The Future Knocks On Your Door! be ready for the digital transformation

Covid-19 came unexpected in our life. It changed our lives and it will change the way our societies and labor organizations are organized. Business annalists expect that the impact of 5G and Internet of Things has a financial value of 9 trillion dollar in the year 2035. One could almost speak about a digital revolution instead of a digital acceleration.

It has been a huge catalyst for the digitalization of our societies. It will force a different set up of our economies, it will force different behavior to have a better environmental footprint, it will force individual employees to reinvent themselves and it will force companies to make more and better use of the individual qualities of employees. We need all available intelligence to be competitive and to shape the new society. I believe in the changing power of the current fault line!

How do you need to approach the future as individual employee/ professional? How do labor organizations have to organize themselves internally? This are intriguing questions that need a solid answer!

Co-Creation skills will prove to be essential for the Employee of the Future

The employee of the future has co-creation skills, embraces the digitalization and most of all knows what brings professional excitement in life. These abstract things are easily written down, but how do you make it practical? How do you make this work in daily life?

In the book ‘exponential growth’ (by Salim Ismail & Yuri van Geest) you will read lot of interesting information regarding ‘co-creation’. It is a tool that companies use to work in different ways together, to find and to define alternative ways of solving challenges of our customers.

Co-creation is not only an essential activity for companies! It is also a key skill for individual employees. It indicates that your collaboration and network skills are strong. You have a healthy and divers professional network and you have the social skills to interact easily with all kind of people inside and outside your professional organization. The knowledge you can tap into will determine the value you have for your own company, your own career for sure and beyond! ‘Mastering Collaboration’ by Gretchen Anderson or the well-known book ‘Never eat alone’ by Keith Ferrazzi are excellent books to improve on these topics. It is my conviction that it is essential to grow your self on these topics to stay relevant for the labor market!

Business experts predict that 5G and Internet of Things realize an financial value of 9 trillion dollar in the year 2035

Embrace Digitalization means that you have a solid understanding what it is and how digitalization will change the society. Also important to understand what is the business relevance of digitalization. Business experts expect that the commercial impact of 5G and Internet of Things has a financial value of 9 trillion dollar in the year 2035.

The earlier mentioned book ‘exponential organizations’ is a great read. It makes very clear that most of the products will digitize in the end and that such a development will change the order of things in a fundamental way. An often used example is off course the development of the analog photography to digital photography. We used to pay around one euro for each image. Now images are without an individual price and a specific device for making pictures is no longer needed. Other well-known examples are ‘Uber’, ‘Netflix’ and ‘Spotify’. To mention just a few! They are all there in your daily life!

What gives you passion in your (professional) life is mostly a more difficult question and of course of all times! I like the writings of Ricardo Semler (‘the 7 day weekend’). If you do what you want to do. It is always weekend and work doesn’t feel like work anymore. That is a state to reach!

Inside Advantech Europe we recommend employees to conduct a MBTI or DISC test to have a good insight what kind of person you are? It are powerful tools that shines a light on your type of personality. Next to this it is important to look back to your professional life. What were the times or moments that you were most engaged? What were the phases in your professional life that you forgot about the time? So engaged you were! If you find that passion you will be able to give so much more. For your orientation I have added two links were you can conduct the DISC or MBTI test. Hope this helps in your search for passion. Also great to check is the Japanese self-development tool IKIGAI. Also a strong tool to look at your self and to identify what gives you energy in life!

 How do labor organizations of the future have to be organized internally?

Labor organizations of the future need engaging leadership, are divers and are organizations without fear. In my opinion it is important that labor organizations have leaders that ask question. Invites employees to reflect on the challenges that are there. We don’t need leaders with all the answers, they will suffocate the inspiration from within any organization.

Leaders that ask questions are key for a strong development of our companies

Jim Collins (author of the book ‘Good to Great’) has described this majestically in his book. The leader that doesn’t ask questions, but knows it all is ‘the leader with the thousand helpers’. ‘The level 5 leader’ is a leader that has overcome his ego, is eager to reach results but has most of all the quality to make others better and stronger!

We know that the decision making process becomes stronger if organizations and leadership teams are divers (age/gender/ ethnic background/ gender). If you are divers as organization you will be in a much better way able to understand the signs of the times!

I like the thinking of Amy Edmondson (author of the ‘Fearless Organization’) that it is important to create organizations with ‘psychological freedom’. If people dare to speak up you can create powerful coalitions to become better, stronger and more versatile as company. In my eyes you can become unbeatable if you embrace these principles! It really pays off to have the ambition to become the so called fearless organization. If we don’t we will miss so many options to prevent mistakes.

Digitalization will reshape our world

for the better!

 It will be a challenge to reinvent ourselves, our society and our organizations in this post-covid-19 phase. Our economies are in difficult waters. To survive to become even stronger it is important to start this transformation. Now is the time to shape a better society, labor organizations and fulfilling work. That is what is important. Digitalization will reshape our world for the better. Let us start this adventure, let us go to the next chapter, now! Be ready for the future!

Roel van der Poort

(This article is written on personal title)

MBTI test: https://www.16personalities.com/

Disc Test: https://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/