organisations continue to struggle with the ICT
revolution - Two elements
- How you use ICT to transform the way you work
- How you use ICT to transform the way you reach
and serve your customers
19- You have to support people to work differently
giving them new kit is not enough - ICT investments only deliver productivity
improvements if backed up by corresponding
investments in people, culture, and process - IT systems dont enable organisations new types
of work and information flow do
20Why all the fuss about networks?
- What I call a network society is simply a
society made up of networks. It is a society in
which everything that counts, the economy,
technology, politics, media, social movements and
interpersonal relations, is increasingly made out
of information technology powered networks - Manuel Castells, Author of the Network Society
Trilogy
21- Hot social and business networks have become the
prerequisite for a successful career - Organisations that are networked derive
competitive advantage - Organisations are increasingly concerned to hire
networked, externally focused, leaders - What bureaucracy was for the beginning of the
last century so networks will be for the 21st - Yet, our understanding of networks, and how they
interact with ICT, remain under-developed
22Networks and public sector delivery?
- National Service Framework for Mental Health
specifies how mental health provision should be
organised and delivered implications - Need for seamless collaboration amongst Health
professionals, voluntary sector, social services
and police multi-agency working - So, a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) will have
to lead, inform, and involve a care team from
across a range of agencies to deliver healthcare
in a local community - Management of networks, knowledge-sharing etc
hasnt traditionally been a competency
requirement of professionals in this context - Likely to be a requirement of more public
servants in the future
23The operational reality for public and private
sectors
- All organisations have two sides doing existing
things better doing new things - Preoccupied with improvement
- Performance management and delivery
- Lots of structural change
- Under pressure to innovate and to develop more
effective service models
24Public sector context in more detail the glass
half empty view
- Current approaches to public service reform may
be reaching their limits. - Service providers bemoan central targets that
drive performance. - Professionals complain about poor pay and heavy
workloads. - Users complain of poor quality, lack of
personalisation and services that do not join-up.
- Ministers and senior civil servants worry about
improving large and complex systems that are
difficult to control. - Innovation is widespread but difficult to
propagate. - Attempts to make the public service machine work
harder, produce their own backlash.
25- Demanding consumers have produced demanding
employees non deferential, entitlement driven - Web based campaigns, 24/7 multi-media world,
values based perspectives all of them can lead
to individual and brand reputations being damaged
quickly and decisively
26Work - Hard Times Hardened Hearts
- Work is becoming more intense and demanding
- ICT developments are allowing work to pervade
more of the working day and every location - The death of loyalty - a broken psychological
contract - Growing fears of job and pension insecurity
- Stress and absenteeism remain headline issues
27People paradox at work
- Job tenure stable
- HRM and other sophisticated management techniques
spreading across UK workplaces - Rising living standards
- The rise of creative and knowledge work
- YET
- Feelings of insecurity, stress, over-work and
dissatisfaction are on the rise within UK
workforce - Employee commitment more actively sought, yet
more difficult to gain
28The rise and rise of the demanding consumer
- The latter half of the twentieth century has
bred consumers and citizens so demanding that
corporations have been left in their wake
people have changed more than the organisations
and institutions on which they depend. The
result is a double crisis of competence and
confidence. -
- Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxmin,
- The Support Economy
29Organisations under pressure
- Product ranges and service offerings changing
more quickly - Constant imperative to offer more differentiation
and choice - Customers expect high quality service at speed,
when and where it suits them best - They often know more about your products than you
do how do you enlist them as partners and
critics?
30- Creates pressure for greater devolvement and
intelligent accountability inside businesses - As we have become more demanding customers in the
market, we have become more demanding employees
at work - We need to innovate not just to meet customer
need, but the needs of our employees
31Performance versus support
- Most organisations are getting better at
performance management than support - Lets ask a question over the last five years
has your organisation done more to improve the
performance context or more to improve the
support context?
32Moving to the upper right
High Direction, stability, order Low
Low High Experimentation,
discovery, flexibility
33Agility blockers
- Line managers often lack the skills in job
design, performance management, and in delegating
accountability and responsibility to make
agility happen - Command and control and hierarchy are very
resilient - Risk and reward are often poorly balanced
creating conflicting imperatives - The use of ICT and technology remains tentative
- Were still more time bound than time sovereign
- The leadership challenges are enormous
34Leadership
- Leadership is a difficult craft because the
expectations are always so high, the blame so
swift and harsh, and leaders have less impact
over what happens to their organisations than
most people imagine - J.Pfeffer R.I.Sutton Evidence-based
Management, Harvard Business Review, January 2006
35Mastering the Three Worlds of Information
Technology
- McAfee (Harvard Business Review, November, 2006)
suggests that there are three key categories of
IT, each of which provides different
organisational capabilities, and different
management interventions.
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38- He goes on to suggest that Leaders have four
critical responsibilities when it comes to IT - They must help choose technologies
- Smooth the adoption of those technologies
- Encourage their exploitation
- Look beyond the individual projects to a broader
view of how IT is likely to affect the
organisation
39The New Deal for Leaders
- Employees now expect their leaders to be visible,
accountable and responsive - How leaders meet their commitments is at least as
important as whether they meet them and is often
more important - Did they do so in ways that strengthened their
organizational and people capacity as a whole or
weakened it?
40Emerging truths
- The cult of the heroic CEO, with the odd rare
exception, is dying - The cult of execution steady, pragmatic
stewardship is on the rise - Engaging people, and getting things done through
others, is becoming more, not less, important
41- People think of execution as the tactical side
of the business, something leaders delegate while
they focus on the perceived bigger issues. The
idea is completely wrong. - Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan 2002
42- Leaders dont delegate the people thing
- Your followers are bright, ambitious and skittish
so your leadership challenge is a big one - The holy grail, and least understood area, is how
best to attract and manage creative individuals
and teams
43- All of which is producing new templates for key
leadership traits, behaviours and approaches - Tough empathy
- Knowing authenticity
44Tough empathy
- Caring intensely about the work your people do
- Giving people what they need, not what they want
- Challenging inappropriate behaviours and inviting
challenge back - Asking tough questions and fostering robust
dialogue in the business - Engaging people to confront reality, embrace new
challenges, adjust their values, change
perspectives, and learn new habits
45Knowing authenticity
46Even if you dont like the answerStanley was
deeply disappointed when, high in the Tibetan
mountains, he finally found his true self.
47- Know thyself
- See yourself as others see you
- Reveal your differences and find your own
leadership style - Do what you say
- Be clear about your core principles and beliefs
- Dont collude with the culture
- Change the business rather than play the game
48- DONT worry about
- Charisma
- Personality
- Strategy
- DO worry about
- Teams
- Execution
- Reflection
- Learning
- Trust
- Courage
49- There are two sorts of leader Those that are
effective and those that appear to be effective.
You are better off in the former category because
there is less competition. - I Ghandi