23 FIELDS OF ACTION FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK IN 2023

For a better me, for a better we, and for a better society.

Our book "On the Way to New Work" has exactly 23 chapters. Each of them covers a topic that we, the three authors: Swantje Allmers , Christoph Magnussen and I, as well as many of our podcast guests, believe has a special relevance for how we work in the future. As we have many friends, listeners and followers who don't speak German, here comes the condensed form in English.

What do you think - should we publish the whole book in English as well?

We are looking forward to hearing your feedback!

BETTER ME

1. SELF-REFLECTION:

Start with yourself: Who are you, what can you do, what do you want, what do you need and what not? If you manage to work closer to your strengths and deal better with your weaknesses and blind spots, you will ultimately work better and be more fulfilled.

2. FINDING MEANING:

When we know not only what we can do and how we can do it, but also why we want to do it, we will contribute better to our families, our businesses, our community and our society. We will also make clearer decisions and not be distracted from our path by setbacks (spoiler: there will be plenty).

3. SELF-MANAGEMENT:

If you are not in control of yourself and how to get things done, you will always be below your potential. The tools are all there, it's up to us whether we want to be victims, micromanagers, scatterbrains or rather commanders of our lives.

4. HABITS

They are our neurological highway. When we build good habits wisely and maintain them over and over again, we need less willpower and we get more positive energy. This makes them the ultimate concept when we want to establish new behaviors and seek real change.

5. HEALTH

If we want to work long, successfully and happily, we need a healthy body and a healthy mind. A balanced diet and regular exercise (endurance, strength and flexibility) are the active levers. At least eight hours of regular, quality sleep is the ultimate support to recover from mental and physical stress. Mental health is increasingly becoming a concern in the work context. The good news: Help and prevention is available (Psychological First Aid training, mindfulness training, meditation, etc.) all the while, social stigma is decreasing. Good human relationships (including at work) are the strongest drivers of a healthy, happy and long life.

6. FREEDOM

At the core of philosopher Frithjof Bergmann's New Work idea is the claim to be free to decide what we make the content of our work. Mental freedom helps us to expand our options for action. It gives us the opportunity to say goodbye to our old, undesirable patterns of action as well as to work with our emotions instead of against them.

7. CREATIVITY

It is a magical source of power for new things. Ideally, it makes work a playful experience. It can give us the energy we want from work, it puts us in the flow from time to time. We were all playful and curious as children, that's how we discovered our world. With each day that we have approached adult life, society has stripped many of us of much of that quality. Let's get it back!

8. LEARNING

In addition to the concept of freedom, learning has a special role within Frithjof Bergmann's New Work Utopia. Learning gives us strength and keeps us young, and we can use it to increase our personal happiness on a daily basis. The speed of change in technologies and the great challenges we face as a world make it so important for each of us to maintain our willingness to learn throughout our lives. Let's be curious again!

9. RESILIENCE

We all experience setbacks throughout our lives; they range from everyday problems to existential threats. It is fascinating to see how some people get back up after the worst strokes of fate, knock the dust off, keep going and in the end emerge stronger from difficult situations. Resilience helps us deal with crises without lasting impairment and regain a healthy mental state, a skill we need both in our personal lives and at work. Good experiences and relationships in childhood are good prerequisites, but people with unfavorable starting conditions also have hope: resilience can be learned!

BETTER WE

10. ORGANIZATION

Almost all people work in some form of organization. And while our environment has changed, sometimes dramatically, in recent years, the advances we have made technologically and intellectually have passed many organizations by. Classic hierarchies prove to be an unfavorable solution to leadership goals; a new form of work needs a new framework. Significantly flatter hierarchies and the self-organization of people and teams show a possible into a new direction.

11. AGILITY

With the help of three principles, the way teams and companies think and work can be raised to a new level.?1. The customers' needs are at the center of decision making processes.?2. Possible solutions are developed step by step (iteratively) and feedback and new insights are systematically integrated.?3. The team oversees and organizes itself and is responsible for the overall result. Especially complex tasks and issues in dynamic environments benefit from this approach.

12. COLLABORATION

The percentage that employees and managers spend on collaboration has increased by 50% over the last two decades. Such companies, in which the majority of people spend a large part of their working time on meetings, phone calls and e-mails (including messenger communication), are not uncommon. When it comes to collaboration, a central role is played by the team. And the central factor that determines whether teams work together successfully lies in the topic of psychological security. Does each member receive fundamental appreciation? Are mistakes tolerated? Can criticism be voiced openly and problems pointed out??

13. COMMUNICATION

It starts with willingness and the ability to listen properly. The problem is that we are trained to do this as children. Anyone who speaks up at school is already not listening. And the communication that was formerly happening at the dinner table is also becoming a rarity due to the diversion that the TV and even more so the smartphone offer. It is also about the right use of media, one's own public appearance, dealing with conflicts and the ability to package one's intention in good stories. The demands on our ability to communicate are growing, but so are the chances of using communication to make an impact!

14. MEETINGS

We all spend too much time in meetings. We often find them boring, lengthy, and lacking in purpose. The time we (have to) spend there has been increasing for years, and the Corona Pandemic has further strengthened this tendency. But we have an inherent need to exchange ourselves with each other. If we clearly distinguish between daily synchronization, operational issues, strategic issues, normal work meetings and meetings to improve collaboration, we can already gain a lot. The sensible use of tools, the use of agendas, clear role allocation and good preparation and follow-up are further starting points. Additional tips: Take an annual inventory and always ask: Do we really need a meeting for this?

15. OFFICE

The office needs to reinvent itself. Recapturing the brilliant TV series "The Office", one thing becomes abundantly clear: The office is not the place where we can lock-up our employees to continuously check on them and if they are actually working (or if they are putting staplers in jello again). It's the place where we should collaborate (creatively); it's also the place of unplanned innovation through equally unplanned encounters. It's up to leaders to make this place (again) so attractive that people come voluntarily and willingly. Always? No, not always but regularly.

16. LEADERSHIP

Almost all modern leadership approaches assume that Taylor and his principles of "scientific management" are largely obsolete. We need a new understanding of leadership, which can manifest itself in new leadership concepts. Away from "command and control", towards "trust and inspire." Leadership as service, leadership in roles, shared leadership and leadership with data. There are many starting points for improved leadership. The best starting point? Start with the topic of self-leadership!

17. GOALS

The use of goals needs an update, as do organizational and leadership principles. If we are no longer strictly top-down oriented, then goals can also be cascaded from the top down, but they also come from the workforce. Objective and Key Results is one of the modern approaches that takes this into account. Put simply, OKR's work like this: a team sets itself three to five qualitative goals per quarter and defines a maximum of five quantitative key factors per goal that can be directly influenced and measured by the team. Larry Page, the co-founder and CEO of Alphabet believes that the use of OKR's has made a significant contribution to Google's success story.

18. CULTURE

Ideally, corporate culture is the manifestation of a company's written down and lived values. The necessary changes that arise for the economy and companies from the great challenges facing humanity can only succeed if we take the vast majority of people in companies with us in the process, because they live and shape the culture. Thus, the culture of an organization is both a tool and a test point for how quickly and, more importantly, how sustainably we will succeed.

BETTER SOCIETY

19. EDUCATION

A quick look at the world and our current circumstances is enough to see the need for an improved education system. Whether we start with the looming climate catastrophe and other ecological problems, or the need to feed a world population soon to exceed 10 billion people, religiously motivated terrorist attacks or wars of aggression. In Europe, the relatively poor access to raw materials adds another factor. We need better educational opportunities for all people, we need a new school system, new content and formats. We need to value the teaching profession differently and train teachers differently. We need systems that turn the buzzword lifelong learning into the urgently needed survival principle.

20. DIVERSITY

Diversity is only the beginning; true equality, equity, integration and inclusion must emerge from it. Diverse teams (when they have psychologically safe structures) make better decisions, lead to more innovation and better results, and increase attractiveness as an employer. Along the way lie the elimination of discrimination and unequal treatment. Where to start? Diversity and tolerance starts with ourselves, let's start addressing the stereotypes that our subconscious still holds in large numbers.

21. TECHNOLOGY

In Frithjof Bergmann's original "New Work" idea, the technological improvements expected in the future were seen as the great opportunity for organizing work differently. If a McKinsey study is to be believed, the changes are coming ten times faster and on a scale 300 times greater than the industrial revolution. According to the study, 800 million jobs will be eliminated or taken over by machines by 2030. The buzzwords? Artificial intelligence, VR/AR, robotics, blockchain, or quantum computing, to name a few.

22. SUSTAINABILITY

The state of our planet is critical, as we have criminally neglected climate, environmental and nature protection in recent years and destroyed much in the course of industrialization. Like the Club of Rome, Frithjof Bergmann pointed out as early as the 1980s what (four) "tsunamis" were coming our way. He foresaw the waste of our natural resources and the destruction of our climate. New Work is also about working on the right issues, so sustainability is high on this list.

23. UTOPIA

Fritjof Bergmann conceived and formulated "New Work" as a utopia. And we are sure that we need a utopian appeal in order to arrive at solutions. Whether it is the positive image of man described by Rutger Bregman, concrete utopian ideas such as unconditional basic income, responsible ownership, the return of the cooperative idea or utopian schools of thought such as Otto Scharmer's "Theory U".?

What are we waiting for?

The year has already begun!

#futureofwork #onthewaytonewwork #newwork #newworkmasterskills #