Bad Signs - Good Signs

Hello everyone, long time no write! Hope you enjoyed the break :) Who knew launching a unicorn search (companies I can rid of HumanDebt? and help win at culture and therefore performance so I showcase them in my 4th book) and editing my "Tech-Led Culture" book was going to be this intensive?!? Not to mention working on new product features for our Dashboard (our ISO version complete, a mental health first aider edition, HR-enabling data insights and more). All great stuff though and I have reasons to be super optimistic for the future of work but I wouldn't be my ever-complaining self if I didn't also admit that loads is going wrong too and over the past few weeks that I haven't written I've observed some worrying patterns:

"We don't believe Google's Aristotle"

I've said this time and again, it may put swathes of expensive consultants out of business but if you want a blueprint for effective, high-performing, generative tech organisations then you need to look no further than the results of the Aristotle study by Google because if you have Psychological Safety, Structure and Clarity, Dependability, Purpose and Impact then you have all you need to so that you build a modern organisation. I've heard execs tell me the study is "too old", "too Google" or that it only applies to "tech teams" - poppycock. We have teams using the PeopleNotTech Dashboard who are not in technology (and some commencing soon that are not in the knowledge industry at all) that are seeing the same advantages in strengthening teams and eliminating fear as their counterparts.

"Come Back or Else"?

I had a feeling we'd end up here in the knowledge industry. That if we don't firmly establish WFAA (work from anywhere, any time) as the all-encompassing rule of thumb, then we'd end up where we are here - with execs pointing to a madman's delusions as an example of unicorns also going back to the offices. We collectively didn't secure that win and watch it slip through our fingers now.

AI fear is rampant yet EQ growth is not happening

I must have had the same questions on this in tens of interviews of late - what will happen to work when AI steps in? Will people lose their jobs? Will it replace people? Yes, it will - it will replace all the people who didn't want to -or didn't have to- apply any humanity to their work. This encompasses human skills from communication to conflict resolution to having intuition and self-awareness, to having a practice of HumanWork and always allowing their most fearless and creative self to come out. We have to urgently increase our competitive advantage over machines - get more of whatever makes us human - feelings, emotions, imagination, creativity, compassion, empathy, etc. No company worth their salt should eskew their upskilling duty in this area anymore and any employee interested in their own growth also ought to increase their EQ intentionally to be future-proof.

The Deafening Silence on Servant Leadership Development

This one is tightly connected to the "be back or else" above. Middle managers who had just reluctantly agreed they need to stop reminiscing about the good old days when they had line-of-sight as a controlling mechanism as now everyone is remote and more leadership is needed, are seeing a chance to not have to transform at all if a combination between productivity paranoia and the need for downtown business means people will be forced back to their desk.?

A General Mental Resilience Downturn

I also sense (and this I have no hard or even anecdotic proof for as it is more of a feeling) that the previous post-pandemic trauma response we all had that was having us all weary and tensed may have moved to a stage where there's more in the way of relaxing into a sense of normalcy but unsurprisingly any workplace dread, fear or loathing are not equally disappearing by magic but many are left with them. There seems to be a lot less idealism flying around, genuine trust and collaboration are lacking, and overall openness is hard to come by in almost every industry from what I see. There's a sense of scarcity that people react to that makes them less inclined to share knowledge and network or help each other, ghosting in a professional setting has become acceptable practice and if you call anything by its real name people will flinch categorising any lack of political correctness as risky behaviour.

All of the things mentioned above sum up to even more HumanDebt and even less Psychological Safety in teams who then stand no chance to be happy, high-performant and smash the goals of the business. This will have to change and fast.

But there's good news too - I feel that the general appetite for "HumanWork" is increasing and our teams are using the software and the conversational space it holds more and more which is amazing to see. I see data on how some teams are growing and how clear that translates in their performance KPIs. I hear much more honesty in the discourse and much less box-ticking-appetite. This is perhaps because we all intuitively recognise that the only competitive advantage we can ever count on from here on is our humanity.? We may be heading (or rather "crawling") in the right direction - whereabouts are you?

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<This article was originally published on the www. duenablomstrom.com website?here >

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“Nothing other than sustained, habitual, EQed people work at the team level aka “the human work” done BY THE TEAM will improve any organisation’s level of Psychological Safety and therefore drop their levels of HumanDebt?.”

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