In previous pieces looking at the future of work and the workplace — I’ve looked at how individuals and businesses should look to develop emotional resilience and flexibility as the grow and develop their joint future. In this piece I’m looking at how important I think it will be to be able to maintain perspective, control and calmness within a world of constant change, challenge and an ‘always on’ culture.
It’s not easy maintaining any level of perspective and understanding of yourself (either as a business or an individual) in today’s digitally ‘always connected’ — and in many ways’ social media (or at least content, content, content) led world.
We’re bombarded with information and incentives to keep moving, glimpses of how well and forward thinking other people or organisations are and experts telling us we must move quickly and fail fast.
It’s equally easy to get wrapped up in that maelstrom — indeed for many years I did — everything I did, I measured against someone else, every businesses I worked for measured themselves against their competition.
Now, you may say “that’s the way the commercial world works, that capitalism is all about getting their first and beating the competition”. You may also say that “well, the technological advancements are only going to speed that race up, so that if you don’t run at a million miles per hour you’ll get left behind”.
All very fair points but let me pose a rhetorical question.
What’s the race? Where’s the finishing line? One day is the world going to say, “Well that’s it we have no more technological advancements to make, everyone can stop now.”?
Of course not — technological developments and their rate of progress will continue ad-infinitm — you can’t keep up, nor should you and guess what — nobody else can either..
Instead of making us all need to run faster towards an ever more distant finish line, technological advancements have given us more time — more time to think, more time to create, more time to take a breath.
Its just that we all haven’t yet worked that out yet.
And who is your race with really? There is a line in a song from 1999 called ‘Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen) where a teacher provides advice to his students;
“sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself”
In the end the race is only with yourself…..hmmm.. the song is right — if you understand yourself and your skills as an individual or indeed a business — then the race really is only with yourself. Calmness and control come from knowing your strengths. They come from drowning out the noise. They come from knowing who you want to work with and more importantly why.
You have your skills, you have your specialisms, you have the service or products that you can provide and you should know who you want to be to your customer.
Once you consider this — Digital and technology becomes an enabler to deliver to customers, not an endless torrent of applications, software, ‘likes’, emails, videos and adverts all laughing in your face because they project an image of being better than you.
The most progressive individuals and businesses are those that understand this balance — they are in control of their future.
They fully understand the rate of change and indeed are in the storm of digital progress, but look up and around rather than simply down — they are making the ‘noise’ work for them and their customers rather than fighting it.
And what happens to them? Well, they become more important to customers. Customers talk to them more, they want help in other areas — customers support an increase in flexibility. They become trusted because they are not shouting.
In fact these progressives are not in a race, they end up designing the course.
One example is Hiut Denim — Brand motto — ‘Do one thing well’. They are a jeans company — nothing else, just jeans. Not very progressive or flexible you may think.
They use technology to sell and promote their jeans and ethics online. They don’t have an app, a voice tool, a VR solution. The understand them, but they don’t get involved in creating their own. They published a monthly newsletter which has been so successful they have created regular events outlining their ethics, their principles. These in turn have become so successful they are being asked to lead and advise large organisations on change, ethics and understanding customers.
Their control, calmness and an understanding of what they are, created flexibility, progression and success in areas they could not have initially imagined. They did not run into the storm, they watched, listened and learned. Oh — by the way, their jeans are fantastic.
So;
Become a progressive, by being in control of yourself.
The more progressive you become the more sustainable you are.
Progression and sustainability inherrently come from being in control.
You then become flexible — starting as one thing and becoming something else.
Then be resiliant in believing in this approach.
By building resilience, flexibility and control into your business or individual skillset you become sustainable and more valuable — much more valuable than those bombarding you with noise — indeed you become the real future of work.
