Pre-Conference Workshops

Driving Performance and Innovation through Network-Centric Leadership Programs and Talent Processes

Rob Cross
Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Business, Babson College, and Research Director, Connected Commons
David Sylvester
Director Global Learning and Development, Booz Allen Hamilton

The collaborative intensity of work has exploded over the past decade, making networks of both formal and informal relationships increasingly the means by which employees create value and drive innovation.  Over two decades of work across more than 300 organizations has revealed specific ways that high performers distinguish themselves through network investments. 

In this workshop, Rob and David will interactively review these critical network dimensions as well as introduce a series of proven tools that can be quickly deployed to drive results through leadership programs and talent practices.

The session will first focus on ways that high performing leaders manage their teams and units from a collaborative standpoint.  In this component we will introduce tools and practices organizations can deploy to help leaders drive unit performance by:

1. Managing the center of networks: Minimizing collaborative bottlenecks and acknowledging/developing hidden talent that enable colleagues.
2. Leveraging the periphery of networks: Rapidly integrating newcomers and reengaging under-connected high performers.
3. Selectively bridging organizational silos: Facilitating effective collaboration at key intersections in the network (across functional lines or physical distance).
4. Developing awareness of colleagues’ expertise throughout the network: Ensuring that the best expertise in a network is known and brought to bear on new problems and opportunities 

This session will then transition to the personal network practices of more successful employees and leaders and how organizations are cultivating these networks through on-boarding processes and leadership development programs.  We will review two core principles of success:

1. Leverage broad networks early stage problem-solving to innovate more broadly than less-connected peers and
2. Create pull and followership through behaviors that generate energy and purpose in interactions. 

The session will then explore key practices to streamline collaboration and avoid collaboration overload – specifically we will focus on helping leaders identify 4-5 behaviors that can reclaim 18-24% of collaborative time.

Participants in this workshop will develop application of these ideas in their organizations through a workbook.  In addition, attendees will receive access to the Personal Network Diagnostic and will also employ the new Connected Commons toolkits focused on Transitions and ways that more successful leaders drive engagement by creating Trust, Purpose and Energy in networks.

How to Reinvent Jobs to Optimize Work Automation
 
 
 

John Boudreau
Professor, University of Souther California Marshall School of Business

Your organization has made the decision to adopt automation and artificial intelligence technologies. Now, you face difficult and stubborn questions about how to implement that decision: How, when, and where should we apply automation in our organization? Is it a stark choice between humans versus machines? How do we stay on top of these technological trends as work and automation continue to evolve?

In this workshop, author, researcher and thought leader John Boudreau will present you with a new set of tools to answer these daunting questions. Transcending the endless debate about humans being replaced by machines, this session will give you an opportunity to apply a new framework that helps smart leaders optimize human-automation combinations that are not only more efficient but also generate higher returns on improved performance.

Based on groundbreaking primary research, the workshop will provide a structured approach to the four distinct steps identified in John Boudreau's new book, "Reinventing Jobs."  This framework can help HR leaders and their constituents reinvent how work gets bundled into jobs and create optimal human-machine combinations:

• Deconstruct the Job into Tasks and Estimate Automation Compatibility
• Identify the Return on Improved Performance (ROIP) of Each Task
• Apply Automation (Robotic Process, Cognitive, Social) to the Tasks
• Reinvent the Job to Optimize Work Automation (Substitute, Augment and Transform)

You’ll learn how to continuously reexamine what a job really is, and be armed with the tools for identifying the pivotal performance value of tasks within jobs and how these tasks should be reconstructed into new, more optimal combinations. You’ll walk away with a more precise, planful, and actionable way to decide how, when, and where to apply and optimize work automation, and to have more effective conversations about work automation with leaders and employees.

All conference attendees will receive a copy of John’s new book, Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work.

Sensing Turbulence: How HR Must Adapt to the Changing Nature of Work
 
 

Jay Jamrog
Co-founder and futurist, i4cp

We are living in an age where the pace of change is relentless.  As a result, many of our accepted truths about how society, politics, and the very nature of work are no longer relevant or useful.  

This acceleration is forcing organizations to rethink the ways they operate...from strategy, to values, to operating models, to customer expectations, to how work is performed.  Shayne Elliott, CEO at ANZ Bank said it best in i4cp’s recent report on organizational agility: “The goal (today) should always be speed from sensing to insight to action.”

This workshop will present several exercises and tools for HR professionals to support senior leadership with these changes:

• Develop better methods for sensing the internal and external environment. Specifically, how can HR gain a deeper understanding of the major trends and counter-trends that are disrupting work and the workplace?
• Translate sensing capabilities into insights. How will identified trends impact the future of work?
• Turn insights into action. What are the actions HR can take to proactively meet future business needs?

You'll work with i4cp's futurist to identify real trends affecting work, HR, and business and subsequently develop action plans to anticipate, adapt, and act on those trends.