5 Insights from the New Work Order — Week 1

I believe that a defining problem of our time is the disconnection and disengagement that people feel from their work. I also believe that a compounding aspect of this problem is that too many young people are alarmingly under-informed about what it takes to pursue a career of their own design.

Since quitting my job, I’ve spent the past 12 months building a career from scratch — one that only exists because I’ve deliberately avoided every traditional job search strategy in the book. I’ve discovered not only that it’s entirely possible to proactively construct the career of my choosing, but that it’s a whole lot easier than remaining in the almighty bottleneck that is the job search game.

I’ve also spent much of the last year interviewing ambitious and frustrated Gen Y’ers, as well as giving talks and holding workshops about unconventional career change, and I’m amazed at how many people are still in the dark about the opportunities available to them in the new world of work. I’ve noticed that whilst many of these people are aware that it’s possible to find a purposeful and fulfilling career, they’re unclear about how they can make it their own reality.

This is the problem that I want to solve, and the New Work Order is the start of my contribution to the solution.

The New Work Order is an embryonic community of people who believe in redefining how, and why, we work. Current members include corporate escapees, corporate insiders, entrepreneurs, former teachers, accountants, students, travellers, artists and writers.

Together we explore new ideas about 21st Century Career design, share our stories of struggle and frustration with the Old Work Order, discuss new strategies for career building (forget being interviewed, have you tried becoming the interviewer?), and provide each other with the kind of tribal support that has become a hallmark of our digitally enabled world.

Currently in the form of a mailing list and private Facebook group, every Monday I send out a new survey and share the results in real time. Once the results are in, I compile a list of the week’s insights and the conversation is perpetuated.

Welcome to Week 1.

Before I dive into this week’s learnings, I should say that our insights are only as good as my questions. In the 3 days since the survey went live, it’s had a 60% completion rate and an average time to complete of 22 minutes. Every week I hope to move the needle closer to 100% completion, reduce the amount of time I’m borrowing from you, whilst continuing to improve the value of the insights generated. Much of that will require me to rapidly improve my surveying skills, but improving our capabilities through learn-by-doing projects is what the New Work Order is all about. Nevertheless, it’s a skill that I’m keen to improve; if you don’t know the right answers, ask the right questions to the right people.

Here are 5 things that I’ve learned from this week’s survey.

We want to manage ourselves.

I asked the group which aspect of the New Work Order they were most interested in, and managing their own careers in a Startup of You fashion came out on top. This doesn’t surprise me. In many ways, the New Work Order is a renaissance of self-direction. It’s a matter of fact now that traditional organisations are assuming less and less responsibility for the careers of their employees. This was a point that was made by Peter Drucker in his short but powerful treatise on career management, Managing Oneself.

“Companies are no longer managing their employees’ careers. Knowledge workers must effectively become their own CEO… It’s up to you to stay engaged, and to take full personal responsibility for your own progress and productivity.”

Managing ourselves is becoming an increasingly attractive, and increasingly necessary career strategy for the ambitious and career-minded among us. This approach resonates with those who believe in taking ownership over what they do for a living, and in taking more deliberate action to get there. It sees the abundant opportunity of the 21st century, and it matches it with personal responsibility. Much more to come from the NWO on this front, no doubt.

We care about our personal brand.

When I asked which aspect of the New Work Order they’d like to learn more about, how to build a personal brand came out as a close second. This surprised me. I suspected that the idea of a personal brand would put people off with its hint of human commodification, but this insight has caused me to re-think my assumption.

80% of employers now Google prospective candidates. This means that there’s valuable digital real estate out there waiting to have your name on it. My guess is that as the new world of work speeds towards mass digitisation, young people are well aware that in order to win the raffle they need to buy a ticket. As more stories emerge of people hustling their way to dream jobs through blogging, podcasting and other digital endeavours, it’s becoming clear that the internet is a good place not just to be found, but to contribute.

My next question to the NWO: What does personal branding mean to you, and why is it important?

We want to control where, when and with whom we work.

No brainer, right?

You could be forgiven for thinking that this doesn’t count as a learning, didn’t we know this already? Blogs, websites and books teaching us how to leverage technology to build location independent and fully-automated businesses have poured gasoline all over the spark of longing that we feel when we think about swapping the wet concrete of urban life for sea breezes and white sands.

67% of the group cited ‘how to work from anywhere’ as the number one thing they would like to learn more about. To me, this signals a growing desire to detach our value from time and space. This untethering of work will surely become a characteristic of the 21st Century Career, if it isn’t already.

The New Work Order is in the eye of the beholder.

The New Work Order is the term I give to the new set of expectations and assumptions around how, and why, we work. It stands in stark contrast to the Old Work Order, and whilst both are delightfully abstract concepts, they have very real manifestations in each of our lives.

The interesting thing is that the NWO and the OWO mean different things to different people. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but this was deliberate on my part. My personal definition of the NWO is that is exists whenever we connect who we are with what we do. We’re all different people, and we all do different things, so it stands to reason that our conception of meaningful and fulfilling work is as multi-faceted and unique as our personalities.

Here are some of the answers I received to the question of ‘What does the New Work Order mean to you?’:

“A working environment free from societal pressure to work in order to fulfil a lifestyle rather than work being a lifestyle.”

“Raising individuals level of internal consciousness and awareness, to ensure that from as early in life as possible, we are looking for internal measures of success. It’s about creating a life, career, education, mind that is a true reflection of the individual, whilst also being tuned in to the inter-connectedness of everything in our worlds.”

“A way of working that does not compartmentalise or rigidify talent. A system of work that values more than ‘productivity’ and ‘performance’, that sees value in things that aren’t always quantifiable. It is the humanisation of work. It is less structured, more fluid, more flexible. It is more complex, and so also less defined. It’s not what you ‘do’, but who you ‘are’ that matters. It scares people, but it excites me! The NWO is that little kid in your head coming out with all his messy creative ideas, hopes and aspirations. It’s a place or an environment where people put away fear, expectations, and societal pressures. It’s where you give new life to those old ‘childish’ thoughts, and where you hope to nurture them and grow them into something meaningful and worthwhile.”

Out of interest, here of some of the answers I received to the question of ‘What does the Old Work Order mean to you?’:

“Out-dated, unimaginative, lack of risk and initiative.”

“Success defined by working hours and stress.”

“The OWO to me is a repression of our potential. Its a cultural paradigm which states that we are powerless and have no control over the world we live in. We have to fit into a society as opposed to have the ability and power to impact the world ourselves.”

Of course there are patterns and commonalities, but the lesson here is that not everybody experiences the pains and problems of career building the same way. Nor is there a blanket definition of success. The NWO is characterised on all levels by a personal seizing of responsibility to author our own definitions. Self-management, self-direction and personal initiative come before how-to’s and instruction manuals.

We value our community.

I asked the group what they hoped to gain from being part of the New Work Order community.

Here are some of the answers I received:

“I hope to get to know the perspectives of others about the NWO. Thereby I could improve my potential to help others find their path as well as reflect upon my own thoughts and decisions. It would be especially great if we could find a way to help others (and ourselves) that is scalable and with which we can have a bigger positive impact on others.”

“The whole point for me in the NWO is to form a real network of people that share the same alternative philosophy/outlook — and then to act on it.”

“I’d like to learn more about myself. I’d like to understand what an eclectic mix of others are thinking. And I’d like to work together to find ways to fully realise a New Work Order-orientated life, both for myself and others.”

“To feel that I’m not alone on my journey to the NWO, to gain confidence in sharing my gifts and thoughts with others, to feel at ease in promoting myself, to open up my worldview of what is possible, to share and receive wisdom, advice and practical tips and even collaboration opportunities. Even to make friends for life?”

We know why we’re here, and we know what we need to propel us to that next level. The first step is to get used to sharing our vulnerabilities and challenges with each other, and to learn how best to draw upon the collective wisdom of the community. The next step is to figure out a way to connect everybody with each other, to scale a digital community that stimulates real world action, and real world change.

If you want to be part of the New Work Order, and to make your contribution to our surveys, then send Will an email at will@collabaraproject.com.