Five Markers of the New World of Work
A Playbook for What’s Next
Marker 1): purposeful
Purpose is the new boss. Everything is aligned and self-organized around nested purposes that encompass each other. While following my own personal purpose I also fulfill the organization’s purpose and vice versa.
Marker 2): holarchic
Conventionally, power is being held personally. Holacracy changed our thinking around getting the work done without people hierarchy. In the New World of Work power hierarchies get replaced with natural hierarchies of purpose.
Marker 3): autonomous
In the New World of Work we are not seeking for permission. Anything that is not explicitly forbidden is allowed — until it gets restricted. We lead our work with clarity within the authorities granted to us with a high degree of autonomy and integrative decision-making.
Marker 4): dynamic
The New World of Work is moving away from top-down predict-and-control towards sense-and-respond. By quickly experimenting and adapting we gradually and continually evolve the structures towards what’s needed. This encodes dynamism and helps us to keep up with the increased pace of change and disruption.
Marker 5): transparent
In the New World of Work we practice as much transparency and visibility as we can stomach. High auditability in all of our work and decision making enables us to self-correct and learn as needed. Honoring self-organization depends on high visibility and information being accessible for anyone who needs it. We don’t try to predict who will need to know what, when, and why. Some information needs to be held confidential by statute, but even the decision to do so needs to be transparent and visible too.
The For-Purpose Enterprise encodes the five markers of the New World of Work — purposeful, holarchic, autonomous, dynamic, and transparent — in new legal, social and financial templates.
We believe that the For-Purpose Enterprise has the potential to catalyze the next (r)evolutionary wave of working differently — a world in which Purpose is the new boss and independent Purpose Agents organically flock around the causes that truly matter to them, with structures, rules and agreements to enable working, earning and living for-purpose.
Visit encode.org to learn more.
