Each week I’m going to provide a round up of what I consider to be important and interesting articles on the future of work (not authored by me). These will include a variety of sources and topics ranging from workplace practices to robots and automation to leadership and everything in between. There’s a lot of information out there so I’m hoping that these weekly round ups will help make life a bit easier for you by giving you just the good stuff. Let’s get into it!
What to do When the Biggest Office Distraction is Your Coworkers
There are a few steps to consider when your coworkers are a distraction to getting work done. First, determine if the person is just annoying or potentially a threat to you or your colleagues.
Second, if the distraction isn’t something you need to report to HR, then you have two choices. They are to reframe what they are doing in a way that doesn’t annoy you or take control of the situation.
Reframing the situation may include taking the situation and training yourself to think about something nice – like the music on an ice cream truck!
Taking charge may include talking to the annoying colleague about the issue.
Social Good Campaigns Are Here and They Aren’t Going Anywhere
Corporate responsibility and social good campaigns have become a source of pride for companies large and small. These campaigns are under a higher level of scrutiny (think Pepsi and Kendall Jenner).
Consider using employees who live the campaign each day (Burt of Burt’s Bees). If you use a CEO be aware that it is more difficult to disassociate the campaign from the business – if that ever needs to happen. Instead, a roster of individuals may be better suited than just one person. Just make sure to start with why, how and when – not who or how many.
How the Most Successful Leaders Deal with Criticism
One of the key factors that distinguish the most successful leaders is their ability to identify and leverage high quality criticism – and to move forward and tune out the rest. There are 4 types of criticizers:
1. The haters – unsupportive and unhelpful
2. The affirmers – supportive but unhelpful
3. The true criticizers: helpful but unsupportive
4. The coaches – supportive and helpful
The coaches can be a powerful resource but they are often hard to find and even then they are busy. Be gracious about their time if you reach out.
AI-Man Vs Machine And The Future of Jobs
One of the main sectors that AI will impact in the future will be IT. Surveys indicate that IT teams will require more specialist skills over the next 10 years, with AI as the most crucial discipline to master.
While AI will continue to grow in fields other than IT, it should be remembered that there is no substitute for human intuition when critical, life-changing decisions need to be made (1983 and Soviet nuclear warning system failure!).
Therefore, people need to learn the right skills and push their companies to provide the right training to ensure they will work in harmony with AI.
My new book, The Employee Experience Advantage (Wiley, March 2017) analyzes over 250 global organizations to understand how to create a place where people genuinely want to show up to work. Subscribe to the newsletter here.
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