George Muir - leader of the month

THE FUTURE OF WORK - INSIGHT FROM GEORGE MUIR, LEADER OF THE MONTH, FUTURIST AND INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE SPEAKER.

Lisberg Executive Search, part of IMD International Search Group, highlights each month an interesting leader and this time we have interviewed George and his thoughts on the Future of Work.

Short introduction

George spent over 25 years in various roles at IKEA, with a long career in technology development across IKEA, which included the digital transformation of IKEA in Sweden and the establishment of Enterprise Architecture. He moved from technology to business and worked in the business development areas around Digital Workplace, Human Resources and Business Processes. George helped establish both the Digital Workplace Group and Make IKEA a Great Workplace as he was responsible for the ‘Visualize the Future Workplace’ process.

George has co-founded EVERTYTHINGOMNI.com, A Think Tank with a difference, to help people understand their work and workspace dilemmas. It is based on experimentation, open innovation and independence. As a result, we get people to think differently and develop real-world scenarios.

Anecdote

George was born in Scotland and started his career doing research, including among others, Microsoft / Bill Gates’s first version of Windows.

What is the Future of Work?

The traditional work-life “balance” is based on work – rest, work – rest, this is also backed up by the labour law. Moving forward, the work-life “balance” will be more based on life balance, i.e. work & play at the same time. It is the age of humans and employers need to adapt to the new values and priorities employees will have now and in the future.

Leadership challenges & new generation

George talks about People Place Space. You need a space where you can reflect and meet. Technology is here, but it is not 100% reliable. We expect that leaders can lead through technology, but today′s leaders are not trained to lead in this way. Covid implemented digital work tools but not leadership education. “If I can′t see you, you are not working”. ?Leadership is not management - Leadership influences others, it empowers others and has followers. Our Leadership models need to adjust to the well-being of people and the planet. Leaders, in general, don′t know how to transform, and they will need to be more flexible to be able to adapt.

The new generation of workers questions many things we see as normal today. For example, “why do I need a CV”, an interview is as much about the company interviewing a candidate as a candidate interviewing the company and leadership; the investment goes both ways. There is a massive trend for nomads or Omni-workers who prioritise life balance rather than career paths. ?The flexibility around working hours will be necessary, for example, you can work 40 hours over two days or 80 hours over two weeks. The classic “working nine to five” will not be relevant anymore

We need to think of a “No policy policy” in business. Of course, business policies exist to secure a company, but it is a challenge. One should review everything and keep only the things that must be there for security reasons. Policies like “you must be at the office three days out of 5 per week” are not the way in the future.

Next-generation leaders – some input on what is important

Input from the young leaders think tank at Everythingomni.com

• It is not about the money
• Young leaders don′t trust leaders
• Young leaders don′t trust what the company publish
• Young leaders want to know how does the company help the world?
• Young leaders want traceability
• Young leaders want community thinking
• Young leaders want to remove fixed boundaries
• Ethics and morals are important
• Greenwashing is unethical

• Young leaders want leaders to share their failures and mistakes
• Young people don’t understand body language, and they are used to choosing which face/avatar to represent their mood, for example, on Snapchat – we need to rethink body language

Summary

Future of work career paths and roles. Massive focus on data, AI and machine learning, cyber security, robotic engineers and new roles, biologists and geneticists, renewable energy engineers, human interaction engineers and roles within food and climate.

Transformation of roles. For example, HR operations will disappear, and HR will transform into organisational development specialists and human interaction engineers.

People, place and space strategy will be fully integrated with the business strategy.

People business transformation. AI, robotics, processes, movement from hands-on work into more strategic decision making. AI will become a significant part of our society, and the human role is to make sure that we make the correct decisions.?

Workplace – offices will be much smaller and multi-purpose.

Work hours will not be 30-40 hours/week; it will be more flexible and may be transactional based. Significant disruption will take place within the next ten years.

Special talent & yellow glasses

I asked George if he had any talent. He answered directly that he has dyslexia. He has difficulties reading but visualises things in pictures and graphics. He has always seen things in a different way.

If you are more interested in George and his interesting work, you will find him here: www.udalcuain.com and Everythingomni.com