Top Three Takeaways of 2018: Tentatively Transitioning

We are on the doorstep of the New Year and expectations are bubbling up, good and otherwise. To advance with fresh — and informed — anticipation, let’s consolidate learnings from an eventful twelve months as they come to a close.

Do you recognize the same takeaways from the turbulence of your own 2018? Have you been noticing evidence of the new zeitgeist — whether faint traces or bold signs? Have your business operations already been disrupted to absorb technology’s determined and unrelenting strides forward? How have your company’s executives and entire workforce been embracing the progress?

It’s been quite a ride. We have been acknowledging, resisting, accepting, recognizing, and struggling with the messy world of change that is our new reality. There is realization combined with confusion now that the old rules — the conventions that have structured and guided our working lives — simply aren’t working anymore.

Times are a-changing…fast. Technology developments have been pushing many of us well past our comfort zones into new: concepts, approaches, ways of thinking, and modes of operation. Some executives and employees are active practitioners of the New World of Work. Some are continuing the linear, consistent trajectory of traditional work routines. The concoction of styles, the mix of mindsets, and the clash of approaches have been at different times unsettling, unrewarding, unproductive, and definitely ‘messy’. Here’s what has been going on…

TIPPING INTO TRANSFORMATION. Tipping points have been summited as:

- Revenue streams change — Technology has been disrupting income sources e.g. accounting firms’ core audit revenues have started being automated away;

- Jobs go unfilled — Quality talent has been indicating their preferences for companies with their desired purpose/values/benefits OR (new or imminent threat of) automation has been deterring new entrants from filling low level positions such as in legal practices;

- Turnover rises — Employers’ traditional culture, leadership, and or lack of inclusion have been causing defections in rising numbers in a tight job market COUPLED WITH new career paradigms that are diversified, self-directed, and focused on income — not job —…