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Meeting Details
On June 5th we had the opportunity to meet as the Future of Work Board for our first virtual meeting focused on an exciting agenda full of learning and sharing. Thank you all so much for the energy, engagement, and interactivity, we’re off to a great start! Below are the highlights from the meeting including confirmation of Board meeting dates, times, and locations for the rest of the calendar year and our go forward approach to community building (spoiler alert, it’s Teams! 😊).
Also, attached is a document providing slides used during the meeting, as well as some bonus slides containing very interesting information you might find valuable. I’ve also attached the email I sent last week with the pre-read materials in case you couldn’t access or didn’t see them.
Meeting Recap:
Board Growth…Meet the New Members
Karen extended a warm welcome once again to the new members as well as those who were unable to join us in Scottsdale in March:
- Anne Gotte, General Mills
- Hannah Dale, Accenture
- Caroline Dunning, DocuSign
- Holly Tyson, Cushman & Wakefield
Our virtual meeting focused on several topics and discussions related to the future of work including dynamic teaming, and the use of AI in organizational settings. Meeting highlights included the following:
Foresight, Insight, Action Model
Karen and Board Advisor, David Hooton introduced the Institute for the Future's Foresight, Insight, Action model as a framework for the meeting emphasizing the model’s simplicity, aiming to develop foresight, filter hype, and conduct/share small-scale experiments to further the group's efforts on the future of work.
The model's application involves preparing by gathering evidence, developing foresight through narratives of multiple futures, generating insights, and framing and prioritizing actions. David highlighted the importance of teamwork in formalizing a foresight methodology and incorporating AI into the process as a team member. He provided resources on how to include AI in foresight and insight teams, enhancing the group's capabilities.
Dynamic Teaming and Performance Management
Heather Erickson from Lockheed Martin discussed the challenge of aligning performance management systems with dynamic teaming, highlighting the need for integrated systems to support mission-based teams and the difficulty in adapting traditional performance management to accommodate team-based efforts.
“For topics for future discussion: I'm interested in how this team/skills structural approach to work could play out in a traditional succession planning approach. (i.e., if we deconstruct roles; how we succession plan for work outside of project-based staffing approaches).” Holly Tyson
“We have such an appetite internally for cross functional collaboration among the among our teams that I think you're not only do we not reward folks for team performance, but we e sort of inundate folks with team participation and we continually sort of extract the same resources from our cross functional partners and frankly I think it leads to some of our misalignment because we create change fatigue.” Burt Chuter
“One of our biggest struggles it with Dynamic teaming. How do you build the relationships and the trust quickly so that people want to contribute and create the bandwidth. We've got so many things on people's plates that if they're going to prioritize something, it's generally the thing that's within their lane...[work assignments] beyond get dropped.” Ann Costello-McLain
Karen mentioned some good books by John Boudreau (distinguished professor from USC focused OD and the founder of CHREATE.org – he’ll be joining our October Board meeting) and Ravin Jesuthasan (Mercer) - not sure of the logical order in which to read however your favorite bookseller will know:
- Reinventing Jobs
- Work without Jobs
- Lead the Work
Cross-Functional Collaboration and Change Fatigue
Burk Chuter from Waste Management shared insights on the appetite for cross-functional collaboration leading to change fatigue due to over-inclusion of the same resources, which could potentially lead to misalignment and exhaustion, hindering the effectiveness of team collaboration.
“...we're trying to make big transformation happen, but we're not hooked into all the other things that actually make people want to do these things or feel like that will benefit their career from a compensation or title or whatever perspective.” Heather Erickson
“The change agility is hitting me really hard right now ...by the time we get a plan for our change the change has changed.” Ann Costello-McLain
Building Relationships and Trust for Dynamic Teaming
Ann Costello-McLain raised a question about building relationships and trust quickly to motivate participation in dynamic teaming, emphasizing the challenge of prioritizing such activities.
AI's Role in Foresight Practice
David discussed the potential of including AI as a partner in foresight and insight teams, suggesting the use of AI to develop foresight around specific targets and improve team practices. He provided a guide on how to effectively prompt AI to aid in foresight development.
AI's role in strategic planning was discussed, with the potential for AI to assist in executive decision-making and competitive differentiation, suggesting a future where AI could significantly contribute to or even lead strategic functions.
Generational Shifts and Dynamic Teaming
Yvette Vargas from Citizens Bank raised the challenge of integrating multiple generations within the workforce and their implications for dynamic teaming, suggesting the need for research on how to integrate multi-generational groups effectively and the importance of adapting to generational differences.
The discussion also touched on the need to find ways to repurpose the experience of older generations who wish to remain engaged in the industry while making room for younger generations to contribute and advance.
Future Meetings and Community
Karen asked all to confirm availability for the proposed meeting dates. We will be sending out Meeting Invites early next week for the following dates; please respond as soon as these arrive so we can have an accurate count and determine if any need to be rescheduled. Please do all you can to participate. We have good speakers and content planned and as importantly we want to make sure we have lots of time to network, learn and share with each other!
The Board discussed the preference for Teams channel over LinkedIn or email for future board communications, with stakeholders expressing a preference for Teams due to familiarity and accessibility. Follow-up: Both were researched, and we will test using Teams as it’s the preferred technology for the Board. Expect an email with our test protocol and instructions next week.
Action Items for All Board Members:
- Respond to remaining 2024 meeting invites.
- Assist in testing a private Microsoft Teams FoW Board community space, then engage!
- Share with others the interesting experiment(s) and activities you are doing related to our areas of interest.
- Reach out to Karen and David if you have any technical challenges accessing the attachments, included links or anything else. We want to make sure you can get full access to all the resources for optimal value from your membership.
Karen Kocher, Future of Work, Workforce of the Future and Talent & Learning Experiences
The Future of Work Board gathered virtually for their second meeting on June 5. We sent a pre-read recapping key trends and signals or new FoW hot topics so that during the meeting we could engage and interact on them. While we were together we:
- Held a Round-robin the insights from the pre-read.
- Applied the Institute for the Future’s (IFTF) Foresight, Insight, Action model, an essential model and capability for all leaders focused on the future.
- Identified and prioritized future-back focus areas and agreed upon actionable goals—for the FoW Board and for your organizations—for the next 12 months.
- Confirmed on the dates, times, and location for the August virtual and October face-to-face FoW Board meetings.
- Discussed additional value creation approaches, such as: FoW Board leaders, external thought leaders, and member collaborations sharing key research or experiences, augment our planned sessions with unique meetings (e.g. Open Mic meeting for members to learn from each other and Flash Meetings to address hot topics), and creation of an online group to share and gain exposure to other thought-leaders and provide a space for your team members to join the discussion.
- Shared reminders for the upcoming i4cp research and learning sessions as well as recent additions to their resources.
This agenda aligns with member input gathered during our spring meeting, when the FoW Board decided to focus on evolving three future-back objectives:
- As a collective, develop foresight from the most important trends and signals affecting HR/Talent/Learning leaders who are bringing to life their future-ready agile organization
- Filter the hype so we identify and operationalize the few differences making FoW priorities that have high-value creation potential, and
- Agree upon and conduct small scale shared experiments across our companies using early prototyping methods with the goal of learning from the outcomes what works and does not work to energize the future of learning and teaming.
The Future of Work Board is reserved exclusively for those charting the course of their company's future of work vision and strategy. It is designed to serve as a true Board of Directors for the function and ensure its members are in the driver seat of organizational innovation.