Organisations of the future

A survey by Shaping Tomorrow asked the following question: 'How will the future be different for organisations by 2020?' Off course the main theme that emerged was the focus on digital transformation.

Collectively, emerging technologies will put increasing pressures on organisations in every sector, requiring new ways of working and new forms of leadership. New business models will continue to challenge the cost base and dominance of leading providers, the structures of organisations and the employment patterns of many sectors.

BUT…. As per a 2016 McKinsey Quarterly article: “Although consumers have largely gone digital, the digitization of jobs, and of the tasks and activities within them, is still in the early stages. Even companies and industries at the forefront of digital spending and usage have yet to digitize the workforce fully. This coming digitization of the workforce—and the powerful economics of automation—will require a sweeping rethink of organizational structures, influence, and control. The current premium on speed will continue, to be sure, even as a new organizational challenge arises: the destabilization of the way people work.”

So much of what have taken for granted will disappear. As we move faster to an ever more technology enabled, remote-working, collaborative world, the need for leaders who understand the power of collaboration and openness will also grow. They will also need to have enhanced communication and social skills to be able to operate effectively virtually as well as face to face. The levels of collaboration will challenge organisational structures, creating bottom-up, self-organising systems, which will reduce hierarchy and centralisation, and challenge existing routes of communication.

There are some real challenges. As jobs disaggregate, we will have to figure out how we reassemble roles and tasks and structures. How roles relate and collaborate will be completely new. Will leaders be able to get people comfortable with high levels of collaboration and fluid, agile resourcing? How will people find purpose and meaning in these new organisations?

But there are also a myriad exciting possibilities. Talent can be utilised in a much more visible and interesting way as people can let go of the menial parts of their job and work on more complex and connected challenges. Leaders can focus on coaching and developing people and taking care of organisational wellbeing. They can become more human centred while exploiting the best technology has to offer. People can work in smaller, multifunctional teams and learn a lot more from each other.

Planning for change is both ethical and critical to avoid business disruption as these changes gather pace.

Gary Hamel argues in the video “Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment”, you can’t tackle those mega-challenges if you’re not willing to do three things:

1. Aim high – Don’t rest until everything is done to make the organization as resilient, inventive, inspiring, and accountable as it can be
2. Challenge the status quo – Be a relentless contrarian to peel away the operating assumptions and built-in beliefs that surround organizations like wallpaper
3. Explore the fringe – The future doesn’t happen in the corner office or the conference room. It starts out there, on the edges, around the bend.

Hamel paints a vivid picture of what it means to build organisations that are fundamentally fit for the future – resilient, inventive, inspiring and accountable.

Finally, Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig suggest leaders ask themselves the following questions:

1. Will the organization be able to learn, adapt and innovate to meet stakeholder needs faster than its competition?
2. Will the organization be able to create an environment that enables and promotes the highest levels of human development, human engagement, and human excellence in critical thinking, creativity and innovation?
3. Will the organization be able to attract, develop, and retain the best human learners, thinkers and collaborators?